What was your first gaming system?
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This topic is going to date a lot of us, but I’m curious what everyone’s first gaming system was! What was your experience with it? Any fond memories to share?
My first system was the original NES, and I had all the classics: Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, Legend of Zelda (with the gold cartridge!!), etc. I specifically mention Zelda because I used to spend a lot of time playing Zelda II, only if I got a game over I’d have to turn the tv off really quick because I was really young and TERRIFIED of the game over screen. It looked like this:
And had a sound file of very deep, menacing laughter. It scared me real bad when I was a little kid but now I think that’s pretty funny of me.
Please share your stories about when you first started gaming!
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Kimberly (she/they)
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Let's see nes was my first console followed soon by Sega TMNT and final fantasy had to be my favorite games to play all the time on NES but on Sega it was sonic and phantasy star 2 much like most kids I tryed everything I could spending hours and hours try to save nei from nei first believe it or not my introduction to ttrpg was the palladium system TMNT and other strangeness I think I spent more time rolling random characters just to see what I'd get then I actually spent play it though
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Our first gaming system was Sega Genesis, which i think came with sonic? But my favorite games with
- Lion King (incredibly hard for no reason)
- Pocahontas
Game I could not stand:
ECHO
I still don't know how to beat that damn game. I don't think I even made if off the first level.
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For me, my first game console was given to me when I was 3, My pops got it for me since he wasn't around a lot when I was younger. Just cause at the time his job demanded it, but he gave me a PlayStation 1 and the first game he got me was megaman legends. I loved the game, however I never had a memory card so I had to finish all my games in one sitting. Which was hard cause I was spooked easily when I was younger, and the dark ruins in the game were really scary especially when you heard robots sprint at you in the pitch black rooms.
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@mianngu I had the Lion King game for SNES!!! And yeah, it was super hard, I don’t think I ever got past the elephant graveyard.
I loved Echo the Dolphin but not for the game itself, i loved the weird creepy music.
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I got to watch other kids play games on NES and such, and I recall playing solitaire on my mom's old windows pc... but the first gaming system I truly had that was all mine was a Playstation. The very first two games I had (that were not the demo disc which was the only thing I had at first lol) were Spyro the Dragon, Rayman, and Crash Bandicoot. I think I eventually got Tekken but that might have just been the demo. Spyro ended up being my favorite.
The hilarious part is that my mom didn't buy me a memory card so I was forced to replay the same levels over and over (she wouldn't let me just leave the system on) until she finally bought one. I think she got tired of watching 8 year old me play the same 3 levels.
In the end though, the real reason I stuck with PlayStation games is because I discovered Final Fantasy IX. I had tried to play VIII but couldn't get into it and VII just annoyed me as a child lol.
Though when I think of gaming nostalgia, I think about my gameboy color, which the salesman managed to convince my mother that I would need in order to play the latest Zelda. And of course, Pokemon red/blue/yellow/silver. Now THOSE get me excited. Playing Let's Go Eevee was like high fiving my elementary school self.
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@Ezra Ooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh I was gonna talk about Spyro (it was so so so so fun) but the mention of FFIX tosses that out the window. I think we’ve talked before about VII being my favorite but IX is neck-and-neck, and for a long time I considered it my favorite...I also have a tattoo of a FFIX moogle. I think I just really loved Zidane as a protagonist. It was so refreshing having a protagonist who was kind and charismatic and funny after how moody Cloud and Squall were. The world and music were also gorgeous. Definitely a huge FFIX fan here.
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Kimberly (she/they)
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Oooh my first gaming console was a Sega Genesis, back when I was 4ish. My parents didn't know anything about gaming, so they didn't buy me any games, and my dumb ass didn't know any better either, so it was mostly playing the pre-installed Pong that came with it for at least a year
One day, my older cousin's boyfriend was like "oh you have a Genesis? I just got rid of mine, here's a shoebox with game cartridges" and that changed EVERYTHING. I played a lot of Streets of Rage, Mortal Kombat, a Dragon Ball Z fighting game, and some hard-ass Disney games (what's the deal with making them so hard? Aladdin was impossible, Toy Story was unplayable, and now I'm hearing Lion King too?).
