Childhood games.

[Cless Aileron]

After spending time catching up on some games in a series I ended up passing up back then, I figure it would be fun to see what childhood games you fondly remembered.  I'm not limiting things but it would be interesting to see if any obscure games ends up being brought up as childhood games (probably because I'm really bringing up something obscure).

For me, I fondly remember the Mystical Ninja/Ganbare Goemon series.  It wasn't just Legend of the Mystical Ninja I played as a kid, but two of its Japan only sequels on Super Famicom (Ganbare Goemon 2 and Ganbare Goemon 3).  Since I mentioned playing two of the Japan only sequel, I should also mention that I was playing the Japanese version of Legend of the Mystical Ninja as a kid.  Now, how I got to play the Japanese version and two of its Japan only sequel as a kid will probably get me rambling so I won't get into it right now but I will later (and it doesn't matter if someone asks about it or not).  What I remember is how fun the game was and playing with someone was a blast (In fact, because of the language barrier and the style the 3rd SFC game was in, I practically had to play with the person who owned the game).  Not to mention, it really had a lot of charm.  Despite a language barrier, I loved the three games I played in the series.  Even after all this time, I just never forgot about those games.  Playing them again, I find they still manage to hold up with me today and still a blast to play.  It's lately that I got myself crazy about this series again, going online and buying the two N64 installments that were released in North America that I missed playing for whatever reason, just after buying Legend of the Mystical Ninja on Virtual Console.  Heck, I would like to get the SFC Goemon games for old time sake (including the Japanese version of Legend of the Mystical Ninja, despite having the English version right on my Wii).  It just stood out for me a lot.

So yeah, I just want to hear what childhood games you fondly remember.

[Kogahazan]

Duck Hunt and Punch-out (original ear-biting version!) were the first NES games that I remember loving, other than the original SMB. Duck Tales was another favorite, even though I never beat it. Oh, and GunSmoke was a real fun one. The original arcade version on Capcom Classics doesn't feel as good as the NES one to me though. Bubble Bobble was my last NES era game and is one of my all time favorites. That one game brought my friends and I countless hours of enjoyment on my NES... before my little sister came in the room and tripped on our controller cords which pulled the NES off of the shelf and dropped it on the floor, breaking it, all when my friend and I reached the final boss of BB without any cheating...

Soon after, I got an N64 with Banjo-Kazooie. I originally asked my parents for a PS1 (I used kid logic and said N64 has games where you die in one hit or something stupid like that), but I'm glad they made the mistake. I love that game to bits and the new BK game in development for 360 is the sole reason I'd get a 360 now.

Most of my childhood games are on the NES... I never had a SNES, but my friend did. A couple of games we always played at his house were the Power Rangers beat-em-up game, Mega Man X, Kirby Superstar, Street Fighter II, and Mortal Kombat 3.

I miss the 90s.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

sierra adventure games (e.g. space quest, quest for glory, etc.), the sharedata CGA versions of jeopardy and family feud (the character art is hilarious), tankwars, battle chess, f-19... i can't remember any others off the top of my head, but i bet there were others.

a bit later, the SNES greats, like zelda 3 (which came bundled with my SNES instead of super mario world), secret of mana, final fantasy ii, and still later, final fantasy iii.

oh yeah, of course mike tyson's punch out. and a bit later on, more around middle school, kirby superstar. oh, and earlier than that... nintendo baseball and blades of steel... my cousin, brother, and i would play those two games a bunch... they're hilarious. and spy hunter for the commodore 64.

sorry for the rambling nature of this post... i just kept adding to it as i remembered more and more games

[NirvashStarwind]

Raiden, Final Fantasy, Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter 2, and all things megaman.

[stahn]

I remember my first console was NES )

I was so happy when my dad came with it ) it was new and got cool game.
Gold Five - and there was Micro Machines awesome can't find any better racing games , Big Nose was fun too. Contra simply ruless and series with Rikki Kunio - like Goal 3 or NHL when you fire specials and all ) I will never forget this games.

Later on got a Commodore 64 - (magic TAPE machine) (try to customize the little  thing to play games) Bubble Bobbles was no match for others games

and when I finally got psx and Crash Bandicoot it was Hell awesome

Oh and I do forget about : pacman, arkanoid, galaga and one big game of all time TETRIS

and like ::::Kogahazan:::: I miss 90's too when Games was really entertaining and consoles wasn't as expensive as they are now

[Cless]

FIRST ERA (before getting RPGs) 1985-1994

I mostly played whatever I could get my hands on. When I was really young it'd be whatever my parents were able to get ahold of.

