don't you forgot about me! also, I turned the bad kirby air ride script I mentioned into a video and it's on nebula: nebula.tv/videos/razbuten-lets-talk-about-kirby-air-ride-i-wrote-this-in-2013
There was an interview with Charley Day where he talked about never wanting to watch the episode of SNL he was in because he did not want the memory of watching it to override the memory of him doing it. I get that, sometimes you just want things to be a pleasant memory and it can be frustrating to revisit something only for it to not live up to that memory.
Exactly. I thought I was the only one who felt that. I’ve never really replay video games because I’m afraid that it won’t be as good as I remember. I used to love Mario sunshine but after it was ported, I was so annoyed with the camera, Mario’s movements, ect. I stopped playing so I didn’t ruin my love for it.
@@TimHoekstra Yeah I get that. an area I used to visit as a teen and kid that was a funy shopping and entertainment area has exploded in popularity because of the real estate boom that is happening and what was mostly short building and a couple 8 story tall office buildings are not overshadowed by dozens and dozens of extremely overpriced luxury apartments that most can't afford and everyone is being priced out of the area and all the fun one of shops and restaurants have all been replaced by huge luxury chains. It used to be frequented by local college kids who wanted to check out some cool small local businesses, but the university has blown up so much and the real estate surrounding it that only those with money can afford student housing and all want to go to expensive luxury shops and restaurants. I don't even go there if a can anymore. Kinda wanna just change cities so everything is fresh, then my childhood isn't being ruined anymore, cus I don't even like this place anymore.
I feel like this is more to do with when you have a memory you have a first person experience of what that memory was. Everything that happened in your head more or less how it happened but if you have a picture or a video of it. Your brain will short hand the entire thing to that that picture or that video. Cause its recent and easier
12:55 this is such a great point! This happens to me for movies as well. Sometimes a movie/game will hit us at the right time, but that specific experience will never be recreated.
I was around 10-11 when I first played through Gun. My grandpa whom i lived with was a huge gamer, whether it was Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Soul Reaver, Clock Tower, Red Dead Revolver… all that jazz… And as a dreamcast believer he loved Blue Stinger haha!!! He never was all into the open world formula but was a huge western fan. Gun was one of the last games he finished and he truly loved it. I am 25 now… RIP my poppy, Mike Looney.
It's a good day when Razbuten posts. Just wanted to say thank you for being one of my favorite video game essayists. I always come back to your videos when I'm feeling down and they always give me a new perspective and make me think deeper about not just games, but life and the meaning of it. Hoping you're doing well! ☺
Another fun aspect of memory: we reconstruct them each time we recall them. We are not recalling the original event, we are recalling the last time we recalled the event. This is one of the (many) reasons "I know what I saw" is never an accurate statement. We perceive an infinitesimally small portion of what happens around us (far less than we fool ourselves into thinking we do), and we don't remember accurately what we DID perceive.
so much of this video feels like hearing my own thoughts spoken out loud. i have severe memory loss problems due to my mental health, and i have fuzzy memories of some of my favourite games, including games i played as recently as 9 months ago. there are times where i can replay one of my favourite games “for the first time” and genuinely not know anything because i’ve forgotten so much!! memory is really messy, and there isn’t one answer for how to approach it, but coming at the games i’ve forgotten from a position focused more on remembering them again than on analysing them has been helpful for me. this was a really great video on a topic i don’t hear other people talk about often!!
I don’t always keep up with your videos , but I’ll always come back. These aren’t videos about video games, they’re videos about life through the lens of gaming . I’m not even a huge gamer . But I was thinking today who I would say is my FAVOURITE UA-camr , and I think you are definitely among them. You are so talented at writing. Somehow your videos about games almost always make me tear up. You’re honest about your feelings and I love that. You’re just the best man.
it is incredibly human to hear about another person growing out of the memory of certain games and experiences. I've been spending the last couple of months severely worrying that every time I forget a characters name, how a game ends, or what happens in a tv season that i'm both losing my mind, and that the thing i'm forgetting wasn't important enough. It's nice to have someone talk about how that its a bit more complex than that. Great video!
There's nothing wrong with liking a game purely for nostalgia, but when discussing and recommending good games, its important to remember that your experience was unique and cannot be applied to everyone else. If you replay a game and its not as good as you remember, there is no reason to be upset about it.
And when you find a game thats held up its even more fun to rediscover it. Shame so many old titles are abandonware with no ports that function on modern hardware
I've always had this itch to always remember my feelings and idea whenever I play something. You're correct, it's an obsessive pursuit for little to no payoff. However, one simple way to go about is this is to write reviews or do your own lists of the games you play right after you finish them. It's sort of taking a picture of a moment with some notes on it. It's a pleasure to read my thoughts on something I've played/watched/read a few years back. It shows how much you've grown and tells a lot about who you were then. I encourage everyone to try and do the same!
I remember making notes for topics, which I wanted to discuss with my friend while playing Elden Ring. We didn't want to spoil each other and it took months for me to come to an end, so I had a lot of notes. Some things in there are really interesting because they express what I imagined other parts of the game to be while I was playing one part. And it takes me back to the original feeling of discovery, which was so great.
Every year I try to make some time to replay at least one or two games that it's been over 10 years since I last played. And while it started as a way to just refresh my mind on some older games that I discuss often. Replaying Chrono Trigger for the first time since I was a kid made me fall in love with that game all over again.
I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy rereading books, that have fundamentally made me who I am, every 5 years or so. CS Lewis’s nonfiction, Harry Potter, Dostoevsky. I can tell you what happens in a general sense but it’s more about the way they make me feel in rereading. They address who I am at each moment that I read them.
Personally, rereading a book let's me relive my thoughts at the time and see a nostalgic glimpse of how my life was back then. I remember my exact reactions to specific passages and think about whether or not I would still think that today.
With every new video I watch of yours, you feel more and more like a kindred spirit to me. But the moment you name dropped Billy Hatcher, I felt that even more so than usual. Your experience with it and knowing you loved it but not remembering the particulars, perfectly mirrors my own. I’m constantly singing my praises of that game to my friends. But the biggest takeaway from it I can remember is how great bouncing around felt. I’ve been building my GameCube collection back up and Billy Hatcher is always the first title I look for when I find myself at second hand game stores. One day I WILL replay it and I hope the egg bouncing feels as good as I remember.
This is a topic I've thought about so many times, I really appreciate specifically your tangent about nostalgia and that factoring into the way we view older things, yet not being the ONLY reason we like an old thing. It's something I'm sure all critical video game channels have to contend with one way or another and I just think how it then played into the entire rest of the video thematically just spoke to me on a real personal level. One of your best videos imo.
This reminds me of movies or games with a story that really got me emotionally the first time but then never did again. Some stories rely heavily on surprises and the suspense of not knowing where it's going and that first time is amazing, but then the story will never really be as good again. I generally prefer stories that don't rely heavily on surprises or shock so that I can rewatch/replay them more than once and gain even more appreciation for them. But the stories that only worked once still were amazing experiences. I had to accept that they were one time experiences only. There is no point in trying to expereince them again so instead I just appreciate how amazing they were that first time.
Agree! Movies like The boy with the striped pyjamas was heartbreaking the first time I watched it, but I cannot rewatch it again, knowing how it ends (if you haven’t watch it, please do! Amazing movie!). With some games I have the same issue. I know how it ends and it doesn’t feel like it needs to be played again.
