Disconnected: Nostalgia

Blair Inglis 45 Comments

Let’s take a look back. About 12 years back; when the N64 was king and all was awesome in the world. That was fun, wasn’t it? Well, I’ve been able to relive this since being disconnected; I don’t have to worry about hooking up my N64 to play online or show off my in-game awards, I can simply plug it in to the wall, mess about with some TV settings and there I have it: some of the greatest games I’ve ever played, all available on my hard drive… no, wait, it’s cartridges, isn’t it?

Why would anyone want to voluntarily go back to this horrible form of media to play games that aren’t as nice graphically and don’t have tons of added features, DLC support, online play or anything else that all the new games have? How about that thing we call nostalgia? If you’re not entirely sure what that is, then let me explain: it’s when something (a game) triggers a memory of the past, often ending in the feeling of happiness and longing to be at that moment again; wishing to be home.

For me, home is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on my N64, with the (pretty much horrible) N64 controller, my console, a TV and the N64 tuned in to channel 6. It may look blurry on my TV, I might have to blow into the cartridge to get it working after a few resets and it won’t be the greatest experience ever, but I don’t care; this is how I played it on the morning of my sixth birthday and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Unless it’s the 3DS version; you can give me that now.

The game itself is brilliant, although it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It might be my favourite game ever because of the fact that it is literally perfect in every way, from plot to level design, but it might just be that no other game throws this much nostalgia at me. When I visit places in Hyrule, it’s like I’m walking around the place that I grew up and reliving those moments. With games, you can literally replay the moments rather than just remembering them. And, for this, gaming is the most nostalgic experience you can have.

My N64 is back in its rightful place under the TV and the aerial plug is in the back constantly. I can just switch it on, open my drawer and pick a cartridge and then play away whenever I want; just like old times. I’d be too busy with playing the latest Generic Shoot Kill Explosion IIV online if PSN or XBL worked and wouldn’t have thought too much about plugging in my N64 and reliving my greatest moments in gaming. So, in a way, not having online has put me back in the past, due to not having online gaming and playing N64 more.

Banjo-Kazooie was a hard game; I never got much further than Mad Monster Mansion back when I was young and just gave up on the game for quite a few years. Going back to it now has been fantastic, I’ve got past that level, collected most of the Jiggy’s and notes and played new, unseen parts of a game that I had played a lot of before. I mean, seriously a lot; I have a save with 30 hours of gameplay and another with 25, but it only took me about seven hours to get past Mad Monster Mansion. Oh, and I have two cartridges, so that’ a lot of time spent doing basically… nothing.

I try to think back to what it was like when I was young, what drove me to play a ten hour game for 30 hours? Did I make my own games up in the game? Did I just fly around aimlessly? Did I constantly fail to beat my note score so I wasted a lot of time? I don’t think I’ll find out, but I’ll never be able to play Banjo-Kazooie in the same way again. Now, I’ve been spoiled; I can’t just run around and do nothing for 30 hours, I have to get to the next objective and complete it. Although I’m able to go back and experience these games again, Banjo just won’t be the same.

After finally thinking that I had completed it, I got to a note door that needed over 800 notes (there’s 900 in the game and you need to collect them in one life on the level, or it gets reset to 0. So, what would I do now? Run around for 20 hours aimlessly, whilst seemingly enjoying myself and having fun? Definitely not; I moved on to the next game. It’s sad that although I still feel the same way about Zelda, Banjo-Kazooie just hasn’t worked out the same way; the nostalgia is mostly lost and that doesn’t make me happy.

Nostalgia can either be a good thing or a bad thing; one event can be full of fun and make you extremely happy, while another can actually make you sad realising that it won’t be the same again. It just depends how you played games back then and how you look at them now; in Zelda I can run around doing sidequests and just having fun now, but in Banjo-Kazooie, I just want to complete it and I get bored if I’m doing the same things over and over for 30 hours. Nostalgia is strange; at least that’s how I remember it.

