For 90s kids, there’s no need for explanation. For others, well, pokemon was a phenomenon. It was everywhere, on TV, in magazines, toys, stickers. You could trade pokemon at the school excursion on the bus.
You felt alive in this world, pokemon gen 1-2 were the pinnacle of pokemon for me. And in gen2, finishing the game, and lo and behold, there’s a whole other region (kanto) waiting for you to explore it. The night cycle in the game blew my mind in ways that I have been chasing ever since.
I know it will never be reached again, but the memory will remain as powerful as it was that evening of the early 00s. What is your greatest gaming high, that you know will never be topped again, and that you have been chasing ever since?
The first two weeks of Pokemon go were like peace on earth. Everyone was friendly, excited, and walking around outside together, chatting with perfect strangers was actually a blast for once. We shared tips and locations, exchanged numbers, metup after work, cops were largely unmotivated to do anything about it because of how many of us and how wholesome it really was. Honestly best 2 weeks of my life
I was trying to think of an answer and when I got to yours, I found myself remembering that time and that gaming high that game collectively gave everyone. And then they took away the step tracker, and while I still played daily until 2018, taking that away really took some gas out of the game. I don’t know what else to call it so hopefully you understand what I’m referring to. The thing that helped you find the pokemon and whether you were going in the right direction or not.
I got sick of all the Pidgeys so quit after a week. I did come back to it eventually… and then quit again when they over-enshittified it
Arma 3 Exile
The absolute peak of gaming for me was the first time I got stoned out of my mind and played Minecraft. Probably like… circa 2012. I’ve never been able to get back to that place ever since lmao the colors were so vibrant, each pixel was absolutely perfectly placed. The light grey ui elements in your inventory… everything just tied together so perfect. It was like seeing a new color for the first time, but then every time after that is just, eh…
I had similar experience with alcohol and horizon zero dawn. I can remember so much about that night despite the liquor.
Great thread! My moment comes from Deus Ex. There was a mission near versalife in Hong Kong, and I took the wrong door at some point and veered off path. I did not have to do it, but I got lost and I did, i cleaned all security from the entire building. After I got out, i read on one of those news screens… it had an article about a terrorist attack massacre on the versalife offices 97 dead… I realized they wrote about me - clever bit of cause-effect-scripting there!
Beating Battletoads on the SNES. So much time invested
I still chase after the first playthrough experience of Okami. It was a time before novel ways of interacting with the game world were the norm. Everyone I knew at the time was playing CoD (some even just played Zombies mode and nothing else), Battlefield, Halo, GTA, Pokémon, Mario, Zelda… all titles that “everyone” played at the time.
When I saw Okami on a commercial, I knew I had to own it. There was nothing like it at the time and the way it pulled from Japanese culture was such a new concept to me. The way you can stop time at any point and paint shapes on the screen was just too cool to pass up. Not to mention, the almost hand-drawn aesthetic was still one of very few at the time.
I will admit, I can’t stand the experience on Wii. I can only enjoy it on controller because of how awkward painting with a 6-foot brush is.
Not really a thing I’ve been chasing but I did really enjoy the time I was home sick from work and spent all day playing Super Mario Odyssey back when it first came out. I really felt like I was a kid again and hadn’t felt that before or since.
Middle of the road millennial for age context.
The experience of a brand new game with a new computer build that upped the standards. Particularly from the ‘90s to ~2010. Games pushed ahead with more expansive levels, better graphics, better sound, larger worlds. All more incredible than what you’d ever played before. It was a joy just to see it and experience it on top of whatever storyline and toys were in the game itself. Every year there was a leap in some facet of gaming.
I haven’t really experienced that since. PC builds are just way more expensive for minimal gain, franchises are just rehashes of old games, and it’s hard to find storylines and worlds that are fleshed out enough to make me want to invest the time.
On an individual game level, Battlefield’s Gunmaster mode is a real rush. Success can be ripped away instantly, you’re on your own skill, PvAll, and it’s a race to the top. Intense AF to win, got my heart rate up.
This is how I feel as well. A new PC or even a new console was a gigantic leap forward in both visuals and gameplay. We’ve had a couple decades of diminishing returns.
I think the next big leap will be something along the lines of AI building out the stories, missions and dialogs “on the fly” creating incredible amounts of immersion where no two playthroughs have to be the same.
Gonna have to check out that gun master mode, hopefully it’s in BF6
Psycho Mantis
Revolver Ocelot
Swimming Nougat.
Did I do that right?
Swimming Nougat didn’t come out until Steak Eater tho.
Ah… yeah I forgot. My bad.
Being in the zone, utterly focused at defeating
glockSword Saint Isshin. Doing it so many times that trouncing Genichirou pre-Ishin was a given, a warm up even, before going for the main dude.Nine balls and more nine balls and more nine balls in Armoured Core Q_Q.
Penetrator from Demon Souls.
Malenia.
I remember reaching that point with Isshin, where Genichiro was something I could basically do in my sleep.
Did you do the Elden Ring DLC? If so, how’d you feel about the final boss there? I found that to be the hardest boss they’ve released, more than Isshin or Malenia.
I just finished Elden Ring a few weeks ago so no. Elden Beast was a pita since I was maining rivers of blood and put points into arcane. As you know he’s immune to bleed so I gave up and switch to an occult uchigatana instead using the default skill.
For these types of games I usually take my time and definitely does take me a long time to beat them. Though it’s mostly in spurts. If I feel the itch I can probably blitz through the games pretty quickly. For example I took like a six months break after I encountered Isshin. After that, I beat him after a few tries and proceeded to NG+4 the game to get all the endings and skill PTS to complete all the achievos within a few weeks.
