My Favourite Video Games As A Kid

Hello Everyone! Today has been a slow albeit lovely day in the end for me :) I don't know if you guys care/are fellow nature lovers, but I had my first ever encounter with a Silver Y (Autographa gamma) moth, a daytime species that I've always wanted to see! It visited my buddleia bush, with its last remaining blossom, and even landed on my hands!! It made my day, if not my entire summer! I might sound like a dork for getting all excited over a moth, but... well, my long-term readers will know by now that I am one :D Anyway, what was the highlight of your day?

Did you know that it's National Video Game Day? So in celebration, I thought why not do a themed post? I recently stumbled upon a load of my old PlayStation games and so I decided today's post would be dedicated to my favourite games as a kid. Enjoy! 

I was always a PlayStation kid. It was my very first console and as such, it holds a special place in my heart. I must have been around seven or eight years old, when Santa Claus delivered me a PS1 for Christmas; it was one of the tiny models, if anyone remembers those? Along with my uncle's old TV. Gosh, that thing had seen better days (an understatement)! I actually had to bang it sometimes to get the screen to stop filling up with black lines- oh growing up 'poor' in the 90's- what fun times! But much appreciated nonetheless, as I felt so grown up having my own TV and console in my bedroom and had to pretty much be pried off it at bedtime, haha! My love for PlayStation has stuck with me, and after owning an Xbox 360 in college, I very much decided PlayStation's were the better consoles- sorry not sorry, Xbox fans! I'd love to hear which of the two you all prefer :)

But, what were my favourite games? 

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil

Whenever I mention this wonderful game, no-one seems to have played it! Have you?? It was so good! I first met little Klonoa, the Dream Traveller who looks like a lop-eared bunny, on a demo. It featured the original 1997 game- Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, and I just fell in love with it! I grew up playing a lot of games in their demo versions, as my parents couldn't afford to buy me new games all the time. As an adult, I understand that and I am so thankful they saved up to get me my PS1 and PS2 consoles, however for little me, it sucked that I never got to play past the first few levels of games! I pestered my mom for the full Klonoa game so often, and being the most amazing mom that she was, she searched for it everywhere she could but didn't manage to get it. What she did come across though was the sequel for PlayStation 2, and thus, when I was around 10 I was reunited with Klonoa and his fantastical adventures! 

I have been a fan of Japanese animation for as long as I can remember. I've always been drawn to it, so it's no wonder that as soon as I set eyes on Klonoa, I adored it! It was produced/created by Namco and the sequel was released by Sony throughout Europe and the US in 2001. The graphics, the storyline, the gameplay, the soundtrack- everything, is so beautiful! I am so glad that I still have my original copy :) 

Tomba! 

Again, as a child, I only ever played the demo version of this 1998 game. It was first released in Japan by Whoopee Camp (another Japanese game, of course!) and then a year later by Sony. In the game, you play as a caveman-esque little boy with spiky pink hair. I was immediately wowed by this feature as it reminded me of the iconic Saiyan hairstyle from Dragon Ball Z, my one true love at that time in my life :D Tomba is on a mission to find a precious bracelet that is stolen from his grandfather by the antagonists of the story, the 'Evil Koma Pigs'. Tomba must venture through a world that has been taken over by these pigs, who have used their powers to destroy the land, wreck havoc and set obstacles in the way of the hero's journey! 

I loved the mix of prehistoric scenes and creatures from Tomba's homeland, and the fantasy-based elements of the rest of the quest. There's also these adorable little leaf butterflies in the game that I wished were real, AND a puppy you've got to rescue!! What's not to love!? I didn't get to play this game properly until I was at university, when my flatmate let me buy it on his PS3 and oh my god, it was a delight to relive the nostalgia and then some! I'm hoping to come across the game for a reasonable price some day. 

