Most Nostalgic Games

[Venetia]

What games do you feel most strongly about, in terms of nostalgia & happy memories?


Got the idea for this topic when I wrote:

HL1 was pretty much one of the first FPSs ever to have NPCs that interact with you and scenes that play out around you in a meaningful way
and i remember when the Source demo was FIRST released--the scene with the polluted river and the bits and barrels that reacted to physics, and the light & sound effects--i flipped the shit out, back in 2003-4 it was SO AMAZING and revolutionary, and waited on bated breath for HL2 to come out, and then--EGADS--the game LIVED UP TO THE HYPE for the first time in EVER. i was already 18 or 19 when it came out but i felt like a kid again in regards to all that imagination-inspiring "i've-had-my-expectations-validated" sort of way.

so im biased based on nostalgia i guess, but i've replayed all (HL1+exps+HL2+eps1+2) only as of a few months ago and still had a ton of fun so

Nostalgia's a big factor for me in favoritism. My favorite game series (Half Life) & my favorite game of all time (Pharaoh) are STRONGLY tied to nostalgia. Lost a lot of time I probably could have been spending on doing important things by playing the shit out of those games when I was a teen & young adult.

Also I have very fond memories of Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers (the game), as that was the 1st game I ever played on my own home console (NES). That level with the kangaroos used to FUCK ME UP.

Similarly, my most favorite adventure games of all time are tied between the early Leisure Suit Larrys (1-3) and King's Quest I-V (especially IV and V), as they were some of the first PC games that I ever played which had COLOR GRAPHICS (wooooowwww)! Up to that point, I had been making my own games of Snake or Tic Tac Toe in BASIC on DOS (which was a good learning experience, but not terribly fun).
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was technically the first PC adventure game I played. It was on like 3 or 4 floppy disks that I kept having to change out. I was only like 6 or 7 at the time, so the game was -VERY- non-age-appropriate, but that made it better because I could only play it by sneaking around when my parents weren't looking
Didn't get most of the jokes or innuendos until I played it again later, though ;x
(I remember being confused as shit at the rubber doll that deflated and had to be chased, haha)


Anyway, talk about the games you love because of nostalgia (and say why! like what memories are tied to it?)!

 

[Fusty]

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

I suspect more people would pick this game.
For me it holds special value because it was one of the first games I ever played and actually the first one I ever finished by myself.
I was obviously much younger at the time and I remember that I was always too affraid to leave Kokiri Forest because of the monsters that would come out at night in Hyrule Field.
I'd go out there and run back like hell as soon as one of those creatures popped up, they really scared the shit out of me.
And then, one day, something snapped and I decided to finally venture out into Hyrule field and face my fears, the dreaded Stalchilds!

Turned out that they were piss easy to defeat and from that moment on I was completely hooked on the Zelda series.
Besides that I just think it's one of the best Zelda games ever made, the story, the gameplay and even the graphics, they were all incredible.

I actually thought that no game would ever surpass it in my favourite game list, but now it seems that the new game,Skyward Sword, has done just that.
As far as nostalgia goes though, OOT is definately at the top.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete

I'm only going to mention this game for now.

I remember playing this game DAILY with my old best friend, Junior and my little brothers. I remember staying at Junior's house an singing the themesong with him and outclassing his voice by a whole bunch!

There was a boss fight with Ghaleon that we could NOT beat. But we kept going hard and strong, and when we did... We literally had a party.

Lunar was the game that got me to draw in anime style, as I would draw the main female, Luna ALL the time. I didn't even know it was called anime, I just drew her because she was pretty. XD

I own the game twice: The PS1 version and the PSP version. Still haven't beaten the PSP version, as I'm still working on that. >>;;

 

[bacon]

Donkey King 64 is the first thing I think of when I think of the word nostalgia. It wasn't the best of games. The controls could be kind of clunky and certain times and the camera could get really frustrating at some times but the game was extremely fun. Saving all the kongs and collecting all of those golden bananas was a blast. Everything was set up in such a way where everything was accessible given the right skills. And the lands were all so creative and neat. There were some weird ass difficulty spikes in certain places but for the most part they were optional.

