What games/songs/movies/things trigger intense nostalgia in you?

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Quid_Pro_Bono

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#1  Edited By Quid_Pro_Bono

We all can be enraptured by nostalgia at times, but I sometimes wonder if other people have one or two things that trigger a really intense nostalgic feeling in them. For me, it's Vib-Ribbon, specifically the track Sunny Day. It's weird because I really only played through the game ten times or so when I was a kid, but it still has the ability to instantly transport me back to that time. It may be that video games have never really gotten back to that weird import time, or maybe that I don't see games the same way I did when I was nine or ten anymore, but whenever I play Vib-Ribbon the nostalgia is arresting.

So how about you guys? Do you ever get reminded of the never-ending passage of time so hard you have to sit down and think about it?

EDIT: Just saw it and apparently the Dreamcast bootup sequence also has this effect

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ShaggE

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I'm ridiculously susceptible to nostalgia, for whatever reason. Intellectually, I know it's my brain cherrypicking and enhancing the good times while glossing over the bad, but that makes no difference. So a number of things get me going quite easily.

Games:

Rise Of The Triad. Holy hell, this game has always had a powerful hold on me, and I don't know why. The music, the graphics, the sound effects... it all takes me back in an instant. Usually I can diminish the nostalgic effect of a game, song, etc. just by playing it enough, but ROTT stays as nostalgic as ever.

Wishbone & The Amazing Odyssey: Hey, stop laughing! I was a complete Wishbone superfan back then, although I was admittedly too old for it, and I played the shit out of this game.

Lest I write about hundreds of games, I'll just run a quick short list of others: Maabus, SimTown, Blood, Hexen, Klik n' Play, You Don't Know Jack, Commander Keen, MDK, Sonic 1, Wolfenstein 3D, The Neverhood

Music:

90s pop. I know, I know, but that was my thing as a kid before a friend in middle school changed everything by introducing me to Rob Zombie. Holy shit, Hellbilly Deluxe was a revelation. I haven't been the same since. But yeah, both things (and more, but who's actually reading this? Woozle wuzzle) hit me pretty hard.

Notables: Type O Negative, Chumbawamba, "Steal My Sunshine", Nirvana, "Mr. Jones", Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson (Mechanical Animals, mostly), Green Day's first albums

Movies/TV:

Killer Klowns From Outer Space. It was airing on TV on one fateful day in 1992. I was certainly too young to be watching it, but nobody was in the room, so I watched with captivation. Now, this was a tame film, more parody of 50s sci-fi than actual horror, but something clicked in me, and I've been a horror junkie ever since. I still turn into an excited kid watching Killer Klowns.

Notables: The Crow, Ernest movies, Nightmare Before Christmas, Evil Dead, Beetlejuice, Family Matters, Home Improvement, Tales From The Crypt, Rocko's Modern Life, Are You Afraid Of The Dark, Unsolved Mysteries, Celebrity Deathmatch, Beavis and Butthead, 90s MTV in general

... Aaaand I've rambled long enough.

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Skald

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Any track from the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. That game will always own me, body and soul.

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davidh219

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I identify deeply with fiction, which is probably why I lost my damn mind and decided I wanted to be a writer. Nostalgia hits me like a hammer, and I'm somehow capable of developing nostalgia for a piece of fiction like two years after I experience it. Here's a random list of the things that came to mind as having the strongest effect on me.

Books/Graphic Novels:

  • The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
  • The Sherlock Holmes Short Stories
  • The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
  • The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
  • The Time Machine
  • Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
  • Watchmen
  • Where the Red Fern Grows
  • The Chronicles of Narnia

TV/Anime:

  • FLCL
  • Ed, Edd, 'n' Eddy
  • Batman: The Animated Series
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • Case Closed
  • Stargate SG:1 (and to a lesser extent Stargate: Atlantis)
  • Dark Angel
  • Static Shock
  • Escaflowne
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
  • Trigun
  • Yu Yu Hakusho

Movies:

  • The Matrix Trilogy
  • Dark City
  • Spirited Away
  • Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
  • TMNT Trilogy
  • Terminator 1 & 2
  • The Time Machine (1960)
  • Back to the Future
  • Anything Jackie Chan made before, let's say, 2005
  • Amadeus
  • First two Pokemon movies (hey, we were all young once!)
  • The Land Before Time
  • Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland

Games:

  • Super Mario World
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
  • Ocarina of Time
  • The Sly Cooper Trilogy
  • Oblivion
  • Kotor 1 & 2
  • World of Goo
  • Spy Fox (my first adventure games!)
  • Yakuza 2

Wow, that was way longer than intended. Sorry folks.

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Quid_Pro_Bono

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#5  Edited By Quid_Pro_Bono

@shagge: I didn't even know there was a Wishbone video game! That show was dope though

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ShaggE

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@quid_pro_bono: It holds up surprisingly well as a simple, clever adventure game. It's actually worth playing if you can track it down.

There was also a Wishbone Activity Center (remember activity center software?), but I never got a hold of that one.