Games Important to Me 20-16
20: Dissidia: Final Fantasy
A lot of games make this list as a "Wow I played so much of this game" and this one is no different. I remember spending a bunch of time playing this with friends after we graduated high school, just hanging out together and my Squall getting his ass kicked by my friend's Zidane. This also was like... just a collection of a game franchise that is still near and dear to me to this day.
19: Mega Man X
Mega Man X was the first game I speedran. I played it some growing up sure, but this is the one that got me into actually speedrunning. I got my time down under an hour, which isn't great overall, but it was good enough for Me. From here, I ended up doing one complete run of SMB3 for a race, and then put more time into what became my real speedgame, Bonkers for SNES. I also met one of my closest friends because of MMX Speedrunning. We met through watching Domalix's streams and then hung out in each others' streams and the Mega Man Speedrunning Teamspeak, where I met some other people.
18: Total Extreme Wrestling 2020
Here's where I admit that, yes, I am a fan of wrestling. I don't need to defend myself from you for this (yet, this isn't the space for this), but this series was also really important for how I got to bond with some friends. Unlike most wrestling games, like the WWE 2K games and Fire Pro, TEW is build upon the Booking aspect. It comes with a fictional universe and you can take the role of a booker for any company big or small, and have an avatar that can be a wrestler, manager, etc. Through the free version of TEW 2005, I made some really smart friends through a journaling game, where we each took over companies from the mid 80s through a mod called "Death of the Territories". These two friends would be people I would speak with regularly, until COVID hit. Our Skype chat stopped getting visited, especially after someone apparantly had a depressive episode or a panic one. I still think about them, but have no real way to reach out to them. So sometimes I still post in the skype in hopes that they see it some day.
17: Splatoon
It's the only shooter series I can really play without feeling terrible with how bad I do at hitting opponents. The single player stuff is really fun, and I love the music in the game. Its got such a vibe to it that I really like and it clicks with me. It really feels weird to go just "it's good!" after the last two, but hey, sometimes that's all it takes. I think what also made it work for me is that it came out in 2015 when I really wanted something bright and colorful, who knows.
16: Saints Row 2
This is my open world crime game. It's not going for a high crime drama like Grand Theft Auto, nor is it over the top slapstick like Saint's Row 3. 2 hits a sweet spot of a good game about a gang on the rise while still not being afraid to shy away from how goofy some of this stuff can be. I still think about the Brotherhood storyline from time to time, and how it kept escalating in Very Personal violence between yourself and their leader.
Another 5 down, 15 to go and the game writeups will be just as inconsistently long as those before
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