Without a doubt, this is one of the earliest games I recall, and it strongly influenced my childhood. When I was young, my parents owned their own video rental store in Marysville called Matinee Video. I wasn't exactly much help as a child, so I kept myself busy in the back room, playing with toys and enchanting myself with video games and movies from the large stockpile. Out of them all, I only acutely recollect my experiences with Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. I had a good deal of fun with the series (though I don't think I actually beat any of them) and they strengthened my tie to video games at an early age.
Sonic: "Your overconfidence is your weakness."
Robotnik: "Your faith in your rings are yours."
My mother is Japanese, and feeling the desire to visit family every few years, I tagged along as the small, white kid in a foreign country. I'd always been shy and unable to really express myself, and in a nation where I didn't understand a single word anyone was saying, I found myself essentially isolated. In an attempt to pass the time, I tried watching foreign shows and got obsessed with the likes of Ultraman Tiga, Power Rangers, and those quirky Japanese humor shows whose morals and humor transcended language boundary lines. In spite of this, I still felt estranged from the other children who would show up at the local store's playground, and my time in Japan was spent mostly with family or sitting by myself trying to pass the time.
A typical statue in a Japanese apartment playground
After a short while, my mother noticed this and decided to get me a fancy birthday present: a green Nintendo Gameboy Pocket (without a game) and a charger so I didn't need batteries. After some initial confusion on why I wasn't entertained by a blank screen and a momentary *Ding!*, my mother brought me back to the store and asked what kind of game might be good for children. The teenage store clerk looked behind him on the wall and said something to my mother that I internalized as "Uhhh, that new Pokemon thing's supposed to be cool. He'd probably be alright with that...I guess?". Despite the somewhat shaky confidence of the clerk, my mother decided to go with his suggestion, and between Red and Green version (blue was out of stock or something), I chose Green.
Venusaur used "Lazy Eyes"!
Venusaur's Accuracy has dropped!
Venusaur has fainted!
Three confidence-shattering hours later, I had finally figured out I had to go back to Professor Oak in the beginning of the game and -- it suddenly dawned on me -- the entire game was in f***ing Japanese. Accidentally naming my Squirtle "AAAAAAKANAMA" without realizing what I was doing was the least of my woes. I was beaten by a Caterpie, ladies and gentlemen: that little cannon fodder of a Pokemon whose main method of surviving in the wild is 'spit on stuff and annoy the sh** out of the nearest thing that could kill you'. My standing excuse is that I didn't care much for walking back to the Pokecenter, 'cause I was a RISKTAKER!
How'd THIS BEAT ME!?
Anywho, after several days of gametime, I FINALLY beat the game. A deep feeling of confusion and accomplishment (I wasn't actually sure if I had beaten the game until the credits popped up) washed over me. In a nation where communication with others was a lost cause, I was able to persist and fight time and time again to triumph in this virtual world. The simple complexities, the many Pokemon battles unique to areas, the thousands of party combinations available, the quest to become a Pokemon master...all of these things were fun, exciting. I liked video games, and I liked movies, but it was only after my memorable experiences with Pokemon that I really started to get into video games.
I absolutely loved Pokemon when I was a kid. Though there are other games that were influential throughout my video game career, like Devil May Cry, Halo, and Katamari Damacy, none of their impacts measured up quite as well as Pokemon's has.
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