What made the game fun was that it was charming. There was always something neat to do. From racing cars down the corridors of a toy factory to playing the old school Donkey Kong arcade game the game would always be amusing and entertaining. And its one of those things I can go back to years later and appreciate it even more because now I actually know what i am doing instead of being a little kid and just sort of guess and checking.

 

[bacon]

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

I suspect more people would pick this game.
For me it holds special value because it was one of the first games I ever played and actually the first one I ever finished by myself.
I was obviously much younger at the time and I remember that I was always too affraid to leave Kokiri Forest because of the monsters that would come out at night in Hyrule Field.
I'd go out there and run back like hell as soon as one of those creatures popped up, they really scared the shit out of me.
And then, one day, something snapped and I decided to finally venture out into Hyrule field and face my fears, the dreaded Stalchilds!

Turned out that they were piss easy to defeat and from that moment on I was completely hooked on the Zelda series.
Besides that I just think it's one of the best Zelda games ever made, the story, the gameplay and even the graphics, they were all incredible.

I actually thought that no game would ever surpass it in my favourite game list, but now it seems that the new game,Skyward Sword, has done just that.
As far as nostalgia goes though, OOC is definately at the top.

Haha this is super nostalgia for me. I remember my dad picked this game up and at the time i was like 4-5 and he would play it and I would watch him. He used to be a stay at home dad and would work during the nights so I would always get to see him play it. Then I had to go to Kindergarten and missed a bunch of him playing.

He got really stuck on the Shadow Temple boss. Like he tried a bunch of times and would always die he was awful. Then he let me try it and i beat it first try x;
He also was stuck on the water temple for at least 3 months x;

 

[Xhukari]

I'd say in no particular order; Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Spyro 2.

The first two play heavily on the music use and their serious tones, and both gave me some frights and a lil' child. MGS did with when you got discovered and the encounter music kicked in and your radar was blocked. RE3 did it of course, with none other than Nemesis. I've recently completed that game again, and he still gets me when eh jumps out on you; even if you KNOW he will... Its even worse fi you try to escape, as you can hear him catching up to you with his theme playing in the background, following you for several rooms..

Now the biggest difference here is Spyro 2, it is the only Spyro game I played, but I loved how realized the game world was with the different destinations, bosses, abilities, fun character and its light tone. Out of the three it is the only one I haven't finished. (Such a damn long game...)

If I have to narrow it down to one, I would say RE3 (Not that I got very far as a child.. scared the life out of me!)
Uuuargh, S.T.A.R.S!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

If I have to narrow it down to one, I would say RE3 (Not that I got very far as a child.. scared the life out of me!)
Uuuargh, S.T.A.R.S!

OMG, I can't say the word "Stars", so whenever we were playing RE3, she would have me shout "STARS!" so she could laugh at me. :X

 

[Meness]

I was born in 1996 so I wasn't really exposed to the NES and even SNES stuff. Adding to that, where I live, there were no NES's for sale (to my knowledge anyway). Fortunately, my uncles owned some bootleg shit that played NES games on bootleg cartridges :x and maaaaaaaaaaaaan, do I love going to my grandma's house to play that console. I was young and quite frankly sucked at all the games they had, so most of the time I would be spectator instead of player. And I enjoyed that, very much. Just thinking about it --aunts & uncles and my sister & I, all huddled together on a small TV screen to watch someone playthrough-- gives me such a warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling. Gah, what I'd do to go back to those times.

With all that cleared up; even though they had quite a number of games, the one that stuck to me so long to the point where I eventually played it on an emulator by myself was this game called Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRptSTkCXOY

It isn't a great game or anything, but I loved it. I liked the concept of going around different places collecting parts of a time machine (oops spoiler). Idk, I could replay this game for an unhealthy amount of times lol.

Also, almost all NES tunes bring these weird tears to my eyes............................

AND THEN, I got a PSOne for Christmas.

