My 10 Most Influential Games: Planet's Edge (PC)

I've made no secret of the fact that I don't much care for computer gaming these days. The thing is, that's the only way I played--and enjoyed--games before my brother and I got an NES.

First, we used an Apple IIe to play classics like Apple Panic, Miner 2049er, Moon Patrol and The Oregon Trail. Then, we used a Windows PC. I don't remember the make or model, but I do remember a handful of the games I played on it: The 7th Guest, Day of the Tentacle and Planet's Edge.

Of all the above-mentioned titles, Planet's Edge is the one that has stuck with me the most over the years.

Curiously, I don't remember why we bought it. I have a feeling my brother read or heard about it somewhere--he was really into sci-fi movies, novels and games back then--and that's what pushed us to pick it up.



At any rate, I spent as much time with Planet's Edge as he did--to the point that I'd say it's as responsible as any other game for turning me on to the RPG genre. More importantly, this New World Computing release from 1992 opened my eyes to and made me aware of the joys of resource gathering and mining in a role-playing game.

Not that resource gathering and mining is the sole focus of this intergalactic adventure. As you work to retrieve Earth from some sort of "wormhole trap" (the planet disappears at the start of the game), you, controlling a four-member crew, also build and pilot spacecraft, battle other ships, investigate the surfaces of far-flung planets, fight their inhabitants and more.

(For those looking for a few more details, every playthrough of Planet's Edge begins on the moon. After outfitting a rather rudimentary spaceship, you and your cohorts lift off in search of information, ship parts and resources. Encountering alien craft along the way sometimes results in amiable chatter, while at other times it results in trade and even combat. If you successfully make it to another planet, you have to maneuver your vessel into its orbit before you can set down. Once on the ground, you move your foursome--viewed from a top-down, isometric perspective--as you do in most turn-based RPGs. Loot gathered from the mission is hauled back to the moon, where you can then upgrade your spacecraft before once again setting off for distant lands.)

To be honest, battles in Planet's Edge can be a pain, especially when it takes place in space. On-the-ground tussles are less aggravating, but only a bit. Thankfully, the annoyances associated with the latter are mostly offset by all of the intriguing loot that's made available to you as you explore the game's many alien outposts.

Plus, Planet's Edge does such a great job of fleshing out its expansive world that these missteps are easy enough to overlook--especially if sci-fi settings in RPGs tend to thrill you.



That's been the case for me ever since I first booted up Planet's Edge as a teenager, which is why I decided to declare it one of the 10 titles that most shaped my taste in video games.

Would I have become a fan of loot-heavy, planet-hopping RPGs had I not stumbled across this one decades ago? Probably, but at the moment I can't come up with a similar title that's had such an indelible impact on me.

To this day, I still regularly reminisce about about various aspects of my initial Planet's Edge playthrough. I especially enjoy recalling the excitement I felt when I first touched down on a previously unexplored world, or when I first encountered a rare or unusual resource or material.

I doubt I'll ever play this old PC game again, but that's OK with me. My fond memories of it are sure to be better than a second run-through anyway.

See also: previous '10 Most Influential Game' posts about The 7th Guest, Balloon Kid, Bubble Bobble, Final Fantasy V, Kid Icarus and Panzer Dragoon

My 10 Most Influential Games: Panzer Dragoon (Sega Saturn)

Truth be told, I've never been a fan of rail shooters. You know, the type of shmup--or shoot 'em up--where the ship or flying character moves and shoots into the screen while the game pushes them along a set path.

A few examples, if the description above isn't enough: 1985's arcade classic, Space Harrier, 1987's Thunder Blade and 1988's Galaxy Force, among many, many others.

Don't get me wrong, I love the looks and even the general idea of each of those titles. Their gameplay has never appealed to me, though--or maybe I should say their gameplay has always confounded me. Moving around a screen while simultaneously shooting into it just feels weird to me.

