Period(s) in gaming history you never got to experience but wish you did

[daTRUballin]

For my very first thread on ResetEra, I've decided to make a thread about an interesting topic that's been on my mind for some time now. The age range of users on this forum varies wildly and we all were first introduced to gaming during different periods and in different ways. Whether due to our age or other reasons, I'm sure many of us have missed out on certain things in gaming.

Are there any time periods you didn't get to experience due to not being alive when they happened or you just simply missed out on them for other reasons? For me personally, I would pick the 90's. Specifically the SNES and N64 eras. The N64 in particular is a very special console to me and I just wish I could've experienced playing all those games when they originally came out. I was born in the late 90's so I obviously missed out on that era of gaming sadly. Gaming was so different back then. Cartridges were still being used (yes, I know the Switch has cartridges, but I'm talking about those big, blocky ancient cartridges), it was the heyday of local multiplayer on consoles, lots of devs/pubs were in their prime, the Internet was in its infancy and wasn't as widespread or advanced as it is today, Sega was still in the console business, arcades were popular, etc. etc. It was just a completely different time that I wish I could've been around for.

What about the rest of you guys? Pick any time period or periods in gaming you missed out on but wish you didn't. It could be anything from a specific console's lifespan, or a specific decade, or an entire console generation, or even a specific time period within a developer's or publisher's history. Anything!

Discuss.

 

[Android Sophia]

I would have loved to experienced the golden age of arcade games (1979 to 1990, roughly), but I was born just at the tail end of it, so I got to experience the SNES/Genesis era instead.

 

[-PyramidSong]

I missed the entire ps3 era. Have no money back then. The good part it's that most of the best games was remastered

 

[EarthBound64]

Being born in 1982, aside from wishing I had a bit more time when arcades were more prevalent, I think I'm pretty good with what I got.

 

[TheNexus]

Attend the first ever E3.

 

[Monogatari]

I first played FFVII in 2010 (my first FF) and I always wished I had played it during its zeitgeist. In some ways I feel like I did since I've read so much about the game's history on top of beating it twice.

 

[Hayama Akito]

Mid 80's in japanese arcades. Playing Gradius II everyday.

 

[GDGF]

I wish I was one of the kids programming on a Sinclair Spectrum in the early 80's. Love being a part of the NES generation, but I wish it had come with a keyboard.

 

[ghostcrew]

I first played FFVII in 2010 (my first FF) and I always wished I had played it during its zeitgeist. In some ways I feel like I did since I've read so much about the game's history on top of beating it twice.

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FFVII was crazy at my high school in the UK. Everyone was playing it. People who'd never played a JRPG before and everything. Friends of mine were playing it and didn't understand what 'levels' were or why you had to wait turns for combat. I was a tabletop D&D player so I had a headstart but everyone just loved it. It was a phenomenon.

 

[Surface of Me]

I wish I could have experienced arcades as an actual thing in the US

 

[JoeG]

My Dad bought me Pong when I came home from the hospital. Experienced most of the history of gaming and what I miss most is the 80s/90s arcade. Mostly chasing down Mortal Kombat 2 revisons when a new cabinet would get refreshed somewhere. Carrying lists of moves to compare with others. Ah....I can smell those dark smokey rooms still.

 

[element]

Pac-Mania! Arcades of the early to mid 80's where EVERYONE played games.

 

[PurestGamer78]

I've experienced it all I started gaming in 1982. It's so cool to see how far gaming has come.

 

[Monogatari]

FFVII was crazy at my high school in the UK. Everyone was playing it. People who'd never played a JRPG before and everything. Friends of mine were playing it and didn't understand what 'levels' were or why you had to wait turns for combat. I was a tabletop D&D player so I had a headstart but everyone just loved it. It was a phenomenon.

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I'm from the UK too. I was only in Year 2 when it came out so I think I would have struggled and probably found it boring.

One funny thing though. I remember seeing artwork of Cloud, his sword and motorbikein gaming magazines of the time and thinking "wow this game is on it's SEVENTH one. That must be a very big storyline going on!" If only I had followed my childhood curiosities and actually begged my parents for the game!

 

[ArmsofSleep]

So many multiplayer games. I was lucky enough to be a part of classic SOCOM, Halo 2/3 at launch, vanilla WoW, and some other good ones. But no Ultima, Everquest, Quake, or other communties that became legendary. Even now, I don't play many new games so I'm missing out on stuff like PUBG and Destiny.