There are a lot of games that induce nostalgia on the psone for me. I won't bother naming the popular ones e.g Crash, Spyro. Okay, I might get a lot of rebuke for this but I have to say I love the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone video game :x There was a season in time where I would play that game like a madman after school all the way to dinner. What makes it even more special to me, however, is the fact that this was the game that made me experienced gastric pain (I'm not sure whether this is the correct term..). I just couldn't bother eating.......I regret it so but still I love the game as it taught me responsibility (YES I AM RETARDED, ALRIGHT?) to see to my needs. Another game is TOMBA. ahmygee, it's a gem that no one I know has played before. Everything in that game just connected with me....it was perfect.

I might have sidetracked or w/e..idk i'm tired sorry :/

 

[Fusty]

He also was stuck on the water temple for at least 3 months x;

God the Water Temple... without a doubt one of the most annoying dungeons I have ever encountered.
I remember being stuck in a certain room, so I started exploring the rest of the temple for DAYS, only to find out that you could simply swim up in the room I was in before...

 

[Fusty]

Also, I thought of another one:

Diddy Kong Racing

It's pretty much a Mario Kart clone, but for some reason I always enjoyed this game much more. (I also had Mario Kart at the time.)
I used to play this game with my best friend, it was an absolute blast!
The character in the picture is Tip-Tup which I ALWAYS used.
About a year back I started playing it again on an emulator and finally did what I could never do in my "younger days", beat the entire game..
Ahh the memories.. Makes me wanna invite my friend over to play this again. :d

 

[No ID]

sonic spinball

Altered beast

lol crazy games i know, but i would play them today just because i could never beat them when i was a kid.

 

[Xhukari]

If I have to narrow it down to one, I would say RE3 (Not that I got very far as a child.. scared the life out of me!)
Uuuargh, S.T.A.R.S!

OMG, I can't say the word "Stars", so whenever we were playing RE3, she would have me shout "STARS!" so she could laugh at me. :X

Haha, excellent! XD
Were you trying to say it like Nemesis did?

Also, I thought of another one:

Diddy Kong Racing

It's pretty much a Mario Kart clone, but for some reason I always enjoyed this game much more. (I also had Mario Kart at the time.)
I used to play this game with my best friend, it was an absolute blast!
The character in the picture is Tip-Tup which I ALWAYS used.
About a year back I started playing it again on an emulator and finally did what I could never do in my "younger days", beat the entire game..
Ahh the memories.. Makes me wanna invite my friend over to play this again. :d

Haha yes, this was a awesome game!
I loved how you could use car, hovercraft or plane! So awesome. Never beat ti either, I got stuck on the rematch with the triceratops.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

If I have to narrow it down to one, I would say RE3 (Not that I got very far as a child.. scared the life out of me!)
Uuuargh, S.T.A.R.S!

OMG, I can't say the word "Stars", so whenever we were playing RE3, she would have me shout "STARS!" so she could laugh at me. :X

Haha, excellent! XD
Were you trying to say it like Nemesis did?

Yup! I did. XD It was good fun.

Ahhh, the good ol' days... ^___^

 

[dadevvtsvre]

Chip's Challenge

This was a semi-obscure puzzle game released for computers back in 1989. It was a simple little game that we had back on our old Windows 95 and provided some of my earliest experiences ever with video games. I was probably about 5 or 6 years old when my mom introduced me to this game, and I remember it so well because I think my mom loved this game as much as I did.

We would sit on the computer and collaborate for hours trying to figure out how to beat the game's 100+ levels. After beating a level you could get a code that would automatically send you to that level when you restarted the game, and I remember my mom getting a big sheet of paper and writing down every code for each level. I wonder if we still have that paper somewhere? Regardless, I still have very fond memories from my childhood of playing this game with my mom.

Mario Kart 64

The first video game I ever played or owned. My dad bought our family a Nintendo 64 back in 1997 when I was four years old. I remember not knowing who any of the characters were, or even how to play the game really, but loving it nonetheless. This game was a family favourite for years, and I remember having a bunch of friends over even in the mid-2000s to play this game. It may have been replaced by newer versions of Mario Kart but it will forever be my first foray into the wonderful world of video games.

