Why Everyone Will Always Remember Their First Game

You’re Hooked

The first time you beat a game, you get the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes from having overcome a project a ton of people spent years working. Depending on the amount of people who contributed towards the game, that god-like feeling mentioned earlier may diminish a quarter of the way through the unskippable credit roll, as you desperately smash the buttons so you can get playing something else. The completion of your first game marks a significant point in any gamers life, the addiction truly sets in.

Nothing quite gets you hooked like the sense of accomplishment previously mentioned, and you seek to replicate that feeling over and over again through playing and completing more and more games. It’s very much like the idea of Xbox and Steam’s achievements system and Playstation’s Trophies, every time you unlock one of those bad boys, see the notification pop and hear the noise, it makes you feel good. That sense of accomplishment though will forever be dwarfed by that feeling you got when you beat your first game, and that’s why you owe it for getting you hooked.

 Them Feels

The credits finish, controller still lay down next to you, glass empty after the length of said credits. You feel a sense of disappointment among all the euphoria. The disappointment that you’ve completed the experience, and probably won’t be sitting down to carry on your lengthy quest curious to find out what’s going to happen next any time soon. You’ll sit there and contemplate what you’re going to do with all the free time you have in your life that you previously filled with said game. Go outside? Nah! You debate popping in another game from your library into your console, but it just isn’t the same. That’s the double-edged sword of completing your first game.

Whilst you’ll always look back on it with fondness, remembering the first time you beat Bowser in a Mario game or just edging your way to poll position in the final race of a racer, it’ll resonate with you at an emotional level that makes every other game look sub-par and uninteresting, at least for a little while. My experience of completing Lylat Wars on the N64 led to just this feeling, not even Goldeneye or seeing my Pokémon glorified on the TV via Pokémon Stadium would do the trick.

Give it a couple hours and you come round, settling into the grind of another RPG or shooting the hell out of some bad guys in an FPS. But every time you go back and play that first game long down the line in the future, you’ll get that familiar feeling of content, even if it does seem somewhat outdated now.

 You’ll Always Re-buy Those Games

Maybe I should clarify a bit more… I’m definitely not suggesting you went out and bought that game again after watching the credits flood your screen. What I do mean however is you’ll always purchase the digital download/ HD remake of the game just so you can play it on your current console and enjoy, in the case of HD remakes, beautiful shiny graphics. Think about it, how many people have bought one of the Final Fantasy HD remakes because it was one of the first games you completed… hell, even played!

Come on, own up!

The moment I found out I could download Lylat Wars off the Nintendo Virtual Console I was sold, and had no regrets on my purchase. You’ll have sat there at one point, playing the remake or the digital download of the game, whilst scoffing at the announcement of another ‘remastered’ version of some other game coming to Xbox One or PlayStation 4.

The truth is, it’s normal to do this. Playing something from your past, maybe in some cases your childhood, on a modern console, updated or not, is more justifiable than something that came out just over a year ago. Maybe some bias comes into play when it’s that game you have such a feeling of nostalgia for, but at the end of the day do you not owe it to the developers to give them a bit more of your cash considering they brought you into the world of games? The world that’s given you endless hours of enjoyment and moments of accomplishment, even if they aren’t as monumental as that very first one you experienced.