A meme approaches. Command?
Stolen. Sorry. :P Hey, it eases my mild pang of Oblivion envy a bit. (Only mild. I knew I wouldn't play it for a very long time, and that's fine. I will probably borrow Morrowind again, and that will hold the 3D RPG appetite for a while.)
1. What was the first video game you have ever played?:
The first one I remember was a math game on Intellivision. Though I saw the poker game before that, I didn't play it, because that's a complicated game for grownups and also boring. ;)
2. What was your first console?:
The first console that I bought myself was, sad to say, the PS2. The first console that my family owned, or that I played, was an Intellivision, as mentioned. It was a gift, as apparently they were hella expensive.
3. Have you ever visited a video game arcade?:
A couple of times, but not as much as most other nerds my age. At the prime arcade age, like 8-10, we mostly went roller skating. -_-
4. What was your first handheld?:
The GBA-SP, which I only got a year ago (two? ... wait.) Anyway, yes, actually that's my first handheld. Before that I borrowed my sister's original GBA.
5. What was the first game you've beaten/cleared completely? (Got to the last level/got 100%/beat high score, etc.):
If we count the regular game and not the second world...thing, probably Legend of Zelda. Otherwise, probably Final Fantasy.
6. Games based off of real sports: Yay or Nay?:
Meh.
7. Online games: Yay or Nay?:
Not for me. If I want to get cursed at by 12-year-olds, that's what the internet is for. I don't need it mucking up my games. ;)
8. Do you play any Massively Multiplayer Online RPG games? (MMORPGs?):
No, which is a shame, because it's probably tons of fun to get teamwork together and such. I just have little patience for the kind of thing in question #7.
9. Do you play any virtual pet games? (Neopets, Teripets, Aftermathzone, etc.):
I used to play quite a bit of Neopets - some of their flash games are fun - but not as often these days. Every so often I'll play a few rounds of something.
10. Puzzle games and Strategy games: Yay or Nay?:
Puzzle yes, though I suck at them. Define "strategy." Though I probably suck at that too, if you mean like Risk/A&A.
11. Do you play any RPGs?:
*snicker*
12. Do you play any Platformer games?:
Not many, unless you count Xenogears. :P I liked Mega Man 2, but I'm not very good at that genre.
13. What was the first game/console/handheld of yours that stopped working?:
The NES is barely functioning these days. I don't think it's hooked up anywhere. *plays tinny death riff*
Characters/Plot
14. Do you actually care if a game has a plot or do you just play games for the gameplay?:
I enjoy and appreciate plot. However, there are few plots/scripts I've run across that are SO good that I will endure annoying gameplay for their sake. Case in point: Xenogears. Not a bad story, albeit overhyped. I hate gear battles and I hated the looping final dungeon. I never finished the game.
Another case in point: Katamari Damacy. No plot. Second favorite game of all time, currently.
15. Name a few video game characters that are your favorites.:
*ahem*
Agrias Oaks, FF Tactics. Laguna Loire, Final Fantasy VIII. Citan Uzuki, Xenogears (although his niche has pretty much been taken over by Hakkai from Saiyuki). Cliff Fittir and Mirage Kaos, Star Ocean 3. Ashton Anchors, Star Ocean 2. Oh - oh. Opera Vectra and Ernest Raviede, SO2. Lezard Valeth, Valkyrie Profile. Lord Zetta, Makai Kingdom. That's all middle-school/new-school; I should go back further, but y'know, my favorites from the old school might not be my favorites if I played again. So I'll reserve fangirling on that front. And it's been ~3 years since I played any of the Suiko series, so while I remember what my favorites were like, their names are evading me. Gremio. Valeria. Oulan. Valeria's drunken friend. Shu. Apple.
16. Name a few series that are your favorites:
Star Ocean, Suikoden, Final Fantasy still has my loyalty to a point, and Katamari (the two games out of three that I played...). Oh! Harvest Moon! Can't forget that.
17. Has a video game ever made you cry?:
Probably, but not at THAT SCENE. I was just surprised at THAT SCENE. I think I teared up at the character death in Suiko 1, but that was my favorite character, DAMMIT. even though it fit. Stupid, stupid mode of death, though.
18. Has a video game character annoyed you so much that you wanted him removed from the game? If so, name the character.:
Peppita from SO3. Oh dear god in heaven. I love Star Ocean's characterization generally, but when they do annoying, they do ANNOYING. I was okay with Cait Sith, Yuffie and most of the other often-hated characters, but oh freaking hell Peppita STAY ALIVE WILL YOU GAH.