Pokemon Red

I think most kids born in the late 80s or early 90s was obsessed with Pokemon at one point. For a few people, like me, that obsession has carried on more than 15 years later as one of my favourite video game series. I remember the whole Pokemon-hysteria that circulated around our school back when this game was released, and when I was five years old this was at the very top of my Christmas wish list. I still remember writing to Santa about how badly I wanted a Game Boy Colour and this game. Wish granted.

I don't think there's a single game I've played more than Pokemon Red. I put some serious hours into this thing, and I would reckon I've beaten it on the order of four or five times. I played this game so much that just hearing some of the soundtrack or sound effects is enough to make me feel like I'm seven years old again. I remember sleepovers with friends where we would stay up late into the night playing this, long road trips, recess at school. I don't know if there's a single video game that inspired more rumours and mythological fascination than the original Pokemon Red and Blue. I mean, what kid didn't know about Missingno, or was told that you could catch Mew underneath the truck by the S.S. Anne? And when you combine an almost religious devotion to the TV show (oh god the TV show) I don't think any game can sum up my childhood better than Pokemon Red.

 

[Fusty]

Holy crap how could I forget Pokémon! 0.o
In my case it was Pokémon Gold/Silver though, I played the shit out of that with my cousin each summer.
Our families used to go on summer vacations together so each year we'd compete to see who could finish the game first, and end up with the most legendary/rare Pokémons.
I played Red & Blue as well but not nearly as much as Gold & Silver.

Good times

 

[candle]

For some reason, a lot of Dreamcast games make me feel nostalgic, despite never having had that system or really played any of its games until a few years ago in college. The DC games that get me the most are Sonic Adventure, Jet Set Radio, and Shenmue - all three of which I currently have.

 

[Toams]

Man, a little while ago I've rounded up all of the games that I felt nostalgic about, some of them were pretty hard to find. Of course there are the obvious ones, like Zelda and other N64 titles, and pokemon OF COURSE.

CAPTAIN CLAW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsY3Lt5vJwk
Captain claw, 2D furry bad-ass. I think the gameplay speaks for itself. It's a pretty cool long 2d platformer, with lots of different locations, art, and enemies, and not to forget the loot. I don't remember ever getting past level 3 maybe, except when I found out cheat codes and got older. Even though using cheats, the game was still good, because I wanted to see what happened, and which enemies you'd have to defeat. Without cheats it was so hard, but so satisfying.

SUPER BUBSY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5FR5coDNzk
The pc version, man it was so hard, but when I revisited it years later it was pretty doable. I don't know if it was coincidence that the lead in this game is also a cat, I'm not really a cat person though so it might just be. I don't really like the game, it just has this 'o hey I remember this' value.

DINK SMALLWOOD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDHQ17Gf34c
Hahaha, this game is so weird, but I see it's now out for ios and android too. Man I have to redownload this. I really liked this game, don't know if I ever completed it, since it was so hard. Games used to be hard.

and this, even though it is/was just a demo: http://archive.org/details/AkumaDemonSpawnDemo

There's also this other game I can remember, but I don't know the title, and am uncertain about the gameplay too.

This is just the tip of the iceberg though, there are so many more games that I remember and would like to play again, I'm going to download them all, and put them somewhere safe, only to revisit them in 40 years from now, great plan.

 

[Xilef]

Nostalgia titles to me are games that I play but I don't actually find them fun or any good, I only play them for the memories.


