At the time I’m posting this, I’ve been back in Canada for two days after a two-month visit to my parents in the UK. As well as catching up with the family and shopping for entirely too much tea (according to literally everyone but me) I got to experience returning a totally unique kind of strangeness–that is, returning to my childhood home after years spent overseas and sorting through all the things that made me.
Without getting too David Copperfield here, I moved to Canada right before the pandemic–as in, mid-2019 ‘right before’, around the time Covid was still fixing her hair and making sure she had pads in her purse. Long story short, I hadn’t realised I wasn’t coming back, so my eternally-patient parents ended up with just a bunch of my stuff just kind of living at their house. I’ve been back only once since I left, but with Mum’s health degenerating in her fight against Parkinson’s, my highschool best friend having had a baby, the death of the high streets I walked when I was younger, and the green-space-destroying HS2 ripping a path through my hometown like some demented and unstoppable wyrm, this visit felt somehow more… significant. While some things stayed exactly the same, others couldn’t have been more different. It was like part of me was present, while another part of me existed in a completely separate world dedicated purely to memory. It was a visit that felt very Life is Strange or Bloom and Rage, to come so starkly face-to-face with the inability to go home again, as it’s so often said.
Sadly, I didn’t get any cool powers–just very disoriented, at times.
Revisiting the Games That Made Me
Along with my favourite locations around my hometown and the surrounding area, and the incredible people I’ve been very privileged to call friends and members of my family, there’s one more influence that’s had a significant impact on my life, and if you’re reading this blog, then it’s an influence we probably share: video games! To many, these flashy little miracles are frivolous, childish things that are a waste of time and money, or are ruining the younger generation, blah blah blah. We’ve heard it all before. But to people like us, these games were among the influences that taught us to read, taught us right from wrong, introduced us to the broader scope of human emotion (especially in the face of tough choices and hardship), and were even our safe spaces or escapes after a stressful day at school. Final Fantasy X helped me process bullying and social isolation, my aunt’s death, and my own brush with #MeToo, all thanks to Yuna’s fortitude and her consistent choice to stay kind.
Speaking of, I’m long overdue for a return to Spira… but the games I did have a chance to revisit during my months home were:
Tomb Raider
So, inevitably video games came up at least a little during my return home. I was sorting through my collection to figure out what was coming with me and what was being sold (sad but necessary), and since we were all home at once, my brothers also joined in on the fun of reminiscing about the old days we spent gathered around the Saturn and Mega Drive. Neither of them really game too much anymore, but the exception for one of them was, of course, the original Tomb Raider. Disclaimer: I am not good at Tomb Raider. I was always the spectator due to the developers’ flawless sense of horror in everything from the isolated feel of the tombs, to the well-timed sound design. However, despite how much of a challenge Tomb Raider is for me, I was able to do something I never did before: play hand-offs with my eldest brother. And I didn’t get freaked out by the bats or overwhelmed, meaning all that work I put into levelling up my courage officially worked. Not only that, but I could share in a little piece of our past, firmly in the driver’s seat.
Pokemon Sapphire
Truthfully, you could put just about any early Pokemon game here and I’d still class it as pretty defining for me. I was born in ‘91–of course I was a Pokemon kid, specifically Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Silver, and Pokemon Sapphire. Things get a little hazy after that, as I dropped in and out a lot when the Nintendo DS entered the scene. Of the three early gens though, gen 3 is definitely the one I have the most impactful memories of. Don’t get me wrong–I adore gen 1 and gen 2 (ahem, Game Freak, virtual console/current hardware ports WHEN??) but gen 3 is the one I was the most social with. As soon as I switch on the game and that peak soundtrack hits, I’m transported right back to lounging around the school green, stairways, and portacabin classrooms with my friends, whiling away our lunch hour with a Pokemon session of trading, battling, chatting, and customising our Secret Bases.
That’s Not All: A Few More Recommendations
Once my brothers got older and moved out, I built up a game collection that took up an entire chest of drawers. Many of those titles led to new friends, which led me eventually to my new life and Canada, well beyond the borders of what I thought was possible in that sleepy English town. Between the carefree Sega days and my PlayStation teens, there are titles that stand out in my memory far more clearly than others:
- Baku Baku Animal
- Clockwork Knight
- Keio Flying Squadron 2
- Primal Rage
- Virtua Cop 2
- Sunset Riders
- Mega Bomberman ‘94
- Worms
- Street Fighter 2
- Athlete Kings
- Lemmings 2: The Tribes
- Theme Park
- Final Fantasy X
- Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
- Ever17: the out of infinity
- Escape From Monkey Island
- Persona 4
- Soulcalibur II
- Kingdom Hearts
Which Games Made You?
Well, that’s enough nostalgia for one post. Now you’ve seen an overview of my nostalgia and what video games mean to me, I want to know: what do video games mean to you? Which consoles did you have as a kid? What did you play, and who with? Leave a comment and let me know! I always love hearing about the games that hold a special place in peoples’ hearts and what made them so special!
Until next time, thanks for joining me by the Foxfire!
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