And Then I Don't Feel so Bad(2017)

We’ve come to the end of another year and what a year it has been. We’ve had a number of good and bad things happen both on and off site. I would wager most of us remember the bad things that happened to us more than the good. It’s easy to get sucked into a pool of negativity and get stuck in there. For one reason or another we tend to remember those moments the most it seems. It can warp our perception of reality to one where we feel like things have been dark and miserable for a longer time than they actually were. They can rob our peace and ruin an otherwise good day.

I feel it’s important that we take a moment to remember those moments we hold close to our heart, and those times we have been blessed. Those happier moments in our lives that remind us that thing weren’t always so bad, and that they don’t have to be. From the events we consider trivial, to the ones that make us beam with excitement taking a moment to appreciate the good in your life can really change the way you see things throughout your day. That said here are a few wonderful moments shared by your fellow community members

Firstly Congrats to Xeo for winning this year’s prize. For those of you who may not know the winner is randomly selected from the pool of participants and this is done 100 times. Xeo has won this year with 26 selections and GajKnight comes at a close second with 21 selections. Some of you may be wondering where his post is because it isn’t on the actual blog. It’s actually on a Q-post call I made a while back when the blogs borqed. As an addition however a number of keys will be posted for your enjoyment, just remember to leave a comment regarding what you claimed and if you feel so inclined share some of your fondest moments in the comments as well.

Xeo shares a fond memory about how he got his copy of Harvest Moon:

“Many years ago, when I was in middle school, the SNES was the console of choice for me. The Nintendo 64 had JUST released, and even though two of us had one, we still primarily played the SNES.

One of my local supermarkets had a video and game rental service, Schnuck's. They had a pretty good selection and were good about getting new releases. I'd read some pretty positive things about Harvest Moon (The original) in Nintendo Power and it sounded awesome. Well lo' and behold one evening at Schnuck's, they had a copy to rent! I'd checked numerous times and it was always rented out, since they only had one copy. Well I'd gotten lucky that night.

So my buddy Jeremy and I crammed as much time into that game as we possibly could during that rental. To the point of skipping school and sneaking back into his house after his parents had went to work to play it. We LOVED it. I was determined to own this game but to my dismay it was sold almost NOWHERE near my house.

A month or more later I'd finally found a copy at Toys R' Us when out with my family one night. I was flat broke, not yet old enough to have a job and hadn't had much luck mowing for money as of late. My parents weren't budging on lending me the money for it either and I was pretty upset. So I decided the next day I was going to start selling some of my older games or other things I owned at school to friends to afford it.

Less than a week later I'm sitting in P.E. and a friend I didn't get to see too often came to sit with me on the bleachers since we'd both not dressed for class. I brought up to him that I was selling some of my older stuff to afford a game. He gets interested, knowing I had a pretty respectable collection. He asks what I'm looking for, I tell him Harvest Moon. He ponders on that a moment and says, "Yeah, I have that, would you make a trade?"

I'm in utter disbelief and have to ask him if he's sure he has Harvest Moon, the farming game? He says yep, and so I make him a list of my stuff. He says he knows it's kind of rare, so asks if I'd be willing to trade two things for it. I tell him we'll come to an agreement on something. And he picks my SNES Game Genie and Turtles In Time. Now, Turtles In Time is and was then also one of my favorite games, but it was EXTREMELY common and I knew I could easily get a new copy. The Game Genie was a little harder to come by, in all honesty probably about as rare as Harvest Moon. But I didn't care, I hastily agreed. Told him I'd bring it to school the next day.

I was on cloud 9 when I told Jeremy about it. So we agreed that if this dude actually came through with his end of the deal we'd get the game and skip school to play it again. The next day sure enough, he came through and I got Harvest Moon. We skipped school as discussed and played that shit all day long. So long in fact that I forgot to try to get home to intercept the phonecall about me skipping school.

