In something I feel might be a series (hence the #1), here are some game memories I’ve dredged up recently, starting with a couple frustrating ones.

I watch a lot of let’s plays, which are basically videos of people playing games, not speedruns (though I watch those too), just people playing through the game, maybe showing off most of it, or sometimes 100% runs. Basically I like seeing the games I remember but no longer have or cannot contemplate running them on my current computer or consoles.

I was reminded recently of a game I used to play on a system I’ve later determined to be the Genesis. I had very very hazy memories of this game, so I wasn’t sure which system it was on at first, but I managed to search about it enough to find it. I don’t even know why we had it, I have a feeling it was something we borrowed or something, since I don’t recall my family having it the last time I saw the genesis, where ever it is now. (Turns out it is in my closet, next to the N64, where it has been resting undisturbed for over 4 years). The only games left are some of the sonics and the box to Ecco, but thankfully the cart is gone. Oh, and also a star trek game which probably deserves its own entry.

Anyway, I have memories of this game way back when I used to go into my brother’s room in the basement to play, because it was one of two games that were sort of left overs, games to play when I couldn’t be bothered to play any of the others. One of them was Herzog Zwei which I think was considered to be an alright real-time strategy game. I had huge difficulty with it, there was no manual, this is true, but the cart we had was in Japanese (or at least had a reminiscent character set). I must have been very bored to try to figure any part of it out. I got good enough to play it a bit, but I’d always lose against the computer.

But that wasn’t the game I was trying to find. Herzog Zwei was a name I had thought of over the years and had looked it up long ago. No, there was a game that, to me anyway, was much worse. A game that I now know would have been an RPG, and basically I’d start it, go out, and die, and then die again, and then again, and then that’s it. I also remembered it had decent music. Well, I think I found it. People say it was an alright game too, but to me, it was worse than nothing. Again, no manual, and I don’t think the save functionality worked on the cart. Anyway, I believe the thing was called Faery Tale Adventure, and it kicked my ass each and every time, mostly like this: