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30 Day Video Game Challenge Thing.

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Another tough one for me, though I know it'll be an ending. It's always the endings that get me.

Mother 3 was the first videogame to make me cry, but there are so many games with excellent bittersweet endings that hit me hard when I fully take in their weight: To the Moon is a good one, Wind Waker is one that resonates more and more with me as time goes on, Final Fantasy IX is so dang excellent, and almost was my pick for today (can you believe I only realized about a month ago - when rewatching that ending on youtube - who wrote that letter in the ending? Tore me apart and made me cry all over again, as an adult).

But there is one entire sequence that manages to be really special to me, too. And since Hard Mode is still a tie-breaker:

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

This music is something else. I normally don't pay much attention to song lyrics (something in my brain, I'm just not that wired to hear them as actual sentences), but there was something exceptional to this song. I immediately understood its meaning as I was first hearing it, and the way it resonates so well with the plot was overwhelming. I felt longing and sympathy for entities I never actually knew. It's beautiful, in a sad way.

The music is the biggest part of it, but I love the entire ending too. The typical Fire Emblem style of telling us "Where are they now?" works a lot better with this masterpiece in the background. It helps that the game itself had some amazing plot and presentation, and I cared a lot for these characters in the end. That felt like an earned ending, and the best one this amazing game could possibly have gotten.

(It feels like this should be in the "Best Credits" entry, but this song does not actually play in the credits. I think)
 
  Previous picks (Hide contents)

Earliest video game memory - Tetris or Sonic
Opening section - Final Fantasy IX
Local multiplayer - Snipperclips
Favourite villain - Ganondorf (Ocarina of Time)
3D Platformer - De Blob
Most relaxing navigation - Wind Waker
Favourite ranged combat - Worms Armageddon
Best musical moment - One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII)
Scariest moment - Doki Doki Literature Club
Best Credits sequence - Super Mario 64
Best Town - Windfall Island (Wind Waker)
Best "bad" game - Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
Best open world city game - Chaos on Deponia
Best 2D Platformer - Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Best story - Tales of Symphonia
Best collectible - Super Smash Bros. Melee
Best racing game - F-Zero GX
Best mini game - Pokémon Stadium
Best melee combat - Soul Calibur II
Saddest moment - Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

 

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This is too hard for me :grin:

No shame in admitting I've welled up a few times in games. Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword and Xenoblade 2 spring to mind instantly.

My choice is a weird one, I'll admit.

This trailer always brings a tear to my eye, it is the perfect video game trailer and it managed to capture the hype for this game and amplify it by 11. I don't know what it is that sets me off, but it gets me every goddamn time. The music is the best Nintendo have ever produced (and the song wasn't even in the game!!!) I can't not tear up when I watch it, even now. I'll attach the "sadness" moniker to it, because while the game delivered on the hype for me personally, this trailer had a better storyline than the actual game itself. The "sadness" comes from the game outstripping expectations on every front, bar the story. It could have been so much more. 

 

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3 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

My choice is a weird one, I'll admit.

This trailer always brings a tear to my eye, it is the perfect video game trailer and it managed to capture the hype for this game and amplify it by 11. I don't know what it is that sets me off, but it gets me every goddamn time. The music is the best Nintendo have ever produced (and the song wasn't even in the game!!!) I can't not tear up when I watch it, even now. I'll attach the "sadness" moniker to it, because while the game delivered on the hype for me personally, this trailer had a better storyline than the actual game itself. The "sadness" comes from the game outstripping expectations on every front, bar the story. It could have been so much more. 

 

That music was so good, it got a remix in Smash Ultimate, despite never appearing in Breath of the Wild.

Despite me not liking the overabundance of ambient music in BotW, that song is one of two that I think are truly excellent tracks (The other being Kass's theme)

3 hours ago, Jonnas said:

But there is one entire sequence that manages to be really special to me, too. And since Hard Mode is still a tie-breaker:

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

This music is something else. I normally don't pay much attention to song lyrics (something in my brain, I'm just not that wired to hear them as actual sentences), but there was something exceptional to this song. I immediately understood its meaning as I was first hearing it, and the way it resonates so well with the plot was overwhelming. I felt longing and sympathy for entities I never actually knew. It's beautiful, in a sad way.