I was looking to "replay" this video for inspiration as I get myself more into the habit of replaying old favorites (and checking out other unplayed gems in my collection), instead of continuing to buy new games. While a big motivator for this shift in attitude for me comes from not having a job at the moment, I'd also always been drawn to the idea of coming back to things I liked a lot in the past. To give them more love than I originally had, and maybe to learn something new in the process. I know I would've more likely fallen into the pattern of being overly critical and gotten frustrated at the diminishing return, but with the knowledge from Raz I think I can have a better attitude and a better experience. Thanks Raz ❤
I'm glad you briefly showed Legend of Dragoon, I played it a lot in my youth but always fell short of finishing it around disc 4. Decided to stream through it, and it made me appreciate the game more than ever. There were story beats I was too young to understand or appreciate, the combat didn't grow old, and I finally beat it and actually loved the ending. I think it's aged pretty well, and I'm going to let it serve as a reminder that plenty of games I have memories of are still good. P.S : GUN had one of my favorite comeuppance moments. You corner the injured Mayor in his office, before defiantly yelling about how you can't kill him because "I'm Hoodoo Brown!" before shooting him out the window with Colton twirling his pistol back into his holster and coldly saying "You were". Bad Ass
Great video, Razbuten! I'm glad I'm not the only one who shares that experience with Gun. I absolutely remember loving the game, but the main parts that I could tell you about it was the main character sharing my name and the final fight. Child me was interested in a game with a guy who had my name, which I never met anyone irl that shared my name until adulthood, and it turned out to be one of my favorite gaming experiences I shared with my grandpa
The way you put together your videos and convey several examples that fit your point is always really inspiring/interesting. You mostly talked about Ski or Die, Gun, and Billy Hatcher, yet there's that whole section on false memories where you showed footage of Prince of Persia, Star Fox 64, Psychonauts, and Kingdom Hearts, all while playing the Prairie theme from Legend of Dragoon (which might be my favorite song from that game, by the way). And based on your content and stories we're around the same age, and so I see and hear all this at once and think, I'm right here with you on these takes. Then when you got to the online discourse part I thought about Legend of Dragoon. I recently picked the port up that's on PS4 and revisited it and have been enjoying myself. I go online to see hopefully other people gushing about it, but I saw a lot of people complaining about how slow the game is. I listen to retrospective reviews on UA-cam and people bash that as well, the addition system, the poor translation, etc. So then I go and try to play again and I'm not enjoying it. I noticed all those cracks and started to think "was this game really not actually ever that good?" Eventually some time passed and I got in the right mindset again and I'm loving it. Noise can really really affect your perception of things. I'm glad in the case of LoD I'm back to loving the game again, but yeah, it's hard to revisit certain games nowadays because of how online discourse can warp your opinions ON TOP of our already flawed memory systems.
I think a lot of people find thinking about experiences they can't experience the same way again to be sad or scary, but don't forget that even as adults we're still capable of finding new things that we love that we never would have considered enjoying before. It's not loss or decay, it's change and growth, and that's something worth appreciating!
15:31 this kind of made me tear up for a bit. I could write down some games I used to play nonstop as a kid and try to replay them, but they'll never feel the same way as when I played them as a kid. Im glad I've had so many fun moments with these games because it does make me realise that I'll have plenty more fun moments with new games. (As you've also said in this video.) I always enjoy watching your videos so much and I already look forward to your next video.
The thing is that you might be remembering certain titles more *because* they were popular, they've stuck in the popular conscience and therefore get discussed frequently. When you discuss them, you recall them, and that memory is refreshed. The same doesn't happen for more niche titles because the last time you seriously thought of it was many years ago.
For a lot of the games I'm nostalgic about I think a large factor is the context I played them in, whether it be laughing with friends or escaping hard times. I have a lot of nostalgia for the playground I used to frequent as a child, but I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much today. That being said, children can also enjoy good games that adults also enjoy. I enjoyed AoE2 as a child, and I still do.
I was listening to this while I drove, and I had to pull over and write this. I've been watching this channel for a few years now as a silent viewer. I feel like your videos have such a vibe to them. You talk about things that most of us don't have the words to understand, and I always enjoy the vibes that come with your videos. Don't ever feel ashamed about any topic that comes into your sack-head because you have die-hard fans who will want to listen to whatever you want to talk about. Maybe you needed to hear this. Maybe you knew this already, but I hope it makes your day a little better, like your videos always do. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, God Bless!
This happens with literally everything as you get older, not just games but also places you've been, gatherings you were at, holidays/vacations etc. etc. I find the stuff that TRULY meant something to you sticks and is easier to recall. Both media wise and outside of it you're going to forget more games than most people play. Stuff like Mario Kart, Melle and stuff have modern iterations too so they tend to reinforce those older memories even if they skew them a little.
I've been taking a communication theory course in college and one thing that I learned that really stuck out to me is the context of all art experiences being affected by the context in which you experience it, the "here and now". You can't really watch the same movie twice, read the same book twice or play the same game twice, because though the content of the pieces themselves might be the same, everything about you and what you take from them will always be different and constantly changing because all of us are constantly changing at every instant.
I also had this revelation with Mass Effect series. I just simply forgot I was obsessed with it until I played the remastered trilogy. I've played all the games, read all the books, consumed countless theories about the lore and the story. And somehow, all of this was just erased from my memory. I couldn't recall any quest, or story bit, only vague details and that the "game is good", so I was basically playing the trilogy as if I'm playing for the first time.
thanks so much for this video. your videos always end on a very philosophical but wholesome note, and I love how they make me feel reassured about games but also life. I enjoy the way you offer your perspective and tell stories from your own life as a way to relay your thoughts. your videos make me feel warm and, indeed, nostalgic.
The GASP I let out when you mentioned Billy Hatcher - me and my friends also used to be obsessed with the multiplayer mode of that game but I couldn’t tell you much about it now! Definitely gonna have to dig it out!
OMG, immediately hooked on this video because that Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg game is one I've played exactly ONCE in my life, at a friends house, and I remember having an absolute blast. I'd occasionally recall some basic elements, like rolling around the eggs, and never figured out what game it is. Now all these years later, this video unlocked a core memory from my childhood. Fuck I want to roll eggs around in there again
I like your take on how to revisit old games. Twelve year old me loved Phantom Hourglass on the DS because it required me to take notes on the Touch Screen and sneak around the Temple of the Ocean King, and twenty-six year old me still loves it for the same reasons. I didn't care that online critics hated the controls for being finicky compared to traditional 2D Zelda games, I let my experience speak for itself and had a blast.
When I was younger, I used to watch my older brother play a lot of games because we only had one television in my house growing up, so I could only watch sometimes. When I got older, I came back home and looked at the old games we owned and thought that I played a game, when I really just watched my brother. I have heard many siblings who share memories of doing things in childhood, but the person who did it was actually their brother or sister. It is strange how memories work that way.
Double dash, air ride, and melee are games my sisters and I still talk about how much we played those on our gamecube. Thank you for what you do Razbuten
a few years ago i remembered playing Syberia and decided to play it again because i couldn't recall almost anything. now it's one of my favourite games which i come back to from time to time. anyways, it's always nice to hear you talk about the games you like, your Outer Wilds video still makes me cry everytime i rewatch it. thank you for your hard work
I also enjoy watching someone else play a game I’m nostalgic about, because it provides a degree of separation that helps me enjoy the memories without overcrowding them with new perspectives on mechanics etc.
The context of the time around when you played the game is I think, the most important part of the memory of the game. Whenever I watch or read a review about the "Golden Age of MMOs", what made Everquest, WoW, and Star Wars: Galaxies so good and memorable, it always seems to be a perfect storm of the time it was released, the limitations and ways around the limitations, and the community that formed from the perfect ages of late highschool to early college playerbase. Years later, a combination of factors, including real life's commitments slowly bled the life out of this MMO genre. And the attempts to bring it back have always failed.
I love all the nuance you're holding in this video - so many mental shortcuts you could have taken (and that people do), but you analysed + connected things with rigor. Your process has clearly grown and I look forward to continuing to learn with you!
I discovered your videos about game design like minimaps and fast travel while I was in college and learning about how to make games. I have always loved your videos and will continue to watch them as soon as I see them. Thanks for the content and keep up the amazing work. Now I have to ask. When is the next gaming for a non gamer? always loved those a little bit more.
Hi Raz! Thanks so much for including my little song in your video! Videos like this one are exactly what I love the most about what you do. We as gamers talk a lot about the contents of a game and sometimes their impact on culture or gaming in general but, beyond that, games are really important because they can have ever-lasting impact on our lives and who we are as people. So, I think it's just as important to take the time to reflect on what games mean to us emotionally as well. Spending the time to look back and think about my relationship to the games I used to love holds a whole new level of weight as I grow older. As you pointed out, my memories of old games are going to be strongly tied to the memories of who I was at that stage of my life. It's inevitable that I'll forget parts of my life in the same way I forget about the games I once played. This makes me think it's important to really think about what it is I want to remember about the games of my past.
This is me and the .hack quadrilogy for the PS2. I remember loving the story, and it has still left a deep impression on me, but I only remember the tiniest bits and pieces and not even much of the actual story itself beyond the worldbuilding and the characters. But still, when I think back on it - I adored them. Still do. They meant a lot to me, and I think that matters more than properly remembering the details. I imagine that's many dev's dream to leave such a last impacting that we'll fondly reminisce decades later.
