Nostalgia and My Favorite Video Game

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nostalgia I feel for certain games lately. Maybe it’s because I’m wrapped up in a project that has a lot of people commenting about their nostalgia or maybe it’s playing the silent hill 2 remake in my free time. I figured no better way to let that out then to share a story about one of the games I feel the most nostalgic for.

I grew up in a gaming household. I remember from a young age I used to watch my dad play Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Solid, my parents even got me an N46 so I could play on my own. As much as those systems remind me of being a kid it’s really the PlayStation 2 that feels like home to me.

I was 7 when the PlayStation 2 came out. My older cousins parents managed to get him one on release. They weren’t as strict as my parents so we spent a lot of time over there playing games we weren’t really supposed to (Sorry mom!). There wasn’t really anything that made me beg my parents for my own system, not when I could go over his house. That was of course until sometime around 2001 when I saw the first commercial for Kingdom Hearts.

I think every kid that saw the Kingdom Hearts trailer for the first time thought “I really don’t know what this is, but I need it” and I was simply no exception. From the iconic music to a spiky haired boy holding a big key next to Donald and Goofy, something about this game was so bizarre that I just needed to play it. Kingdom Hearts is one of those games that is notoriously confusing on the outside and this first trailer really captures why that charm was so captivating. Whether the game itself is or isn’t confusing is a completely different topic for another day but the trailer was laying the ground work for the series at large.

I remember talking to my cousin about how we had to play it. Eventually his parents gave in and let him get a copy of it. I remember staying over his house and staying up all night just playing through the first couple levels. Eventually I knew if I wanted to play the game myself I’d have to beg my parents to get me my own PlayStation 2. So I did just that.

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For Christmas that year I asked for one thing, and one thing only. A PlayStation 2 and Kingdom Hearts.

Looking back at that Christmas it really just shows how amazing my parents are. My mother is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met and my father works so hard for just about everything he has. I’m sure me asking for the latest video game system and a brand new game probably wasn’t something that was necessarily in the cards but they we’re going to do everything they could to get it. I remember waking up that morning and opening gifts. As a child you get down to the end of the pile and start thinking “oh no I didn’t get what I wanted” when you don’t see it under the tree. There’s a bit of disappointment that as an adult now you probably feel some shame about. I remember opening the last gift and inside was a note asking me to venture to a part of the house to find another clue.

I guess I should mention my mother loves a scavenger hunt. So as I ventured through the house following this trail of clues that eventually lead me to our basement where on a table next to an older tv was a smaller stack of presents piled up. I opened them to find Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper and of course Kingdom Hearts. Looking back at this list my parents really managed to pull out all the stops in terms of titles. However there was one problem- I still didn’t have a ps2.

I didn’t let my disappointment show instead I hugged both my parents, thanked them immensely, and sat down to play a video game. I like to think it didn’t take me a while to notice but it probably did and I’m sure you’re all thinking it too. My parents had of course gotten the console and had set it up so that I could enjoy the games they got me. I was over the moon.

Immediately I popped in my copy of Kingdom Hearts and started playing. I remember plowing through the parts I had played over my cousins house. Playing until we had somewhere to be, finding a save point and…. I didn’t have a memory card.

Panicked I grabbed a ps1 memory card and tried to save it on that. Didn’t work, drat. So I did what any normal kid would do and left the system on. We came home, I played some more. Eventually I had to wrap up and go to bed, but I couldn’t just leave the system running forever right? I couldn’t tell my parents that this awesome gift they got me was incomplete because I had no way to save my progress.

So I just never told them. For months I would power on my PlayStation 2, best destiny islands, go through traverse town and maybe deep jungle. There are few places I know like the back of my hand but if you asked me to draw you a map of those 3 I could with ease. Eventually my dad had realized I wasn’t making progress in any of my games and when he realized why they did end up getting me that memory card for my birthday (seven months later).

I think about this story every time I fire up a copy of Kingdom Hearts. There’s a couple other little memories I have tied to this series. It’s far and away one of my favorite games and I don’t doubt that some of that is based in nostalgia. Sadly, I don’t know where that original copy is. An ex partner stole it in the break up as much as I wish it was still with my ps2. However, that is a system that will never leave my collection.

What are some games that you have an immense nostalgia for? I’d love to hear these stories down in the comments.