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45 Comments

  1. Being disconnected? What do you mean by that?

  2. i know its not the N64, but i decided to play harry poter and the philosphers stone on ps1, it was an epic game back in the time, but now its wsa incredably dated and loading times were so slow, but it was brilliant and i would play it anyday ;)

    • Oh hell, the Harry Potter games. I hated them. Love the books, tolerated the early movies (they got better each movie, with the noteable exception of Prisoner of Azkaban, which was terrible), hated the games. Quidditch World Cup was good, though.

    • I remember that…. geez the loading times were awful I couldn’t get past the chess part, D:

      • I somehow compleated it, was a very long game and went completly off the track. Ive read and loved every harry potter book, the best book for me was 6 or 7 and the best film for me has been 3 prisinor of azkaban :P

  3. I don’t really understand nostalgia. I’ve got MGS2, LOTR: Two Towers and a few other PS2 games, as well as a PS2 slim that I picked up for £20 (!). I play them because they’re still good games, not because I enjoyed them when I first played them and want to relive it. Although, after all these hack-n-slash games, it’s difficult to get used to The Two Towers’ gameplay again.

  4. I miss Turrican and Flimbos Quest on the Amiga . . more so Turrican tbh but the damn music from FQ keeps entering my head so i’d love to play it again for the oul’ nostalgia :)

  5. so far ive yet to be stung by nostalgia.

    every game that i loved when i was young that ive then replayed, ive still enjoyed. the only pain ive experienced with gaming nostalgia concerns the difficulty of procuring certain titles.

    • Nostalgia is mainly about still enjoying the games that you played when you were young, and remembering them, Banjo-Kazooie didn’t do it too well for me because of how I’ve changed.

      “every game that i loved when i was young that ive then replayed, ive still enjoyed.” – You know that feeling of enjoyment when you play a game that you’ve played before and you sort of reminisce? That’s nostalgia.

      • …i know what nostalgia is.

        i experience it on a regular basis.

        im not sure i entirely “get” your reply.

      • I don’t think I got your comment then. Sorry.

      • ive been re-reading my post a bit trying to figure out where the confusion came from.

        i think i may have made a break through. i believe we differ between my intended meaning of the word “stung” and your interpretation of said word.

        while i intended it to mean that id never been dissapointed by a game id replayed for nostalgic reasons *had my rose tinted glasses stamped on*

        you thought i meant that id never experienced nostalgia through gaming?

      • Definitely that, Dany. I thought it too, initially. :-)

      • sound as : D

  6. One word: Pokemon.

    • I second that, my pokemon gold clock stopped running. i had Soooooooo many hours on that game, along with my trusty gameboy colour it never left my hands

    • blue>
      yellow>
      silver>
      crystal>
      ruby>

      thats as far as i went.

      loved every single minute of it.

      • Damn you.
        I’m going to have to dig out my GBA again.
        Now the question becomes, Red, Yellow, Silver, Crystal, Ruby or Emerald?
        Or do I ‘borrow’ my sister’s DS for diamond?

      • silver or crystal id say.

        unless your feeling upto learning the names and elemental alignment of 100 new anime beasts, in which case its diamond all the way.

  7. Racing around Rome reminded me a bit of Gran Turismo 2 its been 3 years since I had played that and Medievil 2…. there’s so many that I have bought in used stores it really brings back memories although Wip3out was a huge loss I sometimes wonder why I traded in many of my PSone games for a rubbish fighting game sequel in 2004.

  8. I still have my Mega Drive tucked away in the attic with all of the classic games; Sonic, MK, Streets of Rage they’re all there. The industry may have moved on but Cartridges still rule!

    • Good old Megadrive :)
      Mine still works too!

    • We need Streets of Rage 4! (Imagine it in the style of SSFIV!)

  9. I never owned an N64 so whilst playing super smash bros with friends satisfys their nostalgia, I get no such feeling, but I still really enjoy playing it now, I think thats gotta be a sign of a great game

  10. My xbox 360 isn’t online (no hard drive or wireless) and it reminds me of the PS1, N64, PS2 and original xbox; just buy a game, stick it in and off you go! :P

    If all games these days weren’t so glitched and needed patching, I think i’d disconnect my PS3 from PSN.

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