The deep, inquisitive, profound nature of your content always makes me so ruminant and thoughtful for another time. Not many are able to tap into people and make them feel this way. You have a gift, and I love being present for seeing it.
the best part of forgetting is being able to enjoy it for the first time again!! that’s why i keep all my old games, and play them after a few years of not thinking about them.
When I was in basic training having so much time away from a phone allowed me to think and harbor memories that were years lost to me about games/music/tv. I always remember leaning against a tree and remembering playing the 2002 nascar game with my dad after not having that memory available for 15 years. Now it’s one of my favorite memories.
I’ve been a professional indie developer for 14 years now. There are games where I was the primary developer, 10-13 years ago, and I spent over 2000 hours intensely focused and working on each one… and now I don’t even remember basic mechanics. These were successes, too. Financially, critically for the most part, and certainly with fans. What I remember more clearly are things that didn’t go well, or successes above a much higher threshold that people still bring up to me regularly. Overall, just because you put even something like a year of your life into a game, 60 hour weeks no less, doesn’t mean you’ll remember it in a decade. If you keep doing new things and making new memories, those older ones become harder and harder to access. Possibly even overwritten. In general… I’m okay with this. But it does feel odd at times.
Razbuten, man… love your content so much. There’s always such a look of wandering in all of your videos, that’s really the only way I can put it. Looking back at the past but also the future, uncertain where you stand, yet kind of ok with it? Wandering opinions, wandering feelings of life. Yea, really the only way I can put it. It makes me feel things haha. Not sure what but I keep watching so I must like it
My brain has opted to remember most things and recall them in a ridiculous level of detail, including games. I remember a game exactly as it was, and it's exactly the same if I decide to play it again 25 years later. I still get so nostalgic, though I think it's because - due to the level of recall - I can feel all the things I felt playing the games the first time, and playing them again now feels the same way, as if no time has passed. It makes for a unique experience, seeing what people *think* they can remember about a game compared to what it was actually like, all the funny little details they've entirely made up in the meantime or when they remember not liking it much, only to revisit it in a different time and really enjoy it.
love how your musings center on video games, but are often so widely applicable. we forget not only video games, but books, movies, songs, experiences, even people. being confronted with the gap between our memories and reality are often jarring and confusing, but your attitude towards it all is the healthy one I think.
Billy hatcher was soooo good man, and when you got golden sonic in pvp, whether it was you or your opponent, everyone got excited cause it was soo cool and soo rare
I'm a psychologist and while I was listening to your video I got myself thinking about how close are your thoughts to some of phenomenology stuff. The importance of looking to the here and now to understand and be aware of how we behave. Excelent content. Thank you!
When i replay older titles I look at them through the lense of living in that time. A strong understanding of what was innovative visually and narrative and what other games came before to inspire it and what did this game help to create.
the fact that at least 4/5 people think memory is reliable is absolutely insane considering all the science saying our memories are basically all made up if even real at all. like lots of people are imprisoned because memory is fuzzy at best and plain wrong at worse
2 things I got from this video and maybe something that will help. You say that memory will fade etc. One idea I've been practicing lately is when I have a memory of something I write it down because who knows maybe in a few years that memory will be totally lost. Write down the important memories from your past that you remember and even though its definitely not perfect (for example you couldn't make a retrospective video or review just of some short memory you had) I still think it's just good practice and a way to hold on to your memories and stories. The other thing I find interesting is everything you said about games - for example "why were they so seemingly important yet you can't remember the details" can be said about people/past friendships etc. I recently experienced that feeling with people that I hadn't talked to in 15+ years. Pretty crazy feeling.
The idea of moving on but not forgetting the last is actually something that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, to the point where it’s one of the major themes of a book I’m writing. That middle ground of not being too full of emotion or entirely divorced from it is incredibly hard to find, but I’m okay with not being solidly in the middle, because as long as one is reflective and self aware, you rarely fall to the extremes. I see it more of a process where you make gentle course corrections to your thinking and instead of shooting for this impossible ideal middle ground between the two. I’ll always have a unique experience when I play any game, because the circumstances are always different. My life was very different when I played Octopath Traveler for the first time compared to when I played mario galaxy as a kid. And that’s something I find really cool. Our memories of our previous experiences with games and other media will always affect our future ones. They will always be part of us, but their full effect on us isn’t there if we don’t move on from them and see how much they really impacted us. Let memories of the things we love encourage us to go forward and try new things.
Can I just say that I absolutely love these introspective videos. I know they might not be for everyone, but I hope Raz knows that they really help a lot of people, including myself.
The HD remaster of the Klonoa last year was my first experience of replaying a childhood game. After 20 years, revisiting familiar sights and sounds, and unlocking long buried memories was such an exciting and emotional experience for me. It was really interesting to see what my brain had condensed and misremembered as well. I wouldn't recommend that people do something like all the time, but it can be a really special experience.
I fondly remember playing Qbert on the NES with my little brother when we were little. I just looked up a video on it and the way I remembered it is perfect.
you're description of your memories of RDR and Gun melding made me chuckle cause i recently realized that i was mixing the two together. i kept thinking that you could hogtie people and then scalp them in RDR. nope, the scalping was in Gun. i found it hilarious to hogtie people and throw them on the train tracks like the proper villain i was lol
But what if the game revisited is an even better experience than before? I loved this video, you see, and I couldn't stop thinking about it while watching. Either I missed it, or this part didn't come up. For instance, I recently revisited Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green. As a kid, I remembered legendary battles against the retrained Pokémon Champion, with a particular memorable spot for his Heracross (who once one-shot my Mewtwo with Megahorn as if he _knew_ I would start with him), and his Tyranitar, a Lv78 beast who caused an eternal sandstorm upon entering the battle. As a kid, _that_ and beating the game were the hardest challenges I could think of. Now, after experiencing nine generations, the difficulty comes from building a functional team with my favorite pokemon available at the time, as well as those I don't like as much, but grow to love as part of my new journey. Teambuilding is its own challenge. Sure, now, I can one-shot Tyranitar with my Hitmonchan's Sky Uppercut. I can remove the Eternal Sandstorm with a Sunny Day. But I had completed forgotten how powerful the champion's Alakazam was (I don't Shadow Ball it with Mewtwo anymore), and to deal with it, I had to use a strategy _that my kid self_ came up with (Toxic/Protect/Dig/Thunderbolt on Raichu) but never tested, until my current self put it in the context of a much better team. And it _worked._ The battle was just as hard as I remembered, but for completely different reasons. And that relationship between Past Me and Present Me felt so wonderful, I even got to record it this time. This isn't an isolated case, too! I think it's possible to revisit an old experience and, instead of dreading disappointment, it's also possible to be excited to see if it's just as good, or if it can be made better _because_ we're different now. Just a thought, really. Thank you to any who bothered reading this, it was fun to write ^_^ y'all take care of yourselves.
having replayed majora's mask a few years ago, it's still one of my favourite game ever. don't be afraid of been disapointed in your childhood games, it's likely to still be great now. Hell, most of the music i listened in middle school are still attuned to my tastes today. I still like these songs despite been another person today.
The last bit really rings true for me. My Spotify "liked songs" playlist is a megamash of different genres and release years. I recently specifically sought out some old Britney Spears albums and added my favorite nostalgia songs of hers to that liked list, and I don't regret it in the slightest. Maybe I like them less now that I've become a metalhead, but they're still catchy, and some of them actually make more sense now that I've actually had some relationship experience.
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg was one of my childhood favorites too! You're only the second video game essayist I've seen mention it. I really think I should go back and play it sometime, I still have the disc, but haven't for some of the reasons you've mentioned. I liked the solo campaign though, not just the multiplayer, but my sister and I no longer live together so it would never quite be the same anyways.