 

[Ayirek]

For me it's PC gaming in the late 80s and early 90s. My family didn't have a PC until way later, and even then it was pretty strictly for school and nothing else. It would also have been pretty incredible to know what a bustling arcade was like in its hay day.

 

[affeinvasion]

I feel like I got a lot of arcade experience in the early 90s. I honestly don't feel like I missed out on anything, but being around for Atari home consoles would have been cool.

 

[HyperFerret]

Sometimes I wish I could have experienced the release of the Sega Genesis but at the same time, I was just the right age for Pokémania in the late 90s so I think my childhood was pretty fun.

 

[Abe Lincoln’s Ghost]

Even though I've been playing games since Atari was new, I kinda checked out during the PS1 generation, then picked back up for the PS2. I missed a metric ton of jrpgs that I've slowly been catching back up on.

 

[Forkball]

Mid 80's in japanese arcades. Playing Gradius II everyday.

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There are still many retro arcades in Japan with classic games. I'm sure even in America some pizza parlor still has Gradius up somewhere.

 

[data west]

Electro-mechanial arcade games of the 60s and 70s

they're shallow as hell but i just love the design and analog mechanics of it all

 

[Monogatari]

I've experienced it all I started gaming in 1982. It's so cool to see how far gaming has come.

Click to shrink...

Your username suits you :)

 

[dipship31]

Started at the original Mario NES so I didn't miss much, but I guess I would've liked to be a little older when arcades were in their prime.

 

[ASaiyan]

I wish I had been around for the SNES vs Genesis era. Bloodiest console war of all time; even today when you ask which had better sound or which Lion King was better the knives come out. Also one of the most even, with fantastic exclusives on each system that are still lauded today. It was only a little bit before my time, but it would've been an interesting experience.

 

[Deleted member 13015]

Experiencing Arcades, especially for fighting games. I love watching old tournaments of Street Fighter Third Strike and other fighting games on Youtube and wishing I was there.

 

[Deleted member 6949]

We didn't really have a good arcade in my town growing up. I got to play tons of different arcade games at places like the roller rink or the pizza pie parlor, but I'm super jealous of kids that lived near one of the big arcades. 80's arcades were like dive bars for kids.

 

[Kommodore]

Been there, played pong (Video Olympics) on the Atari 2600, but really got my taste for games on the Commodore 64 (hence my username). Zaxxon, Impossible Mission, Commando, Winter Olympics, Kung Fu Master, Gradius. That stuff fascinated me, and it all still does. I've seen each generation come and go, and its been so interesting to see both how young gaming as a medium still is, and how far it has come over the last nearly 40 years, and how far it seems its capable of going.

 

[JohanKRS]

PC gaming in the 80's and early 90's. I was born in 82, and got an Atari when I was 6, followed by a NES (clone, I don't think I ever saw an original NES here in Brazil until I was much older), Mega Drive, SNES... I got my first PC in 1997 and for a long while all the games I got for it were shovelware on magazine CDs. I did catch up on some classics later on, but it's not the same thing as experiencing as it was happening.

 

[nightstalker962]

Would've been cool to get an NES control deck w/ SMB in '86 but then I realized my parents hadn't even met yet.

 

[JoeG]

Electro-mechanial arcade games of the 60s and 70s

they're shallow as hell but i just love the design and analog mechanics of it all

Click to shrink...

Woah! I remember a few of these hanging around in the back of arcades when I was a kid and had pretty much forgotten about them until your post!

 

[Aquila]

SNES/Genesis era. I grew up with a good selection of games on a hand-me-down NES and GameBoy but my family had bigger problems by the time those two consoles released. I do have some fond memories of couch coop with my best friend then and his dad on all the Donkey Kong County games.

PS2. I had terrible tastes then and only used it for GTA and Ace Combat.

 

[z1ggy]

I missed the PS2 and i kinda regret it, i was done with consoles at the time because of the N64 and Dreamcast. But i almost saw it all.

 

[Deleted member 419]

Atari 2600. Love a lot of those games, even to this day they have this peculiar and charming atmosphere. Would've been magical playing them at the time they released.

 

[MisterR]

Born in 1975, so I've pretty much lived it all from Atari and arcades to today. Ton of great eras.

 

[BriGuy]

About the only thing I missed was the arcade craze of the early 80's and stuff like the Magnavox Odyssey and Vectrex and a buttload of pong consoles. I don't think I missed too much otherwise.