Still, when I bought a Japanese Sega Saturn system in early 1995 (embarrassing aside: I paid about $600 for the console, one controller and a copy of Virtua Fighter), I also bought Panzer Dragoon.

Admittedly, I didn't realize Panzer Dragoon was a rail shooter at the time. I had a feeling that was the case, thanks to all the articles I'd read in magazines like DieHard GameFan and Electronic Gaming Monthly, but I wasn't absolutely sure.

I wasn't disappointed when I finally spent some time with this particular into-the-screen shooter, thankfully. Its softly colored visuals, dynamic camera positions and majestic soundtrack helped acclimate me to it, I'm sure, but they only would've taken me so far had Panzer Dragoon's gameplay been a total bore.

I guess some folks may describe this Sega product using that term, but not me. In fact, I've found its gameplay exhilarating since day one. Chiefly responsible for that, I think, is the fluid movement (for the time, at least) of the blue-and-pink dragon that serves as the protagonist's airborne "steed."

That movement gives Panzer Dragoon's gameplay an element of depth I thought was lacking in older rail shooters--I have a hard time judging where I am in relation to oncoming enemies in the vast majority of those games--and that was key to me finally enjoying one of this shmup sub-genre's offerings.

Did this surprising love affair prompt me to seek out, play and even lust after other into-the-screen shoot 'em ups?

To an extent, yes. I certainly found 1997's Star Fox 64 for the Nintendo 64 far more appealing than I would have if Panzer Dragoon hadn't pushed my buttons, so to speak. And the same could be said for 2000's Sin and Punishment and 2001's Rez.

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say rail shooters have become one of my favorite game genres thanks to this early Sega Saturn title, but I definitely enjoy them a lot more than I did before I took it for a spin. For that reason alone, I think declaring Panzer Dragoon one of my most influential games makes perfect sense.

See also: previous '10 Most Influential Game' posts about The 7th Guest, Balloon Kid, Bubble Bobble, Final Fantasy V and Kid Icarus

My 10 Most Influential Games: Kid Icarus (NES)

Although a number of its initial releases lured me and my older brother to the NES in the year following its North American release, none had a more powerful pull on us than the pair of Nintendo-made "Adventure Series" games known in the West as Metroid and Kid Icarus.

I was especially drawn to the latter title, which was made by Gunpei Yokoi, Satoru Okada and Yoshio Sakamoto, among others, and which first hit store shelves here in July of 1987. (Just a month before Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, in fact.)

There are all sorts of reasons for that, of course. A rather stupidly superficial one is that, right off the bat, I was a fan of Kid Icarus' magenta logo. (Hey, I've never been shy about my love of the color pink.)

Also catching my eye early on: the cover art's depiction of Pit. I was keenly interested in Greek mythology back when Kid Icarus was released, so a game that allowed me to play as an angel who has to traverse a world full of crumbling stone pillars, fantastic creatures and even goddesses--Medusa among them--quickly commanded my attention. (Speaking of the creatures that populate this game, you can see illustrations of all of them in the Hikari Shinwa: Parutena no Kagami GameBoy Advance instruction manual.)

And then there were the write-ups in Nintendo Power and elsewhere that showcased Kid Icarus' colorful locales. Purple bricks and stone, red-checkered floors, pink and green clouds--my younger self thought the game looked like a dream.

I know most folks today don't think Kid Icarus plays like a dream, but I thought it did back in the day. (Hell, I still kind of think it now.) After all, Pit controls pretty darn well, if you ask me. Specifically, he's easy to maneuver--except for when you find yourself on one of the icy ledges that pop up in a number of the game's levels--and he reacts quickly to commands. (I can't imagine anyone describing Kid Icarus as floaty or sluggish.)

Is that why I consider it to be influential? Not really. One aspect of Kid Icarus that did help shape my taste in video games, though, is its difficulty. Admittedly, it's sometimes (some may say often) "cheaply" difficult, but in general I think it just asks a lot of those who decide to play it. In some cases, that means perfectly timing jumps and arrow shots; in others, it means memorizing stage layouts (refer to this site if you need help) and enemy placements.