I feel the same, but I have a rule when dealing with a situation like this. If I were to ever replay a game I've already played before, I would wait or only play the Remade/Remaster/HDport version. That way I don't feel that feeling of rehashing already established feelings I've made for the game previously. I can either love the original even more because the remake missed the mark, or find the remaster improves upon the original so much that it's my new favorite way to play that game. I've done this with Wind Waker HD, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Bayonetta 1 & 2 on Switch, Majora's Mask 3D, FFVIII on switch, etc. All these games I've played but the "new" versions have improved my experience. The only time I would go back to play a game on its original hardware, that doesn't have a "new" remake/remaster/port is an arcade style game. A perfect example being SSX Tricky. The series practically died with the reboot. As well, no game in the series scratches that itch that Trickey does so I've constantly gone back and played a bit of it, to just relive the memories I've made with the game. It's the only reason I still own a ps2 and will probably never get rid of it.
its crazy how similar this is to my childhood. Gamecube was my baby, and me and my friends and brothers and sister went hard on 4p couch co-op. we played a shit ton of melee, air ride, billy hatcher, double dash, mario party 4, wario ware, star fox assult, metroid prime 2, pso ep 1 & 2, and so many other 4 player games. and despite playing BH a lot and remember it fondly, i, like you, cant remember what the goal was aside from making our egg bigger and crushing each other lol.
I feel this way about Ape Escape 2, I remember loving the game in middle school and counting the minutes until I arrived home but I don’t remember anything about the game other than using the analog stick to swing the net 😂
i was going to say i only played the demo of the first game and i remember all of it vividly, but halfway through typing i realized i had completely forgotten about playing the on the loose remake for PSP.
For me it’s “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” I know I played it on my family computer, I remember the desk, the screen, and… nothing else. Even looking at gameplay of the various versions leaves me clueless as to which game I actually played
My childhood was a bunch of old RTS games, and considering many of the old ones ended up being the peak of the genre since not many are made anymore and any that are made are designed to replicate the old one, my rose tinted glasses ended up not being that rose tinted, and actually with some remakes, it just gets better.
I love your content man. It always feels like sitting with the boys talking about stuff we enjoy. Its very soothing and the content often makes me feel al little nostalgic. Keep it up! :))
What you mentioned at 13 minutes in about mentally recreating the conditions in the context of when you fell in love with a game combined with who you were as a person was well articulated and definitely is a phenomenon we probably all go through as gamers but it's seldom raised or communicated in such a way so that others can relate. A good example in my case is Ready 2 Rumble boxing. While I still feel like it's a fun and entertaining game today, at the time I felt like it was one of the best boxing games ever made. Maybe it's because I was a teenager in high school, maybe this was the excitement yet confusion about Y2K and being lucky enough to have been born during the millennium changing while billions of other people didn't get to due to the era they were born in, maybe it's because of the awe of experiencing games in a brand new generation such as the Dreamcast for the first time, maybe it's because I was happy that I felt like Sega was finally making it's comeback with the Dreamcast, and I could go on. But it's a thought provoking conversation none the less. 😇
Finding your channel again is a godsend. I apparently never subscribed when I was watching your videos a year or two ago, and maybe it was meant to happen this way. I also have had a couple kids over the past few years, but I have largely disconnected from video games and find myself struggling to play anything. Last winter Hades finally found its way into my library and it rekindled something. Made me start to be retrospective of all my gaming life and worry less about being efficient with my time when it comes to hobbies. That being said, it also made me not want to start or do anything that didn't involve my wife or kids, and I started to lose connection with myself. I currently don't understand the point of alone time since I'm always with myself regardless of the situation, so why would I want to spend a single moment without the people I love when the need to work already forces that upon me. Your videos have opened my eyes again to taking another step back and reflecting with myself. I need to reconfigure my thoughts and emotions when it comes to my hobbies.
I just wanna thank you for existing Raz, I've been going through some hard times and you always help me see things from a different perspective. Much love from Canada
I've been replaying Batman: Arkham Asylum and I love it even more now. Some games are better left in the first playthrough (like Might and Magic IX) but other games like BAA actually improve with replays because you understand them better and can find new ways of enjoying them.
There was a game I used to play a lot on PC when I was a kid, I barely remember it, sometimes vividly, other times as if it was just something I imagine, sadly I could never find the name of the game, I was too young to read when I played it but it will be forever my Lost Nostalgia Game, that somehow I cna never forget... I worry that someday the few details I remember vicidly about it will be replaced by imaginary ones :"(
I have one of those too. The only thing I remember about the game was loving the music that came as part of the intro video (or maybe it was the music and video that played during the ending credits). I just remember it had a woman's voice singing a haunting melody. But I remember pretty much nothing else of the game or even what platform we played it on. That was during the golden age of blockbuster rentals.
My first memory is what my crib looked like. My second memory is playing gta 4 with my brother and finding the infernus. Funny what things stick, the memory is really just "after a long while we found the sportscar" and "it had a weird exhaust at the back" (looked up the infernus and the exhaust looks different, 5 holes instead of 3). Only other thing I really remember from gta 4 back then is that I was bad at driving and felt bad for running people
11:25 If you don't want to forget your experiences with games, make Let's Play content out of your playthroughs. You don't have to upload them or make them public. You don't even have to edit them. But just having footage of it and your own reaction to certain scenes or mechanics is really nice to have. I have recorded my first blind playthrough of Scorn, because i knew that it is a unique game. And since you can not play a game blindly twice, at least being able to look back on your first experience, is worth it.
I actually distinctly remember running into this kind of memory thing about old favorite video games when I was a teenager. As a kid/teen, we had a video store in town that me and my siblings would rent games from to play together. And for the longest time, I always remembered playing "a spyro game" and I remembered having fun with it, but the Only thing I could remember from it was the bubble breath that spyro had. It took a couple years before I realized what game it was (enter the dragonfly) and then subsequently how actually bad of a game it was (lol). I still ended up buying a copy of it so I could play it again for myself and basically solidify it into my memory. It's still an objectively and technically bad game, but I still had fun with it. Maybe not as much fun as I did when I was a kid and didn't know any better, but definitely more fun than I would have now if I played it as an adult LOL
For this exact reason, I‘ve actually kept a list of every video game (as well as when and where I started it) I‘ve ever played for more than like ten minutes. This way, I’ve at least got some reminder of my past experiences.
I can’t specifically remember one instance, but I remember whenever I go back and play older games I look at something in the game and go “huh… I remember being able to go in there” then I remember no, I wasn’t ever able to. That’s what I was upset about as a child. Now that I think about it, I think there was some kind of fence in the original fable I tried to get over that I just couldn’t because my little kid brain didn’t understand what boundaries of the map meant.
14:16 I really appreciate this advice. I havent replayed too many games yet but I have rewatched a few shows that have made me feel a little different compared to when I first watched it. You'll never be able to experience something in the same way when you first watched/played it but that's ok. (I actually happened to find this video from your comment on the Astral Observatory piano cover, so I'm glad I decided to check this video out!)
don't you forgot about me!
also, I turned the bad kirby air ride script I mentioned into a video and it's on nebula: nebula.tv/videos/razbuten-lets-talk-about-kirby-air-ride-i-wrote-this-in-2013
Never!
Who are you again?
@@ram3n161 a dunkey clone
U remembered u forgot?
Can never forget one of my favorite creators 😆
“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
real
A good quote and a witty reply, I applaud thee, humanz!
@@woodneel bro just pluralized it with a z, creating a pluralization that is not commonly accepted in most dialects of the english language afaik💀
gdi I was gonna post this hahaha
Wonderfully applied quote
There was an interview with Charley Day where he talked about never wanting to watch the episode of SNL he was in because he did not want the memory of watching it to override the memory of him doing it. I get that, sometimes you just want things to be a pleasant memory and it can be frustrating to revisit something only for it to not live up to that memory.
Yeah I have a lot of childhood memories that are in the third person - from the perspective of my parents behind the camcorder
Exactly. I thought I was the only one who felt that. I’ve never really replay video games because I’m afraid that it won’t be as good as I remember. I used to love Mario sunshine but after it was ported, I was so annoyed with the camera, Mario’s movements, ect. I stopped playing so I didn’t ruin my love for it.
It's a reason i don't go back to certain locations that got changed in the real world, being worried that the memories get overwritten
@@TimHoekstra Yeah I get that. an area I used to visit as a teen and kid that was a funy shopping and entertainment area has exploded in popularity because of the real estate boom that is happening and what was mostly short building and a couple 8 story tall office buildings are not overshadowed by dozens and dozens of extremely overpriced luxury apartments that most can't afford and everyone is being priced out of the area and all the fun one of shops and restaurants have all been replaced by huge luxury chains. It used to be frequented by local college kids who wanted to check out some cool small local businesses, but the university has blown up so much and the real estate surrounding it that only those with money can afford student housing and all want to go to expensive luxury shops and restaurants. I don't even go there if a can anymore. Kinda wanna just change cities so everything is fresh, then my childhood isn't being ruined anymore, cus I don't even like this place anymore.
