My First Time (Part 3)

This title has become a little worn, this being for all intents and purpose the third first time I've posted about, but we are at least approaching the end.

So, to this point I've discussed, first, my purchase of Chrono Trigger and my failure to appreciate the RPG genre, or even understand how to adapt inside its rules, to adopt a strategy to defeat a difficult enemy; and second discussed the unfortunate occasion I sold my somewhat valuable Chrono Trigger cartridge from my childhood. Whatever may be may be, I guess. This post will deal with how I came to want to play Chrono Trigger again, and actually regret selling it for more than just the value of the cartridge.

As people of my tender disposition do, I grew up and went to university. It was here where I learned to appreciate some of the finer things that, up to this point, I had held at arms length. Not that I was anti-art or anything, but I did tend to avoid things that required a little more work to appreciate. So as I came to enjoy (actually enjoy, no joke) reading poetry and post-modern novels pretending to be texts, I also came to enjoy RPGs.

Now, I didn't take to RPGs because my formal education handed them to me as texts to analyze as art, but more by chance and as a result of a lingering childhood enjoyment of Star Wars. I said in my first post that Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic was my first RPG, and while I had played RPGs before this point, it was the first that I understood as a game, understood and appreciated the RPG combat system, and actually finished. But even KOTOR was an accident.

When the next generation of consoles arrived, I sort of fell behind, holding out with my N64. This was partly because I thought the Game Cube was the way to go, and partially because I didn't have the cash. I worked a part time job, about eight hours a week, and I was saving for school. Again, like before when it came to acquiring SNES games, I didn't have a lot of capital to throw around at video game systems. So I read reviews for the new generation of games and mostly just got by with whatever older games I could trick my already old laptop into running. This all changed however when Ninja Gaiden made its way into video game "journalism" (I read IGN at the time).

To me at the time, Ninja Gaiden looked like the definitive game for our generation. First, it was about a ninja--point. Second, the gameplay, in terms of combat, looked uncharestically deep for an action-adventure game--double point. And, it was apparently balls out hard, while not cheap--no need to count anymore. I played action games, so this game was my mesiah. Too bad it was for X-Box, which I couldn't afford. So, as an admitted obsesive, I cheated.

In the summer between my second and third years in university I bought an X-Box on eBay. I could afford a second-hand console. I was working over the summer so I could justify this as the thing I bought myself as reward for getting up at 7am five days a week (plus on Sunday for church!).

(Soon after I bought my X-Box I went down to Windsor for the weekend to visit friends. This weekend had a number of notables:

• I bought Ninja Gaiden, and played it with my then roommate at the time. We discovered just how difficult Ninja Gaiden can be (a lesson we have never stopped learning).
• I met some of my now friends for the first time, and got to know others on their own (i.e. better), outside the context of the then circle of friends.
• This, most importantly, includes Meg.
• I tried sushi for the first time. (I hated it. But this might because I got the crazy love role (sic), which was a mix of various raw fish. I should have gone more conservative, like the idiosyncratic warm feelings roll).

)

But, I beat Ninja Gaiden eventually, and beat it on progressively impossible difficulty settings, and then even its improved edition (Black) with even higher difficulty levels. So, what's a boy to do? Then I see a Star Wars game, with pictures of lightsabers on the back, and a game of the year stamp on the front. The franchise had of course worn itself on my nostalgia with the whole prequels thing, but this game was set even before then, and what were the odds Lucas had anything to do with this game, I thought.

And, like I said earlier, I loved it. So much so that I began to play RPGs. I probably continued on my RPJourney with KOTOR 2, a disappointment, but I don't recall exactly where I went from there. By then RPGs weren't a novelty to my game collection, they were just a new addition, and so my memory fails here.

This is how Chrono Trigger re-entered my life. Either it was just the internet that pressed me to want to play it again, or it was my then roommate. Whyever it was, I felt like it was a game I wanted to play, and this was salt on the open wound. I guess it was more like salt on a recently re-opened wound. If I had been smarter as a teen, I wouldn't have sold the game that I want to play now. I want the real experience, not the emulator one. The fact that I had lost the game in the fashion I had may very well had been the reason I so wanted to play it, and why even I felt the need to play it on the SNES. I guess it was some form of RPG transference.

So when I first came into a little extra cash, I hit up eBay and found myself a copy for a reasonable (unreasonable in terms of the average price of a SNES game) and (re)bought it. I also bought Ninja Turtles in Time at the same time because I still to this day enjoy me some Ninja Turtles. The next post will deal with what happens when I come face to face with my childhood bully. I mean Chrono Trigger, not Tom Pane. No joke, his name was Tom Pane. Or pain. Whatever, he was a jerk.

Funnily enough, I had planned this story to be one post. I can't imagine how I thought I could blog about a personal anecdote (give it the autobiography tag) and do so in a single post that was in any form readable. Whatever. Christ I hope I can wrap this up in one final post.

P.S. Tom Pane was a jerk to me at school, but as coincidence would have it, one year he ended up on my baseball team. He was actually nice to me then, he chose to practice with me, and didn't call me any names when I cried after a ball hit me in the arm when I tried to catch it. Hmm. Maybe Tom was right, maybe I was a sissy dork, maybe I did deserve to be picked on. I'd pick on me too, you pussy!