What were your first, last and in-between games completed?

[GPX | 1,370]

Rules are simple:

- what game did you first complete (or the earliest memory of you completing a game)?

- what game did you last complete (or the latest memory of you completing a game)?

- pick a rough mid-point between the 2 era in the above, and pick a game you vividly recall completing. 

Try not to think too long and hard, rough estimates is good enough. In theory, everyone should have a different answer, because the chance of someone sharing the same answer would be astronomically low!

———————————

I’ll start:

- Bubble Bobble C64 ~ 1987

- Mario 64 DS ~ 2004

- Defense Grid Xbox Live ~ 2023

[OptOut | 8,889]

First game I ever beat fully, hard to say but the game that comes to mind is Ducktales NES.  It's definitely one of the few NES games I could reliably beat over and over as a kid.

Last game I beat was HALO, again, played through it on the Master Chief Collection on XBOX ONE and beat it last night. I have beat that game TONS of times though, so the last game I beat that was new to me was Far Cry Instincts on OG XBOX which I finished last week.

As for an inbetween point, I guess you could go back to the GameCube era, I beat Metroid Prime 1 and 2 100% on hard mode. That was pretty epic. Beating Goldeneye 100% with all the cheats was a true victory as well. And, I also remember really enjoying 100% beating Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge back on the OG XBOX too!

[GPX | 1,370]

2 hours ago, OptOut said:

First game I ever beat fully, hard to say but the game that comes to mind is Ducktales NES.  It's definitely one of the few NES games I could reliably beat over and over as a kid.

Last game I beat was HALO, again, played through it on the Master Chief Collection on XBOX ONE and beat it last night. I have beat that game TONS of times though, so the last game I beat that was new to me was Far Cry Instincts on OG XBOX which I finished last week.

As for an inbetween point, I guess you could go back to the GameCube era, I beat Metroid Prime 1 and 2 100% on hard mode. That was pretty epic. Beating Goldeneye 100% with all the cheats was a true victory as well. And, I also remember really enjoying 100% beating Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge back on the OG XBOX too!

That’s a very nice short but diverse list. My interests were more narrow than yours, having played mainly the fighting, arcade shooters and platformers. I dabbled in some RPGs and racing games but completed only a select few from these genres. 

N64-wise, I tried Goldeneye but could never really get into first-person shooters because they give me giddiness. Mario 64 was my first completed N64 game, which I loved so much I had to buy it again for the DS to do it all over again!

[Webhead123 | 679]

I started playing video games in 1985. At the time, most games weren't "beatable" in the sense that they didn't really have an end. Most were either about chasing a high score or pummeling an opponent into submission. E.T. for the Atari 2600 was kind of an exception for its day, as it had a defined goal and an "ending" as it were. I remember beating that game multiple times (I actually quite liked it, for an Atari game). It is still very short, though, and can be completed in just a couple minutes if you know what you're doing, so I don't know if it really counts.

If we're talking about something slightly more (relatively) substantial, it wouldn't be until I got an NES in '89 when I started playing more games which could be described as "beatable". Of them, I think the first one might have been Mega Man 2.

The last game I've beaten was Baldur's Gate 3. Top-contender for one of the greatest games I've ever played. Still playing it and will probably complete it two or three more times before I put it back down for a while.

In-between? That's a span of what, 38 years? So, half-way (19 years ago) would put us around 2004-ish. Around that time is when I was probably playing Spider-Man 2 and Beyond Good and Evil on Gamecube, so likely one of those.

[T-Pac | 7,560]

First game finished:

I think it might've been Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: Kaznapped [Game Boy Advance]. It was technically my sister's cart, but we shared games with each other all the time. (And now that I'm looking it up, apparently there's a hidden final boss that I definitely never got to, so I guess I never actually finished the game haha.)

 

Intermediate:

Kirby's Adventure [NES] was one of the first games I bought when I got into retro gaming (around 2012), and possibly the first NES game I ever beat. The last boss fight against Nightmare is seriously unsettling, but I love it.

 

Latest game finished:

This week I finished Dead Moon [PC Engine], but I used save states. So if we're only counting legit clears, that would be Balloon Fight [NES]. Both excellent games.

[T-Pac]

[rdrunner | 422]

First: If we require an actual ending, then it would be Karateka on the Atari 8-bit computer (love that game!).  I also "beat" Space Invaders for 2600 by completing the hardest level where they start one row away from landing.

Last: Portal 2.  Finally finished it last month after quitting around Chapter 7 and taking roughly a 5-year break.  Those rusty old chambers took too long to navigate and I lost interest for a while, but I finally went back and pushed on to the (insane) ending.