I feel like this is more to do with when you have a memory you have a first person experience of what that memory was. Everything that happened in your head more or less how it happened but if you have a picture or a video of it. Your brain will short hand the entire thing to that that picture or that video. Cause its recent and easier
The conclusion got me cryin', it ain't just about games I reckon, thank you
Sad Joel :(
What's this legend doing here?
You must really like nebula
joel jumpscare in the comments
Yo a wild Joel!
12:55 this is such a great point! This happens to me for movies as well. Sometimes a movie/game will hit us at the right time, but that specific experience will never be recreated.
A game doesn't have to be good to be fun
A game doesn't have to be fun to be good
Life is Strange is proof of that LOL
@@SimuLord Bro did not just say shitrims gameplay is more fun than w3
Based
This is so true
I was around 10-11 when I first played through Gun. My grandpa whom i lived with was a huge gamer, whether it was Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Soul Reaver, Clock Tower, Red Dead Revolver… all that jazz… And as a dreamcast believer he loved Blue Stinger haha!!! He never was all into the open world formula but was a huge western fan. Gun was one of the last games he finished and he truly loved it. I am 25 now… RIP my poppy, Mike Looney.
R.I.P Grandpa
RIP grandpa
It's a good day when Razbuten posts. Just wanted to say thank you for being one of my favorite video game essayists. I always come back to your videos when I'm feeling down and they always give me a new perspective and make me think deeper about not just games, but life and the meaning of it. Hoping you're doing well! ☺
thank you. this is definitely one of those introspective to the max ones that I know won't be for everyone, but I hope you find some value in it!
@@razbuten My favorite kind of videos! I will most certainly find much value in it. ❤️
I agree with the sentiment
@@razbuten It is not for me, but am still glad you made it. This authenticity is what makes the channel different from others like it.
Another fun aspect of memory: we reconstruct them each time we recall them. We are not recalling the original event, we are recalling the last time we recalled the event. This is one of the (many) reasons "I know what I saw" is never an accurate statement. We perceive an infinitesimally small portion of what happens around us (far less than we fool ourselves into thinking we do), and we don't remember accurately what we DID perceive.
so much of this video feels like hearing my own thoughts spoken out loud. i have severe memory loss problems due to my mental health, and i have fuzzy memories of some of my favourite games, including games i played as recently as 9 months ago. there are times where i can replay one of my favourite games “for the first time” and genuinely not know anything because i’ve forgotten so much!! memory is really messy, and there isn’t one answer for how to approach it, but coming at the games i’ve forgotten from a position focused more on remembering them again than on analysing them has been helpful for me. this was a really great video on a topic i don’t hear other people talk about often!!
I don’t always keep up with your videos , but I’ll always come back.
These aren’t videos about video games, they’re videos about life through the lens of gaming .
I’m not even a huge gamer .
But I was thinking today who I would say is my FAVOURITE UA-camr , and I think you are definitely among them.
You are so talented at writing. Somehow your videos about games almost always make me tear up. You’re honest about your feelings and I love that.
You’re just the best man.
it is incredibly human to hear about another person growing out of the memory of certain games and experiences. I've been spending the last couple of months severely worrying that every time I forget a characters name, how a game ends, or what happens in a tv season that i'm both losing my mind, and that the thing i'm forgetting wasn't important enough. It's nice to have someone talk about how that its a bit more complex than that. Great video!
There's nothing wrong with liking a game purely for nostalgia, but when discussing and recommending good games, its important to remember that your experience was unique and cannot be applied to everyone else. If you replay a game and its not as good as you remember, there is no reason to be upset about it.
And when you find a game thats held up its even more fun to rediscover it. Shame so many old titles are abandonware with no ports that function on modern hardware
I've always had this itch to always remember my feelings and idea whenever I play something. You're correct, it's an obsessive pursuit for little to no payoff. However, one simple way to go about is this is to write reviews or do your own lists of the games you play right after you finish them. It's sort of taking a picture of a moment with some notes on it. It's a pleasure to read my thoughts on something I've played/watched/read a few years back. It shows how much you've grown and tells a lot about who you were then. I encourage everyone to try and do the same!
I remember making notes for topics, which I wanted to discuss with my friend while playing Elden Ring.
We didn't want to spoil each other and it took months for me to come to an end, so I had a lot of notes.
Some things in there are really interesting because they express what I imagined other parts of the game to be while I was playing one part. And it takes me back to the original feeling of discovery, which was so great.
Every year I try to make some time to replay at least one or two games that it's been over 10 years since I last played. And while it started as a way to just refresh my mind on some older games that I discuss often. Replaying Chrono Trigger for the first time since I was a kid made me fall in love with that game all over again.
congrats on the lucky 777K, this video really resonated with me
I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy rereading books, that have fundamentally made me who I am, every 5 years or so. CS Lewis’s nonfiction, Harry Potter, Dostoevsky. I can tell you what happens in a general sense but it’s more about the way they make me feel in rereading. They address who I am at each moment that I read them.
Great point and I can completely relate.
Personally, rereading a book let's me relive my thoughts at the time and see a nostalgic glimpse of how my life was back then.
I remember my exact reactions to specific passages and think about whether or not I would still think that today.
With every new video I watch of yours, you feel more and more like a kindred spirit to me.
But the moment you name dropped Billy Hatcher, I felt that even more so than usual. Your experience with it and knowing you loved it but not remembering the particulars, perfectly mirrors my own.
I’m constantly singing my praises of that game to my friends. But the biggest takeaway from it I can remember is how great bouncing around felt.
I’ve been building my GameCube collection back up and Billy Hatcher is always the first title I look for when I find myself at second hand game stores. One day I WILL replay it and I hope the egg bouncing feels as good as I remember.
It's legitimately a fun game. I replayed it not too long back on Dolphin emulator.
This is a topic I've thought about so many times, I really appreciate specifically your tangent about nostalgia and that factoring into the way we view older things, yet not being the ONLY reason we like an old thing. It's something I'm sure all critical video game channels have to contend with one way or another and I just think how it then played into the entire rest of the video thematically just spoke to me on a real personal level. One of your best videos imo.
This reminds me of movies or games with a story that really got me emotionally the first time but then never did again. Some stories rely heavily on surprises and the suspense of not knowing where it's going and that first time is amazing, but then the story will never really be as good again. I generally prefer stories that don't rely heavily on surprises or shock so that I can rewatch/replay them more than once and gain even more appreciation for them. But the stories that only worked once still were amazing experiences. I had to accept that they were one time experiences only. There is no point in trying to expereince them again so instead I just appreciate how amazing they were that first time.
Agree! Movies like The boy with the striped pyjamas was heartbreaking the first time I watched it, but I cannot rewatch it again, knowing how it ends (if you haven’t watch it, please do! Amazing movie!). With some games I have the same issue. I know how it ends and it doesn’t feel like it needs to be played again.
I was looking to "replay" this video for inspiration as I get myself more into the habit of replaying old favorites (and checking out other unplayed gems in my collection), instead of continuing to buy new games. While a big motivator for this shift in attitude for me comes from not having a job at the moment, I'd also always been drawn to the idea of coming back to things I liked a lot in the past. To give them more love than I originally had, and maybe to learn something new in the process.
I know I would've more likely fallen into the pattern of being overly critical and gotten frustrated at the diminishing return, but with the knowledge from Raz I think I can have a better attitude and a better experience.
Thanks Raz ❤
I'm glad you briefly showed Legend of Dragoon, I played it a lot in my youth but always fell short of finishing it around disc 4. Decided to stream through it, and it made me appreciate the game more than ever. There were story beats I was too young to understand or appreciate, the combat didn't grow old, and I finally beat it and actually loved the ending. I think it's aged pretty well, and I'm going to let it serve as a reminder that plenty of games I have memories of are still good.
P.S : GUN had one of my favorite comeuppance moments. You corner the injured Mayor in his office, before defiantly yelling about how you can't kill him because "I'm Hoodoo Brown!" before shooting him out the window with Colton twirling his pistol back into his holster and coldly saying "You were".
