What's your greatest "gaming high" you've been chasing ever since? Please take care not to spoil anything, if you are going to be story-specific.

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨eru777@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨retrogaming@lemmy.world⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0c0d89fa-dde3-468e-86fd-09fce954bb9c.png

For 90s kids, there will be no explanation necessary. For others, well, pokemon was a phenomenon. It was everywhere, on TV, in magazines, toys, stickers. You could trade pokemon at the school excursion on the bus. You felt alive in this world, pokemon gen 1-2 were the pinnacle of pokemon for me. And in gen2, finishing the game, and lo and behold, there’s a whole other region (kanto) waiting for you to explore it. The night cycle in the game blew my mind in ways that I have been chasing ever since. I know it will never be reached again, but the memory will remain as powerful as it was that evening of the early 00s. What is your greatest gaming high, that you know will never be topped again, and that you have been chasing ever since?

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Donebrach@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Not really a thing I’ve been chasing but I did really enjoy the time I was home sick from work and spent all day playing Super Mario Odyssey back when it first came out. I really felt like I was a kid again and hadn’t felt that before or since.

Middle of the road millennial for age context.

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wide_eyed_stupid@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Ragnarok Online. Before the third jobs, and without donation items and high rates. I played on the kRO server for a while and afterwards for many years on a 5/5/3 private server. I still remember how it felt, the first time I played it. Never found anything like it again.

Now, I’ve played a lot of amazing games and some of them really hit me in the feels, but this was the first MMORPG I played, ever. I was like what, 15? when I started playing and I played this game with the same people, for years. In the same guild, over Ventrilo, I knew these people. From all over the world, we’d even set alarms and such to make sure people were there when WoE started and half of us were sleeping due to time zones, or to make sure we could keep the MVP boss schedules. Some of us even met in real life, we talked off-game as well. We grew up together, quite literally, from teenager to adult. It’s not surprising it left such a mark, I guess. Nowadays… well I’ve tried MMO’s but it just isn’t like that anymore.

I only have to listen to the soundtrack, music from Prontera or Amatsu, and boom, nostalgia!

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Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Learning I only beat half of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and then playing the rest. And then playing it again and again, and finding new crazy weapons I’d never seen before. Learning that some weapons (like Sword of Dawn) do something other than just slash. Later reading GameFaqs .txt guides to learn about even more stuff I had no idea about, so end up playing it even more.

And playing Final Fantasy 7 right before all of that. When the demo disc of Final Fantasy 7 came out (inside a Playstation Underground magazine), I lost me shit. I had loved, loved, loved FF4 and 6 (2 and 3 in the US), and 7 was just insane. The graphics, the music, everything. Absolutely revolutionary. That game was a reason to buy a PS1. I remember maxing out the playtime at 99 hours in my first playthrough.

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ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Two that come to mind:

One that I still remember from high school. It was just a simple Counter Strike match. But it was down to me and one other guy. I switched to knife, turned the corner, there he was, going the other way. He didn’t see me. So I followed him, riiight behind him, around several corners, while chat spectated. Still never noticed. I finally knifed him in the back, chat erupted, I felt like a god even though I sucked at Counter Strike.

Winning my first Rocket League tournament after years. It really felt like I’d done something that mattered.
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mavu@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Playing Wing Commander very late at night, hit a large glass water bottle off the table with my elbow, and catch it with the same arm/hand before it reaches the floor to shatter and wake up the whole family.

Peak reaction times induced by VideoGame adrenaline never reached again.

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Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
FF IX. I’ll never get that again.

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MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Halo 3 Multiplayer before system party calls were a thing

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- yermaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The proximity chat where you could hear the enemy if you were close to them. Serious psyops. Hiding in their base and announcing to your teammates “im hiding by their warthog spawn they dont even know hahaha” and watching them all leave the flag to go get sniped while you nick it.
  
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rodneylives@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Katamari Damacy

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- Ashtear@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  FF6 is mine. That moment when they turn the corner and the world map music changes. Beyond cathartic. The 3-4 hour tension and release they set up in that part of the game is an incredible design triumph.
  
  I did okay with the delays in FF7 but it was absolutely unbearable by FF9. On the plus side, that drove me to discover Suikoden merely because it had instant transitions.
  
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dbtng@eviltoast.org ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
DOOM II. Sinking the final rocket into the demon’s brain on L30 Icon of Sin. I did it before Z-axis engines like ZDoom. 30 years ago? Something like that.
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The very last level is worthy. You must train in order to finish it. I could not do it today without a month or two of practice.
These days if I want that rush, I boot up DOOM 2016 and play the first level on Ultra-Nightmare Arcade.

I did enjoy killing every last Brotherhood of Steel member in the airbase and then blowing up the Institute in FO4. That wasn’t a rush, it was a culmination of about 800 hours. I was done. Kill em all now.

More recently, the first time I killed the final boss in Risk of Rain 2 was quite satisfying. Took about 3 months.

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- Teppichbrand@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Hey, just in case people don’t know: There is a very lively community still playing Doom II. There are incredible mods and maps, from minor addons to gamechanging mechanics. I love Brutal Doom for it’s modern shooter feel and the pixel-gore. But there is loads of other stuff, years of fun!
  
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ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Man, I was playing Borderlands (1) on PC, playing as Roland with the support gunner class mod. I had a couple of Tediore legendaries, I believe it was the revolver and the combat rifle, and I just reached this zen state near the end of the game, shooting at these seemingly endless waves of enemies just coming from everywhere. thanks to the guns and class mod I never had to worry about picking up ammo, it was just constantly spitting lead in every direction, and it just clicked, it was golden and beautiful.

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- BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Borderlands 2 was fun, but Borderlands 1 is the game I replay.
  
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- Drusas@fedia.io ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The only way that Borderlands 2 was a real improvement over the first one was the auto money picku to-up. I know many or most will disagree with me, but I don't care. I have beaten both games more than once and I always go back to the first one. I find it much funnier than the second, and the second went overboard with the variety of weapons to the extent that everything was basically garbage. I did enjoy using keys to get mystery loot, though.
  
  Also, Bloodwing for life.
  
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- dbtng@eviltoast.org ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Crawmax. That was really fun with a group.
  
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Pulptastic@midwest.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’ve had a few over the years. In high school I got all stars in Mario 64 and I beat Quake 2 without getting shot for the lulz.

In college I went through and beat all of the Adventures of Lolo games. I played hundreds of hours of FFXI but the real gem was later on when I could solo almost anything, including legendary Pokémon that normally take a party of six.

Portal and portal 2 are great experiences I’ve been through a few times.

I was obsessed over Pokémon Y. It was the first time I got into breeding perfect Pokémon with egg moves, hidden abilities, and perfect or zero IVs. I also tried for weeks to get 100 consecutive victories in Battle Maison but the third time I failed at 99 because the game cheats I threw in the towel.

In Pokémon Scarlet I really got into shiny hunting and have 200+ now. I also tried Masuda method for the first time but dang is that slow.

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the16bitgamer@programming.dev ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Chrono Trigger, and finishing the games first full arc. What would normally be the end literally showed me that this game had so much more, which expanded the more I played it.

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DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The last time must have been when Valheim released. That shit got me hooked. Now I am waiting for the Deep North biome to finish development before I play it again.

Now that I think about it the last time was when Schedule 1 released.

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- krooklochurm@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Valium was truly magical for me too.
  
  I played on a custom server with four friends but I had, like, way more time for gaming than then.
  
  Or rather I made the time.
  
  We had a mutual base it eventually I just said fuck it and went off into the world and built my own. I went absolutely apeshit. Giant walls, neatly organized chests. I was obsessed with making an indoor dock big enough for a boat to go in. I ended up besting the game while they kind of just gave up but the first time I got on a boat and just kind of sailed into the unknown was absolutely magical. Of course goblins and mosquitoes killed me more times than I can count but I’ll never forget that feeling.
  
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- WhiteRice@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  soft smelting and forging sounds beckon
  
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Greddan@feddit.org ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Saints Row Co-op over systemlink with a monitor each up on the sofa table (also a bong each on the sofa table).

Star Wars Galaxies before the horrible updates and Jedi inflation.

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1XEVW3Y07@reddthat.com ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The only console I had exposure to as a young child was the Gameboy.

At a birthday sleepover with some friends, we all stayed up late into the night playing the original Nazi Zombies map from COD: WAW. Nothing has ever beat the sheer joy and fun I had with that initial playthrough.