19. Do you "pair" or "ship" characters up with one another? (make/create/write romance involving them):
Used to. Now only in my head. Hey, you have to do something when you level up obsessively. And the SO series encourages it anyway. Idle minds are the devil's playground, and all of that. Oh wait, that's hands. Whatever.
20. Do you write video game fanfiction?:
used to. *cough* FFVII and SO2, mostly.
21. Do you draw video game fanart?:
Cannot draw. Thanks for ripping open that festering wound, quiz.
22. Do you come up with theories on how a character came to be/what he or she would do in a situation/why he or she is moody/etc.:
Sometimes. Depends on how the script goes. I'd rather it not be a total mystery; that's what, y'know, the script is for.
23. Are you a "fanboy" or "fangirl" of any character?:
Somewhat. See above re: favorites.
*break for cardio and yoga ... and we're back*
Boss Battles/Villains
24. Hardest Boss Battle:
Let me mention up front that I am not one of those 14-year-old badass-wannabes who claim that every boss battle is LIEK SO EASY. Some are (cough FFTA), some aren't. In recent memory... I got my ass kicked by the end boss in SO3 twice. But once I figured out his scheme it wasn't bad. My third member did have to be on constant healing-wench patrol, but it wasn't that bad.
25. Most Frustrating Boss Battle:
See above. But most end-boss battles are frustrating to me because they give you no chance to backtrack and set yourself up with better equipment or more items, etc. if you do screw up. I think in that case my irritation is with end dungeons, not end bosses. I am not fond of end dungeons. Not that I think the big kahuna should be sitting in the open drinking a latte, but y'know. LET US FINISH THE DAMN GAME ALREADY.
Oh, your first run-in with the whatsits in SO3 is kind of a bitch. (Not the dragons, the angels.) It was for me, anyway. Of course, several hours later I was whacking them down in droves, but early on they were scary.
26. Most Rewarding Boss Battle:
Probably Chaos, FF1. I was terribly excited. First RPG I ever finished.
27. Funnest Most Entertaining Boss Battle:
Just about anything in Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga - does that count? We need more fun boss battles, btw.
28. Most Boring Boss Battle:
Whelk comes to mind. I think Whelk is in FF6. Its counterpart in FF4, the Mist Dragon (wait wait wait wait FIGHT!! wait wait wait wait) is more fraught because of the plot hanging around it; IIRC the Whelk is just kinda there. But I'm not fond of waitwaitwaitwaitFIGHT types.
29. Boss Battle that dragged out for a long, long time:
All of them? Blergh? I don't remember one in particular.
30. Boss Battle with the coolest music:
You know what, RPG fandom? FUCK ONE-WINGED ANGEL. The coolest boss music is "Dancing Mad" from FF6, "Dancing Calcobrena" from FFIV, or "Integral Body and Imperfect Soul" from SO2. You doubt me? I'll post them. Though IB&IS gets its edge in part from the official remix, which is six minutes of cheesy techno pwnage. My other choices stand.
31. Most Surprising Boss Battle:
Jenova-DEATH, perhaps. Comes hard on the heels of The Great RPG WTF Moment. (Is that DEATH or LIFE? Whatever.) There's probably something in early FF canon that I'm forgetting, though. OH! Oh, man. Edge's parents. :/ Traumatizing.
32. What's your all time favorite villain?:
The Magical Emperor Spoiler from Lunar: TSSSC. Old-school + camp = win. Followed by Lezard Valeth and his incredibly warped mind and his small army of love dolls, then Kefka.
33. What's your all time least favorite villain?:
MEWT FRICKING FRACKING RANDELL. FFTA. ...that looks like an epithet now. Anyway, yes. Mewt. Whiny little twerp, never scary, never felt bad for him, just SHUT UP, MEWT.
34. Do you ever feel sorry for the villains?:
Sometimes, though not to the point where I'm like OMGyouaresoawesomethosedamnheroesmybaby! the way some villain fans get. I felt bad for TMES (see #32) because he kinda had a point.
35. Are there any villains that seem like they should be playing for the good guys, but aren't?:
A lot of games do play with that. It's fun. ...I'm blanking on particulars, though.
36. Most malicious villain:
Kefka poisoned a whole village, but the prize for that has to go to what's his face from Suiko II. Luca Blight. Damn, I hated that guy. And not in a good way. His viciousness was over the top. He not only killed innocent people but humiliated them first, for no apparent reason. That was ugly, and it didn't serve much purpose in the story.
