Reigniting my Warped nostalgia glands

I am a man who gets nostalgic for things from my childhood very easily, so much so that I got genuinely excited when The new Turtles films came out, you know the ones with Megan Fox in, and also The Power Rangers film. What can I say like so many "adult" men of my generation I never grew up, but my wife still loves me so I think its okay.

Speaking of my wife when we where just a few years into our relationship we came to some hard financial times one Christmas and didn't know how we where going to afford to do it. Anyway the story ends with me selling my gaming collection, everything I owed, all my games and multiple generations of gaming consoles. I got just under £1000 for the lot in the end and managed to save Christmas, and I don't regret it. Ever. We where young parents at the time struggling to make ends meet and Christmas was the one time of year we had to blow off some steam. Eat to much, watch to much tele, playboard games as a family and generally just be together, and as a father I'm glad I could provide that for us.

However one thing with selling all your games is you can't play them anymore and that sucks. There was nothing like firing up my old consoles and playing for a few hours on my old mega drive and watching my wife just destroy Sonic 1, which as you recall is my personal hardest game ever, or playing some Golden Axe together and that went away that day. Now just to be clear I have since brought some ports of these games but there just not the same, sometimes the controller response is a little off, sometimes they just don't look as good but mostly it just doesn't feel real. It's the same reason I can't play emulator versions of games like Pokémon, unless I have the console it is supposed to be on in my hands it doesn't feel the same. You can argue with me that it is the same but I can firmly say its not because nostalgia is all about how something makes you feel and these ports and emulations just don't.

My point here is that recently I brought the Spyro reignited trilogy, and you know what, it's so damn good, arrrhhhh!!!!. I don't know if it's because it has been remade from the ground up or because it was originally on the PS1 and I'm now playing it on my PS4 but it feels right. It has none of the problems I mentioned with the ports or emulations of older games, instead it's velvety smooth and looks gorgeous. When I first loaded up the game and was dropped into the main hub world of the beginning levels I honestly stopped and said...

This is how to hit me in my nostalgia gland, it makes me want to go out and buy the Crash Bandicoot remake just to support the companies and there efforts. I know it sounds stupid but I have not smiled like this playing a video game in a long time and I recommend you go out and try it. You don't have to buy it find a friend who has, I know when of them do, or better yet call up your childhood best friend and invite them round for some Tizer, monster munch and a night of Spyro 1. Trust me it will be one of the best nights of your adult life.

I want to make clear at his point that I don't think every game ever should be remade or have a sequel because lets be honest its not necessary, for instance Horizon Zero Dawn was a masterpiece of story telling and gameplay and yes it leave the game open ended for a sequel but the story of this game is wrapped up and is ultimately satisfying, and honestly I don't need a second game. Another game would water down the emotional impact of the first game because the more you have of something the less it's worth. If they really wanted to continue the story then I think they should do it with a book but I don't need them to rehash the gameplay.

If you want to hear more about Spyro reignited then my wife (our resident not a gamer) has recently just uploaded her thoughts on the game. so check that out.

Now if we can just get the hipsters off of this retro high there going through so my old consoles can come back down in price enough for me to be able to afford them again that would be great.

Until next time...

Toby