ASHEN – [Shannon/19/Maryland]
The one they warned you about in junior high Health class.
I honestly don’t remember the exact time when I started playing video games. I know I was young because the strongest memory of that time I have is going to now-defunct FuncoLand and my brother buying a Multitap so that he and his friends (and sometimes me) could play Secret of Mana. I must’ve been very young — at least four — since the game came out in 1992. I grew up in the SNES era — my brother actually had the NES — though I loved playing some of the more basic games that he had, like Duck Hunt. It wasn’t until he let me use his Game Boy that my gaming experience truly opened up.
The first game I had of my own was Pokémon Blue, back when it first came out. I later got the Red version and gave Blue to my brother. Then came the Christmas when we both got new systems — he a PlayStation with Final Fantasy VII, me a Game Boy Color with Pokémon Yellow. My brother eventually left for college, leaving me the PlayStation, which I religiously played on, using his copy of FF7 and buying my own copy of Final Fantasy IX. Of course, because these games were so much more complex than what I had been playing, I cheated at first. But eventually, I got good enough to beat FF9, making me love the Final Fantasy series more than anything else at the time. Things continued with a gift of a PlayStation 2 and Final Fantasy X (or was it Kingdom Hearts) for making All-State Chorus, then a GameCube with Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Tales of Symphonia a couple of Christmases later, creating my love for the Tales series. I bought myself a DS Lite a little while after they came out, since everyone else I knew was already playing on their DS Phats and the prospect of Final Fantasy III and the fourth generation Pokémon games spurring me on. Though now, I play just about any genre of game (with varying levels of success), RPGs are still my first and biggest love.
The most recent system I’ve gotten has been a PlayStation Portable, since so many of my high school friends who were serious gamers had one, as opposed to a DS. It also didn’t help that the remakes of the Star Ocean games were coming out on that system and I am a huge SO nut. I don’t have any other current-gen systems, but I am planning on hopefully getting a Wii sometime next spring and then a PlayStation 3 with my summer earnings next year.
When I’m not gaming (which is surprisingly quite a bit of time), I’m a college sophomore pursuing a major in Music Composition with a minor in Electronic Media and Film at a four-year university, though I might be changing my focus soon. I am also the Public Relations officer for our school’s gaming club, as well as being an avid web surfer. I would do Computer Science in school if it didn’t make my head implode. After school, I’m planning on going to graduate school, though I haven’t figured out exactly what I’m doing yet — I’ve thought of everything from conducting to sexology. Certainly some interesting ideas floating through my head, though I’ll definitely continue gaming — I’ve grown up in it, no reason to stop now!
GINGER – [Alicia/19/Maryland]
Awakens at night to feast on the food in your fridge.
My love of gaming began when my mother let a SNES and Super Mario World into the house around when I was six years old. However, my true submersion into the gaming world would actually come many years later when I would acquire my first GameBoy Color.
Little did I know this handheld system would slowly open the door to a whole new world for me. The first game that came about was of course from the Pokemon franchise and I also owned some smaller games such as Kirby’s Dream Land 2. It wouldn’t be until sometime around middle school my family would get a PS2. Even then though the games I played were multi-player games such as SSX Tricky and James Bond 007: Agent Under Fire with my cousins. However, a copy of Kingdom Hearts would make its way into my house around my freshman year of high school and change my life forever.
It took my slowly opening door and round-house kicked it off its hinges. I soon found myself actually looking into other RPGs like the Tales of Series and Final Fantasy. I now have a small collection of RPGs that seems impossible to tackle. I’ve also become a happy owner of a DS Lite and enjoy spending my time playing games on the go. With the uproar of Dissidia: Final Fantasy I caved to temptation and bought the bundle. Now with a PSP I can look forward to my collection growing with its catalog of games.
Unfortunately, being a poor college student has hindered my ability to get a current generation system but I hope to purchase a PS3 by the end of the year. However, I’m still well acquainted with current systems as my friend and I play games constantly on her Wii and Xbox 360. Yet, even though I love gaming, I still consider myself very much a “green horn” and hope to expand my knowledge.
I’m a sophomore at a local community college trying to get my Associates Degree. After this year I want to transfer to a four year college and study in the field of Computer Technology. In my spare time I work at a local bookstore or just hang out with friends. I’m not really sure what I want to do after school but I’ll continue to walk down the path of gaming now matter what comes my way.
MEIMI – [Robin/31/Alabama]
Remembers what your mother used to play.
Back when I was a wee Meimi, my sister and I spent our weekends over at our grandparents. The highlights of said weekends tended to be Saturday morning cartoons and playing on the Atari. Man, trying to get those hard, unresponsive joysticks to work was a task in and of itself, but we managed. Not much gaming beyond that except the occasional visit to the arcade in the mall, but then my mother up and decided we needed to get the new system on the block and an NES shortly joined the household. I’d like to say that the rest of my formative years were spent playing a variety of titles, but I have to be honest. It was all Zelda, all the time. This was made more so thanks to my mother’s apparent passion with the original game. I’d come home from school and find it paused from where she’d been playing on it all day. I guess you could say I started early and come by my gaming obsession honestly. It’s inherited!
