Video Games have been a backbone for me. They are a primary hobby for me and have brought me incredible joy. The interactive aspect is an experience that I don’t really get in other art forms aside from drawing, maybe (another major hobby), and gaming also led to forming lasting friendships over shared interests and tastes.
Anyway, I initially wanted to talk about a Top 5 games of all time since it was a recurring topic of conversation in the main Twitch stream I’ve been watching, but as I began to think about it, I realized it was better to write about a Top 10. However, I began to consider honorable mentions, and that list wound up growing considerably to the point where I felt it was a disservice to talk about a “Top 10” exclusively. So I felt it best instead to talk about important games I’ve played over the years.
However, upon further thought, I realized my Top 10 was really a Top 11, so I’ll leave that here, in chronological order of me playing them for the first time:
- Pokémon: Crystal Version
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
- Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Golden Sun + Golden Sun: The Lost Age
- Rock Band 3
- Metroid Prime
- The Last of Us Remastered
- South Park: The Stick of Truth
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
- Mario’s Keytastrophe: Rebirth Edition
Again, I will be talking about these games in order of me playing them and my overall thoughts (initial perspectives, formative experiences, and current opinions/interaction), and I will also be putting the year I first played them (for many of the earlier games, the years given are estimates) for reference. This will also be a four-part series, so you’ll want to strap yourselves in for a long one, folks.
1999 – Pokémon: Yellow Version
This was the first game I ever owned. I remember getting this at the now-closed Chau Chow City in Boston’s Chinatown as we were celebrating one of our family friends’ birthday, and I wound up getting the first console I owned, an Atomic Purple Game Boy Color.
I remember two of my cousins owning Pokémon Red and Blue, but it wasn’t until this game that I really understood Pokémon as a game. I knew the anime since it was beginning to get underway in the States, but as a game I had no clue. What also hampered my ability to play the game was that it was in Japanese, something that I didn’t understand at the time. Indeed, in my first file, I got stonewalled at Brock because I didn’t know what I was doing, and after a miracle victory, I lost to Misty before resetting at some point. The file that wound up lasting the longest was one that got through the eight gyms before the battery gave way while I brought it with me on my school trip to Quebec.
What I began to realize though prior to that memory drop was that the game mirrored the anime: you start with Pikachu, you can obtain the usual starter Pokémon in events that mirrored the anime, and you even fight the Team Rocket trio. When I learned of different sites that allowed you to play the game through emulation online, I began to experiment with the “Ash” team: Pikachu, Butterfree, Pidgeot, Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Then when I got my hands on an emulator for my computer, I began experimenting with an “expanded” Ash-team with Primeape, Tauros, Kingler, Lapras, Gengar, Muk, and Snorlax.
I still have a lot of nostalgia for this game and wished for a remake for years. Then Let’s Go, Pikachu came out but I have yet to play it because I still do not own a Nintendo Switch. Additionally, I have yet to revisit this game largely because of other games on my shortlist of must-plays and because of my opinion of Generation 1 Pokémon in general: it’s buggy, it’s poorly coded, and a little too ridiculous. Additionally, upon learning how to abuse glitches in a game further down this list and learning of similar ones for this game, I know that a playthrough of Yellow version will be a MASSIVE time investment that I’m not willing to undertake for now.
1999 – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
I’ll be honest: I might’ve played this game before Pokémon Yellow, and there are plenty of other CD-ROM games I played prior, but I’m putting it here largely because I still regard Yellow as the first true experience, plus there was a large gap in between me playing it as a kid and when I revisited it a few years ago.
Anyway, my dad was a bit of a gamer himself prior to stopping at some point in the late 2000s, and we got this game back in the day because my father was a giant Star Wars nerd (he got the family interested). What’s even cooler was that he got a joystick at Best Buy to play this to simulate the flying aspect (we also used that joystick to play Moto Racer 2, for the record). My dad, myself, and my brother all played this game for a time but the three of us got stuck at the seventh mission (Imperial Construction Yards). Then the disc got scratched and I didn’t play the game for a long time.
Eventually, the game got released for Steam but because I’ve been using Mac for the last decade, I was unable to play it on release. Then I discovered an app called Porting Kit a few years after that allows Windows game to be played on Mac and I jumped on the opportunity. Additionally, because I remember watching a playthrough on YouTube by tntlink (playlist here), I knew had to loosely approach the missions. Of course, I had to develop my own strategies to obtain the gold medals, and I had to circumvent an infamous zoom glitch (I posted my findings in a Steam thread).
