Me in 10 Games

We’re closing in on the end of week 2 in Blaugust, introduction week, and I have yet to introduce myself. Normally, I prefer letting my work speak for itself. However, there are a lot of new folks participating this year in Blaugust, most of whom I don’t already know, so an introduction feels a little more necessary this year.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to tackle my introduction until I read Krikket’s Me in 10 Games post. I liked the idea so much that I decided I’d like to write my own. So I did.

Transitions are hard.

Pokémon Blue

Pokémon Blue was the first video game I ever played that wasn’t an edutainment title. It is almost certainly responsible for why I got into video games, and was a large driving force behind why I continued to play them growing up. This feels especially self-evident looking at how I’ve owned all Nintendo handhelds, which might as well have been Pokémon machines while I was growing up.

Funny anecdote about Blue: when I first played it I couldn’t figure out how to leave the starting house. We didn’t have a doormat in my house growing up, and that’s how all of the doors are marked from within buildings. So I spent an hour wandering around the house trying to figure out how to escape before asking my parents for help. What’s wild is that they didn’t even try to explain what a doormat was to me afterward – they just told me the rectangles were the doors.

Dig Dug

An arcade classic, which I played for the first time on my family computer. My dad grew up playing Dig Dug, Pac Man, and Galaga in arcades, so he kept copies of all 3 on our PC to periodically putter around with. This was great as it was my first exposure to retro titles, and might be why I still have an enormous soft spot for chunky pixel art. I may have been born into the era of 3D graphics, but I’m far more nostalgic for 2D sprite work.

Plus, these were obviously all emulated. This was back before emulators had all of the fancy features they have now, but almost certainly explains why I’ve always been in support of emulation.

Advance Wars 2

Advance Wars 2 was one of the first strategy games that I played. It’s also the first game that asked me to win by using my brain. Most of the other titles I’d played growing up were action titles that relied on a combination of dexterity and reflexes, or they were Pokémon which could very easily be brute forced by over-leveling your party for a win. Neither of those were options in Advance Wars – I had to come up with a strategy, and actually think through my actions if I wanted to win.

Naturally, I sucked donkey balls at the game. Despite that, I never stopped playing it, and after several months of on and off play, I managed to finish the campaign. The more complex turn-based strategy was far more challenging than what I was used to, but it also opened my eyes up to the enjoyment of strategy titles. Or just…games where you had to think to win.

Dark Souls

I wrote my heart out about Dark Souls in my massive retrospective last year, so obviously I have a ton of admiration for this game. It inspired many of the games that I’ve deeply enjoyed playing over the past decade. On that basis alone, I had to give it a spot here.

However, the thing that really makes Dark Souls stand-out, even from its own sequels, is its world design. The different zones are stacked atop one another, but connected in a way that makes some logical sense. It gives Dark Souls’ setting this rich sense of history that few other games manage to equal. That’s why I love Dark Souls so much – I always lose myself in its world.

Sonic Adventure 2

Look – I know this game is jank as hell, but it was also my first introduction to games with a scoring system. I have a rat in my brain that demands I pursue higher, and higher scores in any game with some kind of ranking system, and I’m pretty sure I have Sonic Adventure 2 to blame for that.

Plus the music – my god the music in Sonic Adventure 2 is great. It’s almost all 80s, and 90s style butt rock, but that’s my jam. Heck, this game might be partly responsible for why I like all of the butt rock in Guilty Gear so much.

Oh, and Chao. I’m not going to elaborate on that one. If you know, you know.

Super Mario Sunshine

I talked about Sunshine in my cozy nostalgia games post, so I’ll keep it light here. As I’ve gotten better at playing video games, I’ve increasingly become a fan of good feeling movement mechanics. Nintendo’s plumber is the king in this regard, and Sunshine will always be my favourite Mario game to replay through. Mario is extremely responsive in this title, and has a huge amount of verbs tied to the jump button. Learning to master each of these gives the game a ton of depth, and makes it fun as heck to play through over, and over again.

Wildermyth

I wouldn’t consider myself a big story guy when it comes to games. I don’t tend to like listening to mountains of exposition, nor do I appreciate set piece moments that mirror what you’d find in a Hollywood film. The former usually feels like I’m reading a really boring book, and the latter wants to be a movie so bad that it’s painful. That’s where games like Wildermyth swoop in to the rescue.

Wildermyth is a role-playing game that tries to capture the experience of playing a tabletop RPG. So many games have tried this, but fail to truly deliver an experience that is as flexible as what a human director could orchestrate. Wildermyth is the one exception I’ve found – players are given a huge range of potential actions across a campaign, and the game always feels like it remembers them. This responsive story-telling always made me feel like an active participant, so I’m way more invested than I typically get in video game stories. I wish more games were like this, and maybe someday they will be. For now, Wildermyth is my gold standard.

Bioshock

Bioshock was my first introduction to a more systems driven game. That is, it’s a game where you can exploit how the different systems work together to create solutions to problems. There isn’t necessarily a single mechanical answer to any of the problems you encounter – you’re instead expected to leverage your knowledge of the game to overcome the challenges set forward by the game.

Since then, I’ve gone on to play and enjoy several different systems driven games. Stuff like Prey, Hitman, and even the most recent Zelda titles. These are all games that I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed had Bioshock not broken me in years earlier.

MapleStory

Ok, so if you’ve read my post on why I hate MapleStory then this entry might be somewhat surprising, but hear me out. The prompt is me in 10 games, and me includes a deep seeded hatred for F2P grind-a-thons. MapleStory is entirely responsible for that, so it kinda, sorta deserves a mention here.

I’ve already gone well over my target word count here, so just go read my older post breaking down all of the terrible things MapleStory did back when I played it. That’ll give you a fairly good idea of why this bastard game completely poisoned the well water.

Guilty Gear Strive

Finally, Guilty Gear Strive. I had to include a fighting game here given its the genre I spend the most time with anymore. While Strive wasn’t my first fighting game, and my relationship with it has been somewhat tumultuous lately, I’ve still had a lot of fun playing it over the past several years. It also best encapsulates my journey with the genre over the past decade or so.

This genre of game has so much depth, and that’s what I find so endless compelling about them. It doesn’t matter how much I play – I always feel like there is something new I can learn, or improve at. It also helps that there are a lot of like-minded folks who play these titles, and meeting them over the years has given me a much better impression of the genre as a whole. Granted, I’m talking about people who actually play the game, instead of the folks who spend all their time complaining on social media. I’m not convinced those goblins actually play the games. 

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There you have it – me in 10 games. Hopefully that’ll suffice as an introduction. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one.