The music is the biggest part of it, but I love the entire ending too. The typical Fire Emblem style of telling us "Where are they now?" works a lot better with this masterpiece in the background. It helps that the game itself had some amazing plot and presentation, and I cared a lot for these characters in the end. That felt like an earned ending, and the best one this amazing game could possibly have gotten.

(It feels like this should be in the "Best Credits" entry, but this song does not actually play in the credits. I think)
 
  Previous picks (Reveal hidden contents)

Earliest video game memory - Tetris or Sonic
Opening section - Final Fantasy IX
Local multiplayer - Snipperclips
Favourite villain - Ganondorf (Ocarina of Time)
3D Platformer - De Blob
Most relaxing navigation - Wind Waker
Favourite ranged combat - Worms Armageddon
Best musical moment - One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII)
Scariest moment - Doki Doki Literature Club
Best Credits sequence - Super Mario 64
Best Town - Windfall Island (Wind Waker)
Best "bad" game - Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
Best open world city game - Chaos on Deponia
Best 2D Platformer - Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Best story - Tales of Symphonia
Best collectible - Super Smash Bros. Melee
Best racing game - F-Zero GX
Best mini game - Pokémon Stadium
Best melee combat - Soul Calibur II
Saddest moment - Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

 

Another excellent shout. I've played it twice now (Never did that with any of the few Fire Emblem games I've played) and it's amazing to think how much great plot they got out of a NES game.

Wow, this day's topic is killing it with great choices!

Edited by Glen-i
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Just now, Glen-i said:

Another excellent shout. I've played it twice now (Never did that with any of the few Fire Emblem games I've played) and it's amazing to think how much great plot they got out of a NES game.

I know something that might explain that. Keeping with today's theme, here's an excerpt from an interview with the game's directors:

Quote

Yamagami: Once we decided upon Gaiden, [...] we were left with an opening [for a director]. It was during that difficult time that Nakanishi came forward saying, “Hey, you know, I really like Gaiden. Let me tell you what that game means to me…” and then he went on to talk about his father…

[...]

Nakanishi: My father died when I was really young. I remember, though, that he loved Fire Emblem. He is the one who got me interested in playing the series, and taught me how to play. When my father passed away, the latest game in the series was Mystery of the Emblem. I included a copy of it as part of other memorabilia with his coffin. After that, when sorting through the things he left behind, I came across his copy of Dark Dragon and the Blade of Light, as well as Gaiden. Needless to say, I reminisced about the times with my deceased father as I played through them. As such, I have an incredibly strong emotional attachment to these two games.

Q: Was his save data still on it?

Nakanishi: Yes, it was.

Yamagami: So when we heard that, we couldn’t help but say “Yes, you can definitely have this job!”

(Source)

So yeah, a lot of care and passion behind that remake.

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Day 21: Game that takes you back to your childhood

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Getting Pokémon Blue marked the start of my love for the Pokémon franchise. And for a couple of years it was one of my biggest hobbies. I watched and discussed the anime with friends, I got a couple of trading card sets, and of course I played Pokémon Blue (and later Gold and Sapphire). Single player I poured hours in it, but also going to a friend with your Game Boy and link cable, or just playing next to each other leveling up your Pokémon. 

After Sapphire (the end of high school) playing Pokémon became more of a solitary thing, and I wasn't as obsessed with it as I was before. Even now I still follow the franchise but not as much as I used to. But during my childhood Pokémon was "my thing", and it definitely shaped my love for Nintendo, RPGs and gaming in general.

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Game that takes you back to your childhood

See, if anything, I want Pokémon to move as far away from my childhood as possible. Sick to death of Kanto.

Nah, for me, nothing brings out my inner child quite like Banjo-Kazooie.

