4 Games That I Grew Up Playing

I started playing Videogames from a young age, and I was lucky to have many of consoles of the time. Through trading in my old goods to buy the latest and greatest - something I regret to an extent today as I now have to spend even more money rebuilding my collection from the 90s and early 2000s.

So without further ado, here are 4 Games That I Grew Up Playing.

My First Love - Final Fantasy VII

I fell in love with the Final Fantasy series when the first game came out in 1997.

“But Burridge, Final Fantasy VII is the 7th main series game”.

Yes, echoey voice, you are right. However, we did not get a Final Fantasy game in the PAL region until Final Fantasy VII’s release in 1997. We did get Final Fantasy Adventure and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, originally titled Mystic Quest and Mystic Quest Legend respectively in the UK.

I was introduced to Final Fantasy VII by my brother after he purchased it at release in 1997. After he'd finished it or got bored of it I got to have a play, and I fell in love with it immediately. I even expanded my vocabulary and ability to read by playing it - which probably explains my Dyslexia considering how badly translated the original FF7 was! Remember, "Attack while its tail it up!".

I don't remember how long it took me to complete the game but I do remember getting a limited edition Final Fantasy VIII box set which had a t-shirt and memory card among some other bits (I think).

Final Fantasy VII started a lifelong love of Final Fantasy as a series (not you XIII trilogy, sorry) with my favourite being IX to this day.

Mario Kart 64

I have found memories of beating my dad and pretty much anyone else who played against me in Mario Kart 64. I don't consider myself super competitive generally, but this game really brings out my competitive side.

Rainbow Road quickly became my favourite track to play, the music and colours particularly struck me and I still, to this day enjoy playing Rainbow Road when playing Mario Kart 8.

Wario was my go to back in the Mario Kart 64 days, the sounds he would make when getting hit by fake item boxes, shells and bananas always made me laugh hysterically.

Dynasty Warriors 3

Dynasty Warriors 3 was my first foray into the Dynasty Warriors series, which at this point was only 3 games in, and the first one was a 1 vs 1 fighting game like street fighter.

Dynasty Warriors 3 builds upon what Koei started with Dynasty Warriors 2 such as improved graphics, more voice acting (as bad as it is) more maps and larger battles than before as well as a larger cast of playable characters.

Running around large battlefields mowing down hoards of enemies is a wonderful feeling and I enjoy the leaning into the Three Kingdoms mythos with the story of the game.

Although there are 40 playable characters some of them share move sets and weaponry so in reality you have less than 40 characters to play, as a lot of stages are the same for characters as well with minor changes. This does not detract from the experience for me though and I generally have my favourites.

Remember, "Do not pursue Lu Bu!".

Runescape

I have written about my Runescape experience before. So I'll keep this brief but in short I spent a lot of time playing Runescape throughout the 2000s and into the early 2010s. I still occasionally pick it up now in its Old School form.

We played it so much that the teachers in school started blocking the website since we would play it in browser at school. We managed to get them to agree to unblocking it during lunch times though so we just played it at lunch time anyway plus we used to just go around their website blocks.

The ability to be entirely self sufficient in the game by making all of your own gear, and gathering your resources meaning you didn't need to rely on other players or even the NPC stores stood out to me.

As a group we all did our own thing which helped the overall collective. I enjoyed the mining and smithing while others enjoyed the cooking and fishing. It worked really well and I will always remember by time playing Runescape with friends fondly.

Conclusion

There are a lot of other games I could have mentioned but these are the 4 main games of my childhood that I played so much of and even to this day I still play these.

What games would you say defined your childhood? Do you still play them to this day? I would love to see your favourite childhood games and memories in the comments.

Until next time!

-Burridge