Your favorite old school games

[Fahrenheit]

If you had to pick one game from your childhood that meant more than any other in shaping you as the gamer you are today what would it be? How old were you when this game came out (or when you played it)?

The unequivocal choice for me is Final Fantasy 3 (6) and I was 13 years old.

There has been no game before or since that I was simply and utterly enthralled with, and to this day it's the only game I felt upset and nearly sick to my stomach when I had completed it... that gut wrenching feeling of "oh man... it's over".

I can vividly recall pouring over the maps of the world of balance and ruin from my nintendo power magizine prior to it's release.

To this day I compare other games it and it's characters... And to this day there isn't a character that I've liked more than Shadow. I remember the first time I went into the inn in South Figaro and heard his music theme and Edgar telling Locke "he'd slit his mama's throat for a nickel" I was blown away by that, lol, not that I wish my own mother harm, but that stuck with me. Before Shadow I was apathetic towards ninjas and after... hell I'm 30 years old and I have a ninja sword in my house, a set of ninja stars in the trunk of my car and misc. other items that can ALL be traced back to Shadow in some fashion or another.

And that's just one thing I took from FF3. That's what i mean by shaping you as the gamer you are today.

[Hraklea]

I would say the game that introduced me to fighting games on arcades, Samurai Shodown 2. I guess I was 6~7 years old.

[Fus Ro Yay]

Final Fantasy 7, i think thats the game that's left me with most of my childhood memories :b
that or the Pokemon Red on my gameboy color.

[Underskilled]

If I had to choose one game, that shaped me as a gamer today, Super Mario World.

All the levels, and secrets, and bosses, and the secret world....that game alone gave me hope gaming would always be something I'd love.

[Skelington]

Majora's Mask when Skelington was still at the youngling stage that is 8.

[Nevintsha]

Mario 3, Original Spyro The Dragon (Love it with a passion) Original Crash Bandicoot(Also love it with a passion). Played these as a young kid and grew up with them... Also were my first games, so yea im going to love them. Still have them on my shelf of other games collection.

[Draenox]

Crash Bandicoot 2, Pokemon Blue, Tekken 3 etc. all introduced me to the gaming world, but the first game that really got me entangled to the screen was Kingdom Hearts for the PS2. I loved that game so much, I was completely captured by the story and almost couldnt play any other game until I had collected anything and everything before completing it, which left with a feeling of it being the best game I had ever played.

Strangely enough, I have never tried any of the Final Fantasy games which so many people praise. If they were anything like Kingdom Hearts I know I would be hooked in an instant.

[talyn77]

Well, I played Pong on an Atari 2600 when it was almost brand new. I was 9. Then my first PC was a Timex Sinclair 2000 with 2k of memory. Then we upgraded to an Atari 1200XL and fell in love with ZORK.

But, I would have to say my all time favorite game is Diablo, as far as games that have shaped the type of gamer I am today. I was 27 when it came out.

[mypally]

torn between 3 n64 games. Cant decide between ocarina of time, majora's mask, and super smash bros. mario world and mario kart were pretty awesome too, but the first 3 were just better. The first pokemon games are a close second as well, though the fact I could never seem to get past 130 before feeling the need to restart kinda pissed me off.

[Lilfrier]

Well, that's tough. Quake 3: Team Arena was the first FPS I played, specifically the Urban Terror mod. I wanted my dad play Quake and Unreal a LOT as a kid. When I got an Xbox, Halo was the first FPS I got that was really MINE. Then I played loads of Unreal Championship on Xbox LIVE when it first started.

Really, though, I cant pick just one. Those 3 were massive in making me the FPS-heavy player I am today (in terms of online; I play a myriad of games offline--sports, some RPGs, music, racing, etc.). Then there's the fact that I played the Pokemon franchise as a whole to death and back again. It's too hard to say, honestly.

[Duruka]

Ocarina of Time, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island are my favourites, though there are lots of others. These are the games that got me into gaming, and I still love to play over and over again.

I'd put Pokemon Red on the list, since it was the first game I ever played, but I can't get into it anymore. The new Pokemon games are huge improvements, while the other 3 games I mentioned are still really fun. Those four games are the main ones that shaped me as a gamer, but I could list many more.

[Deleted]

Games such as:

Battletoads (NES): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qor5Rn7glaU#t=2m50s
Marble Madness (NES): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FgUhebuJvY#t=0m36s
Intelligent Cube (PS1): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3r6wXZ-QA8

Games like that. (I'm 25 atm). Nostalgia at its best <3

[Caiada]

ALttP, by a mile. I was... very, very young. Maybe 6 or 7? Runners-up are Super Mario World (the only one of these I ever finished when I was young), Super Mario All-Stars, FF: Mystic Quest and Illusion of Gaia. Maybe Demon's Crest too.

[Jon]

I feel old when people refer to games like Quake 3 as "old school".

[lightgil]

All dragon quest or dragon warrior games. Including Dragon warrior monsters.

They were amazing it was like final fantasy, stories were good but were always the cliche standard;
-You are the hero and humanities last hope.
-There's an evil force (demon king/dragon/demon kings)
-venture off solo or with a group to kill it
-win game

They were extremely fun I would recommend dragon warrior 3 its a nice older style of game and the game is pretty long.

Dragon warrior monsters was like pokemon but.. much much better in my opinion. The music in the game always gives me nostalgic chills. You had to combine monsters to get new monsters. They would continuously get stronger and you could eventually have a team of god class monsters. It was like a more mature and epic version of pokemon.

I wish they were more popular D: