So I assume many of us have played some games for the first time long after their release date. Like, maybe you didn’t have a specific console growing up so we didn’t play the “classics” on it, or something.
I’m just wondering how many of you have played an older game and thought “wow, I wish I grew up with this game”?
For example, for me, many years ago I played Super Metroid for the first time and fell in love with the idea of just wandering aimlessly around the game world, occasionally stumbling into new areas. I would have loved to have played it as a kid with childlike wonder without worrying about finishing the game or making progress.
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I was a console kid and wish I had more exposure to the beefier DOS/PC games available in the 90’s, lots of gems
I feel like I almost completely missed out on PC gaming from the late 80s to the early 2000s. I played a few mil-sim games from Novalogic and Jane’s but that was about it.
I wasn’t exposed to an FPS until half-life was a few years old. My first real gaming PC was built for Half-Life 2.
I totally missed Doom, Quake, Descent, Diablo, System Shock, Deus Ex, Wolfenstein, Fallout. I didn’t even know about Elder Scrolls, Myst, Riven, Maniac Mansion (or any of the other Lucasfilm or Tim Schafer games like it).
I did catch some lower spec games like Sim City, StarCraft, Worms, etc., But it seemed like none of them really caught my attention longer than a few hours. I was mostly interested in SNES and PS1 around that time I guess.
The Elder scrolls
You put it perfectly here
I would have loved to have played it as a kid with childlike wonder
That feeling you get when you play a game you like when you are a kid is something you don’t get again as an adult, I remember the first times I played Minecraft, I remember that sense of adventure and discoverery that sadly I haven’t been able to experience again.
I can only imagine what would have felt playing Morrowind, Oblivion and even Skyrim with the mind of a child.
I know these games are not that old… but hey! I was a child when they came out.
Morrowind was earth shattering when it came out. It looks like ass compared to today’s games but at the time we’d never seen anything that looked that good, with that epic scale of a world, before. It was magical.
I wish i had Minecraft as a ten year old. By the time it came out my i interests were shifted to all the Call of Duty clones and action games.
Agree completely. Feel like I missed the boat on Elder Scrolls, but would have loved it as a kid/teenager.
Not really older games, since I grew up parallel to them, but I’m kind of jealous of the ubiquitous NES culture in the US in the mid-late 80s.
Consoles were a rarity in the UK till the 90s, and the Sega Mastersystem was largely the only game in town where I was before that. I didn’t even see a NES in person till the 00s. Seeing ads in comics for NES games, or hints of NES Mario and Zelda in magazines was a rare glimpse into another world.
I found an SNES Mini on eBay that they stuffed with EVERY ROM from Atari to SNES (and then some). My wife and I just beat Donkey Kong Country 2 yesterday. That’s one I had missed back in the day. If you’re interested in seeing what you missed out on, I HIGHLY recommend! So much fun!
Way ahead of you… I have about five devices stuffed with just about every game from before 2000 :)
Particular favourite is my MiSTer FPGA device, which does a lower level emulation than software emulation and tends to give extremely accurate results! Finally, I can be the nerdy 80s high school kid hooked on NES and hijincks that I always dreamed of being :)
Final fantasy 7. But for a different reason. I tried playing that game many times wayyy after it’s release but I just couldn’t get into it. But I got really big into final fantasy 6 and I got really big into other JRPGs, so it wasn’t that the gameplay was bad just that the 3d graphic hasn’t aged well. But I also played some pretty crusty PlayStation 1 games back in the day, so it’s not like if I didn’t play it at the right time I wouldn’t have loved it. But just cuz I didn’t play it around release, cuz I didn’t know about it I was a kid, kind of missed out on an entire thing.
I like the remake but, I don’t think it’s the same.
While I think it would have been easier to get into FF7 at the time of release, I did try at that time, and actually never finished it until maybe 6 years ago. I had played 4-6 and subsequently 8 multiple times, but 7 never grabbed me the same way. I know it’s a bit of a “you had to be there at the time” game, but I don’t think being there at the time guarantees enjoying it either.
I played it as a kid using gameshark because my dad just got me one so I used it on everything I played…
Took the challenge out of it, but thinking back kid me would’ve been stuck somewhere somehow…
Didn’t think it was all that tho, I liked Suikoden better still…
The one sure thing I’ve picked is my girl preference since then has been Tifa Lockhart like haha
King’s Quest and Final Fantasy.
KQ I did go back and play through the entire series about a decade ago and had a great time. Final Fantasy I’ve just recently got into with 7 (original) and 8 but I don’t have the patience to finish either. I would have if I’d have got into it back in the day.
Ooh, great question! Super Metroid is one for me too. I love metroidvanias now, and really enjoyed the nonlinear / exploration elements of Super Mario World, but I didn’t play a proper metroidvania until my teens. I think I’d take CV:SotN over Super Metroid, but I bet I’d have been more than happy with either.
I wish I grew up with some OG gameboy RPGs. Final Fantasy Legend, Dragon Warrior Monsters, Crystalis. They were just a bit too far before my time for me to get much exposure when I would have liked them best, so I don’t have any real nostalgia, but in revisiting old games I’ve always been drawn to those.
I went back and played (and beat) Super Metroid finally a few years ago. It was an amazing experience that I’m sorry I missed out on as a kid, but I don’t think I would have had the patience to beat it then. I ended up on a Metroid binge after that. Played the Samus Returns remake and Dread, and am currently playing the Prime remake. I think Metroid has been stuck in niche consoles for so long a lot of folks haven’t been exposed so I appreciate the remakes.
I was fortunate to own Crystalis when I was young, but didn’t actually beat it until I was a teenager. The GBC port was supposedly bad. Never played it. But the NES game is criminally not well known.
That’s awesome! I’ve only ever heard of Crystalis in the context of games that flew under the radar, I don’t think many people can say they actually owned it. Too bad the GBC port isn’t great.
For me, I recently played Earthbound for the first time on the Switch after seeing J.J. McCullough rave about it nostalgically. I can’t believe I had a SNES as a kid and missed out on it, but I guess I might have tried it and didn’t like it. I was probably a bit too young when it came out.
For the rest, I really wish I had BotW/TOTK as a kid. Even as an adult, the level of Immersiveness that these games have is amazing.
Earthbound is such a great game. I didn’t have a lot of snes games as a kid so this one kind of eluded me at the time but I just recently played it and loved it. I did not like JRPGs as a kid (still don’t but was able to still enjoy it as an adult) so maybe it’s for the best I had to wait to experience it
I wish I grew up with tactics ogre. I just discovered this game a few months ago and it truly blew my mind. I could have been into TRPGs if I had played it.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Just totally missed the boat when they were in the zeitgeist - I ended up loving them 15 years later though.
Kingdom Hearts feels like a series I would be all over with considering how much I loved Disney and liked Final Fantasy. Shame I never really got around to playing it.
I always always always wanted to play Final Fantasy after Final Fantasy 7…but I was super poor and couldn’t get a Playstation.
Half Life series
I owned Banjo Kazooie very briefly as a child but I think my dad sold it. Replayed it on XBLA years later and loved it. I wish I experienced it at the time along with the other great N64 games.
I didn’t play any Halo games until MCC on PC. However, not sure I wish I’d grown up with them, since I hate shooters with controllers, and I enjoyed playing the games in chronological order over release order.
But at least it’s now one of my favourite series.
For me it’s anything TurboGrafx-16. I eventually bought one maybe 7 y wars ago but almost all of the games are ridiculously expensive, so I ended up selling it.
I only remember that system having a cool looking racing game, and that game where the kid bonks stuff with his giant head.
Those games were super expensive back in the day too!
