Games that bring back memories

I stumbled upon a short video about traveling with a Nintendo 3DS—my feed continues to expose me to more of these even after I got one—and one of the main topics there was how playing videogames on exotic places can often enhance the overall experience, not just of the game, but of being there, to the point of forming a memory, that brings you back there whenever you think of it.

It is quite a contradiction, or at least compared what some other people who would say something like: “Look outside! Look at the green fields, the mountains and trees!”, whenever one spends time on a screen instead.

Of course, embracing the little moments in life is extremely important, accepting moments of quiet boredom has its place, and the wonder of nature is not under dispute here.

The thing is, looking at something won’t necessarily cause it to be engraved into your memories. However, if you were doing something fun, or thought-provoking, if you have a strong emotion or an interesting conversation, then a moment can become more substantial.

There are games that have truly trapped me, stories that have managed to get a grip all by themselves, little context comes to mind, just a world, a fantasy, a group of characters, beautiful, self-contained moments only some games can provide.

Other games are able to bring me back to places of my past, even if they are not great by themselves, they are intertwined with moments that are never to be repeated, and I want to focus on those today.

Obviously, one of my earliest memories involves the PSP, during one of many visits to my uncles’ house. The place was one of those Mexican-style houses that had a central area with no roof and a concrete floor. Those were great times!

My older cousin had a PSP, and I asked him for permission to play with it. The coolest game he owned was Motor Storm Arctic Edge, which happens to be one of the best racing games in the system. I loved the slow motion camera that showed up whenever I crashed. I remember how often I’d want to play it, but I was always shy to ask for it.

You see, since my cousin had a job—or maybe he just went out of the house often—even if I had permission to use it, I had to search his room and look for the PSP to play. This was quite the task, because I was never quite sure of where anything was… I tell you, the house was an absolute labyrinth, or maybe it was the fact I was six or seven years old.

Halo 3 was a huge part of two of my biggest friendships. A pair of brothers who were in the same church as me, one was younger and the other older than me, just a year apart from each other. They had an Xbox 360, a huge CRT TV, and of course, a game library!

Their house was the place to hang out on weekends. The coolest console, the coolest games, and parents who were good but not overprotective. We were good kids, we didn’t curse, we stayed quite while gaming at night, everything was truly great.

We played for hours and hours! Be it multiplayer, Forge mode, and the fantastic campaign, truly epic times. This game and these friends were there in one of the few times I was willing to stay up for hours beyond midnight, going to sleep until 4 or 5 am, just because we had to finish that campaign before the sleepover party was over. We would put blankets on the floor, rest against the sofa, life was so good.

The game remains a core memory, these friends are still great, even though we haven’t met in years, I treasure these years fondly.

It was around 2013 when I had my first proper experience with Minecraft Java Edition. It was on a friend’s laptop, who allowed me to play on his world, I believe it was version 1.6. This is when I stayed in the US for a couple of weeks by myself, under the care of my friend’s family.

In this case I wouldn’t play until the late hours of the night or anything like that. I have to admit I was confused easily when he wasn’t there to explain me what to do, but a couple of times he would be there, and show me simple redstone tricks, how to get chickens to follow me with seeds, and the like. It felt weird to be taught all of that when he was younger than me but it happens.

Outside of Minecraft, I remember a lot of that time, the music playing on the radio (yes, they played music from the radio) was Daft Punk’s Get Lucky—one might say this song is more engraved in my memory than Minecraft itself but shhh. His house was one of those super cool american houses with dishwashers and super cool room temperature everywhere. How would I not want to play Minecraft in such a cozy place!

I am kind of cheating here since these are memories at home, but times have changed so much since then I don’t even care. You see, I don’t live in the same house, and I played Monster Hunter Freedom Unite while I was still in high school, while I still had vacations that lasted for like two months, when I could afford to just use my computer and have some fun playing via VPN parties and the like.

I don’t even have the same laptop anymore, I lost it to an unfortunate bottle of water that got tripped over on the table, sitting there for my laptop to absorb for a whole night. I remember talking with kind strangers over voice chat, hunting huge beasts like the Lao-Shan Lung, casually bantering to each other, getting advice, and doing specific attacks to troll each other sometimes.

