1y ago

Most nostalgic video game for you?

Most of us probably grew up playing video games, some of them we forgot or our gaming system ain’t what it used to be. What games bring you back to the good ol’ days when you didn’t know what politics were and couldn’t be bothered to watch the news bc the new ep of Spongebob is on? For me I have to say the Simpsons Game (PS2), the Billy & Mandy Fighting Game (PS2) DK Country (SNES) and NBA 2k14 (PS3, please whatever Deity is out there bring me back to 2013 so I can cheat in 2k again and make my MyPlayer basically just Michael Jordan 😭) and probably Infamous for PS3, I probably played the first game like 18 times fr. What are your faves?

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Definitely minecraft. It is still my favorite game after a decade of playing it. But aside from that, Spirit Tracks/Phantom Hourglass, Kirby Superstar Ultra and Jak and Daxter.

I'm showing my age here, but:
Scorched Earth
Commander Keen
Zoombinis
Encarta maze game
Old Windows hovercraft game
Doom II (got a copy from a friend on floppy disk)
- Old Windows hovercraft game
  Which one's that?
  
  https://www.myabandonware.com/game/hover-c9y
- Oh man, fogot about Commander Keen, that game was so much fun :)
  
  Especially Keen Dreams, so fucking trippy
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scC5hbMQYlE&t=149

Halo Combat Evolved
- Wort wort wort
  
  Aaaawubadugh

I religiously played back in the day Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland on my ps2 for hours. I'd also play Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and AoE II.

For me it would have to be a whole list of nostalgic games:
Heroes of Might and Magic 2&3 (1996/1999), Might and Magic 6, 7&8 (1998/1999/2000), Day of the Tentacle (1993), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992), Age of Empires 1&2 (1997/1999), Master of Orion 1 (1993), Warcraft 2 (1995), StarCraft 1 (1998), Anno 1602 (1998), Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (2000), Empire Earth (2001), Gothic 1&2 (2001/2002), Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (1999), Little Big Adventure 2 (1997), Rayman 2: The Great Escape (1999), Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus (1998), Fantasy General (1996), Age of Wonders 1 (1999), Incubation: Battle Isle (1997), The Incredible Machine (1993)
I would be very surprised if there is anyone here who knows/has played all of them, some are fairly obscure, others not so much. Some of these are still among my favorite games to this day, others i have not even touched in a very long time. There are plenty of later games that i like more than some on this list but they just don't trigger the same nostalgia. I'm also not including games from this time period that i like but only discovered later such as Baldur's Gate.
- But if i had to pick just one i would say it has to be HoMM2. The MIDI soundtrack in that one is my favorite game soundtrack of all time.
- Oh man Infernal Machine was my first Indy game as a tiny sprout, picked it up on sake a couple years ago and it still holds up. This was the game that first instilled in me a lust for comically large gems
  
  In hindsight it's obviously very inspired by early Tomb Raider games, but at the time i had not played any of those so it was a very fresh and new experience for me.

flashgames mostly, idk if the ones i played on miniclip are even still playable.
On PC, Lego star wars, Simpson's hit and run, NFS Underground.
My cousin had a SNES and N64 and we used to play smash bros 64, mariokart 64, and take turns on Super Mario World.
- I completely forgot about flash games. I tried to revisit coolmath games recently, but all of the originals on the site are unaccessible I think, which is very saddening.

Ghosts'N Goblins 🤘
That music always gives me goosebumps.

Master of Orion 1, still have that one more turn effect, 27 years later.
- I still play it occasionally to this day. MoO2 is probably the better (certainly more complex) game but for some reason doesn't have the same charm as the first. The first one really sparked my imagination in a way that almost no other space scifi game has since...
  The only one that gave me a similar feeling, albeit decades later, was Mass Effect. Though of course it's a completely different type of game but it triggered some of the same kinds of emotions for me, something i can only describe as "space wonder".
  
  something i can only describe as “space wonder”.
  Same, it's the thing i search for in space games, i call it "whoa, space!" effect. Mass Effect had it too. Except those, Stellaris have it in spades, same as Homeworld series, KotOR 1 had it too. Old Ascendancy game is also worth mentioning. Distant Worlds series. Endless Space 2 fallen a tiny little bit too short, having good graphics and amazing music, but the shitty immersion breaking sterile interface.

I bet every comment is going to be so different, and will date each user haha. For me...
Mortal Kombat II in the arcade, insanely difficult, I can almost taste the strawberry milkshake I'd always be drinking there
Zelda - A Link To The Past on Gameboy
an odd one, but the free demo that you got with the original PS, I remember my stepbro and I marvelling at the 3D t-rex / mantaray that we could spin around and zoom in / out of at will. How far we've come
also for PS, the very first Tekken, and Tekken 2
going way back, Horace Goes Skiing on my trusty ZX Spectrum. My first console and first game. You had to load it via a tape, and it sounded like an old modem!
- MK2 on Arcade is one of the best games ever. Kinda crazy to think of how many secrets and Easter Eggs are hidden throughout such a basic seeming game
  
  The only secret I knew about was hitting a combo of buttons after knocking someone into the acid creating a 'TOASTIE', which iirc unlocked Smoke... what did I miss?

