by xellos667 » Thu Jul 8, '10, 9:04 pm
ALRIGHT!!! I love Nostalgia topic. All of your memories were great read...though my love for PS is not as much emotion as in aero post, I did have a little back story.
Back when I was still a kid who could not read english at all (for those who don't know yet, my native language is french), I received a NES during Christmas when I was 7. At first of course I played the classic Mario Bros, Megaman, Metroid...but rather quickly, I discovered Zelda I then Zelda II...my life began to change a little bit because I was discovering that video game could take place in a very large world, filled with mysteries and discoveries. Back then I was starting to ask my father "Can you translate me this?" because sometimes I couldn't figure what I was doing, but with Zelda, most of the time, I was able to get through without understanding english.
The whole problem came with the arrival of two games. First: Dragon Warrior....quickly was bored with it, and gave up. But what really addicted me to RPG was Final Fantasy. Now this was total liberty!!! Choice of character, item, big world...sure I wasnt able to understand half of what was happening, and during those days, never made it past the second fiend (I was renting the games, and there was only one save slot...meaning I had to restart everytime), but boy was I mind-blowed!!! DUring those times too, my father was about to go crazy from me asking him all the time to translate everything. He then gave me a dictionary english-french and said to me "Do it yourself"...So because of my love of RPG, I learned english faster than in any english class I will have later on.
This was the 8bits era. I knew RPG where the thing for me. Then come the 16 bits era...at one point, every little boy and girl back then had a choice to do. Will you go Genesis with Sega or Super Nintendo???? My parent were only allowing me one console at a time at home, so I had to chose. So I rented both.
With the Genesis, of course I tried, Sonic 1 & 2...It was fun. But then I tried the Super Nintendo with SUper Mario World but even more FINAL FANTASY II (well, we all know it was 4 but anyway). I will not told the story about how I didnt know how to save in FFII back then I was so used at doing it in the Inn), so that I was playing it in one playthrough, but I was rather impressed. So the obvious choice was the SNES of course. This console would continue to feed my RPG need.
But evil Sega did something really really bad. Agressive TV Ads. I don't know if anyone remember the days of Sega do what Nintendon't and their TV ads that were showing the Genesis as the superior console, in a way that stupid little kid like me would fall into this easy trap...but anyway, because of those, I switched side at the last minutes, and took the Genesis.
*insert DOOM music here*
OMG, where were my Final Fantasy games on this console. At first, all I saw in the Genesis were rather sub-par action game...I felt sad, really sad. The first RPG I tried back then was Shining in the Darkness, and boy, even though I love that game today, back then, I was trying to convince myself that it was better than nothing. But I wanted more. So one day, I was at the rental place. And I saw this picture of a guy with a sword, going up in stars leading to some kind of robot shooting laser at him...you guess it, it was Phantasy Star III. I played that game, and while I know that everyone think it's the black sheep of the series, for me, it was something that was finally on par with my memories of Final Fantasy I. The world were kinda vast, I loved the anime style (which I didnt know what it was back then). And the overall atmosphere and something I didnt knew back then. I played that game many times. I also discovered many other RPG, Shining Force I & II which introduced me the Tactical RPG, WarSong (also known as Langriser) and games like Wonder Boy in Monster World. This is also when I tried Phantasy Star II, which I completed without the use of the Visiphone, which was a real pain during my young age...but not understanding every part of the english scenario, part II didnt left me a big impression compared to III.
But during all those time, I was seeing games like Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Lufia, Breat of Fire and such coming out on the SNES...and even Phantasy Star III couldnt heal my sadness.
Then came 1995...Final Fantasy III (VI) were released not too long ago, I was in pain of not playing it....BUT, like an item of worship with light around it came Phantasy Star IV on the rental stand!!! I can tell you, every week-end, in my tiny little town, it was war between me and my friends knowing which one will rent it first. This game, while now I think I prefer III more, I can say that this is the Phantasy Star I completed the most often in my life. Every week-end I was able to rent it, I was beating it from start to finish, without any break. When Chrono Trigger came out, it didnt hurt me, I was playing PSIV, and nothing could touch it in my heart.
Then came the 32-bits 64-bits era. The Saturn was not a good choice for me back then. So once again my parents asked me to chose between the Nintendo 64 and the Playsation...once again, I made the wrong choice for my RPG need, and chose the N64...because like the Sega Ads back then, the vision of Mario 64 blinded me to the truth. Plus to get the Nintendo 64, I had to sell my Genesis...this was a big hit in my heart, to leave the Phantast Star series behind
Hopefully this was the last Generation I had to make a crucial choice like that. After that I began to work little side job during week-end, got my own money, and purchased back everything I wanted, including a Genesis AND a SNES...When I finally played SNES RPG after all this time, I was really happy...BUT, quickly realized that, with Phantasy Star, I was already having all my RPG need filled without me realizing it. Of course, at that time, I was understanding english at 100% so I rediscovered the 3 Genesis Phantasy Star with brand new eyes, and finally saw Phantasy Star for what it was...one of the most Epic RPG series that ever graced the video game world!!! SNES rpg were great, but nothing could beat Phantasy Star in my heart now.
On a side note, you might have realized that in all this story, I never tried the first Phantasy Star...that Master System was something I never saw in my young age...so my very first experience of the original Phantasy Star was on the GBA Phantasy Star Collection. I was really sad about that, because really, if when I first discovered RPG genre with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, I would have also played Phantasy Star, I would have then realized hwo superior this was to those 2, and might not have been as sad during my 16 bits era, because I would have known that Phantasy Star was the superior series.
This was my VERY LONG story, hope you enjoyed it!!!
Last edited by
xellos667 on Thu Jul 8, '10, 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.