Your Crowning Achievements in Gaming

[Nightingale]

I have always been very interested in what others consider the crowning achievements of their gaming experiences (such as defeating a particularly-strong boss they had been trying to hack apart for days, meeting certain self-imposed -or not- criteria that made the whole thing much more palatable... or maybe something as simple as doing better than they had expected while still fully enjoying the game they were currently playing).

For me, there's two examples that rose above all others while I was thinking about experiences to write up this post, both because of how significant they were to me.

Beating Pokémon Yellow: I know you are probably thinking "what? That's it?" and you would be right in saying that highlighting that would be pretty lame, but the circumstances that surrounded the act is what made it be forever burned in my memory.

Back in 1999, a friend of mine got me a red diskette which housed one of the first Gameboy emulators (and my very introduction to the word, as well as the emulated world) and a translated copy of Pokémon Yellow. This was enough to blow my mind to the point my friend could have been easily charged with manslaughter, because the Pokémon anime had been around for a solid year by that point, and we were addicted to it (and all its related merchandise, which included much more useless junk that I'm willing to admit ever wasting my hard-earned allowance money on). I pulled my very first all-nighter playing this game (much to my mom's dismay) and, because I was a DOS gamer first and foremost, didn't really know you could do stuff like saving the game thru savestates, so I kept playing it like nothing mattered, making it to Brock every time and starting anew each time I got bored enough of playing, because I was just a kid and starting over was nothing foreign to me (must have done a million times on SMB).

This would have been ok, even endlessly fun if that was all that was to it... but no, it really didn't go that way. After four days of playing Pokémon, the diskette broke (I never once thought of copying the files over to the PC itself). My friend was very accepting of this, not even complaining about it, but I was devastated. Pokémon was my life at that point in time, and I had just lost the chance of being a part of it.

I wouldn't have another chance to play it until the advent of dial-up connections, when I was able to track down a copy of it and a better emulator to give it another go... by which point the calendar had already rolled over to 2004. What followed was this agonizing, almost fever-like state in which all time not spent forcefully doing homework was spent playing the game -which never stopped being really fun-. I think I must have been doing that for about a week... and it really wasn't pretty, as I was as green as they came when it came to playing RPGs, so I kept committing costly mistakes that kept delaying the conclusion of the story and even getting me into almost unsolvable situations. I had so little of a clue of what was going on, I deposited all my Rare Candies on the PC, because I couldn't use them on battle and therefore decided they were useless xD

Despite all of that, beating the game was unlike anything else I had experienced up to that point. It really did feel like the conclusion of something big and that I, myself, had put in motion. It also cemented my love for the franchise, that would not stop being put to the test until after Black and White 2 (anything beyond that, I couldn't afford playing due to monetary reasons).

The second item I would like to tell y'all about would be the -rather recent-...

Throwing a Perfect Game on Nintendo's Baseball: This one earned its spot on the list simply because I have been playing the game for nearly two decades now and I don't think I will ever be able to repeat it.

For those of you not aware of it, in baseball a Perfect Game is achieved when the opposite team uses only the bare-minimum amount of batters it could send out on a nine-inning game (27) and none of them reaches a base by any means (hits, HBPs, nor walks). Doing that in the game was so impressive because, sooner or later, the computer would get lucky with a swing and send a ball flying just out of reach for your players, ruining your whole attempt (I have had games going perfectly fine until the fourth or fifth inning and then... ooops! Base hit). It just happens, and I guarantee you that if you play this game, the AI would be cheap enough to lay a bunt or bite on a pitch just enough to make it fall for a base hit and ruin it for you.

That day, however, everything just went according to plan: 27 up, 27 down. Twenty-four strikeouts, a fly out and two ground outs to finish it off. I'm sure I will never win it like that again, but that's fine, really. I'm glad I got to get back at the AI-controlled teams for always bunting or stealing bases in the middle of my carefully-planned games :XD:

What about you, though? What happenings or achievements made you either laugh at your luck or feel awesome because you managed to do the impossible? :D

[macGamr]

I defeated one of the bosses of Sky Blazer in just under ten seconds, by help of a certain power-up in it that is. Oh and speaking of Pokemon, I had beaten Pokemon Blue the first time with just my starter (and was Level 86 by the time I thrashed the Elite Four and Champion)

[Maniakkid25]

I did it in Yellow with a Level 100 Nidoqueen. I was, like, 6 or 7, though.

One of those moments would definitely be the first time i made it to the final Gaspard fight in Dark Chronicle (aka Dark Cloud 2). I wish i could remember what i did, but i remember how i felt; i cried. Hard. It was a moment that let me understand what the story was truly about, even when that was more than a decade ago when i didnt understand writing at all. It was a moment of sympathy that, when described, sounds cheap, but it worked. It hit me so hard in my heart. I dont want to spoil it any further than i already have, because i know how the internet hates SHPOILERSH!!!111ELEVENTYONE1 But I have to say that it's moments like that that makes it the reason why i love that game so much.

[Nightingale]

Those are some awesome stories.

Thank you both for sharing them

[queenzelda]

For me the defining moment in a game comes with two diffent games & two different stories. xD

First is Chrono Trigger for the SNES. I had gotten to the very end of the game & Lavos kept kicking my ever loving a$$. Every tactic I tried nothing seemed to work & I would just end up with a game over screen over & over again. But each time I was defeated I didn't give up. I kept trying different party members, different attacks & just everything thing I could think of. Then one day I had had enough of being defeated & gcae up trying to beat the game. I was done. I dind't touch my controller for near on a week. I didn't go back into the game until the next week & went to lvl every character up. I fought as many monster as I could & then some. I used up all the speed tabs I had unsused, & did more level grinding. Evebtually, at lvl 80 with the party of Ayla, Marle & Chrono I finally beat lavos! It took a month of my trying to figure out how to do it on my own with out the use of a walkthrough but I did it & I was very proud of myself for accomplishing such a feat. It's what cemented Chrono Trigger as my top favorite SNES game is due to how hard the final boss is.

Game #2 is Final Fantasy VII & the defining moment for me is..

FFVII spoiler

When Aeris dies. I cry every single time I see her get killed off by Sephiroth. Yes she's broken, yes she's just a character, but she's always going to be my favorite. I was never so devistated as I was the moment I saw my favorite character get killed in such a way. Aeris was & still is one of my favorite FFVII characters due to the story she brings to the title.

+Extra: Oh yea, there's also the whole thing with Suikoden 5.

BETRAYAL!

Where Sialeeds, the aunt of the main character BETRAYS the hero. I was so upset, I still to this day can't get past that point in the game. I equip her character with the best wepon, armor & even items & she still betrays the hero. I found out later why, but it still hurts that she betrays your character in such a way. She's also a really good fighter, so losing her is a huge hit too impo. ;-;

Note: Because it now looks very off topic, this post was made when this thread was originally called "Defining moments of gaming (for you)".

[WR91]

Playing Nintendo 64 with friends back in the late 90s was awesome. Bonding through side by side gaming is something I'll never forget and online friends just aren't the same.

Also as I've told on the site in one of my earlier posts playing through and beating Yoshi's Island with my dad is something I'll never forget as well. Truly amazing.


Note: Because it now looks very off topic, this post was made when this thread was originally called "Defining moments of gaming (for you)".