I can recall the exact second my relationship with video games drastically changed. It was Christmas morning, 1991; I was thirteen years old; and I was sitting on the floor in front of the television in my Minneapolis home. Up to that point, I had opened three gifts, each of which included clothing. However, this fourth package was rectangular in shape, weighed the correct amount, and had a familiar plastic rattle of a SNES cartridge inside. As soon as I ripped through the wrapping paper like my life depended on it, I knew I had something special.
Final Fantasy II. Or so we called it back then. We wouldn’t learn about the difference between Japan’s numbering system and America’s until many years later when the Internet made everyone an amateur gaming historian.
Dad looked proud of himself. “It’s like those dragon games you play with Tommy,” he said, sounding as if he had done some research. His comprehension of Dungeons & Dragons was… well, let’s just say he once referred to our Dungeon Master as our “Imagination Supervisor.” Nonetheless, he wasn’t far off about the connection. What he couldn’t have anticipated was that this random gift would fundamentally alter my teenage brain.
We popped that cartridge in that night. The opening sequence begins—those airships approaching a castle, the music that sounds ominous rather than merely bloopy. Then I’m in control of Cecil, a Dark Knight who is questioning his orders. Aha! The main character has a moral dilemma! These aren’t Mario collecting coins or Sonic running fast. This is… something different. Adult, somehow.
During the weekend after receiving that cartridge, I essentially went into a gaming-induced coma. I didn’t leave my house for forty-eight hours. I only came up for air when Mom physically dragged me outside for meals. “You’ll ruin your eyes,” she kept telling me. However, I couldn’t stop. When Cecil transforms from Dark Knight to Paladin—essentially casting aside his corrupt past due to personal sacrifice—something snapped in my developing brain. This isn’t just a game anymore. This is storytelling that means something.
The 90s proved to be an incredible fluke of timing. So many Japanese developers were producing their most creative works as I navigated high school and all of its attendant emotional chaos. While these games provided me with escape routes, they also functioned as therapeutic sessions masquerading as fantasy adventures.
When I received Final Fantasy III—actually VI, but we’ll get to that later—in 1994, I was a sophomore and experiencing all of the typical angst associated with being fifteen. In contrast to Cecil’s solitary heroic journey, the ensemble cast approach of this particular game was more engaging to me. Every person in this game has their own story—Cyan loses his family, Locke tries to save his girlfriend, Terra figures out what it means to be human. And that opera scene… I spent twenty minutes attempting to explain to my buddy Mike why the sight of pixelated characters singing MIDI music caused me to cry. “You just had to be here,” I finally gave up, aware of how silly it sounded.
At that point in my life, my parents were starting to express concerns regarding my gaming habits. “Seventy-five dollars for a cartoon game?” Dad asked when I dropped my entire savings on Chrono Trigger in 1995. I attempted to explain this was the creator of Final Fantasy collaborating with the Dragon Quest creator, with the art by the Dragon Ball creator. None of these names meant anything to him. “Just don’t let your grades slip,” he warned, unaware that I was learning more about structural storytelling from these games than from my English classes.
Chrono Trigger’s time-traveling story completely blew my mind. The fact that I could affect the ending of this epic tale based on my choices? That made it personal in a way movies and books could never accomplish. I filled an entire notebook with flowcharts tracking different decision paths and their results. When Mrs. Henderson confiscated it from me during her class because I was using it during class time, she left a note stating: “Interesting analysis. Apply this thinking to Hamlet.” I did, finding comparisons between Shakespeare’s inevitable tragedy and Chrono’s struggle against an apparently predetermined fate. I earned a B+ in that class. She never asked where my unorthodox inspiration originated.
As the battle systems evolved, they required actual strategy rather than simply mashing buttons repeatedly. Final Fantasy IV’s Active Time Battle system made the feeling of urgency present in every battle, whereas you couldn’t plan forever. Chrono Trigger’s combo attacks encouraged experimentation with different party combinations. By the time Final Fantasy Tactics arrived in 1998, I spent entire weekends creating the ultimate team composition for the battles ahead using graph paper. When my friend Dave came over one Saturday afternoon and saw me covered in stat charts and ability trees, he exclaimed, “This looks like homework.” I told him, “Good homework,” while simultaneously acknowledging how strange my hobbies had become.
Grinding for levels became another form of meditation. During stressful times—such as when I was applying to college, struggling with girls, and dealing with my parents—gaming became a form of escape. Grinding for levels had a calming effect on me. The simplicity of the equation—kill monsters, gain experience points, level up—made it easy to lose track of time. I even developed efficient methods of leveling for my friends to use as well. “The dinosaur forest in FF6 with Edgar’s Offering combo provides the highest EXP-per-hour ratio,” I would explain with serious tone, as if I were presenting a research study.
World-map exploration felt like freedom when everything else in my life as a teenager was restrictive and controlled. Gaining access to an airship in a Final Fantasy game—that moment when the world changes from a series of linear paths to a multitude of options—is a sense of freedom that is difficult to describe. I remember the first time I took the Blackjack on an airship ride across the world map of FF6, intentionally ignoring the next storyline objective just to explore and see what other secrets existed. Finding an optional dungeon in a Final Fantasy game felt like true exploration, like I was actually a real adventurer rather than just following a set path.
