What got you (or got you back) into retro gaming?

[Tiza]

Had quite an affinity to retrogames since my family was poor and I only had an Atari 2600 Jr back when the PS1 was already a thing, only got to play modern games thanks to classmates back in the day.
As for me returning to retrogaming, it was thanks to the PSP, the first console I bought with my own money. Just installed a CFW on it and the gates of emulation opened to me. I really thank the PSP in this regard, not only got to play lots of SNES and GBA RPGs, but also PS1, plus the PSP itself having a lot of RPGs. Nowadays I just play retro stuff (and steam games) on my AYN Thor.

 

[hazys]

I was downloading and emulating games from an early age because piracy's pretty common where I live. Around the late PS3/early PS4 era I became disenchanted with modern games and started looking backward. I discovered that I'd missed out on tons of consoles and games. Eventually I modded by consoles/handhelds and didn't look back.

 

[Michael Frank]

I owned one of those bootleg consoles with a lot of nes games pre installed on it as a wee lad, then i grew up, became aware of emulators, and the rest is history.

 

[CrunchXCrunch]

While I always had a nostalgia streak for certain eras, around Covid I went on a mission to dig deeper than ever before. I played and streamed the games I always heard about or wanted to try but couldn’t afford back then. I used to pour over countless gaming magazines and absorbed an encyclopedia of information about cool looking games. If not during lockdown, when? It was really a way to connect with others and discover together gems, and definitely some lesser known treasures too.

As a consequence I really got to dive into SEGA consoles, which I really missed out on growing up. I bought the hardware. I even restored a Sega Cd model 1.

I feel like I gifted myself permission to just dive in. It’s been great.

 

[-------]

I had a Pokemon GBA hacking phase I've played more hacks than ever before. That's how I got into retro gaming.

 

[NeonKnights]

I was an NES and Genesis kid, though I had been out of it for a while since the Wii. In 2017 I started playing Earthbound on my phone, and started going to the local retro game/hobby shop which was only one block away. I would go there every weekend after loading up on caffeine and would play their Galaga machine while listening to Rush on my ipod. It taught me that not all Galaga machines are the same, because some of them wont let you fire faster at the speed you press the button. If I find one of these machines I quit right away.

That year I also bought a single super famicom controller from Japan. Which was the only piece of my retro game collection at the time. I cleaned it while watching Tokido win EVO. The funny part about this is that because I didn't watch tv, or anything else besides youtube, I didn't hear about the switch until 2018. I have since collected most of the consoles I wanted, and have modded them myself, with the exception of my SCPH-1001 PS1, Atari 5200, Vectrex, 1-Chip SNES, Onboard E.E. PS3, PS4 Pro, and 360S (Corona).

It's really improved my soldering skills to the point that when I had to upgrade my Ibanez guitar, it was quite easy. I have also worked at a retro game shop since which has helped as well. I probably should have mentioned that. I really got into retro gaming during my abandonware phase around 2006-2009. I wouldn't say back into, because I never played most of those games when they were new. That was when I played all the old MS-DOS games I missed out on. Now many of those games are hard to find because of GOG.

 

[Princess Viola]

My grandparents were cheap as Hell growing up and since they bought me a Nintendo 64 back in 2000 for either my 4th birthday or Christmas (I was so young I don't remember which it was), they felt I didn't need any new video game stuff because 'you already have one' so unless I wanted to keep playing the handful of N64 games I had and nothing else, my only other gaming outlet I really had (besides RuneScape and flash games on the web) were emulators because my dogshit PC couldn't run anything else. Playing on emulators like ZSNES, Nestopia, Kega Fusion, and VisualBoy Advance were basically my obsession because what else did I have?

Oh and also when I was in 5th grade (10 years old), my elementary school did a thing where you could take tests about books you borrowed from the school library and you'd earn points based on the tests (with higher grade level books being worth more points) and once a quarter, your class would go to a room in the library where you could spend points on prizes. And one quarter, I had earned enough points to pick out a plug-and-play Intellivision console with like 15 games in it.

Now sure, nowadays as an adult, I know that thing was basically a NES-on-a-chip running ports of Intellivison games and wasn't accurate but that was legitimately fun as Hell to me growing up.

So I guess I've just always been retro gaming since I was a kid and never stopped, even now that I have a gaming laptop, I'll play retro games just as much as I play modern games or games that are older but not old enough to be retro.