Quake, C&C, SimCity, and Civilization for me
- Quake, Civ 3 and Serious Sam for me. So glad I grew up on PC games
  
  same :)
- First ones for each, right?
  
  yup
- Quake was weird for me to comprehend as a kid, I thought it was Doom and no amount of arguing would tell me otherwise, I was like “it’s not a different game it’s a different level of Doom smh”
  
  We did a lot of lan parties with friends when I was a kid, and we tended to rotate C&C and either Duke 3D or Doom 2. I sucked at both Duke and Doom cause I wasn't as good at strafing while turning. Then Quake came out and I was the first one to realize you could play with the mouse, and it was a game changer. Cause all of a sudden aiming became so much easier. 😄

ARK: Survival Evolved

Good question. I'm a sucker for games from my younger days anyway, so picking just one is hard. Perhaps something like Dangerous Dave

Roller Coaster Tycoon
- I would design crazy coasters only to be told that it will cause 8000 gigatons of G-force on riders and turn them into pudding
- I loved playing the old Roller Coaster and Zoo Tycoon games from the early 2000s

Super Mario RPG (SNES) loved it so much. My buddy and I left our Earth Science final early just to finish the game (still passed with a 79 and 80 respectively).
Street Fighter II World Warriors (Arcade) can still taste the pizza I ate right before I played. My grandpa would take me out to pizza every Friday and gave me 2 quarters to play.
The original TMNT (NES) I still get anxiety just from hearing the music from the swimming level. But then again I get a great burst of joy from hearing the overworld music. Such an emotionally taxing game.

The Jak and Daxter games.

BioShock baby! It has story, killer environment, lore....everything
- I have a friend who says the same thing. I make fun of him (of course) but the environment IS pretty dark, damp and oppressive. I do love the architecture, but I get how it can be a bit much.

Metal Gear Solid

Project IGI , Desert Storm , Vice city !

For some reason its NBA street vol. 2, funny because i dont even like basketball. Chrono trigger too.
- Never played Chrono Trigger but wow what a cool game, very fun to watch
  
  You should honestly, its such a good game that (aside from the menus) it doesn't feel dated at all.

Age of Empires 2. I listen to the soundtrack several times a year.
- I played sooooo much of that game in Pre-K and Kindergarten, I think I beat the first level in like 1st grade bc I was too dumb and stubborn to follow objectives lmao, I really didn’t understand computers for an embarrassing amount of time

SSX3 and Tony Hawks 1-4ish

The final Timesplitters game, almost everything about it's visuals, aesthetic, feel and banger soundtrack hits that perfect nostalgia center.
Unfortunately it was very "of it's time" in it's depiction of female characters, with only the barest fig leaf of early 2000s irony running cover for the objectification.
Oh, and just the entire soundscape of Jedi Knight:Dark Forces 2

Minecraft, GTA V and ARK Survival Evolved, those were the times!

I feel mild nostalgia for a lot of games, but I've got a specific place for Starcraft.
See, I must've watched my brother play Brood War quite a lot, because I had 6 images imprinted in my mind: the in-game sprites and portraits of Zealots, Dragoons, and Dark Templar. I didn't really have the wherewithal to process that these imahes were from a game. It was probably a few years later, when I came across my brother playing it again. I spent an absurd amount of time on that game and the sequel.
Anyway. Hate the game now. I haven't got the energy to spend hours every day honing my reflexes for that ludicrous sack of shit engine. I only ever watch compilations of Artosis getting furious these days.
- I hate when people make games so competitive it's basically a full time job if you want to be decent, no thanks I'm trying to have fun

Has to be Mario Sunshine (Via Wii) , Mario Galaxy, Kirby's Epic Yarn, or really any Wii game my grandma got us. I still tear up just by hearing the main menu ambience. Mario Sunshine was wild, cause I never really played it as a kid, but my dad did and the imprint was still nostalgic so when I did play it a few years ago in that definitely a scam Mario 3D Allstars it scratched an itch of nostalgia and new experience.

Ex Machina

Crash Bandicoot, Crusaders of Might and Magic, Advance Wars, N2O, Wrestling Games. Wish they would remaster Crash Bash with online multiplayer 😢.
- The newest Crash game is pretty good, brings me back
  
  Yeah, hope the next one is good as well.

i'd say that tenchu: silent assasin 2..the best game ever for psx (tatsumaru best boy)

halo: CE. my first game and one of my favorites to this day. the pillar of autumn level gives me a rush of nostalgia every time.

Final Fantasy (NES) for consoles.
Virtua Fighter for arcade cabinets.
- Final Fantasy VII was amazing I never played it but watched my brother play the whole game, it took a long ass time

Kingdom Hearts and NBA Live 06 (PS2)

Honorable mention to Spiderman 2 on Gameboy and Bowser’s Inside Story on DS!! Also when Lego Batman came out on PS2 I think I played it so much that my parents took the game system away from me and my brother lol (we didn’t learn our lesson, we DID learn where Mom and Dad hid the PS2 tho😈) edit: also the Incredibles and Cars video games for PS2

There a couple very specific eras of JRPGs that hold a very special place in my memory.
The Super Famicom era around games like Chrono Trigger is the peak for me though. I remember I got it as a gift totally by mistake, my parents had meant to buy another game but got possibly my favourite game of all time instead. I can still go back and play that game and it holds up just fine.
PS1 era Squaresoft was also pretty much a golden era for me, Xenogears was a pretty massive influence on some of my younger intellectual development.

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