Hello,
Over the course of a life, people develop traditions as they age, either inherited by their family and culture, or through certain rituals they perform. In the world of gaming, this is no more evident than with certain people. You might do a certain action on a certain day, play one level exclusively or do something annually (or semi annually). Not everyone would do this, but some people (including myself) do this in remembrance of simpler times. I'll explain what I mean.
I've gone on and on in this forum about how I got into Kingdom Hearts. To cut a long story short, It was given to me and my sister as a Christmas gift in 2004 and it slowly became one of our favorite games. This love would grow into me collecting KH merch and platinuming every KH game on the PS4, a badge of honor I still wear with pride. And because I played the game as a child with my sister, we developed "traditions" of sorts. Whenever we heard simple and clean, we HAD to sing along no matter what. If it was the opening or credits scene, we needed to sing it, and we actually got pretty good at it. We also routinely replayed the fight against Demyx in KH 2 as he was (to our younger selves) one of the hardest bosses we ever faced.
But a lot of that can't happen anymore, because my sister is no longer alive. Simple and clean is no longer a duet, but a mere solo as intended and beating Demyx is less fun now that she's gone. But I chose not to abandon these rituals as they were among some of my most cherished memories. So on the eve of her birthday (which is/was September 24th ftr) I decided to start a new tradition. I'd do two things on her birthday:
-Beat the original KH (or remastered version on PS4) by going to the final boss and fighting it on the hardest difficulty (she sadly, wasn't able to do that near the end of her life). Since I've done the fight so many times, it's effectively muscle memory at this point and I pull off victory on a save file where I only died once in the entire game. Following this I sing simple and clean out loud, through tears if I have to.
-Fight Demyx's data version (another fight she wasn't great at). He was our favorite character and it prompted me to find merchandise of him (a tough ordeal, given how little SE cares for him). Couldn't really tell you why, it just was one of our favorite things to do.
I plan on doing these things on her birthday every year starting in 2021 and continuing to do so until my time has come. I can't say whether or not that's exactly how she'd want to be honored, but as I said, these memories have a special place in my heart, and I want to keep them around as long as I can.
What are some of your traditions when playing these games? Let me know down below.
Over the course of a life, people develop traditions as they age, either inherited by their family and culture, or through certain rituals they perform. In the world of gaming, this is no more evident than with certain people. You might do a certain action on a certain day, play one level exclusively or do something annually (or semi annually). Not everyone would do this, but some people (including myself) do this in remembrance of simpler times. I'll explain what I mean.
I've gone on and on in this forum about how I got into Kingdom Hearts. To cut a long story short, It was given to me and my sister as a Christmas gift in 2004 and it slowly became one of our favorite games. This love would grow into me collecting KH merch and platinuming every KH game on the PS4, a badge of honor I still wear with pride. And because I played the game as a child with my sister, we developed "traditions" of sorts. Whenever we heard simple and clean, we HAD to sing along no matter what. If it was the opening or credits scene, we needed to sing it, and we actually got pretty good at it. We also routinely replayed the fight against Demyx in KH 2 as he was (to our younger selves) one of the hardest bosses we ever faced.
But a lot of that can't happen anymore, because my sister is no longer alive. Simple and clean is no longer a duet, but a mere solo as intended and beating Demyx is less fun now that she's gone. But I chose not to abandon these rituals as they were among some of my most cherished memories. So on the eve of her birthday (which is/was September 24th ftr) I decided to start a new tradition. I'd do two things on her birthday:
-Beat the original KH (or remastered version on PS4) by going to the final boss and fighting it on the hardest difficulty (she sadly, wasn't able to do that near the end of her life). Since I've done the fight so many times, it's effectively muscle memory at this point and I pull off victory on a save file where I only died once in the entire game. Following this I sing simple and clean out loud, through tears if I have to.
-Fight Demyx's data version (another fight she wasn't great at). He was our favorite character and it prompted me to find merchandise of him (a tough ordeal, given how little SE cares for him). Couldn't really tell you why, it just was one of our favorite things to do.
I plan on doing these things on her birthday every year starting in 2021 and continuing to do so until my time has come. I can't say whether or not that's exactly how she'd want to be honored, but as I said, these memories have a special place in my heart, and I want to keep them around as long as I can.
What are some of your traditions when playing these games? Let me know down below.