The Gamer Tag

Yesterday, I was reading through some of the wonderful blogs on this site when I noticed Hannie from The Hannie Corner had completed this tag all about video games. It looked like a fun one to complete, so I thought I would give it a go. If you have a spare moment, please visit Hannie’s blog and take a look at her post. OK, let’s take a look at The Gamer Tag!

1. What is your all-time favourite video game?

Image source: Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster‘s Steam store page.

OK, we’re starting this tag with an easy question, my favourite video game is easily Final Fantasy X. I love everything about this game: the story, character, music and battle system. And yes, the laughter. It introduced me to the Final Fantasy series and JRPG, as genre of video game I hadn’t played until this point. Some people say that the first Final Fantasy game that you ever play will often be your favourite and in my case, that is definitely true!

2. What is your current favourite video game?

This is a tough one, as I’m playing quite a few games but I wouldn’t say most of them are my favourites. I do love Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and Elder Scrolls Online, both of which I’ve put a lot of time into. I’ve also rediscovered my love of Planet Coaster.

3. What is your favourite video game genre?

Image source: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition‘s Steam store page.

This is easy: RPGs. Any RPGs, it can be open world, JRPG, action or turn based. I love stories and characters more than game mechanics or graphics, so anything with a great story or solid character development will always garb my attention. A couple of other video game genres I also enjoy are strategy and city building/management.

4. How long have you been playing video games?

The first time I played a video game, I must have been about six or seven, when my Dad bought a Sega Megadrive (Genesis) from a work colleague.

5. What’s the first game you ever played?

Image source: Sonic the Hedgehog‘s Steam store page.

That would be Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Megadrive. I remember that since it was a single player game, and I had to share the controller with my sister, we would take turns whenever one of us died or passed a level. If I recall, we only managed to get up to the casino levels but never managed to complete the game.

6. What game have you clocked the most hours into?

According to Steam, my most played game is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn with over 251 hours played. However, I have a feeling I may have clocked more hours on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, on the Xbox 360, but I don’t have any statistics to back this up.

7. What’s your longest gaming session?

When I was (a lot) younger, I used to be able to play games pretty much all day and into the early hours of the next morning. Unfortunately, that was back when I was at school with a lot of free time on my hands. Now, I consider myself lucky if I can get a good few hours in, on one session.

8. Who is your favourite game developer?

I tend to judge a game on its own merits rather than by the name of its developer, especially after the recent shenanigans of some developers. A few years ago, I would say Bioware and Bethesda without hesitation but not so much recently. Square Enix would probably make the list of developers that I like. I also like Frontier, the guys behind Planet Coaster and Creative Assembly, developers of the Total War series. Oh, and I also have soft spot for Ubisoft, which is a bit weird and they do make mistakes but they seem to try and listen to their player base, which is more than what some developers do.

9. Who is your favourite hero character from a game?

This is a tough one. I would say it would come down as a tie between Yuna from Final Fantasy X and Evie Frye from Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Both women are strong character, capable of taking on a challenge but not at the expense of becoming Mary Sues.

10. Who is your favourite villain?

Image source: Far Cry Fandom.

Vaas from Far Cry 3. I could also have added Seymour from Final Fantasy X but I wanted to change things up a bit. Vaas is a highly entertaining antagonist with the right amount of insanity for the chaos filled Far Cry 3. Its only a shame, he doesn’t appear enough in the game.

11. Who is your most hated character from any game?

Hope from Final Fantasy XIII. I struggled with this entry in the Final Fantasy series and Hope did not make the experience any easier. Incredibly whiny, negative and generally struggles to contribution anything of value to the team. I see him as a cross between Tidus from Final Fantasy X and Vaan from Final Fantasy XII but with a lot more negativity.

12. What gaming systems do you own?

• Sega Megadrive. (I think its in the loft or with my brother).
• Gameboy Color (Still works!)
• Gameboy Advance.
• Playstation One.
• Playstation 2.
• Xbox 360.
• Nintendo Wii (in the house, somewhere…)
• Nintendo DS.
• Nintendo 3DS (A bit neglected after I bought my Switch…)
• PS Vita.
• Playstation 4.
• Nintendo Switch.
• PC

OK, I seem to have quite a collection, more than I thought I did!

13. What was your first game system?

The first one owned by my family was the Sega Megadrive but the first one that I owned was my Gameboy Color.

14. What’s your favourite gaming system and why?

For a long time, I was solely a console playing. I didn’t get into PC gaming until my brother made my PC, which could handle the more demanding games. Since then, my PC has been my favourite method to play video games. Its just easy to use and I find my PC can the handle the games a lot easier than the consoles can. However the Nintendo Switch is fast becoming my second favourite system to use.

15. Do you prefer to play as male or female characters?

I’ll be honest, I don’t mind. If the main character is well written and is fully developed, then I don’t mind what gender they are. If its a character I create, then I tend to create female characters, but I have also created male characters as well.

16. Do you follow walkthroughs or do you play through on your own?

Image source: Goodreads.

I tend to play through on my own, especially on a first run, but if I get completely stuck, I may look to the Internet for help. If I’ve played the game a few times and I’m wanting to 100% complete or find some of the game’s secrets, then I’ll use a walkthrough. I do own a couple of walkthroghs for some of the Final Fantasy and Pokemon games.

17. Have you ever been to a gaming convention?

Not to a convention just for video games but I have been to MCM London Comic Con which has an area dedicated for video games.

18. What game are you most excited to come out in the future?

If I’m being honest, Epic keeping making games exclusive for their store has stopped me from getting hyped for quite a few PC releases; as the ones I was looking forward to, Borderlands 3 and The Outer Worlds, are releasing there first. Still, I’m looking forward to Cyberpunk 2077 and Pokemon Sword/Shield.

19. What’s your best video game memory?

Image source: Inkovicdoeslp’s Youtube channel.

Beating the Elite Four in Pokemon Yellow. This was the first time that I had completed a game and little Thero loved the feeling of reaching the end of her Pokemon journey.

Another of my favourite memories is playing through Baldur’s Gate co-op on the Playstation 2, with my friend Khinjarsi over at Upon Completion. Although we never beat it, it was a blast fighting hordes of fantasy monsters together.

20. What’s your worst memory of a video game?

OK, I’ve got two. The first is another Final Fantasy X related one. In FFX, it has a great levelling up system called a sphere grid, which can be used to make your team have some strange roles assigned to them. Anyway, on my serious playthrough I had reached Zanarkand, after beating that boss on Mt. Gagazet. I decided I wanted a break and do a silly run, where Yuna would be a tank, Wakka a healer etc. You can probably guess what happened enxt. I saved over my serious playthrough, with hours of progress, with a silly throwaway run. I still haven’t got over that.

The other memory was around the Playstation One game, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was a weird adaptation of the book. I had just gotten past a really tough platforming section involving Peeves the poltergeist, that I spent a couple of hours trying to beat. I started to sit back and watch the cut scene, when the game got stuck. Unfortunately, this was before autosaves and so I had to turn the game off to restart that whole section again. The words ‘Dumbledore said… Dumbledore said… Dumbledore said…’ will haunt me for a long time.

21. Which video game character do you see yourself as, or if you had to be represented by a video game character, who would it be?

I’ll be honest, I’d probably be that NPC that gives you way to much exposition and lore. I’d be standing in the corner, where most people won’t see me but occasionally I’d fill people in on the backstory of whichever fantasy world we’re in.

And that was The Gamer Tag! Those questions were lot of fun to answer, if you decide to give it a go, let me know in the comments, as I would love to read your answers!

Talk to you soon!