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B0NK3RS@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
For me it’s probably playing online games like BF2, Day of Defeat Source, TF2 and Live for Speed in about 2005-07. Communities and community servers back then were different and sorely missed.

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cannedtuna@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Mech Assault 1 & 2, particularly 2. The two most memorable boss fights for me was the mid game one where you fight some giant robot bull thing in a tiny exosuit while Getting Away with Murder by Papa Roach Plays, and the final fight where you fight a half built giant mech again in the exosuit while Right Now by Korn plays.

Also I really liked Halo 2 for the banshee dogfight with Follow by Incubus in the background and the big Mausoleum fight at the end of Gravemind with Blow Me Away by Breaking Benjamin plays; the part where the doors open and the bell starts to toll chefs kiss. Oh and the whole level where you drive a tank up the bridge chasing down a Scarab too.

Also, why has there been no remake of Crimson Skies yet? That game was so much damn fun. I miss the dog fighting and crazy guns.

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- __hetz@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  For a very brief moment in time I held the leaderboard for the Bowman in Mech Assault. I think the main contender at the time was a total loudmouth and XBL Forum regular with the gamertag “GeorgeTheGreek.” A certified shit talker, but he was also damned good with that Mech. One of my fondest memories of the game was using the Bowman to stomp someone in an Atlas on the city map (River City?). I hadn’t seen it done before, and most others in the lobby must not have either, because a bunch of them went ape. My team might’ve still gone on to lose, I seem to recall the map meta being “pick a Mad Cat and sit back sniping,” but that moment was worth any outcome.
  
  OG Xbox Live was probably my favorite console experience after Quake 3 Arena on Dreamcast. I wouldn’t own a console after the 360. My next favorite console experience was when a buddy got Mortal Kombat 2 online for his PS3. One regular, whose name I’ve forgotten, would bust out all the old glitches (could’ve been using a macro controller) but it was the first time I’d send Fatality Friendship on the Kombat Tomb stage. Another had a novelty account named “ItsTheToe” that always played as Liu Kang. Anyone familiar with MK2 would know his crouching low kick was this stupid stick-his-toe-out move that was nearly impossible for any of the ninjas to jump kick into. Absolutely hilarious when I first encountered them, then frustrating but rewarding having to relearn my favorite three characters to deal with them.
  
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  - cannedtuna@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You just reminded me, I also played the shit out of Unreal Tournament 3 and briefly held a double digit rank in Team Capture the Flag. Loved that game overall and I liked the addition of that hoverboard.
    
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CaptainBasculin@lemmy.bascul.in ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Rhythm Doctor boss stages. Each one is an amazing showcase of visuals on a rhythm game with the simplest control scheme ever. And the game’s final stage, the full release is in December 10.

With each stage exceeding my expectations by a long shot, I can’t wait to see what they’ll do this time.

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SpikesOtherDog@ani.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Two different things:

I was infatuated with Halflife and unable to function in life for a certain amount of time. I would say it did a number on my first run at college, but there was a lot going on there.

As a teen, I was the annoying kid that didn’t have their own games at home, or at least any of the good ones. I would go over my friend’s house and they would be stuck on a boss level only for me to win when the controller is passed over to me.

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- dbtng@eviltoast.org ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What do you think of Black Mesa? I haven’t finished the whole game. I did play the Xen stuff when they first released it.
  
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  - SpikesOtherDog@ani.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It’s on my radar, but I’m focused on other stuff now.
    
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Cybersteel@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Being in the zone, utterly focused at defeating ~~glock~~ Sword Saint Isshin. Doing it so many times that trouncing Genichirou pre-Ishin was a given, a warm up even, before going for the main dude.

Nine balls and more nine balls and more nine balls in Armoured Core Q_Q.

Penetrator from Demon Souls.

Malenia.

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- BurntWits@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I remember reaching that point with Isshin, where Genichiro was something I could basically do in my sleep.
  
  Did you do the Elden Ring DLC? If so, how’d you feel about the final boss there? I found that to be the hardest boss they’ve released, more than Isshin or Malenia.
  