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It's weird, I definitely think that Banjo-Tooie is the better game, no question. The first game just accentuates 90's gaming so well. And I am a 90's kid, after all.

He's a bear with a Breegull living in his backpack, kid me doesn't question that barrel of nonsense! Slap some googly eyes on a carrot and call it an enemy? Fine by me!

Nothing quite reconfirmed my childhood fondness for this as well as when I played as Banjo & Kazooie in Smash Ultimate. Was it because we finally saw an N64 staple finally getting to have a scrap with Mario? No, it's because Banjo says "Wee!" when he jumps in that slightly dopey voice I remember so well and it puts a big massive smile on my face as I'm suddenly 8 years old again.

Edited by Glen-i
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Day 21 - Game that takes you back to your childhood

Wiz 'n' Liz: The Frantic Wabbit Wescue, a surprisingly fast paced game about collecting letters and saving Wabbits.

FCdO9Gv.png

 

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Day 21 - Game that takes you back to your childhood

Many hours every weekend spent with my two younger brothers on Street Fighter 2 on the SNES.

a7f5b6ec3ad550c025a7b75286ac8cd8.jpg

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Day 21 - Game that takes you back to your childhood

Most of the old Game Boy games take me back but there's nothing quite like Kwirk.

I first played this when I was 4 or 5 and at that time I was too stupid to complete the later puzzles so I just redid the first few. I became quite the Kwirk speedrunner :D As with all the other GameBoy games, I mostly played this on the long car rides during vacations.

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Game That Takes You Back to Your Childhood

93635809-item-big-SMD-FANDIZZY-A-1.jpg

Fantastic Dizzy

A game I had on the Mega Drive and haven't seen or played any other Dizzy games since, making it a game I completely associate with my younger days.

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Game the takes you back to your childhood

I was fairly late to the console party, so most of my childhood memories were crappy PC games - the crappiest and most memorable being:

605079-simfarm_1.gif

Sim Farm 

I remember getting a bundle of Maxis sim games, including Sim City, Sim Earth, Sim Train, and lastly, Sim Farm. We tried them all out, but most of them were impenetrable for us when we were very young - too much text, strategy, and complex game mechanics. Sim Farm however, was a bit easier. You planted your crops, you fertilised them when needed, watered them, then harvested and sold them. Or, you could raise animals, which were even easier, just feed and water them. We must have spent hours and hours playing this game. My greatest achievement was designing an apple farm that was so successful, it spanned the entire map. i had so much money, i used to buy crop duster planes (the most expensive item in the game) and crash them into the town for fun (but also because landing the plane was literally impossible). 

Plus, the game had the jazziest music:

 

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Day 21 - Game that takes you back to childhood

when-did-the-legend-begin.large.jpg

 

It was the one that started my love for Nintendo. I had the original NES and this game and just loved every moment of it. World 8 was always a pain in the butt back then and I can’t recall if I ever fully beat it, I do know I got to 8-3 a number of times.

 

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When I first read today's category I assumed it meant a modern game that took you back to your childhood and so Id thought about putting games like BOTW (the ultimate throwback to NES Zelda), Shovel Knight (a sublime melting pot of classic game formulas) or Street Fighter II (that and Super Mario World probably made me the gamer I am today) but it seems everyone's mentioning older games so I'll throw in a game I play around once a year, and instantly transports me back to the 90s, Pilotwings. I'll always have a love for Mode 7 graphics, obviously silly by today's standards but at the time they were brilliant. The game itself is just a ton of fun, love the music, the whole flight instructor school mechanic and the personality of the characters. I wish Nintendo would do more with the franchise, Resort on 3DS was pretty good but it lacked a lot of personality of the original (and 64).

(Oh and fuck the hang glider, I hate that thing :laughing:)

ImpartialJaggedAtlanticsharpnosepuffer-s

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Game the takes you back to your childhood

For me it would be Super Mario Land on the gameboy. Lot’s of happy memories playing this with my Dad when we first got our gameboy. This was the first game I ever completed and one I still like to play now. I also love the music. It’s one of the main reasons I wish Analogue would hurry up with that damn Pocket.