Bad Ass
Great video, Razbuten! I'm glad I'm not the only one who shares that experience with Gun. I absolutely remember loving the game, but the main parts that I could tell you about it was the main character sharing my name and the final fight. Child me was interested in a game with a guy who had my name, which I never met anyone irl that shared my name until adulthood, and it turned out to be one of my favorite gaming experiences I shared with my grandpa
The way you put together your videos and convey several examples that fit your point is always really inspiring/interesting. You mostly talked about Ski or Die, Gun, and Billy Hatcher, yet there's that whole section on false memories where you showed footage of Prince of Persia, Star Fox 64, Psychonauts, and Kingdom Hearts, all while playing the Prairie theme from Legend of Dragoon (which might be my favorite song from that game, by the way).
And based on your content and stories we're around the same age, and so I see and hear all this at once and think, I'm right here with you on these takes.
Then when you got to the online discourse part I thought about Legend of Dragoon. I recently picked the port up that's on PS4 and revisited it and have been enjoying myself. I go online to see hopefully other people gushing about it, but I saw a lot of people complaining about how slow the game is. I listen to retrospective reviews on UA-cam and people bash that as well, the addition system, the poor translation, etc.
So then I go and try to play again and I'm not enjoying it. I noticed all those cracks and started to think "was this game really not actually ever that good?" Eventually some time passed and I got in the right mindset again and I'm loving it. Noise can really really affect your perception of things. I'm glad in the case of LoD I'm back to loving the game again, but yeah, it's hard to revisit certain games nowadays because of how online discourse can warp your opinions ON TOP of our already flawed memory systems.
the emotional intelligence in your approach to analyzing video games is something i treasure. love you, and thank you 💕
I think a lot of people find thinking about experiences they can't experience the same way again to be sad or scary, but don't forget that even as adults we're still capable of finding new things that we love that we never would have considered enjoying before. It's not loss or decay, it's change and growth, and that's something worth appreciating!
I still enjoy all the games I considered classics as a kid 😎
15:31 this kind of made me tear up for a bit. I could write down some games I used to play nonstop as a kid and try to replay them, but they'll never feel the same way as when I played them as a kid. Im glad I've had so many fun moments with these games because it does make me realise that I'll have plenty more fun moments with new games. (As you've also said in this video.) I always enjoy watching your videos so much and I already look forward to your next video.
The thing is that you might be remembering certain titles more *because* they were popular, they've stuck in the popular conscience and therefore get discussed frequently.
When you discuss them, you recall them, and that memory is refreshed. The same doesn't happen for more niche titles because the last time you seriously thought of it was many years ago.
This comment is very chilling and depressing.
For a lot of the games I'm nostalgic about I think a large factor is the context I played them in, whether it be laughing with friends or escaping hard times. I have a lot of nostalgia for the playground I used to frequent as a child, but I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much today. That being said, children can also enjoy good games that adults also enjoy. I enjoyed AoE2 as a child, and I still do.
I was listening to this while I drove, and I had to pull over and write this.
I've been watching this channel for a few years now as a silent viewer. I feel like your videos have such a vibe to them. You talk about things that most of us don't have the words to understand, and I always enjoy the vibes that come with your videos. Don't ever feel ashamed about any topic that comes into your sack-head because you have die-hard fans who will want to listen to whatever you want to talk about. Maybe you needed to hear this. Maybe you knew this already, but I hope it makes your day a little better, like your videos always do. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, God Bless!
This means a lot. I appreciate you.
This happens with literally everything as you get older, not just games but also places you've been, gatherings you were at, holidays/vacations etc. etc.
I find the stuff that TRULY meant something to you sticks and is easier to recall. Both media wise and outside of it you're going to forget more games than most people play.
Stuff like Mario Kart, Melle and stuff have modern iterations too so they tend to reinforce those older memories even if they skew them a little.
Im 41 and have been playing games since 1986-87 or so. The amount of games and gameplay I have forgotten is scary.
I've been taking a communication theory course in college and one thing that I learned that really stuck out to me is the context of all art experiences being affected by the context in which you experience it, the "here and now".
You can't really watch the same movie twice, read the same book twice or play the same game twice, because though the content of the pieces themselves might be the same, everything about you and what you take from them will always be different and constantly changing because all of us are constantly changing at every instant.
I also had this revelation with Mass Effect series. I just simply forgot I was obsessed with it until I played the remastered trilogy. I've played all the games, read all the books, consumed countless theories about the lore and the story. And somehow, all of this was just erased from my memory. I couldn't recall any quest, or story bit, only vague details and that the "game is good", so I was basically playing the trilogy as if I'm playing for the first time.
thanks so much for this video. your videos always end on a very philosophical but wholesome note, and I love how they make me feel reassured about games but also life. I enjoy the way you offer your perspective and tell stories from your own life as a way to relay your thoughts. your videos make me feel warm and, indeed, nostalgic.
The GASP I let out when you mentioned Billy Hatcher - me and my friends also used to be obsessed with the multiplayer mode of that game but I couldn’t tell you much about it now! Definitely gonna have to dig it out!
OMG, immediately hooked on this video because that Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg game is one I've played exactly ONCE in my life, at a friends house, and I remember having an absolute blast. I'd occasionally recall some basic elements, like rolling around the eggs, and never figured out what game it is. Now all these years later, this video unlocked a core memory from my childhood. Fuck I want to roll eggs around in there again
When I read the title, Billy Hatcher was the first game I thought of. When he mentioned it in the opening of the video I was like "whaaaat" 😅
Billy Hatcher kicked ass. I miss that game. I wish I never sold it 😅
I like your take on how to revisit old games. Twelve year old me loved Phantom Hourglass on the DS because it required me to take notes on the Touch Screen and sneak around the Temple of the Ocean King, and twenty-six year old me still loves it for the same reasons. I didn't care that online critics hated the controls for being finicky compared to traditional 2D Zelda games, I let my experience speak for itself and had a blast.
I also love Phantom Hourglass. I still enjoy the unique approach to puzzle solving. 😅
When I was younger, I used to watch my older brother play a lot of games because we only had one television in my house growing up, so I could only watch sometimes.
When I got older, I came back home and looked at the old games we owned and thought that I played a game, when I really just watched my brother.
I have heard many siblings who share memories of doing things in childhood, but the person who did it was actually their brother or sister. It is strange how memories work that way.
Double dash, air ride, and melee are games my sisters and I still talk about how much we played those on our gamecube. Thank you for what you do Razbuten
a few years ago i remembered playing Syberia and decided to play it again because i couldn't recall almost anything. now it's one of my favourite games which i come back to from time to time.
anyways, it's always nice to hear you talk about the games you like, your Outer Wilds video still makes me cry everytime i rewatch it. thank you for your hard work
I also enjoy watching someone else play a game I’m nostalgic about, because it provides a degree of separation that helps me enjoy the memories without overcrowding them with new perspectives on mechanics etc.
The context of the time around when you played the game is I think, the most important part of the memory of the game.
Whenever I watch or read a review about the "Golden Age of MMOs", what made Everquest, WoW, and Star Wars: Galaxies so good and memorable, it always seems to be a perfect storm of the time it was released, the limitations and ways around the limitations, and the community that formed from the perfect ages of late highschool to early college playerbase.
Years later, a combination of factors, including real life's commitments slowly bled the life out of this MMO genre. And the attempts to bring it back have always failed.
I love all the nuance you're holding in this video - so many mental shortcuts you could have taken (and that people do), but you analysed + connected things with rigor. Your process has clearly grown and I look forward to continuing to learn with you!
I love that song at 14:22 . Stargazing by Mark Of Two- it’s absolutely one of my favorite things on this earth and I didn’t expect to hear it today.
At this point Razbuten is a Psychology cahnnel, the use games as games as tools of study. And I love it
I discovered your videos about game design like minimaps and fast travel while I was in college and learning about how to make games. I have always loved your videos and will continue to watch them as soon as I see them. Thanks for the content and keep up the amazing work.
Now I have to ask. When is the next gaming for a non gamer? always loved those a little bit more.
Hi Raz! Thanks so much for including my little song in your video!
Videos like this one are exactly what I love the most about what you do. We as gamers talk a lot about the contents of a game and sometimes their impact on culture or gaming in general but, beyond that, games are really important because they can have ever-lasting impact on our lives and who we are as people. So, I think it's just as important to take the time to reflect on what games mean to us emotionally as well.
