The holidays are among us once again and that's when I start to get nostalgic for a simpler time. A time when I was much younger and couldn't afford my own video games and was forced to learn patience and wait until Christmas morning to play a new game.
I've loved video games for as long as I can remember and would ask for them consistently every Christmas from Santa. Now that I'm older and can buy my own games, I don't bother to wait for the holidays to get new things to play with. Well, maybe that's not entirely true. I do sometimes wait until the holidays because I know the games will go on sale for Black Friday or Boxing Day. But as I've grown older and my library of games has grown, so too has my backlog. I have so many uncompleted games in my library that it's starting to look like I collect games as a hobby instead of actually play them. I think that's something every gamer can sympathize with. With my collection swelling monthly and my time to play them so tightly scheduled, it's hard to get excited for new games, even if the game companies are constantly trying to hype up each new release with the season.
Games comes out so fast now that most of them are incomplete. Not only do they look bad with graphical glitches running rampant, they play bad as well. Multiplayer games are rampant with people exploiting broken gameplay mechanics, games crash constanly and save files are corrupted (remember, save often!). I would hate to be a kid on Christmas morning and be all excited to play the latest Battlefield, only to have my hopes crushed as I have to install a 20 GB patch that doesn't really fix anything.
This makes me sound incredibly old, but back in my day all you had to do was insert a cartridge into a slot and switch the console one. Maybe blow the dust out if it's not working properly. I sound like such a geezer.
Anyway, wheat I'm really trying to get at is that I used to be excited to get games for Christmas. Not so much anymore because I've already bought what I want. But this is the time of year that I remember when I was excited to get games and I would like to look back on some of those classics that I grew up with and think fondly of when it comes to Christmas.
I remember asking for this game before Christmas and then I read some reviews on it. Strangely, only the Offical Playstation Magazine rated this Sony-made game pretty high. I wonder why? Anyway, I read some more reviews that weren't as kind and more critical and I wavered on my decision. I remember asking my mom for Final Fantasy 8 instead, but on Christmas morning this is what I got. And I love it. I might have a few FF8 tattoos, and I love that game dearly, but this game holds just as many nostalgic feel-good memories. I remember opening it on Christmas and going to my room to play it for a few hours before being dragged away to go do my chores. I had to help my vacationing neighbors feed their cats and shovel the driveway, and I rushed through my chores to get back to playing this. The weird story and bad translation really add to the charm of the world and the interesting battle system keeps you focussed on the action. It seems Sony has forgotten all about this classic, but I never will.
I think that's enough reminiscing for now. Sometimes a game can be a gift for a loved one and you may unwittingly have given that person a fond memory that they'll cherish for years.
Speaking of memories,
Save Often.
