Tales From The Backlog

I’m back with another post on this month’s EXP Share topic. I decided to take a page from what a lot of you have been doing. I’ll be paying tribute to several people that I have a special connection to. Gaming would be a lonely hobby if you couldn’t share it with someone, so I’m blessed that I was able to have these experiences.

Kat (aka MinxtheShadowThief)

I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention my partner Kat. We have been together for seven years, and the one thing that has been constant in our relationship is how much we enjoy playing games. A very early memory that I have when we started dating was finding a game that we could both enjoy. She will mostly roll her eyes at games that I consider a great multiplayer experience (Dokapon Kingdom, Kirby Air Ride, Monster Hunter), but one game that I could finally get her to play with me was Pokémon Puzzle League. If you have not played this game, I highly recommend fixing that. Kat enjoys puzzle games, so this Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon game spoke to her. After getting her hands wet, she quickly became a fierce competitor. We will still sometimes boot up the game and play a few rounds since its just a fun puzzle game with Pokémon aspects from the anime. A fun side story is that originally I only had the virtual console version of the game on the Wii since my older brother had our original copy. For some reason, Kat thought I didn’t have the original N64 version, so one Christmas she surprised me with a physical copy. I had to burst her bubble a bit when I told her that I had a copy back home, but was happy to now have two copies of it. That, and she won me over with a second copy of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles; another game she thought I didn’t have, but I didn’t care since I now had an original case and manual! She was already a keeper, but that act made her a permanent keeper.

My Friend Laha

Laha has been a friend to me and my brother since high school. He was our first friend who was black like us that shared the same interest as us to this day. He was a real inspiration to me by showing me that I didn’t have to be someone I wasn’t to fit in, and that there are people I can be friends with by being myself. We would alternate between houses on the weekends and decide who had to pack their consoles and stuff to the other person’s house (the days before we had similar consoles). One of the first games I can remember us bonding over was Sonic Advance 3 on the Gameboy Advance. Since we were all in band together, we needed something to do on long band trips to competitions. Sonic Advance 3 had a simple multiplayer game you could play via link cable. Basically all you had to do was grab the Chao on the map and be the last one holding it to win. A simple game that you wouldn’t play for long, but we turned it into a spectacle. We called it “Chao Football” and would be our own announcers when possession of the Chao changed. This would go on for a while until we either wanted to move on or someone would ask us to stop (we didn’t really). Other than that, he introduced us to Dokapon Kingdom, a friend destroying party game that has somehow only strengthen our friendship.

My Friend Eric

Eric became a fast friend when we meet in college. He was part of a fraternity that I ended up joining, and since, we have been the best of friends. He would invite me over to his dorm room before we became roommates to play games like….like…..uh, I actually forgot what was the first game that we played. I do remember playing games like Shadow of the Colossus, Soul Calibur 5, and Mortal Kombat, but I’m sad that I don’t remember the first game that we played. Needless to say, we still hangout when we can even though he lives in a different state now. We meet up online these days to play rounds of Overwatch, explore Eorza in Final Fantasy XIV, and dominating the world in Total War: Warhammer.

My Older Brother, Super CJ

You’ve heard me talk about this guy constantly (I need to go back and finish the series I started last year). I would not be the gamer or person I am today if I did not have him in my life. We don’t get the opportunity to play games often as much, but we make the most of it when we can get together. I want to save most of my stories with him for another time, but I will share our time playing Pokémon Puzzle League. The reason I am good at that game is because of him. We might be a bit rusty, but we have been able to make one round in a three round match last over 30 mins (in 3D mode). Most rounds end about 10 mins, so for us it was always fun getting past the 30 minute mark. Fun fact, the game does not like it when it has to process faster than it is capable of. There have been times where we thought the game would break since it was trying to process everything and drop all the frames to try and do so. If I can capture it on camera one day, I think it would be entertaining to watch.

So that is my short tribute to some of the people I care about the most. People have come in and out of my life countless times, but I’m glad I’m still able to hang out and play games with these lucky few.

Thank you for reading,

DanamesX