Spending the time to look back and think about my relationship to the games I used to love holds a whole new level of weight as I grow older. As you pointed out, my memories of old games are going to be strongly tied to the memories of who I was at that stage of my life. It's inevitable that I'll forget parts of my life in the same way I forget about the games I once played. This makes me think it's important to really think about what it is I want to remember about the games of my past.
This is me and the .hack quadrilogy for the PS2. I remember loving the story, and it has still left a deep impression on me, but I only remember the tiniest bits and pieces and not even much of the actual story itself beyond the worldbuilding and the characters. But still, when I think back on it - I adored them. Still do. They meant a lot to me, and I think that matters more than properly remembering the details. I imagine that's many dev's dream to leave such a last impacting that we'll fondly reminisce decades later.
The deep, inquisitive, profound nature of your content always makes me so ruminant and thoughtful for another time.
Not many are able to tap into people and make them feel this way. You have a gift, and I love being present for seeing it.
the best part of forgetting is being able to enjoy it for the first time again!! that’s why i keep all my old games, and play them after a few years of not thinking about them.
When I was in basic training having so much time away from a phone allowed me to think and harbor memories that were years lost to me about games/music/tv. I always remember leaning against a tree and remembering playing the 2002 nascar game with my dad after not having that memory available for 15 years. Now it’s one of my favorite memories.
i appreciate you having captions man
I tend to remember the experiences of the games, or the feelings they gave me, more than the games themselves. Great video.
I’ve been a professional indie developer for 14 years now. There are games where I was the primary developer, 10-13 years ago, and I spent over 2000 hours intensely focused and working on each one… and now I don’t even remember basic mechanics. These were successes, too. Financially, critically for the most part, and certainly with fans.
What I remember more clearly are things that didn’t go well, or successes above a much higher threshold that people still bring up to me regularly.
Overall, just because you put even something like a year of your life into a game, 60 hour weeks no less, doesn’t mean you’ll remember it in a decade. If you keep doing new things and making new memories, those older ones become harder and harder to access. Possibly even overwritten.
In general… I’m okay with this. But it does feel odd at times.
I’m feel this. I went back and replay some of the games that I loved on PC as a kid, and I still found them to be enjoyable, but extremely slow paced.
Razbuten, man… love your content so much. There’s always such a look of wandering in all of your videos, that’s really the only way I can put it.
Looking back at the past but also the future, uncertain where you stand, yet kind of ok with it? Wandering opinions, wandering feelings of life.
Yea, really the only way I can put it. It makes me feel things haha. Not sure what but I keep watching so I must like it
Dude, I forgot about ski or die for like 20 years 'till now. Thank you for the memories.
My brain has opted to remember most things and recall them in a ridiculous level of detail, including games. I remember a game exactly as it was, and it's exactly the same if I decide to play it again 25 years later. I still get so nostalgic, though I think it's because - due to the level of recall - I can feel all the things I felt playing the games the first time, and playing them again now feels the same way, as if no time has passed. It makes for a unique experience, seeing what people *think* they can remember about a game compared to what it was actually like, all the funny little details they've entirely made up in the meantime or when they remember not liking it much, only to revisit it in a different time and really enjoy it.
love how your musings center on video games, but are often so widely applicable. we forget not only video games, but books, movies, songs, experiences, even people. being confronted with the gap between our memories and reality are often jarring and confusing, but your attitude towards it all is the healthy one I think.
Billy hatcher was soooo good man, and when you got golden sonic in pvp, whether it was you or your opponent, everyone got excited cause it was soo cool and soo rare
I'm a psychologist and while I was listening to your video I got myself thinking about how close are your thoughts to some of phenomenology stuff. The importance of looking to the here and now to understand and be aware of how we behave.
Excelent content. Thank you!
When i replay older titles I look at them through the lense of living in that time. A strong understanding of what was innovative visually and narrative and what other games came before to inspire it and what did this game help to create.
the fact that at least 4/5 people think memory is reliable is absolutely insane considering all the science saying our memories are basically all made up if even real at all. like lots of people are imprisoned because memory is fuzzy at best and plain wrong at worse
I love how you used the "Internet Checkpoint" song in the video! I don't know if it was intentional or not but it is very fitting.
2 things I got from this video and maybe something that will help.
You say that memory will fade etc. One idea I've been practicing lately is when I have a memory of something I write it down because who knows maybe in a few years that memory will be totally lost. Write down the important memories from your past that you remember and even though its definitely not perfect (for example you couldn't make a retrospective video or review just of some short memory you had) I still think it's just good practice and a way to hold on to your memories and stories.
The other thing I find interesting is everything you said about games - for example "why were they so seemingly important yet you can't remember the details" can be said about people/past friendships etc. I recently experienced that feeling with people that I hadn't talked to in 15+ years. Pretty crazy feeling.
The idea of moving on but not forgetting the last is actually something that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, to the point where it’s one of the major themes of a book I’m writing. That middle ground of not being too full of emotion or entirely divorced from it is incredibly hard to find, but I’m okay with not being solidly in the middle, because as long as one is reflective and self aware, you rarely fall to the extremes. I see it more of a process where you make gentle course corrections to your thinking and instead of shooting for this impossible ideal middle ground between the two.
I’ll always have a unique experience when I play any game, because the circumstances are always different. My life was very different when I played Octopath Traveler for the first time compared to when I played mario galaxy as a kid. And that’s something I find really cool. Our memories of our previous experiences with games and other media will always affect our future ones. They will always be part of us, but their full effect on us isn’t there if we don’t move on from them and see how much they really impacted us. Let memories of the things we love encourage us to go forward and try new things.
Can I just say that I absolutely love these introspective videos. I know they might not be for everyone, but I hope Raz knows that they really help a lot of people, including myself.
The HD remaster of the Klonoa last year was my first experience of replaying a childhood game. After 20 years, revisiting familiar sights and sounds, and unlocking long buried memories was such an exciting and emotional experience for me. It was really interesting to see what my brain had condensed and misremembered as well. I wouldn't recommend that people do something like all the time, but it can be a really special experience.
I fondly remember playing Qbert on the NES with my little brother when we were little. I just looked up a video on it and the way I remembered it is perfect.
16:44 this moment genuinely touched my heart ❤️
you're description of your memories of RDR and Gun melding made me chuckle cause i recently realized that i was mixing the two together. i kept thinking that you could hogtie people and then scalp them in RDR. nope, the scalping was in Gun. i found it hilarious to hogtie people and throw them on the train tracks like the proper villain i was lol
But what if the game revisited is an even better experience than before?
I loved this video, you see, and I couldn't stop thinking about it while watching. Either I missed it, or this part didn't come up.
For instance, I recently revisited Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green. As a kid, I remembered legendary battles against the retrained Pokémon Champion, with a particular memorable spot for his Heracross (who once one-shot my Mewtwo with Megahorn as if he _knew_ I would start with him), and his Tyranitar, a Lv78 beast who caused an eternal sandstorm upon entering the battle.
As a kid, _that_ and beating the game were the hardest challenges I could think of.
Now, after experiencing nine generations, the difficulty comes from building a functional team with my favorite pokemon available at the time, as well as those I don't like as much, but grow to love as part of my new journey. Teambuilding is its own challenge.
Sure, now, I can one-shot Tyranitar with my Hitmonchan's Sky Uppercut. I can remove the Eternal Sandstorm with a Sunny Day.
But I had completed forgotten how powerful the champion's Alakazam was (I don't Shadow Ball it with Mewtwo anymore), and to deal with it, I had to use a strategy _that my kid self_ came up with (Toxic/Protect/Dig/Thunderbolt on Raichu) but never tested, until my current self put it in the context of a much better team.
And it _worked._
The battle was just as hard as I remembered, but for completely different reasons. And that relationship between Past Me and Present Me felt so wonderful, I even got to record it this time.
This isn't an isolated case, too! I think it's possible to revisit an old experience and, instead of dreading disappointment, it's also possible to be excited to see if it's just as good, or if it can be made better _because_ we're different now.
Just a thought, really. Thank you to any who bothered reading this, it was fun to write ^_^ y'all take care of yourselves.
I gotta say i love basically all your videos, they're so fun and philosophicaly interesting
having replayed majora's mask a few years ago, it's still one of my favourite game ever.
don't be afraid of been disapointed in your childhood games, it's likely to still be great now.
Hell, most of the music i listened in middle school are still attuned to my tastes today. I still like these songs despite been another person today.
