I was playing Tales of Vesperia and it put me onto a nostalgic trip.
When I got the game on Xbox360 ten years ago, my family was still rocking a CRT TV. I thought the game look great but not stunning. Then one day, the TV broke and my family was forced to buy a LCD, and the first game I tried on the new shiny TV was ToV. Holy mother, the game looks stunning in HD! Everything is so sharp and clean, and being a teenager with tons of time, I could play it all day without any breaks. Fast forward to now... Man, I just finished playing it on handheld. Me in ten years ago won't believe that I can now hold this game between my hands. And even 10 years have passed, the graphics still hold up and it looks amazing on screen.
Then, I suddenly realised how much have changed in these 10 years. Technology advances, and I also changed a lot. I am not a native English speaker, and my English was not very good during youth. 10 years ago, I could understand around 70% of everything in ToV, and still loved the game to death and finished it twice on 360. Now? I am living in Japan, and can understand 95% of this game in Japanese. I can shut my eyes and understand all the dialogues just by listening. This somehow tears me up and makes me realize my work is not in vain. Videogame is always a tool for me to get used to a language. I remember playing Mass Effect for the first time put me on edgy due to how English-intensive the games are, but I still pushed through the whole series and it gave me greater confidence in English. Videogames have stayed with me in different stage of my life. This afternoon, I realized how much I love gaming and how important games are meant to me.
I hope all you people will keep playing games whenever you have free time and whatever your mood is. If you are happy and content with your life, congratulations, now you have some games to play and you will certainly enjoy them. If you are in low point of your life and you are not happy, well congratulations too, because there are always games to help you alleviate the burdens and give you courage to move forward. Most importantly, I hope all of you will have fun playing videogames. :)