As a portable game, I have many more memories with it. High School in general would not have been the same without my PSP. I really gave it a lot of use back then, what a handheld it is to this day, I do miss when I had so much free time though.

I’ve talked about The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask before, it is one of those key parts of my childhood, which introduced me to emulation for the first time ever. Project 64 and all of what that entails. You can read about that story here

However, Majora’s Mask was another of the games I played on that now dead laptop too, after beating Ocarina of Time—I already made a post mentioning that too.

I went on a trip to grandma’s house, around 2017 and literally brought my whole laptop with me just to play it… Or at least that’s the only reason I remember bringing it with me. Playing on the bedroom, with my cheap Xbox 360-style controller, and going through some ice-themed dungeon with multiple floors and the Goron power to spin like a wheel!

On that same trip we also went to city of my childhood, where my friend who introduced me to emulation still lived. I even reached out to him, to let him know I was playing just like he did. Of course, he didn’t even remember I watched him play, such a significant moment for one person can be just another day for another. Such is life sometimes.

I am yet to complete Majora’s Mask, and my save file is long gone—probably with that laptop—but it’s tied down to that moment for me.

During another stay with my uncles around Christmas time, 2019, Epic Games decided to gift Celeste to everyone. Back then I still used Windows, and my uncles had just remodeled their house a while back—this has just unlocked a lot of other memories for a later post.

In any case, without a lot of responsibilities and plenty of time during vacation, and after celebrations were over, we stayed there for a few more days, waiting to celebrate the New Year too, and before it arrived, I managed to play through the entirety of Celeste’s main story!

That was a wonderful time, an incredible test of endurance, and even though I didn’t do every single level (there’s a lot of extra content!) I am more than happy with what I accomplished. I still recall when one of my cousins wanted to try it and couldn’t get past the level I was on, that made me feel a bit cool too, heh.

When I wasn’t feeling like playing on my laptop, I also started Suikoden II on my PSP, one of the prettiest JRPGs for the Play Station, with jaw-dropping pixel art and a really interisting premise. I played like 6 hours of it and to this day, that’s all the progress I’ve really managed to make on it… I should return to that one some day, and to Celeste too!

There’s probably some other titles I could talk about, other places I could remember, just a few more memories:

• Super Mario Bros, 22+ years ago. This was in so many memories, on an original NES, and like two or three clone consoles with cousins and friends, this game was somehow part of my childhood 20+ years after its release.

• Crash Tag Team Racing, 20+ years ago, a visit to a family I don’t even remember, a Play Station 1 and friends whose faces are blurry, I don’t understand how this game is theere, but I played this before Mario Kart.

• Wii Sports, 18+ years ago, a friend’s house, playing on the living room, one of the few times my mom lectured me because I lost my temper, this was because I lost a boxing match against the CPU.

• Ben 10: Protector of Earth, 16+ years ago , a younger neighbor I visited often had this one, we always played it, I loved the cell-shaded look and riding fire waves as Heatblast. This memory one sparked as I was writing this post.

• Mario Party 3, 13+ years ago, playing after church with three friends on the same keyboard, with Project 64 on a desktop running Windows XP, shouting at each other like maniacs.

• Battle for Wesnoth,12+ years ago, the first I ever played on Linux, on my middle school’s computer lab. I remember the desktop was XFCE. The game was in English and I didn’t get most of it.

• Parasite Eve, 5+ years ago, a title that got me so obsessed I read the original novel, watched countless video essays, and saw the Japanese movie, without ever completing the game itself.

This is plenty enough, I’d say.

I wonder what the future will hold, and I can’t help but think if videogames will still be part of that. I see the posts from people older than me, and I daydream where I’ll be when my turn comes. What game will I be playing when I finally buy my own car? What console will be on my pocket if I ever go on vacation overseas by myself? what will be the first game I play together with my wife, or even my child?

It must be said, I don’t remember the videogames I played during most milestones of my life, like my graduation or when I got my job. Some moments simply stand on their own. I guess the memories of even the smallest things can last more than one may imagine, games involved or not.

This is day 5 of #100DaysToOffload.