The plot twists in these games were more impactful when I was younger because spoilers were scarce, and game designers were less likely to employ common tricks to surprise players. When Kefka ultimately destroyed the world in the middle of Final Fantasy VI, I was shocked. Games didn’t typically allow the bad guy to succeed; they didn’t usually destroy the world during a game’s storyline. I immediately called Tommy to share my shock with him. “Have you reached the floating continent yet?” I asked him with great enthusiasm. “Please don’t spoil it,” he cautioned. “Just… continue playing,” I managed to reply before hanging up to continue exploring the post-apocalyptic World of Ruin with a mix of fear and anticipation.
The transition to PlayStation revolutionized graphics, but retained the same storytelling core that defined the genre. When Final Fantasy VII arrived in 1997, suddenly these obscure games I was preaching to apathetic friends were mainstream. TV commercials! Magazine covers! I felt vindicated and slightly possessive—these were “my” games making the jump to the masses. The 3D worlds were impressive, but Cloud’s broken psyche and Aerith’s demise still drove the experience more than any technical achievement.
That scene with Aerith… no game had ever caused such widespread emotional response prior to this. The convergence of Nobuo Uematsu’s music, surprisingly effective low-poly animation, and permanent narrative decisions created something previously unseen. I remained in stunned silence as it occurred, with my controller lying idle in my hands. There had been previous character deaths—Tellah, General Leo—but none had the same weight or permanence. Video games were evolving along with me, confronting me with themes that aligned with my emerging adult worldview.
While the translations were often wonky—due to Ted Woolsey’s constraints within Nintendo’s content guidelines and character limits—”You spoony bard!” became quotable for the same reason it was clumsy. These weird translations became a sort of private language among RPG fans. Years later, fan translations would reveal how much was altered or lost, but honestly? Kefka’s “Son of a submariner!” is more memorable than whatever obscenity he uttered in Japanese.
Suikoden arrived during my senior year with its political thriller and 108 playable characters. Recruiting allies to populate your castle and watching it grow as a result of those recruits created an investment in your game beyond mere stat progression. When my girlfriend asked me why I canceled our Saturday plans, I had trouble explaining I needed to recruit a certain chef character for my castle. “It’s like… granting political asylum for a fictional chef… in my castle…” I trailed off, acknowledging the absurdity but unable to diminish its importance. Two weeks later, she broke up with me. Possibly due in large part to this, but I was able to obtain all 108 Stars of Destiny, so… priorities.
The music deserves special recognition. Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, Hiroki Kikuta—all of these composers produced legendary soundtracks under very restrictive technological conditions. I can still whistle the Chrono Trigger theme instantly, with these MIDI compositions stuck in my brain with actual songs from my youth. At one point, I recorded the music from JRPGs using my boombox held up to the TV speakers, creating a homemade mixtape for my homework sessions. Mom walked by and asked, “Is that classical music?” Not too far off—these compositions utilized classical forms, but executed them using severely limited sound chips.
Xenogears arrived during my freshman year of college, with a depth of exploration that addressed religion, philosophical existence, and identity in ways that made some of my actual courses seem simplistic. We frequently engaged in late-night dorm room debates about the symbolism of Carl Jung and religious allegory. Our RA visited at 2 AM and asked us to quiet down. He listened to the discussion and contributed his own thoughts when he realised the game. He remained for an hour, discussing the Zohar’s relationship to actual religious texts. Games were maturing, exploring topics unimaginable just a few years prior.
These experiences influenced not only my gaming preferences, but my broader media tastes. I began to enjoy novels and films that explored complex narratives similarly. When friends suggested viewing straightforward action movies, I felt something was missing—where was the character development, the moral ambiguity, the unexpected developments? Although I considered designing games as a potential career before discovering my lack of programming skills, studying literature in college seemed a natural evolution of what these games had taught me about storytelling.
From my present-day vantage point as a middle-aged individual, I appreciate the good fortune I experienced in being able to witness this golden period as it unfolded, without anticipating how stories would evolve or the extent to which they would influence future generations. Simply being at the right place at the right time is pure luck. These games arrived when I was mature enough to absorb their themes, yet youthful enough to fully immerse myself without the encumbrances of adulthood.
I still occasionally replay these games today using either original hardware, official re-releases, or (as needed) emulation. The sprite graphics have endured longer than the early 3D graphics, however the timeless elements remain the stories and characters. Last year, I replayed Chrono Trigger for the first time in several years and found a new appreciation for aspects of the game that hadn’t affected me as strongly previously. Lucca’s section concerning her mother’s car accident resonated differently with me now, filtered through additional life experience and regret.
These games are time capsules of both the evolution of gaming and my own personal development. With each play-through, I combine my experiences as a new player with current perspective, coupled with nostalgia for who I was at the time. That thirteen-year-old unwrapping Final Fantasy II on Christmas morning in 1991 had no clue he was embarking on a relationship with a genre that would greatly influence his understanding of narrative, character, and identity. I am glad to Cecil and all the JRPG protagonists that followed him, for demonstrating that pixelated characters on 16-bit consoles could produce stories worthy of remembrance for decades.
Joe’s a history teacher who treats the console wars like actual history. A lifelong Sega devotee from Phoenix, he writes with passion, humor, and lingering heartbreak over the Dreamcast. Expect strong opinions, bad puns, and plenty of “blast processing.”
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