Middle: Roughly 2003, which is when I did my NES Zelda speed run.  34:05 during the pre-TAS era, which beat everyone else at the time by at least 2 minutes.  Still one of my favorite accomplishments!

 

[RH | 4,920]

I honestly don’t know the first game I beat. It might honestly be Metroid II, but that just doesn’t feel right.

The last game I completed was Guitar Hero II.  I lost my saves from my original PS2 memory card so I had to do it all over again and this was about a month ago. But if we’re looking at new games I think the last game I played from start to finish was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, medaling all GPs on the lowest CC level.  I like to start at the bottom, and I got partly through the next set of CC GPs before moving on too another game. I say it counts.

Ok, math time. I probably beat MII in 1992, Mario Kart 8 in 2018, mid point is 2005.  Oh, dang, that’s a tough period to gauge.  I’d just started my career in earnest, I was engaged and married my wife that summer and we spent a lot of our free time watching movies and hanging out with our best friends.  There was very little gaming in that season of my life but… there was Katamari Damacy. In fact, if we weren’t hanging out at our best friend-couple’s house, we were playing Katamari which was probably the last PS2 game I’d beaten at that time.

Edited October 15, 2023 by RH

[Reed Rothchild | 9,548]

First might have been a Commander Keen, or Duke Nukem, or some sort of Apogee title.

Middle?  Uh, that could literally be a thousand games.  So, one of these or something:

Latest?  Crash Bandicoot 4 in the next 30 minutes here.

[Gloves | 11,794]

The first game I ever beat was Final Fantasy on the NES. The last game I beat was... *checks log*... Final Fantasy on the NES!

As with Reed (and surely others) there's thousands in between... I'll go with Kabuki: Quantum Fighter as my shout-out.

[G-type | 2,482]

First game I beat was also the first PC game that I owned, Bubble Ghost.

The last games I beat were back-to-back NES Metal Gear and MSX2 Metal Gear.
 

For an in between game, Facebook just showed me this “memory” from 2014

[T-Pac | 7,560]

On 10/15/2023 at 5:25 AM, rdrunner said:

Roughly 2003, which is when I did my NES Zelda speed run.  34:05 during the pre-TAS era, which beat everyone else at the time by at least 2 minutes.  Still one of my favorite accomplishments!

Wait wait wait - you were the world record holder for NES Zelda speedrunning at one point? That's insane!

[T-Pac]

16 hours ago, Gloves said:

The first game I ever beat was Final Fantasy on the NES. The last game I beat was... *checks log*... Final Fantasy on the NES!

Not gonna lie - that's pretty cool timing.

[T-Pac]

1 hour ago, G-type said:

For an in between game, Facebook just showed me this “memory” from 2014

Is that the good-ending? I've only ever finished Kid Icarus as the 'farmer' haha.

[T-Pac]

[Reed Rothchild | 9,548]

2 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

Wait wait wait - you were the world record holder for NES Zelda speedrunning at one point? That's insane!

Just Google Tom Votava 

[T-Pac | 7,560]

17 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Just Google Tom Votava 

Everything makes sense now - @rdrunner what a legend haha.

[T-Pac]

[G-type | 2,482]

19 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

Is that the good-ending? I've only ever finished Kid Icarus as the 'farmer' haha.

 

There are 5 incrementally better endings... This would be the 3rd place ending, because Pitt has the captain's helmet and spear. 2nd place he's a full grown angel, and 1st place, Palutena gives you a kiss as cherubs drop hearts.

[PII | 1,886]

Best guess for 1st is probably "Cave Of The Word Wizard" on Commodore 64.  You wander a 4-level cave filled with creepy crawlies to avoid and pits of non-doom that are easier to fall into than it is to find a ladder to take you back up while trying to locate four glowing crystals to finish the game.  Meanwhile the "Word Wizard" recurringly materializes to demand that you spell some word.  It had 4 difficulty levels if memory suffices.  I've since played a few enjoyable "educational" games on the ColecoVision in recent history but COTWW was probably also the last time in my youth that I enjoyed a video game actually intended to educate, unless you wanna count playing "Oregon Trail" on a computer at school.  I learned to avoid dysentery.

Last game was "Shadow Of The Ninja" (for a brief description see the "Beat The NES Thread.")

Intermediate would be College era and that means not a whole lot of time for gaming, but the most frequently beaten game of that time would def. have been "Mario Kart 64" getting beaten at say, 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning for the umpteen-millionth time with one or more friends along for the ride.

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

The first game I ever completed was Super Mario Bros. 2.  Even though I played SMB well before, I never actually beat that game until after completing SMB2 and SMB3.

The most recent game I've completed was Tears of the Kingdom.