I’ll eventually get around to Shadow of the Erdtree though. Nightreighn on the other hand I’m not sure I’ll play that since it’s multiplayer and seems to be roguelite.
It’s probably a hot take but I think SotE is the best content they’ve ever released. It might be my favourite video game release of all time. The final boss is tough as nails though, or at least was pre-patch. It’s a fair bit easier now but still really hard.
SotE has my three favourite bosses ever, as well as some of my favourite locations ever. I think it’s got their best world design since DS1 too. Most of these are probably not common beliefs but hopefully you like it like I did. It is definitely harder than the base game, but that’s sort of the point of a FromSoft DLC.
Three favourite bosses ever?
Bayle, Midra, and Messmer. Dancer of the Boreal Valley from Dark Souls III used to be my favourite boss until SotE came out.
Xenogears. It was a life-changing game for me. The concepts and philosophy it introduced to my teenage brain tangibly altered my world view over time. It broke me out of a mold I didn’t even know I was in. Nothing compares to it for me. As a game, it’s well made, but has it’s share of sticking points. But it did for me something no other game has.
I’ve had similar feelings of wonder and awe in other games but not the same life altering impact to my world view.
In a more light-hearted “omg such game, much amazing, very nostalgia” category though, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 1, HL1, Stalker, Morrowind, and Oblivion all hold special places in my memories.
Three more modern games that really brought a sense of wonder to me are Nier Automata, Mirror’s Edge 1, and Outer Wilds.
As an aside, Xenogears is awesome with a higher resolution and widescreen. It’s BS that it can be done emulated, but they’ve never bothered doing it officially (or even re-releasing it at all, for that matter). Uh, we’ll just pretend the second disc never happened, though…
I wish it’d get a proper remake, with the second half fully fleshed out. I’d even take a remaster with the second disc content fleshed out. Lol
The awe and grandeur of Occarina Of Time… at the time.
Disco Elysium is the best literature I’ve ever played.
I still feel like used to live in Skyrim. It was a place where I wanted to be and explore.
TF2/Halo CE multilayer mix of copetitive adrenaline and funny shenanigans
Those are the game experiences which stuck with me.
You know what stuck with me about Ocarina of Time? Zora’s fountain is the source of all water in Hyrule. King Zora’s fat ass blocks the way through. So about a percent of all the water in Hyrule flows through his ass cheeks.
And also that fucking hand creature. That thing freaked me out.
Chrono Trigger, and finishing the games first full arc. What would normally be the end literally showed me that this game had so much more, which expanded the more I played it.
I still maintain that Chrono Trigger was the masterpiece of the SNES. Not of its genre, not just the best RPG on the platform, not just a standout for being ahead of its time.
What got me about Chrono Trigger is the crux of the 1000 AD cast’s main quest, wherein the three kids from the present become accidental time travelers and complete what amounts to an entire young adult novel’s narrative arc where they manage to rescue Princess Nadia/Marle from the past and marginally improve history, and in any other story that is where the Happily Ever After would go and the end credits would roll. But via extended highjinks they ultimately wind up gaining some future foreknowledge of the Day of Lavos after witnessing its aftereffects first hand.
These three are not heroes or warriors (Crono possibly notwithstanding, since he’s already suspiciously good with a katana) and were not called upon by the gods. None of them are any kind of chosen one. There is no ancient prophecy. They are not the scions of a past fellowship of heroes who saved the world from an ancient evil generations ago. No villain has burned down their village in the first act. They aren’t facing much real adversity or hardship in their lives, none of them really have a secret and tragic past, and they all have homes they could go back to pretty much at any time and forget about all of this.
They’re just three kids. Lavos isn’t their problem, or even the next generation’s problem, or the generation after that. It won’t rise to destroy the world anywhere near their lifetimes, and they’re certainly not powerful enough in that moment to do anything about it anyway.
But it’s Marle who decides right then and there, no. Fuck that shit. Without hesitation. No one else can time travel and change the past, at least as far as the three of them know. As Marle says, this can’t be the way the world ends. They have to try.
There are so few RPG stories of that time where the decision to embark on the quest to save the world is left to the player characters’ own agency, and so neatly aligns with what the player would probably want to do themselves.
Ragnarok Online. Before the third jobs, and without donation items and high rates. I played on the kRO server for a while and afterwards for many years on a 5/5/3 private server. I still remember how it felt, the first time I played it. Never found anything like it again.
Now, I’ve played a lot of amazing games and some of them really hit me in the feels, but this was the first MMORPG I played, ever. I was like what, 15? when I started playing and I played this game with the same people, for years. In the same guild, over Ventrilo, I knew these people. From all over the world, we’d even set alarms and such to make sure people were there when WoE started and half of us were sleeping due to time zones, or to make sure we could keep the MVP boss schedules. Some of us even met in real life, we talked off-game as well. We grew up together, quite literally, from teenager to adult. It’s not surprising it left such a mark, I guess. Nowadays… well I’ve tried MMO’s but it just isn’t like that anymore.
I only have to listen to the soundtrack, music from Prontera or Amatsu, and boom, nostalgia!
Also most all my friends and co workers getting on Vent to play WoW regularly and leveling up characters shortly after Burning Crusade released. Gaming hasn’t been the same since.
Next best would be COVID era playing Red Dead Online and drinking IRL and fishing in game until IRL dawn with a friend. Sunrise in that game is such a good representation of a sleepy sunrise.
