So tell me forum, why do you play Video games?
I play them for my own special reason. You see, I consider myself a cheerful and relatively happy person. I may be a bit reclusive, and I don't smile when I am out and about, but deep in my wacky creative mind, I am a happy person. But like all human beings, I have my moments when I want to retreat into that world of make believe. Allow me to give a brief history of my experiences in Video games.
In the early Jux days when I was like 8 years old, I used to like the traditional side scrolling games. Super Mario Bros, Sonic the hedgehog, Metroid, and the likes. As a child, I didn't need three dimensions to have a good time, just move right for a few hours while knocking out some baddies. Save the princess and junk. I had plenty of siblings, and we all share the imagination of the platforming days.
As I got older (roughly 12 years old or so) I took a look into something a bit more open; the RPG genre. The idea that you are a knight in shining armor, slaying dragons, and rescuing the princess just makes the fantasy world so much more interesting. As a child, your imagination runs wild, and you leave little time to think about the real world. You went to school, did homework, studied for tests, and dealt with your nagging parents. All I wanted to do was go into that world where I slayed goblins and monsters to get stronger. I love things like medieval arms, magic, dragons, and all that type of stuff.
But then the day when my life changed forever came upon me. My need to escape reality and wander into the fantasy world grew so much. But the interest and type of reality changed as well. Around this time, I discovered the Pokemon world. The game was fun, had that RPG element, and had lots of cute little friends to play with. With 151 different creatures, I had my little set of friends that I played with. . . A lot! Pokemon was a lot of fun as a game, but for a moment in my youth these creatures were my friends. They helped me get through some tougher times when I had lost literally EVERYTHING!
Pokemon Gold and Silver were games that became my new favorite. What made these games special is that I was growing into adulthood, and the games were growing along with me. The world expanded, my old friends grew and had children (meaning my old favorites evolved like Scyther to Scizor, and Pikachu had baby Pikachus known as Pichus) and the story moved ahead. Old enemies like Blue and Koga grew older and became something bigger. I loved that the Pokemon world grew up, cause in a way it felt alive.
Around this time, Harvest Moon also came into the picture. Harvest Moon became more than a game about farms and pretty girls. It was a game about life. I learned so much about who I am becoming, and how I need to change from the Harvest Moon games. I know it sounds a bit stupid, but lets break it down:
I mentioned many times in other topics about that first ending I ever got in Harvest Moon: 64. The ending was good, but it was a lonely one. Since the passing of my mother, I typically kept to myself. I also did the same thing in the Harvest Moon world. I treated the characters like I would in an RPOG, just lifeless merchants who do nothing but sell seeds and animals and other stuff. The game actually told me that I made no friends, and that is a very important part of the Harvest Moon world.
I became intrigued, so I gave it a try. And boy was I amazed at how lifelike a bunch of programmed characters are. They have a story to tell, a past that involved the main character at some point, plans for the future, and a solid relationship to their families. I was not expecting to see that in a game. So I became a part of this land of make believe, and I changed because of it. The game reminded me that being social is important. Being a part of the community yields great rewards. And I am not the only one in pain out there.
Like the Pokemon world did at one time, the Harvest Moon world grew as well. I traveled into the magnificent world of Homeland (AKA Leaf Valley), and raised a family in A Wonderful Life. In AWL, I got to know two important characters of my young adult years, Muffy and Lumina. Muffy reminded me of myself. A young woman who runs around desperately looking for something meaningful; A family.
This was something I was looking for since my mother passed away. After my mother passed on, my real life family was disbanded. My siblings who I spent my childhood were separated; my father disowned me, my aunts and uncles no longer wanted have anything to do with one another. I was desperate to have a family once again. I saw that same personality in Muffy for some strange reason. For that reason, I began to have a bond with this person. Some people think that I like muffy because she's pretty, or she's blond, or she wears a tiny red cocktail dress, or heels. But is the fact that I see something that reminded me of myself. Someone who wanted a family above all things.
Lumina is a similar story. Getting to know her in AWL SE, Lumina is a girl who has lost her parents, and she is living with her grandmother because she has no one else. In a way, she's kind of like Elli from Harvest Moon: 64. Lumina is cheerful for the most part, but she has that little sad person deep buried in herself. Once again, I also share that personality.
At this point, Harvest Moon stopped growing, and just focused on just making happy and cheerful games made for a younger audience. I do like a few titles after that, but I feel that Harvest Moon: AWL is the most adult that the series is going to get. Hero of leaf valley came close, but the game had one massive flaw that many Harvest Moon games share in modern times, aggravation. Many things that they add to the game makes the experience just plain annoying, and I no longer wish to dive in a world that is more frustrating and difficult to deal with than real life.
I decided to get back into the Pokemon world, and noticed that this franchise had also refused to grow any past the Gold/Silver age. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire just goes back into the roots, and the series has been stuck there for the last 10 years. I feel that the people who made such fantastic worlds in Pokemon and Harvest Moon just betrayed me, and just makes games for the all mighty dollar. They forget what makes the series great, and they just lose themselves. There are still fans of the games, but they are quite different than I am. And even most of those fans agree that Gold and Silver were the best titles in the series. If they cannot top an old game from 10 years ago, they should just give up.
Harvest Moon continues to make games for the fans of the game. I am playing the game Tale of two towns, but I can honestly say that this game similar to many of it's previous titles just doesn't have the magic of the old games where the series used to grow with it's audience.
In closing, I play games to escape the harsh reality of the real world. Everyone does it, but not always to video games. Some people make up their own crazy little world, some people dive into cartoons or movies or anime. Others dive into toys and dolls. Whatever you do to escape the real world, remember that fantasy world may not be real, but the feelings that come with them are.
P.S. - I used to also escape into the anime world at one point in my life. But after I experienced the world of Clannad, anime no longer became a world where I enjoy being at.