 

[zsynqx]

Transition to 3d, must've super exciting.

 

[daTRUballin]

About the only thing I missed was the arcade craze of the early 80's and stuff like the Magnavox Odyssey and Vectrex and a buttload of pong consoles. I don't think I missed too much otherwise.

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This is probably the second time I've heard someone mention the Magnavox Odyssey in my life lol. Still barely know anything about it.

 

[SmittyWerbenManJensen]

I was born in '90, so I got to play the SNES during its day. BUT, I never played any of the RPGs at that time. I wish I could have played Chrono Trigger/FF6 (my top 2 rpgs ever), etc. when they released, because if they blow my mind today (despite their numerical age), I kinda want to know what it would have been like to experience them right when they released. Other than that, I think I was born at the perfect time to see the transition from 2d to 3d, aka I have no regrets.

 

[Deleted member 13148]

A lot of early PC games really interest me, but I have a difficult time going back and dealing with their interfaces.

 

[Kendrid]

About the only thing I missed was the arcade craze of the early 80's and stuff like the Magnavox Odyssey and Vectrex and a buttload of pong consoles. I don't think I missed too much otherwise.

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I was really little when we had an Odyssey. It was crazy putting plastic cling sheets to our Zenith television to create "graphics". It was actually a fairly smart invention since almost everyone owned the same tv with the same size screen.

 

[Drain You]

I 100% missed out on arcades pretty much. I played a bit in FYE and Smiles when they still had machines but that was when I was very young. Luckily I was around for Snes so I got to see the huge jump from Snes to N64 so that was appreciated.

Also I feel like there is going to be a ton of people who miss out on some really good games this gen. Maybe it is because there is so much to play on so many platforms I don't know. I showed my buddy a video of Cuphead today expecting him to be amazed and he just thought it was some dumb phone game. Meanwhile he's playing Fallout 4 on a TV that has such bad ghosting or whatever its called that it made me dizzy.

 

[langgi]

I was born in the very last year of the '80s, started gaming in mid-'90s. From where I born and live (Southeast Asia), coin-op arcades still hyped even to mid-'90s, same with Japanese consoles BUT we never got the chance to see the glory days of floppy-disk era gaming like Doom or Wolf3D. The adoption rate for PC here wasn't that high back then (I guess still true even now). I wish I can see and experience the Doom-craze.

 

[Monorojo]

Pre NES era. A lot seems to be lost to history.

 

[Kendrid]

I would have loved to experienced the golden age of arcade games (1979 to 1990, roughly), but I was born just at the tail end of it, so I got to experience the SNES/Genesis era instead.

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I spent a lot of time in Aladin's Castle and Babbages in my youth. I was poor and cheap so I couldn't play a lot of games but I watched kids play arcade games, just like people today watch streamers. I loved when my family went to the mall because that meant I got to hang out with "the gamers". That is funny to think back at now vs where society is today.

 

[kegkilla]

I wish I could have experienced arcades as an actual thing in the US

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I'm in the same boat (kind of). As a young kid I was able to experience a few arcades, but never in my gaming prime. After reading the Polygon article linked below I was blown away with how much a cultural phenomenon arcades were and really wish I could have experienced it.

https://www.polygon.com/a/street-fighter-2-oral-history

 

[MattB]

The snes Era. Was born in 92 so I have played snes but wish I could have experienced it like I have the past 3 gens.

 

[Kendrid]

A lot of early PC games really interest me, but I have a difficult time going back and dealing with their interfaces.

Click to shrink...

My favorite games to reminisce on are the gold box AD&D games. I beat Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds and I tried to play them a few years ago and it was impossible. At their time they were incredible but they didn't hold up with age.

 

[ghostcrew]

Wish I experienced WoW at launch. I didn't play it until years later (Mists era I think) so missed a lot.

 

[bionic77]

I have been gaming since the early 80s so I have experienced all almost of it.

The one thing I missed out on was WOW and some other PC games when I fell out of PC gaming in the 2000s. Would have been cool to have played that in the moment (though then again hearing what a time sink that game was maybe better I missed it).

 

[futurememory]

I had an NES growing up, so I really didn't miss much in terms of the consoles.

I would have loved to have been around for the early 80s PC gaming. The era of the text adventure/interactive fiction (hence the avatar!). Also, arcade culture in the US. I was a bit young (played some pinball and Ms. Pac-Man in places like bowling alleys) for actual competitive play.