The last bit really rings true for me. My Spotify "liked songs" playlist is a megamash of different genres and release years. I recently specifically sought out some old Britney Spears albums and added my favorite nostalgia songs of hers to that liked list, and I don't regret it in the slightest. Maybe I like them less now that I've become a metalhead, but they're still catchy, and some of them actually make more sense now that I've actually had some relationship experience.
Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg was one of my childhood favorites too! You're only the second video game essayist I've seen mention it. I really think I should go back and play it sometime, I still have the disc, but haven't for some of the reasons you've mentioned. I liked the solo campaign though, not just the multiplayer, but my sister and I no longer live together so it would never quite be the same anyways.
I feel the same, but I have a rule when dealing with a situation like this.
If I were to ever replay a game I've already played before, I would wait or only play the Remade/Remaster/HDport version. That way I don't feel that feeling of rehashing already established feelings I've made for the game previously. I can either love the original even more because the remake missed the mark, or find the remaster improves upon the original so much that it's my new favorite way to play that game. I've done this with Wind Waker HD, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Bayonetta 1 & 2 on Switch, Majora's Mask 3D, FFVIII on switch, etc. All these games I've played but the "new" versions have improved my experience.
The only time I would go back to play a game on its original hardware, that doesn't have a "new" remake/remaster/port is an arcade style game. A perfect example being SSX Tricky. The series practically died with the reboot. As well, no game in the series scratches that itch that Trickey does so I've constantly gone back and played a bit of it, to just relive the memories I've made with the game. It's the only reason I still own a ps2 and will probably never get rid of it.
its crazy how similar this is to my childhood. Gamecube was my baby, and me and my friends and brothers and sister went hard on 4p couch co-op. we played a shit ton of melee, air ride, billy hatcher, double dash, mario party 4, wario ware, star fox assult, metroid prime 2, pso ep 1 & 2, and so many other 4 player games. and despite playing BH a lot and remember it fondly, i, like you, cant remember what the goal was aside from making our egg bigger and crushing each other lol.
I feel this way about Ape Escape 2, I remember loving the game in middle school and counting the minutes until I arrived home but I don’t remember anything about the game other than using the analog stick to swing the net 😂
I remember the bat and the disco boss fight. Also dance monkey dance lol
i was going to say i only played the demo of the first game and i remember all of it vividly, but halfway through typing i realized i had completely forgotten about playing the on the loose remake for PSP.
LETS PLAY MONKEY SOCCER!
Now there's a franchise I'd love another entry for.
Thanks for the nostalgia, seeing Billy Hatcher again brings joy
For me it’s “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”
I know I played it on my family computer, I remember the desk, the screen, and… nothing else.
Even looking at gameplay of the various versions leaves me clueless as to which game I actually played
My childhood was a bunch of old RTS games, and considering many of the old ones ended up being the peak of the genre since not many are made anymore and any that are made are designed to replicate the old one, my rose tinted glasses ended up not being that rose tinted, and actually with some remakes, it just gets better.
I love your content man. It always feels like sitting with the boys talking about stuff we enjoy. Its very soothing and the content often makes me feel al little nostalgic. Keep it up! :))
Oh man, watching the Ski or Die gameplay footage brought back memories. That and Skate or Die were such great games.
skate or die 2 theme song is a++
What you mentioned at 13 minutes in about mentally recreating the conditions in the context of when you fell in love with a game combined with who you were as a person was well articulated and definitely is a phenomenon we probably all go through as gamers but it's seldom raised or communicated in such a way so that others can relate. A good example in my case is Ready 2 Rumble boxing. While I still feel like it's a fun and entertaining game today, at the time I felt like it was one of the best boxing games ever made. Maybe it's because I was a teenager in high school, maybe this was the excitement yet confusion about Y2K and being lucky enough to have been born during the millennium changing while billions of other people didn't get to due to the era they were born in, maybe it's because of the awe of experiencing games in a brand new generation such as the Dreamcast for the first time, maybe it's because I was happy that I felt like Sega was finally making it's comeback with the Dreamcast, and I could go on. But it's a thought provoking conversation none the less. 😇
These video essays make me very introspective and I like them, it's about being okay with letting go
Finding your channel again is a godsend. I apparently never subscribed when I was watching your videos a year or two ago, and maybe it was meant to happen this way. I also have had a couple kids over the past few years, but I have largely disconnected from video games and find myself struggling to play anything. Last winter Hades finally found its way into my library and it rekindled something. Made me start to be retrospective of all my gaming life and worry less about being efficient with my time when it comes to hobbies. That being said, it also made me not want to start or do anything that didn't involve my wife or kids, and I started to lose connection with myself. I currently don't understand the point of alone time since I'm always with myself regardless of the situation, so why would I want to spend a single moment without the people I love when the need to work already forces that upon me. Your videos have opened my eyes again to taking another step back and reflecting with myself. I need to reconfigure my thoughts and emotions when it comes to my hobbies.
I just wanna thank you for existing Raz, I've been going through some hard times and you always help me see things from a different perspective. Much love from Canada
I've been replaying Batman: Arkham Asylum and I love it even more now. Some games are better left in the first playthrough (like Might and Magic IX) but other games like BAA actually improve with replays because you understand them better and can find new ways of enjoying them.
Duude, im so baked rn that it took me 10 minutes to realize i wasn't watching Jacob Geller!
That is the reason I started making my list of finished games. I don’t want to forget experiences I had. Howlongtobeat is fantastic for that.
There was a game I used to play a lot on PC when I was a kid, I barely remember it, sometimes vividly, other times as if it was just something I imagine, sadly I could never find the name of the game, I was too young to read when I played it but it will be forever my Lost Nostalgia Game, that somehow I cna never forget...
I worry that someday the few details I remember vicidly about it will be replaced by imaginary ones :"(
I have one of those too. The only thing I remember about the game was loving the music that came as part of the intro video (or maybe it was the music and video that played during the ending credits). I just remember it had a woman's voice singing a haunting melody. But I remember pretty much nothing else of the game or even what platform we played it on. That was during the golden age of blockbuster rentals.
That red expand edit looked so good on a phone, and it really got me by surprise 👏
My first memory is what my crib looked like. My second memory is playing gta 4 with my brother and finding the infernus. Funny what things stick, the memory is really just "after a long while we found the sportscar" and "it had a weird exhaust at the back" (looked up the infernus and the exhaust looks different, 5 holes instead of 3). Only other thing I really remember from gta 4 back then is that I was bad at driving and felt bad for running people
11:25 If you don't want to forget your experiences with games, make Let's Play content out of your playthroughs.
You don't have to upload them or make them public. You don't even have to edit them.
But just having footage of it and your own reaction to certain scenes or mechanics is really nice to have.
I have recorded my first blind playthrough of Scorn, because i knew that it is a unique game.
And since you can not play a game blindly twice, at least being able to look back on your first experience, is worth it.
I actually distinctly remember running into this kind of memory thing about old favorite video games when I was a teenager. As a kid/teen, we had a video store in town that me and my siblings would rent games from to play together. And for the longest time, I always remembered playing "a spyro game" and I remembered having fun with it, but the Only thing I could remember from it was the bubble breath that spyro had. It took a couple years before I realized what game it was (enter the dragonfly) and then subsequently how actually bad of a game it was (lol). I still ended up buying a copy of it so I could play it again for myself and basically solidify it into my memory. It's still an objectively and technically bad game, but I still had fun with it. Maybe not as much fun as I did when I was a kid and didn't know any better, but definitely more fun than I would have now if I played it as an adult LOL
For this exact reason, I‘ve actually kept a list of every video game (as well as when and where I started it) I‘ve ever played for more than like ten minutes. This way, I’ve at least got some reminder of my past experiences.
I completely forgot about Sky or Die. Thanks for helping me unlock those memories!
I can’t specifically remember one instance, but I remember whenever I go back and play older games I look at something in the game and go “huh… I remember being able to go in there” then I remember no, I wasn’t ever able to. That’s what I was upset about as a child. Now that I think about it, I think there was some kind of fence in the original fable I tried to get over that I just couldn’t because my little kid brain didn’t understand what boundaries of the map meant.
14:16 I really appreciate this advice. I havent replayed too many games yet but I have rewatched a few shows that have made me feel a little different compared to when I first watched it. You'll never be able to experience something in the same way when you first watched/played it but that's ok. (I actually happened to find this video from your comment on the Astral Observatory piano cover, so I'm glad I decided to check this video out!)