Of course, I managed to play Rogue Leader, the sequel to Rogue Squadron, and I own the second sequel Rebel Strike. But upon replaying the original title, I honestly prefer the one that started it all. I find that the controls are smoother in the original, and the difficulty curve is also considerably better. What I often found troublesome with the GameCube titles was that I was often lost on how to complete objectives and shooting down enemies, while in Rogue Squadron I had a far easier time. Granted, I knew the missions by the time I came back to it, but even then I still had to try over and over again just to complete the missions because of either bone-headed deaths or poor approach, and acquiring gold required more practice.
Anyway, I’ve mentioned how I found the game is easy to navigate compared to its sequels. In fact, the simplicity of this game is what I find to be very charming. New players can get accustomed quite easily in my opinion, as well as returning players who might not have played it in a while (myself included). Even so, acquiring the gold medals is a nice challenge for those willing, although there is a caveat to that. One, it’s best to get the Advanced Blasters upgrade in the 11th mission (Battle over Taloraan) because the damage output is necessary to complete the time objectives. Two, it may very well depend on which port you are playing.
I recently began to play the N64 port via emulator after my PC port stopped working (which I plan on fixing once I properly get Windows), and the difficulty is far harder, particularly the 14th mission, Raid on Sullust. I remember seeing comments in videos about how much people HATED the mission, and I didn’t understand why because for whatever reason, I found a way to beat it and take minimal damage with one intentional death. Upon playing the N64 version, though, I began to understand why people hated it, because it was an absolute grind to beat it with all of the missile turrets spamming their arsenal incessantly. If you fly straight for about two or three seconds, you’ll be dead within the next several seconds thanks to all the missiles seemingly just landing on you, even in a craft as bulky and durable as the Y-Wing. Again, I did not have this problem playing the PC port, so I have no clue as to why there was this drastic change in difficulty.
Regardless of port, the game does end up being quite short and there isn’t a lot of replay value in it, but I do like to revisit the game on occasion and just enjoy the simple experience.
2000 – Super Smash Bros.
This is probably the game I have interacted with the least since my childhood. That being said, this game was where I really learned of multiplayer in video games. Sure, there was one game that was technically multiplayer that I’ll mention later, but it was a different fashion (again, I’ll explain it later). Here, it’s all-out fighting and I’ll be honest: I never had any idea what I was doing.
When I was growing up, I grew up with Japanese kids whose parents came here for post-undergrad degrees. Our families wound up becoming friends during this time, and I had plenty of playdates during my elementary school days. These playdates were the introduction to the Nintendo 64 and the Super Smash Bros series as a whole. Again, as the next entry in the series came out, this game would fall to the wayside, but I do feel it necessary to have this entry here.
2000 – Number Munchers
I feel it necessary to put this here as a nod to the educational games I played at school, because this was one of the few recurring games we’d play here and there.
Also, I’ve talked about this game on my math blog, so I’ll keep it brief: it’s dumb mindless fun to a point – at higher levels you’re going to need to concentrate a little more, and the simplicity of the game can make such levels more nerve-wracking. Dodging Smarties (the trogglus smarticus), getting annoyed over eating a wrong number, waiting for the Workers (trogglus laborus) to leave the screen, etc. But in the end, good stuff.
2000 – Snood
This was the other major game I played during my elementary school days during recess or in the computer lab and my classmates would often seek opportunities to boast how good they were at the game. The social element to this game was like creating lore and legend. Then I’d play it a bit more since one of our family friends had a registration code allowing us to enjoy the game in full at home.
I’d play this title a little more during high school and early college but by this point the old Mac version was no longer supported and my workarounds to playing the Windows had no sound. Now I’ve found it’s on Steam but again I’ll need a workaround thanks to Mac no longer supporting 32-bit stuff. PLEASE.
2001 – Pokémon: Crystal Version
It’s arguable I could put Silver version here as that game was my first Pokémon game in English (my younger brother, in the meantime, had Pokémon Red as his first before getting Gold when I got Silver for Christmas), but I feel it necessary to name this title for subsequent interactions from when I first played this with my brother.
My brother and I initially shared this game and we played through it alongside our cousins who also owned a copy. We all grew up playing Pokémon together and would share our experiences. Additionally, we would also read manga and watch anime, cartoons, and movies together during the summers. Around the time we started playing Crystal, our cousins were reading Magic Knight Rayearth, and we learned of the three protagonists along with one of their companions Mokona who could only say, “Puu”. So for whatever reason, because we could play as a girl, we decided to do so, and we decided to name her “Bubu” in a nod towards Mokona’s “tic”.
Not long after, my brother’s cartridge for Gold began crapping out, and thus, we learned rather early on about the Game Boy Color generation of Pokémon having battery save issues. Eventually, he began to play more of the Crystal cartridge and he managed to raise a team/rotation that was built to succeed, and he managed to beat Red (the trainer and the game’s “final boss”) multiple times.