Mega Man II and III
Metroid series
Punch-Out!!
Street Fighter II (esp Turbo)
Super Mario Bros series
Super Mario Kart
Zelda series

The Metroid games were by and large my favorite of this era. And they're still super awesome to me. I don't let the nostalgia blind me, I love the new ones as well. Prime series is amazing. Was disappointed in Fusion though.

Other games:

Excitebike
Mario Paint
Starfox
Wizards and Warriors III
Wrecking Crew

SECOND ERA 1994-1997 (RPGs stole my damn life)

Dragon Warrior I, III
Final Fantasy I, II, III, VII, Tactics (US NES/SNES)
Breath of Fire I, II
Suikoden
Wild ARMs

Game Genie was AWESOME after discovering the internet, especially for NES... this is where my rom hacking experience first began... game genie codes are just encoded addresses.

Who would've known it was so EASY to create codes for NES games? 6 letter codes affect the same byte in every bank in the ROM, thus it doesn't take long at all to start making codes with interesting effects. I had the most fun doing this with Super Mario Bros 1, Final Fantasy 1, and Dragon Warrior III. I wish I hadn't lost my notes, me and a friend found so many cool codes for these games. I still remember a favorite of mine though:

GGGEIX-- In Final Fantasy 1, it puts a door to a glitched armor shop next to the stream in Coneria. When you press buy, it's either the last item you sold or bought, or a glitch item. If you went out and fought a battle, you could come back and buy the "350G" (always called it the 350 gold armor) . Buy it for a character and it'll come auto equipped. The character gets 232 defense points and resistance to all magic. The only things that could do more than 1 point of physical damage to you were those damned WarMechs. I'd normally look down on such a cheat these days, but back then it was fun and since there weren't so many RPGs available, game genie added IMMENSE replay value to them.

The same code (GGGEIX) had a fun effect in Dragon Warrior III... makes all the townspeople say the wrong things... IE dialogue of other NPCs. Sometimes you'd find people with the dialogue of kings of castles you can't access yet (save with them, restart, and find yourself in that king's castle), shops you can't access yet, and so much more. It's funny when you encounter a townie whose dialogue is "No response... looks dead" (normally, you get this when you try talking to a corpse), the flames in some shrines would have townsperson dialogue (the game uses the same flame sprite for spirits).

A bonus code for DWIII I discovered, only because it's so easy to remember: VTOOOT. Shoes of Happiness effect, plus, you only encounter 1 monster in a battle (like in Dragon Warrior 1). I thought it to be a neat code if you wanted to try playing the game solo or something.

I miss those days, man. NES Game Genie code creating was seriously probably the most fun I've ever had with gaming. I almost feel like breaking that stuff out again and screwing around. The only annoying part is that you HAD to write down the codes before you start the game because there was no way to bring them up again unless you have a photographic memory or they were so obvious (such as the code AAAAAA). Some codes froze the game right out, you'd have to weed the bad code out and try them again to make sure you didn't possibly miss an interesting effect.

I also can't forget the obsession I had FF3 US that lasted for about 3 years straight. Again, Game Genie extended that obsession because there were so many amazing codes on the internet. Unfortunately, SNES code creating is much more difficult than NES. I was able to create a couple nice codes at least from modifying the existing ones. Had tons of a save wipes because glitchy codes can do that.

The third era is the current one but I'm no longer a kid...

[Cless Aileron]

I miss the 90s.

and like ::::Kogahazan:::: I miss 90's too when Games was really entertaining and consoles wasn't as expensive as they are now

I can't help but feel the same way.  My N64 has been more active as of late and the main reason my Wii had activity was because of Goemon.

Now, coming back to something I mentioned:

Now, how I got to play the Japanese version and two of its Japan only sequel as a kid will probably get me rambling so I won't get into it right now but I will later (and it doesn't matter if someone asks about it or not).

So now comes some stroll down my memory lane.

Now, I didn't get into importing until high school 2002.  So here's the background story.  As a kid, my dad was in the Navy and with military obligations, there would be the thing with family relocating somewhere else.  In the case with my family, that "relocating somewhere else" ended up being to a U.S. military base in Japan, where my elementary school years were spent.  During my early days there, I made a few friends.  One of the friends I ended up making just happened to have a collection of Famicom and Super Famicom games bought outside of the U.S. bases.  I would end up playing the Japanese versions of some games and even games I would never get to play normally.

