PixlBit

Other than Mario and Zelda, Dragon Quest is the video game series that's stuck with me the longest. I played it when it first came out on NES - I didn't get into Final Fantasy until VI on the SNES.

I actually had experience with RPGs before I played Dragon Warrior, as I'd played Exodus: Ultima III on PC and NES, and Alternate Reality on the Atari 8-bit. So I had a general idea of what to do. The game had good graphics and great music. After that, I didn't really play the series again until the first two games were re-released for the Game Boy Color. Of course, Enix completely skipped the SNES in localizing the series or I'd have probably gotten Dragon Quest V and VI. When I got married, my wife and I, and my stepdaughter, played Dragon Quest VIII on PS2, and we all finished it on our individual game files. I wish they'd re-release VIII on Switch. But XI managed to be even better, and given how awesome VIII was, that was an amazing feat. I still want VIII on Switch though. What the heck, I want the entire series on Switch. I have the first three games on Switch already.

HAL Laboratories' NES conversions of Atari-era Western arcade games like Millipede, Defender, and Joust all used sound effects from Punch-Out!!, even the little jingle that plays when a round starts. Satoru Iwata did all those games, which was interesting because his first game was Balloon Fight, which was a clone of Joust.

I saw Spider-Man in theaters while on vacation. In gaming, I got Virtua Fighter 4 on PS2, which was one of my favorite fighting games of the generation and came after Sega abandoned the Dreamcast and hardware in general. I also got into the Sims, and I picked up Grand Theft Auto III. I mostly liked causing havoc in the game environment rather than doing the missions, although you had to play through the story to unlock the other two areas. I liked the Flashback station, which was the soundtrack to Scarface, and the talk radio station with Lazlow Jones was really funny. I also got Devil May Cry and Kingdom Hearts that year.

The original Ys games reminded me of Tower of Druaga, only with a lifebar. Given how popular Druaga was in Japan, I'm guessing that was a major inspiration for the gameplay in those games. 

I've played a lot of AC, but I got sidetracked by Pokemon Sword and Xenoblade. Will come back to AC though just so I can visit islands and hopefully some of y'all can visit mine. And I have the entire Dragon Quest trilogy. I actually found the GBC version of the III for Game Boy, but I'm thrilled to be able to play it on my TV without a Game Boy Player that I no longer have. :(

Breath of the Wild, however, is by far the best game on the Switch. 

Oh snap. Union politics in Farming Together? Is there a Jimmy Hoffa figure you can have put in cement overshoes and tossed into a harbor somewhere?

I remember this game. The stick fighters got me. I also notice how the boomerang sounds exactly like the boomerang in the NES Zelda games.

Nanananana leader! Nanananana leader! Leader! Leader! 

I started with Mario Kart 64, and so when I tried Super Mario Kart I just didn't find it very playable. I never even bothered with Super Circuit. 3D simply makes far too much of a difference in racing games.

The Breath of Fire games were two of the PS1's unsung gems. 3 looked and sounded very Capcom, and two of the early villains were some of the best RPG villains I've seen. 

Chrono Cross came out at around the same time as an Enix RPG, Valkyrie Profile. I had limited funds, and I actually picked Valkyrie Profile over Chrono Cross. When I did play Chrono Cross some time later, I found that I had made the right choice.