5 Games That Shaped My Childhood

5 Games That Shaped my Childhood

       (In no particular order)

 

 Pokemon Yellow

Pokemon Yellow was one the first games I have ever played as a child and helped to shape my love and passion for video games. Pokemon Yellow, or Yellow for short, was and still is one of my favorite games. This game was something of an oddity on the playgrounds because either kids would have the Red or the Blue versions, but I had to have the Yellow version. The main difference between this game and the other two was that Pikachu (Seriously you have to know Pikachu by now...) would follow you around behind your character. Now for the time, this was pretty unique because this was the only pokemon that would do that and no other game had this feature (in later games any pokemon could follow but I digress...) and I always felt like I had a little friend following me around. In the Yellow version I loved it how you could actually catch the other three starters from the other versions and create a real powerhouse of a team. I would play Yellow and watch the anime growing up simultaneously and try to keep pace with the show within the game. Overall I have to say that Yellow really strengthened my love for the Pokemon series and helped "jump start" (sorry that was a terrible pun but it had to be done) my passion into gaming in general.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced

 Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced (Tactics for short) was and still is one of my most played games...hell I am even in a game right now for it! This game is one of the best JRPG's I have ever played and has some of the greatest grid tactical combat around. Tactics is a "remake" in the broadest of terms of the original and is for the Gameboy Advance, hence why that put "Advanced" in the title. This game has taken so much of my life growing up that I have, no joke, spent almost a thousand hours into it (across many playthroughs). This game invoked my sense of imagination and brought out my own ideas of how characters would interact with each other and each character in your guild's personality. This game helped spark my love of strategy games, such as X-COM Enemy Within, and other great titles.

 Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X is and will be one of my favorite games in my life. This game really has shaped my love for not only JRPG's but roleplaying games in general. I remember walking into a game store when I was younger and seeing this game, well the opening scene, at a little demo setup in the store and thought it was strange but cool at the same time ( I think i was probably around 10 at the time) but didn't pick up the game. Now flash forward a few months later, Christmas time and i opened up a gift from my uncle and low and beyond it was FFX! I was so excited to give it a try and they even gave me a strategy guide to go along with it. Now have spent hundreds of hours with this game and still play the soundtrack frequently (not to mention I picked up the recent HD remake of the game) and to this day will always be one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

Phantasy Star Online

  Phantasy Star Online, or rather PSO for short, was a pretty strange one for me (at the time when I played since I was only in the 5th grade) and was actually an early start into a MMO. PSO orignally game out for the GameCube(which was one of the only games to be played online for the system and actually required an annual payments system similar to World of Warcraft but I digress...), and the original Xbox I believe a year later. I picked it up for the Xbox because I was at a friends house and we were playing the game I thought it looked like so much fun and the very next day I picked it up after school with my friends, brought my system over to his house and we played the game together online for hours on end. PSO had some early elements of an MMO but it was basically you can group up with four people, choose a server and do levels together. Overall this game took many a hour away from my school work but was time well spent.

Halo: Combat Evolved

  Halo: Combat Evolved, or just Halo for short is not only one of my favorite games in childhood and adulthood but also commonly known as one of the greatest FPS's of all time. I have seriously spent so much my time time growing up playing Halo with my friends and playing the campaign alone (to a point where I would actually memorize some levels and a good portion of the dialogue) and even go to gaming parties/tournaments for the game. I am still a huge fan of halo and the developer Bungie (Yes I play quite a bit of Destiny and will talk about my time with it in a different post later on). Halo has and will be one of the greatest games of my childhood and I will, in all honesty, never stop playing it! (Especially now there is the new remake of the four main titles brought over to the X1)