We have some big gamer’s on our site (myself excluded mainly due to poor hand eye coordination when it comes to video games) and we thought we’d look back at some of the games that pull on that fun little nostalgia string. Check out our eight picks below and let us know in the comments which games you would have chosen!
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Nintendo 64 (1998)
This is a game that defined what an adventure is for children all over the world in the late 1990’s. The Legend of Zelda is a series that stands the test of time for a lot of people, but Ocarina of Time was the blueprint for playing as a hero in a 3D open world for almost two decades. While the gameplay and visuals have begun to show their age, the imagination of this Zelda game carries through the years, no doubt helped by the music of Koji Kondo, and now this games uplifting and menacing themes throughout Hyrule are destined to be remembered for a lifetime. The moment I first entered the Temple of Time felt special, and even more so when Link had finally drawn the Master Sword and I found myself in a haunted future of the world I had already spent so much time exploring, making the rest of the game that much more rewarding as I restored Hyrule to its greatness one dungeon at a time. The training wheels had come off, and every moment up until you swing the blade one last time into the face of evil is completely absorbing. – Evan Griffin
Pokemon Gold & Silver
I don’t think I’ve ever bought into the hype for something more than I did for Gold & Silver. If you were in the age range to get super excited about Pokemon in 1999 and 2000 it was kind of impossible not to. I remember, before the game was even out, reading this third party walkthrough guide to the game that tried its darnedest to translate the Japanese version of the game – out nearly a year before it finally came to America – just to have a taste of it.
Advertisement
I got Pokemon Silver the day it came out, and for the life of me I can’t remember what combination of “I’ll never ask for anything again” lies and buttering up and salesman begging that convinced my parents to do this. They never bought us major purchases like this in the middle of the year. And yet, on October 15, 2000, I had the biggest game of the year, and I pretty much played it non-stop.
More so than any other of the Pokemon products I devoured between 1998 and 2001, these games stick the largest in my mind. They were fantastic, imaginative RPGs that provided a large amount of strategy, inventiveness and replay (if you were willing to erase your game save with that level 89 Slowbro). The Gold and Silver games were the pinnacle of this, polishing the roughness of the first generation with intriguing new game mechanics. The real-time system was pretty novel for the era, and the game world was impressively sprawling for a handheld game. The games (and their DS remakes) remain engaging and playable 15 years later. The Heartgold and Soulsilver remakes from a few years ago are just as great, integrating all the best gameplay mechanics from subsequent generations and ultimately making for a very satisfying update.
Oh, and if you’re wondering what my favorite Pokemon are, they were – and remain – Slowbro and Ampharos. I always had both on my G/S teams. Heracross was also a favorite, but I used that one less frequently.- Ryan Gibbs
Advertisement
Halo 3 – Xbox 360 (2007)
This evolution of the online first person shooter genre felt like an event to all fans of Halo across the globe, and no game release that has attempted to replicate it has been able to achieve the genuine hype for the conclusion of the first trilogy of Bungie’s flagship franchise. While I was familiar with Halo and Master Chief before from playing split screen multiplayer of Halo 1 and 2, and watching countless hours of the web series Red vs. Blue, Halo 3 was a lot of firsts for me in gaming. With the release of Halo 3, it was my first time owning a game in the series, but also was my first time owning an Xbox, and particularly my first time being a part of an online multiplayer community of gamers, even months before the initial release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare started an onslaught of what we know online gaming for today. Halo 3 was probably the most hours I’ve spent playing a single game: playing Capture the Flag with friends I’d met on Xbox Live, building maps with friends at home, and blasting through the Flood and the Covenant on Heroic difficulty (because Legendary is still beyond my skill level) until I knew the main story levels like the back of my hands. – Evan Griffin
Advertisement
‘Super Smash Bros’ and ‘Super Smash Bros: Melee”
When I was a kid in the 90s, the term “video games” was all but synonymous with the word “Nintendo.” The N64 was my church, where I used that awkward-trident-controller as an altar to pay my respects to the trinity of Mario, Link, and the Holy Starfox. Yet while all my favorite characters were tied to the same source, they all resided in their separate cartridge worlds. That is of course, until one fateful day in 1999, when a fun oddity called “Super Smash Bros” hit shelves to merge the franchises in violent glory, only to be followed in 2001 by an even more refined and bombastic sequel, “Super Smash Bros: Melee.”
