As you may have surmised from my various articles covering the topic of video games, I absolutely adore video games and I now count them as one of my primary hobbies along with anime, manga, Western animation and horror films. I recently wrote about some of the first anime and manga that I ever watched/read and thought it would be interesting to take a look at my history with video games and how I grew to love them.
From my earliest memories, I can remember that we had a computer in the house and there were several games that I ended up playing on there. In particular, the two games that I have the most vivid memories of playing were Sesame Street: Numbers which was an educational Sesame Street video game and Commander Keen which was a platformer that, despite playing a lot, I never got too far in. At this point in my life, I enjoyed the games that I was given by my parents but I wasn’t capable of deciding why I liked these games.
A real watershed moment happened when I was about 5 or 6 though when I went up to my uncle’s house and he gave me a PlayStation that someone had given him. On our way home, we stopped in a store called Xtra-vision and we rented the A Bug’s Life video game. It was, in many ways, quite seminal and I would end up picking up some more games here and there.
I eventually started collecting some video game magazines and one of these magazines contained a guide on all the bosses in a game called “Final Fantasy IV”. I remember looking at the accompanying pictures and being in awe of the incredible visual designs. Interestingly, I didn’t care that the game was in 2D and I desperately sought it out in stores. Eventually, I managed to find the Final Fantasy Anthology for PS1 that contained both Final Fantasy IV and V. I can honestly say that playing Final Fantasy IV at that age was one of the most impactful moments of my entire life. I had never seen a story that dealt with conflict, death, redemption and many other themes before and I grew deeply invested in the characters and world. That sense of wonder is something that I’ll never forget. This is also where I grew to love the strategic combat of turn-based JRPGs and the idea of developing your characters over the course of a game. I was quite devastated when I lost my save data near the end of the final dungeon of Final Fantasy IV but I didn’t let that dissuade me from continuing to play video games.
I remained very passionate about video games during the era of the PS1 and the PS2 but around the time that I got the PS3, I was starting to lose enthusiasm for video games. At the beginning of the PS3 era, it didn’t feel like there were that many games to play. I had also been playing a lot on the PC, mainly World of Warcraft, and I was beginning to feel burnt out. It was this time when I discovered anime and manga and I guess I ended up prioritising those over video games instead.
I remember that around the time I entered college, I noticed that Final Fantasy XIII was available for pretty cheap. I remembered how I had enjoyed numerous Final Fantasy games such as IX, X, IV, VII etc. and, since I still had a PS3 that I was mainly using for Blu-rays, decided that I should pick up XIII and give it a try. Pretty quickly, I was absorbed into XIII, enjoying the crisp visuals, the fast-paced turn-based combat system and the excellent music. I know many people are not keen on Final Fantasy XIII but I will always look at it as the catalyst that reignited my love for video games (not to mention that I met one of my best friends because I overheard her talking about Final Fantasy XIII with someone else!)
Since then, my passion and love for video games have only grown stronger and stronger as I discover more games and genres that I adore. Let me know what you think of the story of how I came to love video games, what your own stories are, which games in particular made you realise how much you love video games and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.