Way back in the days of PS2's, GameCubes, and GameBoys I thought of myself as a game lover. I devoured Xenosaga, any Final Fantasy I could get, Kingdom Hearts, Digimon and a slew of others. I remember the hours and hours I put into training my favorite Digimon and the thrill of wielding a keyblade. It took me five days of none stop playing to finish Kingdom Hearts II, and as a Jessy McCartney fan back in the day Roxes was a favorite. I was up for any game from simple cart racing or puzzle solving to complex stories and RPG's. The Witch and the Hundred Knight was one of my absolute favorites, and Baldurs Gate puts me back in my cousins house with koolaid and crustless sammiches swathed in that careless happiness that only childhood has.
Now in the world of Fortnite, Final Fantasy Online, and all these new VR games I've gotta say. I'm no longer the gamer I thought I was. I still love the classics I grew up with. I miss battling against the Gnosis on space ships with mechanized robot girls, and the complex stories of the Final Fantasy genre. But I don't really feel the same ZING with games anymore that I once did in my youth. It's all about endless fighting, surviving, and score boards. Now that isn't to say good stories don't exist, just to say, I don't feel that same spark when I do play those as I did before. This thought has been bugging me for a while.
I miss the wonderful worlds games used to hold for me, but recently I've come to the realization that those worlds and that feeling of excitement I miss as a child, are still there just not in the ways I remember. For me, that feeling has lost a lot of the wonder of childhood but it is still there and the feeling is something that should be held onto. I'm not a gammer anymore, but that is okay, because what I loved about gaming is still within reach. It's simply evolved into something more complex and perhaps 'worldly'. I find that thrill and love I miss in books, but sometimes I find it in anime, in some games, in tv shows and comics, in stories and in media. I'm not a gamer anymore, but I am still a story lover, and while a lot of games don't hold the same spark they used to for me, new things hold a new but still similar spark.
I've spent the last few weeks thinking to myself, wondering and sorting through who I am, what I like, and what I want to be. I've always wanted to tell stories, and the medium has never really mattered. My past, my love of those early games, is what shaped the person I am today. Someone who loves stories, emersion, and beautiful imagery. I hope to take this recent realization about myself, and use it to continue to grow as a person and further my craft.
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