One notable game completion from the "middle" was Super Mario Kart.  I remember the first time I ever won the Special Cup on 150cc.  I went into the final race needing a win to get 1st in the Cup.  On the last lap, I was hit by a shell or banana right before the finish line.  My character was just sitting there right before the finish line.  I expected the computer to pass me before my character would recover and begin to move again.  However, the 2nd place computer player crashed into the back of me and pushed me across the finish line allowing me to win the race and the Cup.  First time I ever "beat" that game.  Super Mario Kart was so much more difficult compared to modern Mario Kart games.  

[Kguillemette | 1,545]

First game was OG Super Mario Bros. There's a picture of me somewhere in front of the TV looking all proud of myself.

Middle was Ratchet and Clank- Up your Arsenal. Dr. Nefarious was one of the tougher final bosses I managed to clear! LAWRENCE!!!!!!

Most recently was Kirby Avalance. I just Buzzsawed my way through it last week. King Dedede was no match for my Puyo Puyo skills!

[AstralSoul | 502]

First - Super Mario Bros. 2. - I can't remember what year it was but it wasn't terribly long after the game came out so I'd say 1990 at the latest. But I vividly remember beating it, having not beaten Super Mario Bros. first. And I was so confused by the ending, that it was all a dream. Still one of my favorite Mario games.

Midway - Resident Evil 4 - Couldn't wait for this game to come out, I was ridiculously excited for it, after the Resident Evil remake and Resident Evil Zero turned me into a huge RE fan. Still to this day one of my favorite games. It was 2005 this game came out, got it on launch day, beat it not too long after that.

Latest - Pikmin 4 - Been chipping away at this game, just beat it tonight, so 2023! I felt like this game never ends. But I loved it, just like I love every game in the series. I wanted to finish this before I played Mario Wonder since I am ridiculously bad at moving on to new games before finishing the last one. Trying to break that habit for once.

[GPX | 1,370]

On 10/15/2023 at 11:49 PM, RH said:

I honestly don’t know the first game I beat. It might honestly be Metroid II, but that just doesn’t feel right.

The last game I completed was Guitar Hero II.  I lost my saves from my original PS2 memory card so I had to do it all over again and this was about a month ago. But if we’re looking at new games I think the last game I played from start to finish was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, medaling all GPs on the lowest CC level.  I like to start at the bottom, and I got partly through the next set of CC GPs before moving on too another game. I say it counts.

Ok, math time. I probably beat MII in 1992, Mario Kart 8 in 2018, mid point is 2005.  Oh, dang, that’s a tough period to gauge.  I’d just started my career in earnest, I was engaged and married my wife that summer and we spent a lot of our free time watching movies and hanging out with our best friends.  There was very little gaming in that season of my life but… there was Katamari Damacy. In fact, if we weren’t hanging out at our best friend-couple’s house, we were playing Katamari which was probably the last PS2 game I’d beaten at that time.

I had a similar issue with you with the first choice. I was going to put Alex Kidd Miracle World on Master System, but I knew I finished a fair few on the C64, just that I couldn’t hardly remember any of the titles. After squeezing some brain cells, Bubble Bobble was the earliest memory I can come up with.

[Splain | 2,571]

My earliest video game memories were C64 games, and I didn't really have a mind to deliberately see them through to the end. But there must have been at least one that I beat. I'm pretty sure I completed all the boards in Halftime Battlin' Bands.

Middle... I'll go with Castle of the Winds.

And my most recent was... Jungle Strike on GB. I really haven't beaten anything for a month and a half?? I need to be knocking out N64 games! I've definitely been playing games, I just suck at all of them.

[twiztor | 851]

first game: the Legend of Zelda (nes). i played that f'ing game for years. drawing maps. Game Genie'ing parts until i was good enough to do it for real. it is easily the first game that i not only beat, but have mastered. it is my #1 favorite game of all time for that reason, and directly led to the Zelda franchise being my favorite series ever.

last game: Spyro's Adventure (ps1). from the Backlog thread. i have been trying to play a bunch of ps1 games that i missed at the time (which is basically all of them....n64 for life!) i am finding that i don't really have a lot of interest in ps1, so it has been slow going. game was fun enough though.

mid point: Gauntlet Dark Legacy (GCN, but also later PS2). so Diablo is one of my favorite game franchises (#2, behind only Zelda!) and when Gauntlet Legends came out for the n64, i was completely enthralled by it. For sure played it all the way through a few times. So when the sequel was announced for the GameCube, you can bet that i was the first in line. spent many many hours playing through, unlocking all the secrets characters, leveling everybody up to 99, maxing out all the stats, all the fun stuff. after selling my GameCube, i missed this game and picked up the PS2 port and did the same thing all over again. i re-bought a GameCube (grrr) and sought this game out immediately, only to play through AGAIN. i still love to pop it in and run through an area or two.