I came home and got grounded for two weeks, and got my SNES taken away. Sucked pretty hard waiting those two weeks to play the game I'd struggled so hard to get...but when the grounding was finally over it was so, so sweet!”

GajKnight takes a moment to reminisce about getting his PS4

“For me, I will never forget getting my PS4.

It was the first console I bought with my own earned money. I had the house to myself as my mate was home for Christmas. Package came in the morning and I set it all up. Popped in Killzone: SF, had Resogun and Contrast downloading.

Ended up beating all 3 that day. It was just great. Order some of my favourite take away, watched some films, added a bunch of people. Just a real good time.”

 Greentinsel214 shares his journey through Pokémon Gold, held by many to be one of the best if not the best Pokémon game (content wise).

“My proudest moment in gaming was in Pokémon Gold.

I never actually managed to beat the Elite four in Blue or Yellow. But when I got Gold, I went all in. I gave it everything I had. I powered through the first 8 badges, my team led by Cyndaquil and his evolutions. I was riveted. Couldn't get enough or this game. I was sad that it was about to end.

Then I discovered that Kanto was still in the game. I traversed that whole region and defeated all of the gyms there with immense pleasure.

The Elite Four were not a problem in this game. They were practically pushovers when I faced them. But I learned that the Elite Four was not the end.

At the top of a mountain stood Red, the greatest Pokémon Master around. I climbed the mountain with my most powerful companions and challenged him to a mighty duel. Our beasts clashed in a showdown for the ages.

Red had an extremely powerful Snorlax that took out nearly mt whole team. I came incredibly close to eliminating this monster about a dozen times, but then he would rest and refill his health. After what seemed an eternity, Snorlax gave in. I still had several Pokémon left to defeat. I kept fighting and taking out his Pokémon. Finally he released Charizard, his last Pokémon. I had only one left, who was about to lose it's last scrap of health. I used its last turn to Revive my Pikachu. Charizard oblitomy last Pokémon. I unleashed Pikachu. With the a flash of lightning, Pikachu Thunder Punched Charizard right in the face and beat him in one move.

I had defeated the greatest Pokémon Master alive in a lengthy battle. It was truly a test of all I had learned in the game. It required my most powerful Pokémon and my best skills. But I did it. It was the most satisfying moment in gaming for me.”

LaTerry(currently Merry) has some fond memories of kingdom hearts 1, as well as a moment in this year’s critically acclaimed super Mario Odyssey (so maybe skip the excerpt after the video if you want to avoid some spoilers)

“I was so completely blown away by the ending to Kingdom Hearts 1 that I kept reloading my save file from right before the final boss and would regularly beat him up just to see the ending again. I somehow convinced my parents to let me get a blank VCR so that I could record the final boss and ending so that I could watch it over and over again. The song that plays in the ending still makes me stupidly happy. 

More recently, my favorite thing that happened in gaming is a spoiler for Mario Odyssey so stop reading this if you still care about that. The moment that Bowser showed up riding a dragon that looked straight out of Dark Souls was just too much to handle. It was the coolest thing Mario has ever done, and I wish that the dragon's kingdom was more fleshed out, but even just what they had was so cool.”

JasonDM300 has a vast quantity of Trophies and shares with us his 100^th Platinum Trophy experience as well as a fond memory regarding Secret of Mana.

“My proudest moment was earning the platinum on Rogue Legacy. One of my favorite roguelike games I have played. I purposely made it both my 100th platinum trophy and my 10,000th over all trophy. This was this year

My fondest of all time has a lot to do with Secret of Mana. My brother and I fought like any brothers do. I used to think he was a pain in the ass and he would annoy the shit out of me. But when it came to SoN, that was how we really bonded. We both had chicken pox when I was in high school and he eas in elementary school (he is 3 years younger than me) and we really couldnt move due to the itching, and for me, the pain. I was able to move my hands and the 2 of us went through the game for the umpteenth time. Ever since we have been close. He was even my best man at my wedding."

CelicaCrazed shows us the right (and only) way to play New Super Mario Bros with family and they joys of playing with friends.

