PixlBit

Stage Select:

1. Unlocking Cloud in Final Fantasy Tactics.

2. "ZELDA" in the original Zelda, which allowed you to skip to the Second Quest.

3. A subtle but memorable one, for me at least: In Tales of Symphonia, in the slums of Meltokio, you'll run across a girl selling flowers. My favorite Tales game references my favorite Final Fantasy game.

Pak Watch: Metroid

At the time, it was almost as amazing as The Legend of Zelda on the NES. The huge world, the multiple power-ups that unlocked more of that world, the secret passages, and the hunt for the bosses, Kraid and Ridley, even if Ridley wasn't as impressive as his later incarnations. Kraid, though, was actually much harder on the NES than he was on the SNES or GBA. The music was some of the best on the NES, especially Kraid's Lair, Norfair, and Ridley's Lair. Once I finished Zelda, I went into Metroid whole hog. Unfortunately, compared to Super Mario Bros or The Legend of Zelda, it's probably the least playable of those NES classics today. So many massive improvements were made to Metroid's graphics, sound, game mechanics, and controls on newer hardware, that it feels primitive and clunky by comparison. Super Metroid alone rendered Metroid obsolete, and its GBA remake, Zero Mission, renders the original game somewhat pointless. Still, it was a groundbreaking game and deserves to be recognized as such.

Lovin' Breath of the Wild. It's the best video game I have played in years.

I know quite a few 1UPers hang out on Twitter, but I never liked it and deleted my account. Now it just seems to be a forum where idiot politicians sling insults at their constituents.

Crazy Taxi was fun, and I enjoyed Skies of Arcadia... when the remastered version came out on Gamecube in 2003.

On the N64, I enjoyed Star Fox 64 and Mario Kart 64. Goldeneye was okay, but I've never exactly been into FPSs. But 1997 was overall a disappointing year for the N64. There were a few other gems like Mischief Makers, but it was also kind of sad watching Nintendo try to do damage control for the huge game droughts the N64 had.

For me, one game really dominated 1997. It could have been the only game released that entire year and I still would have called it a good year for gaming. You can probably guess which one it is.

That was pretty neat. Now they have emulators for all those old computers. I have emulators for TRS-80, Atari XL//XE, and TI-99/4A, which were the computers we had when I was a kid before I got my first IBM-compatible PC with MS-DOS.

1996 was all about Super Mario RPG and SM64 for me. SMRPG was kind of sad as it was the last game Square did for Nintendo before their messy divorce from Nintendo. SM64 was probably the most technically amazing game I'd ever seen up to that point. Too bad the N64 didn't live up to the promise of SM64. I did get both KI Gold and Shadows of the Empire. Wave Race 64 looked pretty neat.

I remember a lot of the arcade games here. I used to see Area 51 at truck stops. Tekken 2 was everywhere, but I prefered VF2 and didn't get into Tekken until Tekken 3. Tomb Raider seemed really stiff and awkward compared to Super Mario 64. Probably my favorite game of 1996 on PS1 was the first Resident Evil, but I didn't feel any urge to buy a PS1 until after Final Fantasy VII came out the following year.

When I worked nights, I'd come home in the morning and then I could never wake up until it was time to go back to work. I didn't sleep well, either. I'd wake up a few hours later with the sun blazing in, try to "rest" my eyes, and it would be another 3 or 4 hours later until I woke up again.

Dragon Quest XI. Yes. I've been wanting a real Dragon Quest console game that isn't a handheld Monster Hunter-inspired game or a MMORPG, one in the style of DQVIII. I will probably get it on PS4, but I can also see myself getting it on the Switch as well.

I remember those days of shared keyboards on computer games. I never played Star Control 2, but it was made by some of the same people who made Starflight, a game I did play and enjoy.

Back then, I was still calling locally run bulletin board systems and playing simple games online like Legend of the Red Dragon. It was sad when they all closed down after people started using the Internet instead. I went to a couple of BBS parties in Oklahoma City where you could actually meet some of your opponents in the online games in person. The person behind my mortal nemesis in online games turned out to be a very pretty Thai-American woman (who was also 13 years older than I was, so there was no online love story to be had here, unfortunately).