My First Video Game Memories

Growing Up

Looking back on my childhood, I have countless fond memories related to video games. Late nights at birthday parties playing Smash Bros or NBA Street. Trading Pokémon with friends over a link cable. Trying to catch Mips in Super Mario 64. Video games taught me a lot growing up, and I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. Whether solo gaming with a Game Boy, passing a controller back and forth, or playing against friends all crowded around a CRT TV, it was always a blast.

I was born at the tail end of 1990 (December) and as an only child, there were innumerable hours spent with my Game Boy (a blue Game Boy Pocket, more on that later) and various Pokémon games, and as I grew up, many late nights with friends around a Playstation 2 or Gamecube. A lot of my formative moments with video games are hard to remember, some take place over 20 years ago, so there won’t be any concrete dates here, but if for nobody else, I’m going to try and catalog my formative time with video games, from my first consoles, to certain moments that impacted my taste in video games today.

First Recollections

I can’t remember my first encounter with a video game, but I have a few that stick out when I try and think back to that moment. The following moments are probably out of order, but based on recollections and browsing the internet, I’m going to try and put these in order, although I’m most likely incorrect. Like many kids growing up when I did, I encountered Nintendo home consoles, I had a Game Boy, and one of the most impactful games for me growing up was Final Fantasy VII (but, moreso as a flash in the pan).

I think my first memory of games involve playing games on an Apple computer, model lost to history. A cousin would set me up on various Apple games, I seem to remember one about making things in a factory, perhaps I can dig up the name. That, and another relative had Oregon Trail on their computer, I was too young to understand it, I just remember all the dysentery (and how you never try and ford the river).

NES

The first home console I remember, was the original Nintendo Entertainment System. A cousin of my mom let us borrow it, and as you’d expect, I fell into the rabbit hole of some of the NES classics, like Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. Of course, I can’t remember all the games we had, but I do remember trying to play The Legend of Zelda and getting bored pretty fast (I couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8?). One game that does stick with me, is the game Pinbot, a space-themed pinball game based on the physical pinball machine of the same name. I was never very good at it, but I remember watching both my parents play, and staring in awe as they reached high scores and the pinball became a pincube. (As far as I know this lead to no difference in gameplay, it just looked rad as hell).

It’s been too long for me to remember any of the other NES games I played, other than that there were other games, none of them stick out in my memory. But the wild visuals of PinBot, and holding the Duck Hunt Zapper, stick with me to this day.

Gameboy Pocket & Pokémon Blue

I’ve tried many times to figure out when and how I received my first Game Boy. It was the blue Game Boy Pocket, and to this day I still think that’s one of the most aesthetically appealling pieces of video game hardware, right up their with the original Game Boy Advance (the horizontal one, not the SP, I think it’s waaay better than the SP). I think the earliest memory I have with it is at the after school program I went to as a kid in first or second grade, playing in the corner when I wasn’t allowed to have games out. I played 100s hours of Pokémon Blue and eventually Pokémon Yellow, as I think plenty of millennials can relate to, I of course was (and still am) into Pokémon.

I know a lot of people really like the Game Boy Color, but I think I’m the odd one out and just fine the Game Boy Pocket more pleasing. My goal is to recreate the Blue one i had growing up, albeit with an IPS screen, and all the modern bells and whistles. I don’t have any of my original consoles anymore (more on that later) - but I do have Black GBP that I just look fondly at every now and then.

Final Fantasy VII

I never owned Final Fantasy VII growing up, I was a Nintendo kid until the PS2, but I did have a cousin and some friends that had PlayStations. My first encounter with FFVII, or any Final Fantasy (that I can recall) or ever any JRPG, was watching my cousin play FFVII. And I can remember being just as blown away by the game, as so many others were. I wonder if my journey with games would be different had I gotten into JRPGs at a younger age…

Anyway, I remember the classic meme of games without any time saves, a parent (in this case, my uncle) told someone (my cousin) that they needed to turn the game off and come downstairs. It was almost comical at the time how much my uncle didn’t understand the impact of his request. We hadn’t saved in what seemed like forever, how could we turn it off now? There had to be a save point just around the corner, there had to be! 5 more minutes!

Growing Up, Away and Back Again

Over the years, I was lucky enough to have various game consoles, from a Nintendo 64 (Diddy Kong Racing still rules) to a PS2, and up through the Game Boy line - Pocket, to Color, to Advance - skipping the Advance SP, and then into the DS family. Over the years I discovered music - playing guitar and drums in various bands with friends, and ended up pursuing that heavily. Unfortunately like so many stories I’ve heard, I played fewer games, often viewing them as immature and childish.

I sold so many of my original games and consoles. I don’t dwell on that like many folks I’ve heard, “I can’t imagine what it’d be worth these days”. I sold games sometimes to help me put new heads on my drum kit or buy guitar strings and gear. I had good reasons, and I’m lucky enough to be in a position that I have a career that allows me to pursue acquisition of games and hardware I remember fondly, and even more so - games I missed out on growing up.

I’d like to be able to pin down what game it was that got me back into playing games, but I can’t recall with any certainty, just that over time, more and more games I came in contact with were pulling me back into the world of games. I’m sure there were newer Pokémon games in the mix, Final Fantasy XII is probably one of my favorite, if not favorite Final Fantasy games, and things like that just grabbed me and led me to where I am today.

These Days

Currently, I play what some might say is entirely too many games. I’m a heavy user of Backloggd.com to track games I’m playing - spending most of my time playing things on the Nintendo Switch, mainly because I’ve always been partial to handheld consoles, and while I do have a gaming PC, I spend my days at my desk working, and I’d like to… not sit at my desk all evening playing games. I also have a PS5, and have been playing things on that (mainly Sea of Stars and Chants of Sennaar). I’ve also recently been lucky enough to obtain an Analogue Pocket - Analogue’s take on the Game Boy, and have been diving deep into the Game Boy library - mainly Game Boy Advance (stay tuned for a few posts on some of the Game Boy Games I’ve been playing!)

I don’t foresee this post being static. I think over time as I explore and write more about games, I may remember some things I forgot, and think to add to this page. Most likely for no one’s sake other than my own, but either way it’s always fun to think back to growing up and the hours spent catching Pokémon, or aiming the Zapper at pixelated ducks.