Topic: "10 Games To Get To Know Me..."

[JonLeung]

I could've sworn I already posted this in these forums... but maybe I'm confusing it with the VGMaps Discord... or my X, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram... too many social media platforms to keep up with!

Anyway, if I haven't, here's my image as part of the "10 Games To Get To Know Me" trend on social media where people post an image of themselves, as well as box shots (usually, or some use screenshots) of ten video games that they really like, or define them, or whatever.

I couldn't settle on 10 so I took it up to 11 (like Spinal Tap).  Well, I had kind of settled on ten games a few days earlier, but noticed right after posting it that I had somehow forgotten the game with my favourite map on all of VGMaps.com, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night!  (Thanks yet again, Revned!)

A bizarre thing to forget as it should have been high on the list to begin with.  As I saw others were breaking the "rule" (if there ever was one) and posting fewer or more games, and as it IS Hallowe'en, I was like, yeah, I'll stick Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night on there, it's fine.

Obviously, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past is there, as the first maps I ever made for VGMaps.com are of that game.  But some weren't sure bets, at least not initially.  I hesitated on if I should include SimCity Social (a now-defunct browser game on Facebook that didn't even last a year) or specifically the arcade version of SoulCalibur II which I played when I worked at Playdium (especially the Risk-like "Conquest" mode not seen in any of the home versions).  Then my brother said those are EXACTLY the reasons why I should include them if I wanted my image to be personally unique, because others likely wouldn't have such strong and specific memories.

So, yeah, that's my eleven games.

(I guess.  In my over four decades of gaming, I've played MANY games, so this wasn't easy to choose in the first place... This might be a little different if you ask me about the most influential games in my life if you ask me on another day, if I remember something else... for me to even forget Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night in the first place... wow, maybe I am getting old...)

If you want to partake in this trend, you're welcome to share your ten (or however many you want).

[mechaskrom]

Choosing just 10 games is hard, but I tried to pick some favorites from different genres that I really like.
Final Fantasy 6 (SNES)
Super Metroid (SNES)
Settlers IV (PC)
Silent Hill 3 (PS2)
Castlevania SOTN (PSX)
FlatOut 2 (PS2)
Secret of Mana (SNES)
Solomon's Key 2 / Fire 'n Ice (NES)
Guardian Legend (NES)
Super Probotector / Contra 3 (SNES)

[TerraEsperZ]

In order to limit my selection to ten, I went for games that really "connected" with me in some ways despite not always being objectively all that good. Each one became a temporary obsession and I wish I could go back to experience them again for the 1st time:

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010)
Portal 2 (2011)
FEZ (2012)
Antichamber (2013)
NaissanceE (2014)
Undertale (2015)
INFRA (2016)
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (2016)
FAR: Lone Sails (2018)
Outer Wilds (2019)

[dark_lord_zagato]

I could fill this up with Final Fantasy and Zelda games, but to keep this interesting i'll limit my choices to one game per franchise.

These are games that I played obsessively when they came out. Games that warped my mind or left a lasting impression.


Secret of Mana (SNES)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Final Fantasy III (US) (SNES)
Inindo: Way of the Ninja (SNES)
Xenogears (Playstation)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation)
Breath of Fire III (Playstation)
Crystalis (NES)
Little Ninja Brothers (NES)

[mechaskrom]

Zagato, why did you pick Inindo: Way of the Ninja? I haven't played it, but it has really mixed reviews online and doesn't seem very good. Plus, it's made by Koei. 

Is it worth playing anyway?

[dark_lord_zagato]

Zagato, why did you pick Inindo: Way of the Ninja? I haven't played it, but it has really mixed reviews online and doesn't seem very good. Plus, it's made by Koei. 

Is it worth playing anyway?

No, it's really not. This falls under the category of bad games that we like for personal reasons.

A friend of mine gave this to me back in the 1990s, when we were in highschool, and showed me the basics of how this game works. The graphics and sound are pathetic for an SNES game, and while the story is okay there isn't anything too special about it.

What really sold us was all the stuff you can do outside of storyline progress. You can just forget about your mission and screw around for years of in-game time. I wanted to explore all of Japan and find the towns that you have no real reason to go to. My friend liked recruiting all the generic characters just to sell their stuff and kick them out of the party. We both liked tracking down the characters that are hostile towards the hero, so we could challenge them to a duel and beat the CRAP out of them. Later on in the game I found out you could take spying and sabotage missions, and even help out in wars between provinces. I tried to turn the entire mini-map of Japan yellow (for Tokugawa Ieyatsu) but only conquered half of it before my generals were stretched too thin.

So that was pretty fun, but I always wished I could have a world map of this game to make it easier to navigate. VGmaps came along some time later, and then after waiting silently for a few years I finally realized that if I ever wanted these maps I would just have to make them myself.

You know what that means. Inindo is the game that got me into mapping in the first place. If this is a list of games that had a big influence on us then Inindo really should be on my list.