They were the greatest fighting games I had ever experienced. Sure, I had enjoyed games like “Mortal Kombat” and “Killer Instinct,” but I could never really connect with them as a kid. The camera was too focused and up close, the controls and combos were too complicated to grasp as a six-year-old, and the characters were nearly forgettable. “Super Smash Bros” and “Super Smash Bros: Melee” were the complete opposite. They allowed for four people fighting at the same time, broadening the screen to fit entire iconic landscapes from various games and filling them with a chaos that made each match feel like a real clash, as opposed to a glorified boxing match. Smash Bros had an ingenious two-button system of simple attacks and special attacks that changed depending on how you were moving – incredibly easy to learn, and utterly satisfying to master. Finally, the roster of fighters weren’t shoddy-B-movie caricatures, they were all icons that we all already knew and loved – making it all the more satisfying when you thundershocked Donkey Kong in his smug monkey mouth, or swiped the Master Sword across the insufferable, rock-attack-spamming Kirby.
Also, they were social games. Whereas previous experiences like “The Legend of Zelda” were solitary time wasters, it was always an event to get a group to play Smash Bros together. More than that, it was so fun and accessible to us kids that we were able to discuss and debate the game on the playground at recess; for the first time in my life, video games weren’t just a thing my friends and I all did alone in our own homes. The Smash Bros games didn’t just bring iconic characters together on our TV screens, they brought us together as players in our living rooms.
Whenever I think back on my childhood, I like to think of all the good times I had, a lot of which came from video games. And best memories I have of playing video games? They’re all of “Super Smash Bros” or “Super Smash Bros: Melee.” They were simply all about having fun, and the end of the day, having fun is what video games – or even being a kid – is all about. – Alex Suffolk
Metroid Prime – Nintendo GameCube (2002)
Initially, this game terrified me. I remember how excited I was to own it as an 11 year old in Christmas of 2002, and when I finally got my hands on it, I could barely make it through the game’s prologue. The music, the dark corridors, the sudden appearance of Space Pirates and automated turrets around any possible corner overpowered my ability to shoot the power beam properly. Not to mention when you’ve defeated the boss and you’re trying to escape from the ship with a limited amount of time. I died countless times, and then put the game down for months. I picked it up again almost a year later, and when I finally escaped from the exploding space vessel and defeated a Parasite Queen, I could swear I never felt more alive before than that moment. That’s what a Metroid game is supposed to feel like: it thrusts you into an atmospheric, and eerily vertical environment, and you outwit the world’s creatures until you become unstoppably powerful. While most people will point to Prime’s predecessor, Super Metroid, as one of the greatest games of all time, Prime was my first Metroid game, and it achieves everything Super Metroid did, but in 3D. The adrenaline rush that you feel trying to keep Samus alive, despite being in complete isolation, is so mesmerizing, especially when you discover new mysteries in the deep tunnels of a forgotten planet. – Evan Griffin
Sonic Adventures
It’s an odd thing to remember so vividly, but it sticks out in my head: New Year’s Eve, 1998. I was four-years-old and was being dragged to a family friend’s house for a party. Since my older sister wanted to go because her friends was at the party, I couldn’t be left home alone. Because of my age and the small height that came with it, all I saw at eye level were the legs of grown-ups and occasional reminders of how cute I was. But that came with perks, since the teenage son of the family friend called me over to where he and his friends were gathered around a TV. In one of the first moments of feeling like a big kid, I cautiously walked over and he asked an interesting question:
“Have you ever heard of Sonic?”
I had not and with that, he showed my what everyone was gathered around: a Sega Dreamcast plugged into a TV that showed a spunky blue animal fighting a blue mutant alien to some awesome rock music playing in the background. I was sold then, and 17 years later I’m still sold.