Super-Mario-Land-Waterfall.gif

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Day 21 - Game that takes you back to your childhood

Streets of Rage II

It's the original Sega Mega Drive version which I remember, ever since I picked it up in a second hand games shop for what would have been a very reasonable £20 or so at the time.

I had no idea just how much fun would be had playing this game, but it was clear just from the cover art that this would be something that I needed to play. :D

The above video is the ending sequence which was put into the 3DS version, which I'd forgotten all about until now, well worth checking out. :p

I can still go back to Streets of Rage II on any format and it will take me back to playing it on the Mega Drive all those years ago.

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Day 21 - Game That Take You Back To Your Childhood

I was originally gonna go with Super Mario Bros for this as I played so much of it but I think I’ll go with one I just have a good memory of spending one day playing with my mum, figuring out and writing down what all the jelly beans did. A Boy and his Blob.

tumblr_mf9sh0kXZM1r2pz7go1_500.gifv

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Day 20 - Saddest moment

I can't really think of much for this one. I'll go with one I played recently, Yakuza 3. When a certain character dies near the end.

Day 21 - Game That Take You Back To Your Childhood

Super Bomberman 2. Could've picked a few SNES games from my childhood, this is probably the most memorable for multiplayer. 4 player matches with the multitap were always great when friends came round.

Bomberman2SNES_boxart.JPG

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Sonic Mania felt very nostalgic, but all things considered, it made me feel nostalgic once. The one game that brings me back consistently is actually my first ever Game Boy game:

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge

I remember the happiness of finally getting a Game Boy, and even getting to choose my first game (besides Tetris). I looked at the shelf, and recognized none of the games... but that boy in blue had an endearing cartoony face, so that's the one I picked.

Back then, I was the only one with this game. Even after others got MM2 for the NES, or MMV for the Game Boy, I still felt like this was my game. Nobody else had it. Nobody else knew the passwords. Nobody else figured it out like I did.

Even now, being aware of Mega Man's immense popularity, this game's relative lack of popularity still makes it feel like my game. I can still pick it up and play my predefined route in a semi-automated fashion. Going through it - especially the part where that music plays - still feels like going back to the carefree days of recess.

 
  Previous picks (Hide contents)

Earliest video game memory - Tetris or Sonic
Opening section - Final Fantasy IX
Local multiplayer - Snipperclips
Favourite villain - Ganondorf (Ocarina of Time)
3D Platformer - De Blob
Most relaxing navigation - Wind Waker
Favourite ranged combat - Worms Armageddon
Best musical moment - One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII)
Scariest moment - Doki Doki Literature Club
Best Credits sequence - Super Mario 64
Best Town - Windfall Island (Wind Waker)
Best "bad" game - Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade
Best open world city game - Chaos on Deponia
Best 2D Platformer - Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Best story - Tales of Symphonia
Best collectible - Super Smash Bros. Melee
Best racing game - F-Zero GX
Best mini game - Pokémon Stadium
Best melee combat - Soul Calibur II
Saddest moment - Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Game that brings me back to childhood - Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge

 

Edited by Jonnas
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On 20/07/2020 at 8:54 PM, Jonnas said:

 

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

This music is something else. I normally don't pay much attention to song lyrics (something in my brain, I'm just not that wired to hear them as actual sentences), but there was something exceptional to this song. I immediately understood its meaning as I was first hearing it, and the way it resonates so well with the plot was overwhelming. I felt longing and sympathy for entities I never actually knew. It's beautiful, in a sad way.

The music is the biggest part of it, but I love the entire ending too. The typical Fire Emblem style of telling us "Where are they now?" works a lot better with this masterpiece in the background. It helps that the game itself had some amazing plot and presentation, and I cared a lot for these characters in the end. That felt like an earned ending, and the best one this amazing game could possibly have gotten.