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  - Cybersteel@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I just finished Elden Ring a few weeks ago so no. Elden Beast was a pita since I was maining rivers of blood and put points into arcane. As you know he’s immune to bleed so I gave up and switch to an occult uchigatana instead using the default skill.
    
    For these types of games I usually take my time and definitely does take me a long time to beat them. Though it’s mostly in spurts. If I feel the itch I can probably blitz through the games pretty quickly. For example I took like a six months break after I encountered Isshin. After that, I beat him after a few tries and proceeded to NG+4 the game to get all the endings and skill PTS to complete all the achievos within a few weeks.
    
    I’ll eventually get around to Shadow of the Erdtree though. Nightreighn on the other hand I’m not sure I’ll play that since it’s multiplayer and seems to be roguelite.
    
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mrfriki@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The physics in Half Life 2 blew me away, I would stop every few meters pushing stuff around and then in the water bike part and the gravity gun my jaws would drop. No we just have shinier graphics but still waiting for sor something like that to blow my mind again.

Also the slowmo on Max Payne 2, can’t count the times I’ve replayed it because of that.

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finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So just shy of 10 years ago me and the dudes were playing a lot of Dota 2, we had played since early Beta. At this point in time the game was still young and hip so the ratio of casuals to sweaty mlg was much more forgiving, which was great because it put me and the dudes in the upper bracket especially when combined with shenanigans, nowadays we’d probably only be in the top 60 percentile at best.

Very few people knew about this or utilized it but you could put your level into stats instead of an ability, so I would find weird builds to focus on only 1 skill and stats. We discovered this build called Sand King Jesus where you could use a character called Sand King to sit, invisible, in sand storm AoE DoT effect on the lane and just never leave but the tradeoff was the inability to move without cancelling, items focusing on regen and armor items as well as utilizing another little known mechanic where you buy 2 stout shields: they used to have a 50% chance to reduce damage by 20 (almost all damage a creep can do) and it would run that 50% check for each individual shield. At the time there was an exploit where if you move, cancelling the Sandstorm ability, but recast it before the particle effect dissipated… Uh Oh! The particle stays put but the Sand King and the AoE radius both moved. That made him not immune to non-targeted stuns or hooks but it did make him extremely hard to hit with them. It also made it difficult to avoid the DoT if you couldn’t see where it was. Now there is an immortal, invisible, constantly damaging enemy on the lane, but sure you can still buy wards or keep firing shots in the dark until something hits: but Sand King has another ability called Burrowstrike. Burrowstrike is suppose to be used to instantly travel in a straight line towards enemies and stun them momentarily. But instead, you can burrowstrike away from enemies and then cast Sand Storm as soon as it comes off cooldown. All of this culminates in “Sand King Jesus” because much like the mythical Jesus it would take forever to try and kill him and often still fail.

Now this is silly at best but the true greatest gamer high for me was this one match where I used this strategy to dominate middle lane, cutting off the creep waves with a well placed sandstorm to both take out an early tower as my creeps poured in damaging either the enemy mid or the tower, chipping away, and I get all of the last hits uncontested, started roaming and ganking with the boys, and buying up hearts, assault cuirrass, vladmir’s offering, refresher orb and for added AoE DoT a Radiance, and I became so tankie and my team had me covered on healing and providing DPS that I was able to enter the enemy fountain and sandstorm in there for another 10 or 15 minutes before we had even taken down any towers before barracks. We were all laughing so hard at these real human beings on the enemy team reduced to NPCs unable to leave their own fountain and unable to do anything about it.

Awhile later they completely reworked the character.

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boogiebored@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Also most all my friends and co workers getting on Vent to play WoW regularly and leveling up characters shortly after Burning Crusade released. Gaming hasn’t been the same since.

Next best would be COVID era playing Red Dead Online and drinking IRL and fishing in game until IRL dawn with a friend. Sunrise in that game is such a good representation of a sleepy sunrise.

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RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The experience of a brand new game with a new computer build that upped the standards. Particularly from the ‘90s to ~2010. Games pushed ahead with more expansive levels, better graphics, better sound, larger worlds. All more incredible than what you’d ever played before. It was a joy just to see it and experience it on top of whatever storyline and toys were in the game itself. Every year there was a leap in some facet of gaming.