But I would say the gaming system that defined my childhood was an old laptop with a dead screen that I hooked up to a giant CRT monitor. I had Gameboy Color and Advance emulators (and for some reason a Genesis one as well?) where I played Pokemon RBY and GSC forever.
No one snitch. Also, statute of limitations.
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@darkwalker57 Oof I feel you on the no-memory card. I must have played through the beginning of Harry Potter 3 on the Playstation 2 at least 30 times. I knew all the dialogues from the cutscenes by heart and the few times that I left it running overnight to get to new content the next day were really memorable
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@Mariano LOVE the shoebox of game cartridges, what a cool thing to give someone! I remember going to a garage sale in my neighborhood when I was a little older and someone was selling a box of all different game carts - if I recall correctly it was a mix of Atari Jaguar, N64, and Sega Genesis, for dirt cheap. Lots of duds, but a few treasures (Clayfighter!). That’s something I’m really going to miss as gaming moves away from physical media.
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Mine was the N64! I have so many fond memories with that console. My family would get together for Mario Party and Mario Kart every weekend, it would be a bloodbath. I also really enjoyed the Gex games, though I would argue they were horror games at the time and would often give me heart palpitations while playing.
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@Hanzilla Ah yes, I remember getting together with my cousins and getting real cutthroat playing Mario Party or Super Smash Bros. We for sure acted like we were trying out for nationals or something. Good times.
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@SwampCreature My first console was the N64 but I think we may have had a Gameboy color. I'm not sure which came first...
We were pretty poor growing up so the n64 was all I had until I could buy my own systems but I remember playing Yoshi Story A LOT and would constantly rent Ocarina of Time from the video store to try to beat it before my save file was erased by someone XD
I remember my sister actually got really far in Star Wars Rouge Squadron before she became too cool for video games LOL
I think I got a ps2 at one point but never had a memory card for it so I would play the first area of Dark Cloud over and over again until I died and had to keep restarting.
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@Kismet Oh yea and Mario Kart, I played it so much I ended up driving the levels backward all the time and just driving around to explore the environments
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@SwampCreature lol yea we have def talked about it. Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE Spyro, and even bought it for the ps4 and was playing it with my ex. But yea, Final Fantasy games hold my heart hostage lol.
And THANK YOU. I think I finally know why I liked IX lol. You're right, Cloud and Squall were both broody and back then, child me wasn't into broody guys lol. Those didn't enter my fantasies until I was a teenager.
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@Kismet I used to play OoT just to explore Hyrule and ride around on Epona jumping fences and stuff. I actually can’t remember if I ever beat it, but I logged a lot of hours messing around. I remember it felt like such a huge open world, and now it’s minuscule compared to Breath of the Wild. It’s really cool looking back on how big these older games felt at the time vs how big games are now. Gaming has come a long way!
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@SwampCreature Right?! I remember that game feeling absolutely massive and sooo hard to beat!
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Mine was a Super Nintendo, and I still think nothing compares to Super Mario World. It probably created too strong of an early core memory 0_0
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Where i was born and raised, we had access to tech of the previous decade. In mid 2000'smy family was enjoying movies on a VHS. So, at my 5 years of age (2004) i was playing with my first console ever: a Nintendo 64. Super Mario 64, Oot, Golden Eye, Donkey Kong and Dark Rift were most of my childhood. Now my brain just gives up to low-poly, colorful and fun little indie games.
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I received an original GameBoy (the grey one) from my Dad, which he had played for years. He had many games, but most didn't catch my interest (save for Tetris and Joust). I played the heck out of those games.
I eventually traded the system, and a bunch of games into a GameStop when the GameBoy Advance came out.
I'll always cherish those memories and the legacy of that original Nintendo system I received. I wish I had the finances as a child to keep the original and upgrade; but the upgrade was so, so worth it. Got me into Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, Megaman, Zelda...so many good memories.
