This weekend I picked up two old GameCube favourites of mine: Metroid Prime and Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. I had not played these games since I beat them years ago, and dipping my toes into those worlds brought on a deluge of memories.
My last game save on Wind Waker was in 2006, but I played the bulk of it the Spring & Summer of it’s release in 2003. Between the time that I was fully immersed in that archipelagic world, and when I went to the disc channel on my Wii to play it this weekend, I’ve:
- Completed 4 years of University
- Moved out of my parents’ house and in with my fiancée
- Abandoned organized religion
- Created the entirety of my portfolio
- Got engaged
- Moved to Ashley and my 2nd apartment
- Watched my cats give birth (The first birth I’ve ever seen)
- Went to the states for the first time that I can remember
- Started shaving and slowly became perma-scruffy
- And made some amazing friends
It’s surreal to think about the progression of time and how much things change.
Jumping back into the Wind Waker and Metroid Prime conjured up so many memories. The feel of my parent’s basement rug, the effort I had to put into convincing my brother we could play Wind Waker co-op with me using my GBA, the long night gaming sessions that had me backtracking through Tallon IV and checking my map at every room, and the experience of each game themselves.
It’s not that I wish for a return to these times, but it’s an amazing experience to lose yourself in what is essentially a disc-based time capsule. For a gamer like myself, my years were defined by the games I consumed, and so my memories become more efficiently locked to these articles more than they could to any photograph or home video. It’s a first person memory; when you replay a game and memories come flooding back, you’re actively reliving a piece of your personal history.
I’m rambling but I really encourage anyone out there to pick up a game that meant a lot to them when they were younger.