So, one of the games he got me playing was Ganbare Goemon 2 on the Super Famicom.  As said before, it was a lot of fun.  I learned the character's names (Goemon, Ebisumaru, and Sasuke) and I also have to say Sasuke was so cool looking and just manage to win cool points with me for looking cool and being a robot ninja.  Even today, he is still one of my favorite characters from the series (just now sharing a favorite character spot with Yae), and I would definately choose him as a favorite over the Sasuke from Naruto any day (I get the feeling fangirls are going to moan now after I said that).  He was usually my character of choice (though I forgot who I would choose if my friend ended up getting Sasuke first).  Oh yeah, Goemon 2 was the game that introduced the giant robot that the cast would continue to use in the later games, Impact.  The first time I saw them summon Impact, I was like, "Whoa!  I get to act like a Power Ranger by piloting a giant robot!"  That was seriously what I was pretty much thinking at the time (On a side note, the first time I played a Goemon game was around the time Power Rangers came around and became big.  I was into it, like many kids at the time, so that's where I ended up drawing the comparison.  Heck, even watch the Impact summoning from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon and try to tell me you weren't thinking of something along the line of Power Rangers after watching that.  P.S.  Sorry but thinking of Super Sentai is not a loophole for not thinking of Power Rangers in my book ).

Before I played Ganbare Goemon 1 SFC, I actually saw it previously before playing it.  Anyone remembered that game show on Nickelodeon, Nick Arcade?  Well, chessiness aside, I remember in a few shows, Legend of the Mystical Ninja was a possible choice out of five games that a contestant was able to play for points.  So some time after seeing the game there, my friend then gotten the first Goemon game and I played it.  When the actual game started, I was thinking, "I recognize this game from Nick Arcade!  I'm playing the Japanese version of Legend of the Mystical Ninja!"  So I played it and I remembered I was only able to make it as far as the sixth level in that game (I even remembered I would fight a not-yet-an-ally Sasuke in the fifth level).

As for the third SFC, I knew it existed because of EGM's import section.  Of course, my friend would get that game too.  The thing with the third game was that it went with more of a Zelda-like adventure format.  Due to that, I mainly played that game as a second player, while my friend led the way, since he knew the language.  Some things I remembered from that game was Ebisumaru's skipping instead of running for movement animation, having to fight Sasuke again, a girl ninja named Yae being playable for the first time and having the ability to turn into a mermaid, a villianious nun who just happens to resemble Ebisumaru, and a red skin demon with a hula hoop busting through a stained-glass church window.  Yeah, some weird stuff.  Only when I got older (i.e. me now) I would really learn just how weird the series gets.

After that, that friend ended up having to move later on, so I didn't continue playing the series (Only knowing that a fourth SFC Goemon game existed thanks to Japanese TV).  Before moving back to southern California, I did have an issue of Nintendo Power that had an article of Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon for N64, so I knew they had an English version of that game.  Also, I learned back then that the English version of Legend of the Mystical Ninja changed Goemon and Ebisumaru's names (let's just say, their names in the English version of Legend of the Mystical Ninja...I really don't like them.  Let's leave it at that), so when I saw the article referring to them as "Goemon" and "Ebisumaru", I was happy to see that they went and kept their names as is, which continued after that.  For whatever reason, I did not play those two N64 games until now.

So now, this is actually the second time I relived Goemon memories (Ended up previously reliving those memories in early 2000...emulating the games, while even showing it to current friends, though one of them takes in pleasure in whacking villagers in the game to get the guards coming after us, just to annoy me).  Purchasing Legend of the Mystical Ninja on Virtual Console this year (even bearing with the outdated name change), which lead me to actually go on eBay/Amazon.com and get those two N64 Goemon games I missed playing.  I certainly won't be forgetting those Mystical Ninja anytime soon.  I mean, I attended a party last year, where the guests were mainly playing Yu-Gi-Oh and I ended up seeing a card played that grabbed my attention because of a reference to the Goemon games (The card in question is called, "Lady Ninja Yae", referring to the girl ninja I mentioned with Goemon 3).  I ended up showing it to my friend and telling him that it references the game series "where he likes to whack villagers, mainly just to annoy me".  To me, it says a lot if I happen to still remember obscure games from childhood and able to point out the reference, and from a Yu Gi Oh card nonetheless.

Yeah, I'm aware that was pretty long.  I couldn't help but talk about this.  In all honestly, I would like to see those Mystical Ninja in English one more time for old time sake (I know, for old time sake would be playing it in Japanese but seeing that only 4 of the games got a North America release, it would be nice to see one more in English, even if it ends up being the last time anyone would see the series in English).  Then again, convincing Bandai Namco to release one of the 2D Tales game would be an easier task than convincing Konami to release one more Mystical Ninja game in English, a series that's been labeled "too Japanese" (with the most recent game in the series being on a DS and released in 2005).  Either way, fond memories of an obscure game series and it still manage to be good today (with the series' weirdness intact).