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. We had to get an SNES because we had to get The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I have probably played that game more than any other, including Chrono Trigger, which I adore. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Around that general point in time, my mother married a guy who was into AD&D and had Gateway to the Savage Frontier installed on his crappy PC. It was indeed a very crappy machine, but it was also a decent introduction to RPG elements and gave her the idea to pick up Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and, more importantly, Final Fantasy II for our beloved SNES. At that point I fell hard for turn-based RPGs and haven’t looked back since.
By the time the next generation of consoles rolled out, I was old enough to be buying stuff for myself. The Playstation was picked up from a random shopping trip at the mall. Wild Arms, Suikoden and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night were all rentals that swiftly became purchases. I hadn’t really thought much about the N64 at the time, because they had yet to come out with a Zelda for it. That changed when I chanced upon playing Super Mario 64 at the local Blockbuster and fell in love with it. It was a brief love affair, but an enjoyable one. It couldn’t last, of course, because The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was finally released. My mother actually didn’t play it, and still hasn’t to this day, but she’d always pop out to watch me play it, especially when Link was big. Go figure.
Gaming continues to advance, and I’ve branched out since then. The PS2 had a very long life with me (and still does, of a sorts), but I eventually revisited my roots with a Gamecube and then a Wii, and then finally dipped my toes in 360 land. I’m not much for console loyalty, as they all have their good points and bad points, and frankly, I’ve always been more interested in the games anyway. Asides from that, I’ve lost a few years to PC gaming in the form of MMORPGs (Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, it never ends). Drug free addictions, they do exist!
I skipped most of the handheld stuff until very recently. My first one was a Gameboy Advance SP, which sadly saw very little use since the DS came out like a few months later. The DS has cheerfully seen a lot of play from me, so much so that I picked up a Lite when the cobalt blue was released. But don’t worry, the PSP is hardly ignored. Lumines kept it on for a long time, and then came the parade of RPGs. I’m kinda predictable where they’re concerned.
I haven’t stopped playing video games since those early days, and I don’t ever really intend to. They’ve just been too big a part of my life to ever leave off for long.
AYAIKUN – [Kelly/20/Pennsylvania]
Grinds Vesperia into a powder and snorts it.
I’ve been playing games ever since my old man sat me down to play the original Doom on the PC when I was just four years old. Since then, it’s been nothing but a torrid love affair that’s spanned from an NES through the current gen.
The system that really kicked off my love was the N64. While I had a lot of love for my SNES games, the N64 blew my mind. I couldn’t afford many games at that age, so I went wild in renting and borrowing them, getting really attached mainly to the Zelda series, and platformers like Super Mario 64 and the Banjo-Kazooie games. Eventually, I wound up getting a PlayStation 2 (years after its release), and was finally introduced to my favorite type of games: JRPGs. The Final Fantasy series and the Xenosaga triology got me hook, line, and sinkered into the genre, and I haven’t left since. When I’d finally saved up enough money to buy a used GameCube, I played Tales of Symphonia and quickly became a fan of the series as well as its prior installments and those to come.
In the current generation, I’m a long-time but low-use Wii owner. I’ve owned a Wii since launch, but don’t seem to get around to playing many games for it. I think this is due to the distinct lack of big-name JRPG franchises on the console. I also (very) recently bought a PlayStation 3 with my summer earnings, but don’t have a large collection of games for the system yet. Thus, my most abused console of the generation is the Xbox 360, which has some of my favorite games, including Bioshock and Tales of Vesperia.
When I’m not playing games, I’m a sophomore in college double majoring in Japanese Studies and Globalization Studies with a focus on international business. In my free time, I help to run the game club at my school as the Events Coordinator and PR Manager, but lately I’ve also taken on the role of Web Content as well. After I finish school, I hope to join the gaming industry in the role of localization or business management/marketing, in order to allow games to finally finish taking over my entire life.
KASUMI – [Amy/23/Virginia]
Is completely and utterly FF-tarded.
A total Final Fantasy series fangirl, that is. I was first introduced to video games as a wee child who spent many a day watching my brother play NES. I grew up watching him play through stuff like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy I, and a ton of other games. So naturally, I eventually had to try my hand at playing some video games. And, well… here I am 15 years later.
While I did play a few NES games, I consider my real start with games to be in the 16-bit era with the SNES. Amongst my favorites from that era are Mega Man X1-2, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy II(IV) and III(VI), and Chrono Trigger. Secret of Mana was pretty much my first serious RPG, soon followed by Final Fantasy II. Then came the PS1 generation with Grandia, Breath of Fire III, and the unavoidable Final Fantasy VII. I was pretty much won over by the game from the moment I saw the gorgeous shot of Midgar in the opening. After that I pretty much went on an RPG spree: SaGa Frontier, Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy VIII and IX, to name a few.
Nowadays I mostly play PS2, PSP, and DS. I still play mostly RPGs. Back in 2005 I was introduced to the Tales series when I played Tales of Symphonia on the Game Cube. My love for the series only grew when I played Tales of the Abyss the next year. So naturally I set out to discover the rest of the series, which resulted in me playing Tales of Eternia, Destiny (PS1), Rebirth, and Phantasia (PS1) within the span of a year. After that I ran out of games to play in English and am currently taking a break from the series. Sure would be nice if more than half of the series ever left Japan!
Recently I’ve been struggling with Final Fantasy XII (stupid Gambits) and enjoying Dissidia: Final Fantasy. I’ve also been backtracking through the Final Fantasy series for fun.