Regardless, Kid Icarus--along with its silver-box, "Adventure Series" sibling, Metroid--made me realize that while I like my games to be at least somewhat cute (or even simply colorful), I also like for them to be at least somewhat challenging.

Kid Icarus also prompted me to realize and embrace that I prefer action-platformers that dare to be a bit different to those that toe the line. Straightforward efforts that ape Super Mario Bros. are all well and good, but this game took that classic's basic components and built upon them tenfold. Rather than having stages scroll almost exclusively from left to right, Kid Icarus offers up ones that scroll up, down and all over the place. It even features maze-like dungeons that sprawl in all directions and need to be conquered at the end of each four-level world before you can move on to the next one.

Another of Kid Icarus' unique quirks that helped set the tone for my love of platform games that veer from the beaten path: the bow and quiver of unlimited arrows Pit uses to dispatch foes. For whatever reason, that's always struck me as far more interesting and thrilling than, say, Mega Man's "Mega Buster" or Simon Belmont's whip.

Unfortunately, despite all of the above, and despite the fact that Kid Icarus was chiefly responsible for shaping my taste in video games (oddball platformers, in particular), I've barely experienced it and its brilliant Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka soundtrack in the last couple of decades.

Truth be told, that's mostly because I'm now slightly terrified of it. The last time I attempted to work my way through its technicolor worlds, I struggled to complete its third stage.

Still, I've never been one to shrink away from a challenge, so I'll do my best to boot up some version of the game in the coming days and weeks. Here's hoping this playthrough will be more successful than the quickly aborted ones of the not-so-recent past.

See also: previous 'My 10 Most Influential Games' posts about The 7th Guest, Balloon Kid, Bubble Bobble and Final Fantasy V

My 10 Most Influential Games: Final Fantasy V (Super Famicom)

I've got to say, I had a hard time deciding whether I should write about Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV or Final Fantasy V here.

Why? Well, as far as the original Final Fantasy is concerned, it was the first console RPG that really grabbed me. I played Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest now days) before Final Fantasy and liked it well enough, but I preferred Square's effort to Enix's in almost every way.

Specifically, I liked that Final Fantasy provided players with four-person parties--a far cry from Dragon Warrior's solo mission. Also, players could assign classes or "jobs" to party members at the start of the former, while they were stuck with a seemingly generic "hero" in the latter.

Add in Final Fantasy's visible weapons and spells--neither are present in Dragon Warrior/Quest--and it should be easy to understand why younger me found Square's 8-bit RPG so fascinating.



Still, I wouldn't say Final Fantasy turned me into an "RPG fan." Sure, I liked the genre a whole lot more after I played through that game than I did before I played through it, but platformers and shmups continued to be my go-to genre until, well, the release of Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II in my neck of the woods).

Speaking of Final Fantasy IV, although there's no question it pushed me further into "RPG fan" territory, it didn't really shape my taste in games--role-playing games or otherwise--moving forward.

Yes, I adored the first 16-bit entry in Squaresoft's Final Fantasy series, but if I'm allowed to be honest, it mostly just beefed up the superficial components of earlier Final Fantasy games. And in terms of its gameplay, it could be argued that Final Fantasy IV regressed a bit (or a lot) from its Japan-only, Famicom-based predecessor.

Final Fantasy V, on the other hand, seemed to my teenage self to be a real evolution from the titles that came before it. OK, so I couldn't fully understand its story at the time, but it resonated with me all the same. I especially appreciated how it featured a character--Faris Scherwiz--that defied gender roles.

I also found myself in awe of Final Fantasy V's soundtrack, which has always struck me as being more wistful than that of your average RPG.



This game's story and soundtrack weren't what influenced my taste in video games, though. So which aspects did? The best example I can offer up is its expansive job system. Final Fantasy III featured a similar (albeit less impressive) system, but I didn't play it until the DS remake was released in North America in 2006.