[Cyllya]

I didn't like as many old games as some other people do because I didn't get to have as many. We had a NES and SNES and PC, but not a lot of money for games.

My favorite old games are:
NES Crystalis (I still consider this to be what a non-side-scrolling action RPG should be, gameplay-wise; some new ones fail in comparison)
Secret of Mana
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands
Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager
Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse
Myst

I don't miss any of these since I still have them and have played most of them recently. (Though I do find myself wanting to play Crystalis and ToP-SNES on the actual console, but both machines are in my siblings' possession, and the NES doesn't work anyway.) I never much liked FF1, DQ1, LoZ, etc....

[Carnivol]

Around where I live, there used to be quite a lot of Famicom pirate carts and Sachen games in circulation for the NES, and we had a local store dealing with trading/swapping of games for NES, Snes and GB.

Things like that made it possible for me to play quite a lot of random stuff, before emulation, backup units and fan translations and such were all over the place.

These days, I actually every now and then dust off the NES to play stuff like Journey to Silius, Power Blade and Blue Shadow (Shadow of the Ninja).

Oddly enough, I've recently fallen in love with the Wii Virtual Console, as they've made me go berserk with stuff like "Adventure of Lolo" and "Solomon's Key", both of which were rental only games here and thus never got the love they deserved back then.

There is just something extremely lovely about games that doesn't force hours of "this is how you play!" and "Now loading..." on you.

[aether_orange]

Probably the first thing that would come to mind would be Zelda. I mean the very first Zelda that came out for the NES. With the shiny gold finish. Since then, I've never played any Zelda game other than Link's Awakening on Gameboy Color.

Second would probably be Final Fantasy III. Actually it's Final Fantasy VI but released in the US as III. And then MechWarrior 2 on the PC.

[Wildwurger]

Final Fantasy IV (IIUS) was the first RPG I ever played that had a real story. The characters reacted to what was going on, and they talked and had unique personalities. That, to me, was just so awesome and it kind of affirmed that I'd be an RPG player for the rest of my life.

Power Blade

YES. I loved that game.

[supersonic1453]

Pretty much every Squaresoft game, Mega Man, Street Fighter II, Sonic, SMB, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, bunch of other stuff.

I never really got into Zelda until OOT.  I had LttP and everything, I just never got into it.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

NES Crystalis (I still consider this to be what a non-side-scrolling action RPG should be, gameplay-wise; some new ones fail in comparison)
Secret of Mana

werd! i think my friend had crystalis, but i didn't really get a chance to play it despite how insanely awesome it looked. then i think i tried it years later on emulator. wow, it was awesome. the general map theme, charging up your sword, that cool orbiting energy effect that happens when you charge up your sword, etc. etc.

and secret of mana was just all kinds of awesome. was there any game since that recaptured the same sort of awesome experience? because all the seiken densetsu games released after that sure as hell didn't. (SD3 - too hard, LoM - too non-linear/easy/incoherent, SwoM kinda meh...)

[supersonic1453]

Children of Mana is decent, but it's no Secret of Mana.  Plus it's a dungeon crawler.  I just didn't like the way the actual fighting was handled in SD3.  It wasn't as fluid as in Secret of Mana.

[Cless]

I didn't like how SD3's battling was handled either. The whole thing just felt really... stiff, or something. I also don't care for the whole small battlefield idea, where defeating all the enemies in it gets you a really lame victory message box, which really hurt the game's atmosphere to me.  SoM's fields felt a lot larger and more open. I guess I should also mention how much I HATE HATE HATE how long boss battles last in SD3 as well. Horribly horribly overrated game.

The only SD games I've liked really are 1, and 2. Sword of Mana was an exercise in how not to do a remake. I did pick up Children to give the series on last chance, but I haven't played it yet. I don't mind dungeon crawls.

Oh wait, I'm also one of those "crazy" people that really liked Secret of Evermore, even though it's not technically a Mana game, but really an obvious deriviative.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

well, they made your characters move uber slowly with their weapons drawn, which in itself makes no sense, since they're still carrying the same amount of weight regardless. then they forced you to hit only at 100% instead of letting you try to stunlock the enemy with continuous but ineffective attacks. then they made spells and higher-level techs pause time. then they made enemies, especially those prone to cast heal light, unable to die while casting a spell, sometimes. then they made lots of enemies/bosses supposedly counter your level 2 and 3 techs, making them fairly crappy. and then they made bosses and end-game enemies have ludicrous HP and defense. and then they let enemies insta-charge techs on you the moment you walk on screen, hitting your entire party for 80% damage. and then...

yeah, the list goes on and on.