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped 

This is one of the first games I remember asking for as a Christmas present. I played it a little at a friend's house when I was eight and I had to have it. I'm not gonna lie, it was the medieval level and the frogs that sold me... I mean, huge frogs though!? And I've forever been a history-obsessed human, so I was over the moon with this element of the game! Crash Bandicoot is one of those classics that is so well-known that I don't really need to describe it, but just in case... Crash is a bandicoot, obviously, that escaped from an evil doctors laboratory after an disastrous experiment and then fights, along with his friends, to stop Dr Neo Cortex from taking over the world. In Crash Bandicoot 3, the Dr teams up with Uka Uka, a vengeful spirit, to hunt for some magical crystals that are hidden throughout time and space. Crash must stop them from completing their evil mission. It's seriously such an engaging game, full of action and the different levels are so creative. Everyone should play at least one of the Crash Bandicoot's in their lifetime! Who has a favourite in the series? I loved Wrath of Cortex for PS2, as well.

Sonic Heroes 

Twelve year old me was very eager to get her hands on this game. I grew up listening to one of my brothers always going on about Sonic the Hedgehog, which he was a big fan as a kid in the 80's. I had already decided Knuckles the echidna was the best character years before I ever played a Sonic game! And he still is to this day :) Anyone who's ever played Sonic Heroes will know much of an awesome game it was. That theme song is catchy af! (And now it's going to be in my head for days, oops!). 

Sonic and his buddies aim to defeat Doctor Eggman as always; this time, by collecting the 'chaos emeralds' before he does. I don't know what else to say about this Sega game, other than it was heaps of fun to play, very action-packed, and the storyline was great. I know there's a lot of people that didn't rate the game, but I love it, so yeah :D 

Puchi Carat

Okay, so this might seem like a very random choice to my gamer readers, because there were so many other brilliant games in the 90's and early 2000's, but I fell in love with this game for the characters and storyline alone. It is a Japanese arcade game produced by Taito in '97, and was one that my mom found whilst out shopping and surprised me with ♥ Those graphics are just wonderful... so much detail has been put into a very simplistic arcade game! I was a fan of anime from around six years old, so I couldn't not adore the characters of this game. I had just started to have an interest in crystals and birthstones, things surrounding magic and the like, and the characters were based after just that! There's one for every month, designed to represent that birthstone. To this day, I have memorised those gems thanks to Puchi Carat! 

Paz, the villain of the game, the character for November's birthstone Topaz, made me think of Kagato, the bad guy in the anime series, Tenchi Muyo! Another thing that I was obsessed with at that age :) I even named my pet Mongolian Gerbils, Ryoko and Sapphire, after my favourite Tenchi Muyo! character and my childhood best friend's favourite character from my Puchi Carat game. Once a nerd, always a nerd, right? 

Anyway, the quest of the game is to try and help the characters collect the 12 gems, so they can have their wishes granted or something like that. You battle against other characters via the arcade game, which is a basic retro classic that I can't remember the original name of now. Nevermind! Its a game that is weirdly relaxing to play even though it gets more challenging as the game progresses. It certainly helps with concentration skills! This is a long shot, but did any of you guys ever play this game? 

Well, those were my all-time favourite games when I was growing up, but here's a few honourable mentions. Disney's Tarzan was up there, and was so close to making the list! The movie is one of my favourites, and through the gameplay, you unlock little video clips from it. You get to listen to the gorgeous soundtrack by Phil Collins, and it's just excellent to be able to pretend you are living in the jungle and swinging from vine-to-vine. Not so much running from those terrifying baboons! Some of my go-to games when I wanted to wind down or when I was having a particularly unmotivated day, were Tony Hawk's Pro Skater & Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (which had an ace selection of music on their car radio channels!). I couldn't end this post without also including Rayman, which is a marvellous game, and Spyro, which I unfortunately only ever had demos of. Regardless, I thought that little dragon was so cute, more so Sparx the dragonfly :), and I enjoyed harassing those frog characters, haha!  I better stop typing now or we'll be here all night! 

Thankyou for reading! 

♥

What were your favourite games when you were a kid?

Did you grow up on demos like I did? 

Do you remember the first game you got?

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