As such, I considered Final Fantasy V's pick-and-choose job system mind-blowing when I encountered it in the early 1990s. (It was one of the first games I ever imported from Japan. I still have that copy, by the way; it's showcased in the photos seen throughout this post.)

I especially loved how the Final Fantasy V job system allowed you to mix and match classes and skills. Want one of your party members to be a White Mage who can wield an axe? Spend some time as a Berserker until you've gained the "equip axes" ability and then make use of it after you switch over to the White Mage job.

Or maybe you want someone in your party who can use a pair of bells in battle? Have him or her take on the Ninja job until they've learned the "dual-wield" ability and then enable it as a Freelancer--especially after they've acquired, say, a Rune Chime and a Tinkerbell.



Although I can't quite say an RPG needs to have a highly customizable job system to attract my attention and otherwise appeal to me in a post-Final Fantasy V world, I can say without hesitation that my shortlist of favorite role-playing games is filled with titles that fit that bill. (A few cases in point: Bravely Default, Dragon Quest IX, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light and Final Fantasy Tactics.)

Another way in which Final Fantasy V helped shape my taste in games: it solidified my love of RPGs that feature bevy of weapons that are visible in battle.

I first became aware of that interest after I acquired the coral sword in the first Final Fantasy, appropriately enough, but it wasn't until I experienced Final Fantasy V's plethora of axes, bells, hammers and harps that it blossomed into a full-on obsession.

Were any of you similarly influenced or enchanted by this 1992 release? If so, share why and how it impacted you in the comments section of this post.

See also: previous '10 Most Influential Games' posts about The 7th Guest, Balloon Kid and Bubble Bobble

My 10 Most Influential Games: Bubble Bobble (Arcade)

Although I have a pretty good memory, I'm rarely able to recall my first experiences with specific video games.

Thankfully, that's not true of my introduction to Bubble Bobble.

As I'm sure I've mentioned here before, my hometown has a rather nice bowling alley that my friends and I visited regularly while we were growing up. Tucked into its back corner were a slough of arcade cabinets and pinball machines, and we spent as much time playing them as we did bowling.

Among the games that gobbled up our hard-earned allowance money: Gauntlet, Karate Champ, Paperboy, Pole Position, Ring King, Xenophobe--and of course Bubble Bobble.

To be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure what drew my attention to Bubble Bobble's cabinet for the first time. I have a feeling it was the game's glorious, ear-wormy jingle, but it very well may have been its adorable, rainbow-coated visuals.

Something I remember clearly about my initial experiences with this classic quarter-muncher: I absolutely sucked at it. Although I blame some of my ineptitude on not fully understanding Bubble Bobble's rules right off the bat, but mostly I blame it on my life-long discomfort with using a joystick. (Ironic, right? Seriously, though, I've always preferred using a d-pad.)

Still, I kept coming back to it, and over time I got better and better at this Fukio Mitsuji-made (for Taito) title.

So, how did it influence my current taste in video games? It did so in a couple of ways, actually.

One is that it hurled me down the path toward loving games that feature collectible food items. Ms. Pac-Man showed me to its entrance (thanks to the level that offers up a pretzel rather than a piece of fruit, strangely enough), but Bubble Bobble and its bowls of sherbet, corndogs, sushi and martinis pushed me well inside.

Ever since, I've drooled over almost any game that includes such nabables. A few examples: Coryoon, Monster Lair, The New Zealand Story and Parasol Stars. (For more, read my old post, "the 10 fruitiest games (of which I'm aware).")

Bubble Bobble shaped my current taste in video games in another way as well--by opening my eyes to the wonderful world of single-screen platformers. (Here are some of my favorites, in case you're curious.)

Was Bubble Bobble the first single-screen platformer to see the light of day? Not by a long shot. A game called The Fairyland Story--also published by Taito, interestingly enough--beat Bub and Bob to the arcades by at least a year, and I wouldn't be surprised if a handful of other titles could claim the same.