“Some of my favourite gaming memories involves playing New Super Mario Bros with my sister and dad. I'd beg them to play with me and then spend the entire time picking them up and throwing them into bottomless pits. Then they would quit in anger while I laugh like a maniac.

Also the times spent playing NHL on PS3 with my cousins was the best. Because of how the PS3 handled controllers we could connect 6 up to it to play 3 vs 3. Having that many people play one game together in a room just led to a massive amount of screaming and laughing. Like I'd be laughing so hard I just completely forget how to play defence, tears rolling down my face. So good!

“

If this was effort based I’m fairly sure Cedi would take it. It makes me wonder if we should make a community album of holiday songs.

“Chasing down lies in Phoenix's courtroom trials
Honing P4 Arena online match guiles
Comboing Bayonetta's foes in strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Spindashing o'er ramps in Sonic Adventure
The postgame reprise of Odyssey's overture
Fighting Xenoverse raid bosses in swings
These are a few of my favorite things

When I get pwned
When gacha tease
When I feel salty
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feeeel faaaultyyy”

Red Nosed ReinDere (Dere) shares one of the greatest things I like about this community. That a community of people all over the world can come together to do wonderful things.

“My best memory by far was Dtoid pitching in to help me out in getting a PS4. Was an awful time this year for me and that helped boost my spirits”

And last but certainly not least we have Wes Tacos. For anyone who may not know WesLikesTacos was a community member before he became staff. I think he has a point here and it’s something I’ve even said before. We should take some more time to appreciate the good things that happen around us, and celebrate those moments

“I know I'm biased and wrote about it on the FP, but the story of BadLand Games giving Thomas Happ 75% of their shares of the profits from the physical release of Axiom Verge really warmed my cockles. I don't like to write about newsy stuff for the site unless it really strikes me, and that story certainly did. The timing of it was perfect, too, as it was right in the middle of the EA lootcrate shitstorm.

The good: People chimed in on it saying they were either buying the physical copy due to the news, or had already purchased it and felt super vindicated that their purchase went to help a dude's family out.

The bad: A positive story like that got roughly 1/5 the amount of comments and traction a story about EA's fuckery got (and half of them were me, since I really try to respond to everyone in my articles).

I'm not complaining for my sake about that last fact - I'm sad for the industry. Outrage trumps genuine positivity on basically all fronts, and it really sucks. I say that we as a community (and especially us, a very tightknit group) should start the revolution, and devote less of our time and energy to outrage and cynicism when that shit pops up, and more to the plethora of good shit that still goes on in the gaming world. Change has to start somewhere - why not at home?”

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for everyone who left a response. It does mean a lot to me and I do hope you find your spirits lifted this holiday season. I know things are tough for a lot of you, even if some of you hide it rather well. I’ve been there before and I mean it in earnest. I never forget the things that have happened to me, these things do pass but they tend to leave a mark. I just want you all to known that these things do pass and you will have better times ahead of you. It may take some time to get there but you will.  Celebrate the small joys in life and hold close those fond moments old and new then maybe together we won’t feel so bad.

An early christmas gift, hope you find something you like. 

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

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Dreaming Sarah

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LostWinds

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Kingsway

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Guacamelee Super Turbo Championship Edition

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Screencheat

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Hurtworld

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TumbleSeed

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Grim Fandango Remastered

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Prototype 2

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Grey Goo Definitive Edition

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The Bard's Tale

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Hacknet

C25PA-GM43B-X89GE

Neon Drive (Steam)

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Bit Blaster XL

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Tomb Raider: Anniversary

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Tomb Raider I

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Tomb Raider II

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Tomb Raider III

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Tomb Raider: Legend

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The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

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Gunpoint

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LOOK WHO CAME:

Agent9   

DeadMoon   89

Wes Tacos   79

Anthony Marzano   23

Gamemaniac3434   12

Chris Hovermale   11

Dwarvenhobble   7