I haven’t really experienced that since. PC builds are just way more expensive for minimal gain, franchises are just rehashes of old games, and it’s hard to find storylines and worlds that are fleshed out enough to make me want to invest the time.

On an individual game level, Battlefield’s Gunmaster mode is a real rush. Success can be ripped away instantly, you’re on your own skill, PvAll, and it’s a race to the top. Intense AF to win, got my heart rate up.

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- LePoisson@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Gonna have to check out that gun master mode, hopefully it’s in BF6
  
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missingno@fedia.io ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
13 All Clear

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- brax@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Holy shit.
  
  Also, it still blows my mind how Puyo came from a sick-ass dungeon crawler series. I wish they’d make more Madou Monogatari dungeon crawlers… 1-2-3 on the PC98 were fantastic.
  
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  - missingno@fedia.io ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    There actually was a new Madou that came out last year. Heard it wasn't very good though...
    
    TBH, I don't the originals hold up very well either...
    
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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
LAN party 2012ish. Playing Farcry 2 team Deathmatch multiplayer on the Clear Cut map. First team to 100 kills win. I got 60 of the 100 kills to win and from that point forward I was no longer permitted to use the 50cal sniper rifle.

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olafurp@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Not sure which one I would pick. Pokemon Blue, Oblivion, Star Wars KOTOR, Warcraft 3 or Super Mario 64 maybe. All of them were amazing and had a lasting impact on me.

More recently I played Enter the Gungeon, Slay the Spire and Return to the Obra Dinn

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Drusas@fedia.io ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
As a '90s kid, I was a little old for Pokemon, so I did need the explanation.

I guess for me it would be finally beating The Legend of Zelda, mostly because you had to start over again so many times after your saved game got wiped.

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cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Hearing that we were missing half the game in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

This one IS a bit of a spoiler… but not much. For one, everyone knows it. Two, the game came out in the 1990s. That’s why everyone knows it. So anyway.

So you play this game. It’s like a Super NES game, but it’s on the PlayStation. It has CD quality music and voice acting (actually pretty shitty voice acting, but, I mean, it’s CD quality audio). Actually, let’s qualify that with a 45 second video. Aside from Dracula’s final line in the exchange, the lines are poorly read from a poorly written script and it shows. And yet, it’s still awesome.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tV33Ewf_hw

Anyway, it’s a fairly long game as far as Super NES games go. You go through the entire castle, you eventually confront the bad guy (who isn’t Dracula — he’s dead, and has been dead, you kill some other guy) and the credits roll. You won. Fine game. However, shortly after the game came out — it didn’t really take that long, but we weren’t all on the Internet then, so it took longer to get to some people — that if you did a few very specific things, you would instead see this ball above the last boss. Attack that instead, and the last boss is revealed to be a puppet, and he lets you pass… into the inverted castle. It’s the whole ass castle, but it’s upside down and has harder monsters. And take a wild guess who you fight at the end?

Its Game Boy Advance sequel, Aria of Sorrow, attempted a similar thing. Beat the last boss and you win, but do it with three souls equipped and… well, I’m actually not gonna spoil that. A cool thing happens. And you can go to this final area, it’s not a long area. If you win, you win the game harder… but if you lose in that final battle, you get this awesome cut scene that calls back to the video I posted above. So while they reused the gimmick, they did it in the best possible way.

None of the Castlevania games have captured that magic since. Bloodstained, the spinoff by the creator of Symphony of the Night, kind of does a similar thing in a couple spots, and it does have the false final boss, but I think it’s more clearly called out and I think you’re meant to know it’s not the end of the game. And I feel like it’s not a win if you take it, the game kinda laughs at you. Another game that poked fun at this was Shadow Complex, the shameless ripoff of Super Metroid on Xbox 360/Live Arcade. (Great game though!) After losing your girlfriend to paramilitary thugs in the Pacific Northwest and exploring a bit of their compound, you eventually get back to your car (Jeep?) and you have the option to leave. Credits roll and you pop an achievement called “Plenty of Fish in the Sea.” They knew you’d try it and rewarded you for doing so, but it’s clearly not the real ending (it’s too soon).

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GerardsGuitar@retrolemmy.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Playing Skate 2 for the first time on PS3 whilst blasting Fall Out Boy on my CD player.

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