Regardless, Bubble Bobble introduced me to the genre that's now one of my favorites. And not only that, but in the ensuing decades, it's served as a point of comparison for every other single-screen platformer that's come my way.

Naturally, none of those wannabes have quite stacked up to this 1986 release. I think that's because the game they so desperately try to ape is supremely focused and straightforward.

A case in point: unlike most of the games that have tried to snatch its genre-king crown over the years, Bubble Bobble keeps its control scheme simple. You can jump, you can blow bubbles, you can hop on bubbles--and that's basically it. (OK, so some levels let you pop bubbles that send lightning bolts at enemies or cover platforms with swaths of fire, but they're in the minority. The bulk of the game's levels force you to focus on the trio of aforementioned actions.)

Also, Bubble Bobble's stages never take up more than a single screen (hence the name of the gaming genre that contains it). And then, of course, there are its timeless graphics and its grin-inducing background tune.

At the end of the day, though, the aspect that keeps me coming back to Bubble Bobble, and that causes me to label it "influential," is its unfailingly enjoyable gameplay. Even when one of its stages is kicking my butt (an all too regular occurrence, I'm afraid), it never stops being fun.

I can't say that about too many games, can you?

See also: previous '10 Most Influential Games' posts about The 7th Guest and Balloon Kid.

My 10 Most Influential Games: Balloon Kid (GameBoy)

Nintendo's Balloon Fight and I didn't exactly get off on the right foot.

After renting this early "black box" NES cartridge from my local grocery store (yes, you read that correctly), I played it for a few minutes, decided it was little more than a subpar Joust ripoff and then promptly and thoroughly ignored it until it was time to return it.

Yes, that means I overlooked Balloon Fight's superior "Balloon Trip" mode during my initial experience with the game.

I eventually pulled my head out of my ass, of course, and not only checked out the mode in question but fell head over heels in love with it. Unfortunately, that didn't happen until a good number of years after the aforementioned rental debacle.

Why am I airing this dirty laundry here? Because I want everyone reading to know I wasn't a Balloon Fight fan when I first became aware of 1990's GameBoy spinoff, Balloon Kid.

Despite my lack of love for the NES game that clearly inspired it, Balloon Kid immediately caught my attention. There were a number of reasons for that. One was that I was desperately obsessed with my GameBoy at the time. Nintendo's first portable gaming system was only a year old when Balloon Kid hit the streets in my neck of the woods, so I immediately zeroed in on any even semi-interesting title that was announced at that point--especially if it was being made or was going to be published by Nintendo.

Another reason Balloon Kid grabbed me by the short and curlies in the lead up to its North American release: its eye-popping logo and bright cover illustration.

I also quickly found myself enamored with its look. You may not be aware, but a number of Nintendo-published GameBoy titles featured character sprites that were stylistically similar. To see what I mean, compare these screenshots from Balloon Kid, Golf, Tennis and even Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru. Anyway, this aesthetic really made me swoon back in the day (still does now, to be perfectly honest) and it definitely helped solidify my interest in Balloon Kid.

The main reason I couldn't get enough of Balloon Kid around the time of its release nearly three decades ago, though, and the main reason I consider it influential in terms of shaping my current taste in video games, was that it boldly turned the platformer genre on its head.

At the time, especially, platformers were at the top of my "favorite game types" list. I devoured every side-scrolling run-and-jump title that pinged my radar. Adventure Island, Duck Tales, Mickey Mousecapade, Monster Party, Ninja Kid, Panic Restaurant--you name it, I almost assuredly played (and enjoyed) it as a teen, assuming the "it" was an 8-bit platform game.

Most of those platformers stuck pretty close to the template created by Nintendo's own Super Mario Bros. series, however. Which is why I was so intrigued that Balloon Kid seemed to throw most of the "rules" associated with the genre out the window. For starters, its levels scrolled the "wrong way"--from right to left. Also, its protagonist, Alice, was a girl rather than a boy or man. And not only that, but Alice relied on more than her legs to make her way through the game's eight stages. In fact, her preferred mode of transportation was catching a ride on a helium balloon or two--which were then "controlled" in a way that'd be instantly familiar to anyone who'd played Balloon Fight.