Pokemon R/B - The originals are so clunky I can't play them anymore without stressing out :<
Goldeneye 64 - This will never make my top games list because it's so shit, it has aged terribly, there are films like Wizard of Oz that are still good films to this day, but Goldeneye is just boring as hell. All the nostalgia lies in the multiplayer, at boarding school we just played this over and over, MK64 too.
Mario Kart 64 - This has become a nostalgia title for me too, why play this when MKDS is just so much better?
Catacomb 3D - This isn't a fun game and is just massively mazey, but it has retro-cool on it's side.
Duke Nukem 3D - I only load this up for nostalgia, I don't really have fun playing it.
Super Mario Bros. - The lack of player control after you press that jump button really pisses me off. It's all nostalgia.
Star Wars Dark Forces - I played the demo of this as a child quite a bit, bought it on Steam last year only for the nostalgia. The Windows version isn't as good as the Mac version, so I'm a bit disappointed as I was a Mac gamer as a child.
Marathon and Marathon Infinity - The Marathon series I played a LOT as a child, had it on Mac and when it came out freeware I had got the trilogy on a free CD with Mac Format, only Durandal is any fun for me, and that's only the co-op part, I remember doing some network games with like 20 people co-op'ing on one map with Durandal.
Pathways into Darkness - I love this game, but it's such hard work playing through it, plus the limited play time on the bomb makes it slightly stressful if you want to trudge through and work out 'what the hell happened down here', I only load it for nostalgia, it hasn't aged well (But aged better than Goldeneye in my opinion).
Quake II - It hardly makes you want you to play it over and over (Unlike Half-Life), it was good at it's time though, but I only play this for nostalgia. Quake I is still fun to me.
Quake III - Why would anyone load this up when Quake Live exists? Nostalgia.
Doom II - I don't find this one as fun as the first one (Which I still play every now and then), so it's a nostalgia title.


Out of all of these games, the only one I think would be great if it was modernised, only leaving the genre of the game and the story/setting the same, is Pathways into Darkness. I still enjoy Half-Life 1, I love the setting because it's like, you're in an underground facility, the surface being shelled constantly, the rooms you are in are falling apart, the military is hunting you, it all feels like actual Guerrilla warfare, and to this date it's the only FPS game that has felt like that for me, ever. Ever ever ever. Pathways into Darkness has a similar lonesome feel to it, having to dodge around corners to take out larger groups of enemies via quick bursts of fire before running around after them, I can imagine a modern version having tighter corridors with moss and plants growing through the brick work, the only ally you have is the sound of your own breath through the darkness of the tunnels and the conversations of the dead echo'ing through you, System Shock 2 style visions of ghosts, it would be great if you could see the ghosts in their last state, the one who lost his legs staring at you from the ground with ghostly eyes, unable to move but talking calmly to you about his own death through the pitch-black silence of the pyramid, it would be so fantastic, even if they butchered the gameplay, the mere setting is so unique and can be explored with modern tech to make a really terrifying game in a way that no-one else has yet done.

I'm starting to want to abandon my projects and remake PiD again, I made clones of it before but a full-remake would be amazing. The ghosts could talk to you by projecting their ghostly faces onto the skulls of their physical bodies and just stare and talk to you in the same manner as Bishop in Alien. Oh god I want this so bad.

Would be so good if the deeper you got in the pyramid the more crazed your vision gets, so you feel like things are getting further and further from reality and that could help with explaining the funky distance measurements as you get closer to the god, a compass could start frazzing out and spinning and all these psycho scary effects, I'll have to step away from the computer before I start designing a hefty document for this.

 

[bacon]

Pikmin 2
Yes this game came out in 2004 but it is still one of the most nostalgic games I play. It was the first game other than mario where I actively seeked to 100% it (and to this day i still havent x. It was the game that introduced me to collecting everything and exploring every area and it opened my eyes to certain genres like RPGs. It changed my opinion of games and what I wanted to play from games.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Another GC game. This was the first RPG I actively played and beat other than pokemon. The writing is great, the gameplay is great, just everything about this game is witty and creative and just fun. I didnt mind all of the talking because the dialogue and writing were great. I never played the one for the N64 (always wanted to at the time [Ive played it now that im older]) making this the first paper mario and one of the first RPGs I played.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I nostalga'd all over this game yesterday. D=

I used to play this one with my brother ALL the time. Tee-hee.

Also: Twinsen's Odyssey XD

The robot bunnies used to scare me. ._.