(It feels like this should be in the "Best Credits" entry, but this song does not actually play in the credits. I think)
 

Yes! Finally someone mentioned it. I listen to it alot. The lyrics are really powerful.

Spoiler

"One life surrendered so yours can be begin."

It's sung by Silque's voice actor, Bonnie Gordon, I believe. It's one of those rare times when the English version is better than the Japanese one.

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Gonna go with another weird choice which doesn't strictly play by the rules again... Sorry! :grin:

Day 21 - Game(s) that takes you back to your childhood

Back in 2009, I was in a tough situation with my girlfriend at the time. We'd been living together for 2 years in a house we'd bought together. I was way too young when we bought it, just before my 19th birthday, she was a couple of years older and had a bit of money from an inheritance, I'd chipped in everything I had to my name, which was about 3 grand. It was a nasty house in a nasty part of Leeds but we'd done it up quite nicely and got a dog. First two years were pretty good, until I found out she'd cheated on me with about 4 people, one of which was a friend.

With us both being at uni (and me having no money outside 16 hours a week at Pizza Hut), I couldn't afford to move out and we couldn't change the mortgage because we had a three year fixed term. She couldn't, and refused to buy me out. I was basically trapped there with her. I'm pretty lucky to have had a good life with good friends, good colleagues and just generally never had anything to be down about. But this was without a doubt the darkest and most depressing time in my life. I was in the spare room (which we hadn't done up), sleeping on a single bed with only the dog for company, while she was out with her new boyfriend. I was in a bad head space, obviously, and was really starting to hate the whole concept of adulting. I wanted to turn back time.

I retreated into video games to take my mind off everything and these two games, which ironically I never played in childhood, are now two of my go to nostalgia games. When I played them, they helped me forget how bad everything was and feel like a kid again. No responsibilities, just me sat on my bed in front of an old 12-inch CRT. It's weird to think about only playing these games at the age of 21, but I associate them with childhood simply for the escapism they provided me at a time when stuff was really fucking awful.

So thanks...

Mega Man 2 

What was your favorite Megaman 2 boss? #80's #Megaman – Welcome To ...

And thanks, Ristar. 

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Also I want to give a big shout out to Mirror's Edge. The only current-gen game I played much of during that time. I got it cheap and beat it in a couple of nights just before I sold my 360 to help save cash to move out. It was an absolute blast. The nostalgia is especially strong with this one. One of the happiest memories of that crappy Winter. 

 

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Oops, missed yesterday:

Spoiler

Life is Strange (no spoilers)

Today: Day 21 - Game that takes you back to your childhood

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Master System)

Sonic-the-Hedgehog-Sega-Master-System-Ga

The Master System was the first system I ever owned myself, so it was a toss up between this & Alec Kidd in Miracle World.  My sister and I spent hours playing these games.

I have such fond memories of Sonic, especially working together with friends from school to find all of the hidden Chaos Emeralds, hunting down the 1-up tucked away on every level, and discovering the secret route in the penultimate stage by complete accident after dying countless times.

Every time I hear the music I’m taken back.

 

Edited by WackerJr
Screenshot link fixed
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Day 22 - Favourite playable character

tumblr_oveuwvdJJw1r0fu7go1_400.gifv

Samus Aran from the Metroid series of course! Whether it is in 2D, 3D or in the Smash Bros. series, she is always a joy to play. Plus, she's a character with an interesting story, and I would love another Metroid Other M kind of game that gives her even more background and a voice.

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Favourite Playable Character

546d27725999ae0d48e3fb012fde485a7aafd066

Geralt - The Witcher

I generally prefer custom characters, but if I have to pick someone, Geralt it is. I think he has some great interactions with the other characters in The Witcher. The fact that he's so serious makes the rare bits of humour even better. I'm specifically thinking about the drunken events at Kaer Morhen.

Honourable mentions to Arthur Morgan from RDR2 and Joel from TLoU.

Edited by Goafer
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