All three of those aspects thoroughly impressed my younger self. Previously, I assumed that for a game to be a "real" platformer, it had to scroll from left to right and its primary action had to be jumping or leaping. I didn't necessarily think its protagonist had to be male, but that was so often the case that it was thrilling to finally encounter a release that dared to buck that trend.

I still have a complete-in-box copy of Balloon Kid, by the way. I've also bought and downloaded digital versions of it to both my Japanese and North American 3DS systems. That's the kind of impact this game had on me early on in my gaming life.

Have any of you played this Pax Softonica-developed (but Nintendo-published) GameBoy adventure? If so, what sort of experience did you have with it? Share your memories in the comments section of this post.

See also: my '10 Most Influential Games' post about The 7th Guest

My 10 Most Influential Games: The 7th Guest (PC)

It probably seems strange to call a game I've never mentioned here before one of my "most influential." (And by influential, I mean it was influential in shaping my current taste in video games.) The fact is, though, that The 7th Guest absolutely blew my mind back when I played through it on my family's PC as a teen.

If this is the first you're hearing of The 7th Guest, it's an adventure game set in a haunted mansion. To progress through its surprisingly adult story, players have to solve various logic puzzles.

Really, The 7th Guest is like a horror-tinged precursor to the Professor Layton series, although Level-5's games offer up many more brain-teasers than the Trilobyte-developed title discussed in this post.

Anyway, besides all of the above, The 7th Guest caused a stir when it was released in 1993 because it took up two CDs (unheard of at the time) and was chock-full of both live-action video clips and pre-rendered 3D graphics.

As much as my younger self loved this game's flashiness, the aspects that most impressed me, and kept me and my mom--a mystery and puzzle buff herself--coming back to it until we reached its ending, were its creepy backstory and its many tough-as-nails puzzles.

I'd never encountered the former in a game before I started The 7th Guest, while the latter opened my mind to the fact that digital puzzles (you know, as opposed to physical ones found in books and newspapers) could involve more than just letters, words or random shapes and blobs.

Of course, I'd also never encountered 3D graphics and live-action video clips in a game before I started The 7th Guest, so I guess I shouldn't discount how much those components impacted and influenced my taste in video games moving forward.

Certainly, The 7th Guest helped solidify my interest in adventure and puzzle games. Previously, I viewed both genres as something akin to second-class citizens and preferred to spend my precious free time with platformers and RPGs.

It also opened my eyes to the fact that games don't have to be depicted in a limited number of ways to be appealing or engaging. Until The 7th Guest came around, I pretty much equated games with pixels. I also generally thought of them as being two-dimensional affairs.

The idea of a game made up of three-dimensional graphics and video clips didn't sit all that well with me back then--thanks in large part to the fact that the few existing efforts I was aware of didn't seem to offer any real gameplay or even graphical improvements over the status quo.

That mostly changed after my mom and I dumped countless hours into The 7th Guest. Not entirely, mind you, as it wasn't until I'd spent some serious time with the Saturn's, PlayStation's and Nintendo 64's libraries that I fully got behind the notion that games with pre-rendered or pre-recorded visuals could be something other than crap.

Still, the "interactive movie" that is The 7th Guest started me down the path toward accepting non-traditional video games, and for that I'll always be grateful.

I'll also forever be grateful that it brought my mom and I together in a way that's rarely happened in either of our lives. Other than the time I helped her figure out how to play Tetris DS (and tried to help her play New Super Mario Bros.), we've played just one game together--The 7th Guest. And that's an experience I'll never forget.

Note: I was inspired to begin this series after reading through Rachel Simone Weil's similar one over at nobadmemories.com. Rachel's write-ups focus on the games that prompted her to start making her own. I'm obviously not a developer, so my posts will focus on the 10 titles that sucked me into this hobby and shaped my interests in it.