Sonic Adventure was like Super Mario 64 for hyper action junkies. Whether you were cruising around Station Square and the Mystic Ruins or bouncing off the walls of Windy Valley and the Egg Carrier’s Sky Deck, you were always in motion. It’s the simplest of game structures (get from Point A to Point B), but it moves with such vibrant energy. It’s like the perfect sugar rush with its bright colors and 3D graphics. Everything about it was a joy to play.
The same goes for its sequel, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, released two years later. It follows the same story and level format while expanding the level design into something truly awe-inspiring. I’m not ashamed to admit I got lost in the design of Pumpkin Hill, Sky Rail, White Jungle and Radical Highway. The sequel also adds to its capability by being able to hunt for emeralds or charge through with giant robots. Hell, I even got sucked into using the Chao Garden.
And that soundtrack…good golly god that soundtrack. What other soundtrack has early-2000’s alt-rock, girly R&B and dope rhymes ALL TOGETHER?!?! I’ve paid money on iTunes to hear those songs in daily rotation in my iPod with Drake, Aerosmith, New Found Glory and Kendrick Lamar. Who wouldn’t?
The Sonic Adventure games have a special place in my heart because they were simple games that expanded the imagination of a game. Sure graphics in games have improved and Sonic is more of a walking punchline these days, but I’ll be damned if anyone tells me both Adventure games aren’t timeless classics. LET’S GET ‘EM!!! -Jon Winkler
RESIDENT EVIL 2
I distinctly recall countless sleepovers at my great-grandparents’ house over the years. Like many kids our age, my cousin Eric and I were big into video games. The N64 alone holds a special place in my heart. Out of all the games we played, for some reason I consider Resident Evil 2 my most nostalgic gaming experience. I guess it’s due to the subsequent sleepless nights caused by playing it. We weren’t exactly good at the game. The mechanics were hard to master and we would spam through bullets without a second thought. For a game based around survival, we sure didn’t last very long.
As I got older, my appreciation for the game grew. I’m a huge fan of the franchise in general (yes, even the maligned Resident Evil 6). I find myself replaying through an entry at least once a year. It’s always Resident Evil 2 that seems to be my first option. In hindsight, I think it’s half nostalgia and half ingenuity. Out of all the games made prior to the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube era, it perfectly balanced both halves of what defined Resident Evil. The first game, while still excellent, was a little over reliant on puzzle solving. The third game, Resident Evil: Nemesis, went overboard in regards to horror/action. Resident Evil 2 manages to perfectly blended both together. The puzzles were not frequent but they were nevertheless challenging. There certainly was no shortage of zombies and other T-virus infected monsters either.
With the recent announcement of a remake, I’m sure Resident Evil 2 may garner more attention. A remake did wonders for the original game on the Gamecube. I’m sure that I’ll be first in line to purchase it. With that said, there’s something about that original game that can’t quite be duplicated. That may be because I still have flashbacks to my younger self playing it well past my bedtime. Then again, maybe it’s the questionable voice acting the series is known for. -Matthew Goudreau
Mario Kart Double Dash – Game Cube
Listen, I didn’t have a lot of video games when I was a kid, and you could ask anyone I know and they’d tell you that my main strategy is video gaming is button smashing and hiding my character. However, I can crush you in Mario Kart Double Dash, no questions asked. It’s the first video game I ever seriously owned (not including Pac Man on my gameboy) and I remember hours (days even) being dedicated to playing the game and getting better and better.
The big moment in the game was when he unlocked the extra courses, and my family and I were introduced to the hellish Rainbow Road. It was seemingly impossible, with the only way to win without getting dizzy was to go at snail speed.
This was a game that I played with my family in my early years of middle school and later in high school with friends and then, even in college after someone dusted off their old Game Cube. I’m still not a big gamer (Dragon Age was fun but I cannot for the life of me keep the point of view steady) but Double Dash still brings a bit of nostalgia. – Allyson Johnson
Advertisement