As mentioned previously, I got into game emulation (around my high school years, to be precise), and began to play around with Crystal version multiple times. As time has gone on, I began to plan out different teams with the three starters, and eventually I began to experiment with glitches, namely the cloning glitch to exploit having all three in one file or obtaining all Odd Egg Pokémon as Shiny. I haven’t touched my latest file in a while, but eventually I do plan on exploiting the Egg Glitch to obtain all 251 Pokémon, but again, I don’t know how soon that will happen.
2001 – Super Smash Bros. Melee
I hinted at this entry earlier, and I have to say I have more memories of this game. As stated before, many playdates were to be had, but there were also sleepovers as well where we’d run the Tournament Mode. Then there were also plenty of holidays spent playing this game to death. Experimenting with the dumb Special Modes. Then there was getting all the characters. Adventure Mode. Giga Bowser. Event Mode. So. Many. Memories.
I spilled a lifetime into this game, both with friends and on my own. I always look back at this game with fondness, and whenever I play it, I’m always up to dumb shenanigans again. Sometimes they end up happening to me, such as an Electrode getting hurled at me. Good times!
2002 – JumpStart Typing
Not only did I play educational games at school, I played even more at home up through the end of my elementary school days, and I attribute my typing skills to having played this game.
As for games I have played before, I first got started with Reader Rabbit’s Math Ages 4-6 (better known as Math Rabbit), then I played other various Reader Rabbit games like Reader Rabbit Preschool and Reader Rabbit Interactive Math Journey (this was before owning Pokémon Yellow). There was also Math Blaster Junior which I remember a little more compared to the other various games my dad would get for me on CD-ROM.
By 4th grade, we were learning how to properly type on computers, and we had a couple classes in the computer lab where we used Mavis Beacon to get accustomed to the keyboard (somehow I trace my knowledge of the existence of the DVORAK layout from Mavis Beacon even though we never used it). I remember telling my dad about learning about typing and he wound up getting me this game to help me learn.
I mean in the end I wound up vastly improving my typing speed and learned to type without looking at the keyboard, so it’s important to mention how I got good at typing.
2003 – Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World
This was my reintroduction to playing Mario.
Why reintroduction? Well remember how I mentioned a “different multiplayer”? This is the thing: I played the ORIGINAL Super Mario World when I was 5 because my dad had a SNES. At some point during my Kindergarten year, my mom taped up the SNES box and tucked it away from us (my mom wasn’t the biggest video game fan). Eventually we came upon this port and my dad was the one who was playing it first. My Japanese friends would also beat it for us after some time, although I began to play this on my own both on cartridge and by emulation (and I’ve also started playing it with a restored-color mod).
So here’s the thing: because my memory of this game is the one that remained first (my SMW days from when I was 5 have largely faded), I was accustomed to Luigi’s sprite here at first. So when I came across my dad’s SMW guide from Taiwan, I saw the picture for Luigi (the palette-swapped version), I was skeptical and thought it was fake. Then afterwards I began to see another version being used in all types of flash animations on Newgrounds, and eventually I learned of the All-Stars version of SMW. As such, I’ve become accustomed to that version of Luigi.
Nonetheless, I do appreciate some things from this port: the Dragon Coins in all the levels, the various new cutscenes, the Princess Coins, the slight change in Yoshi mechanics, etc. I do like visiting this one whenever I’m in the mood, although it’s hard to play the original when the restored-color port/mod is available.
2003 – Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul
This game is not here for when I initially played it (when I was a scrub), but more for what I’ve learned since about Yu-Gi-Oh! meta and playing this game to hell and developing different strategies. This game is always worth a play for anyone who is remotely interested in Yu-Gi-Oh!.
So this is where I get to geek out a bit about Yu-Gi-Oh! meta. Imagine a time before cards were actually banned. In fact, imagine a time where some cards weren’t even limited, let alone semi-limited. This game plays with a weird old-school format with many currently-banned cards legal. Pot of Greed. Graceful Charity. Delinquent Duo. Confiscation. The Forceful Sentry. Painful Choice. Snatch Steal. Know these powerful and/or broken cards? They’re in this game. You can play them.
I used to play this game terribly. Then after I learned meta, I began to incorporate strategies with a somewhat more modern lens. Indeed, there are plenty of walkthroughs/guides on GameFAQs that I use as a basis, but there are some differences with the decks and cards I use.
As for which deck I’ve developed and used at full power (i.e. I have all the cards and “required” amount of copies of the cards), the best one is the one that relies on getting the Exodia pieces. I still have yet to acquire my other decks at full power, but I imagine that there will be other contenders, namely the Dark-attribute deck and the “Hazard” deck that relies on field control. Anyway, fun game!
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