37. Most surprising villain:
Edge's parents. I-should-have-known-'cause-duh from Suiko II. That's all that comes to mind. TMES is terribly obvious, but that's one of the spoilers I like to keep the facade for just for fun. That and Faris. ;)
Favorites
39. What's your favorite 3D game? (PS1/N64/Saturn generation):
I don't remember playing any solely 3D games on PS1, come to think of it. I was pretty much in a catching-up-with-RPGs bubble.
40. What's your favorite arcade game?:
DDR? House of the Dead was kinda fun.
41. What's your favorite next-gen game? (Gamecube/PS2/Dreamcast/X-Box):
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. I realize that Oblivion is now the best game in the entire whole universe ever. I haven't played it yet. And that's okay.
42. Sequels/long series: Yay or nay?:
If they can keep it from descending into suck, or pull it back from the brink of suck, more power to them.
43. What's your favorite Online Game?:
Kingdom of Loathing, by default, I s'pose. Though I've fallen behind on that.
44. What's your favorite console?:
At the moment it's the PS2. But I don't have a ton of loyalty to the hardware itself, just the game libraries.
45. What's your favorite handheld?:
I've only ever had one.
46. Have you ever got yourself involved in a "console war"? (arguing that a console is better than another console):
Haha, no. I just follow licenses/genres/developers that I like. Though reading about companies' policies is interesting (cough no reselling of PS3 games WTF?), it's all a matter of opinion.
47. Have you ever defended a character/game/console you liked in an argument? Which one?:
I usually just wave my hands like "haha, sorry, I liked it" and bow out. I have to do that to the SO series every so often. And RPGs in general.
48. Name a game that you like but everyone else seems to hate.:
SO3. And Makai Kingdom is the unloved bastard sibling of Disgaea, poor thing.
49. Name a character that you like but everyone else seems to hate.:
Tifa. (OMG she has a nice figure she's a slut we don't like logic.) And Aeris. I like both. OMG is this possible. I also didn't hate Yuffie. She's got spirit. Or Relm. Several others like that.
50. Name a game that you hate but everyone else seems to like.:
FFVIII. Hate the plot, hateyhate. Gameplay was fine only because I am a level-grinding perfectionist who doesn't MIND Draw-ing ten THOUSAND times in a row. Most other aspects were fine. But soooo many people hailed it as thebestgameeveromgtheromanceOMG, and meh. Of course, I got into the internet fandom right about when it was popular, so that may affect my perspective.
51. Name a character that you hate but everyone else seems to love.:
It takes a lot to make me hate a character, believe me. There are a lot that I just don't understand the rabid love for, but that's not quite the same thing.
Miscellaneous
52. Have you ever stopped before you finished a game because it was too frustrating to go on?:
Yes. Xenogears. I also never finished Persona, but I didn't really play long enough to catch on to how it worked.
53. Will you stop at NOTHING to get 100% in a video game?:
No. If I enjoy the gameplay I will play the hell out of it, but I don't usually hunt down extremely rare things and such. Like now - I'm playing an absurd game of FFTA where everyone's experience maxed out a long time ago, but I can never master Morpher or catch all the beasts because apparently there are two that only show up once each. That's fine.
54. Have you ever injured yourself at a video game?
I did get neck cramps back in the days of playing while lying on the floor. Grownup nerds get comfy chairs.
55. Has a horror/survival genre video game scared you to the point that you refused to finish the game? Did you get nightmares from said game?:
This is why I don't play survival horror. :/ I will. I swear I will, totally. Sometime.
56. Have you ever thrown a controller/disc/cartridge in a fit of frustration?:
Probably, but I don't remember.
57. Do you need to blow/clean certain games to get them to play?:
Heh. I haven't fired up the NES in a while, but you do have to do that.
58. Have you ever played a game for so long that you missed sleep over it?:
Hell yeah. The sad part is? The last game I did that for was freaking HARVEST MOON.
59. Were you ever involved in the Pokemon craze?:
No.
60. Last but not least: Do you picture yourself playing video games 10, 20, or 30 years from now?:
If they make games that I like, I don't see why not. I grew up with it as a form of entertainment like movies or TV, so it's part of the landscape.
I was going to do the guilty-pleasure one, but now I'm tired. :p
Ran out of hot glue just before finishing UA. YAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. Will pick up more on way home from work tomorrow. That'll teach me to procrastinate.