A blast from the past

​You know that experience you have when you hear a song that you used to listen to non-stop back in the day? It pops up on the radio for the first time in years and suddenly you find yourself experiencing all those wonderful emotions from memories tied to the song.

 

After, say, a decade of advancements in graphics, control and sound, I find it's harder to recapture that same feeling of wistful reminiscence when it comes to video games. It's as if nostalgia is harder to come by when my eyes are trying to comprehend the crude polygons and the character doesn't control anywhere near as tightly as I remember.

 

But I got lucky a couple weeks ago when I finally got my hands on an obscure Japanese cooking game from the PSX era called Ore no Ryouri. For whatever reason, playing that game was like opening a window into the past I didn't even realize had been closed.

 

Our story begins back in 1999. That was a special year for me because it was when I was truly starting to come into my own as a gamer. I had finally moved on from the Super Nintendo to the original PlayStation, and my gaming life was all about Metal Gear Solid.

 

Back in '99 I was a sophomore in high school, my only brother was off at college, my parents worked late hours, and I was without a car, living about 10 miles away from my closest friend. When I finished my homework each night, usually the PSX was my only company.

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We didn't believe in allowances in Casa del Winslett and sports/keeping up the grades made it tough to get an after school job. As a result, I was lucky to get one or two new games a year, and only on special occasions.

 

One day I received a demo disc in the mail from PlayStation Underground, a secret club of elite gamers, exclusive to only those willing to put forth the immense time and effort necessary to fill out a postcard and mail it in. On this disc was a demo for a game called Ore no Ryouri, and it was from Japan, folks. Japan!

 

After muddling my way through the menu, I finally had the opportunity to play this unique title, one of the first games to take full advantage of the new PSX controller's analog sticks and rumble. That single level of gameplay ruled my gaming time for the next several months and I soon became the digital cooking master of eastern Arizona.

 

I hit the road to college a few years later and brought that trusty demo disc along for the ride. I introduced all of my new friends to the title and we spent countless hours crammed into a tiny dorm room swapping stories, sharing laughs and passing the controller around as we all became inhumanly good at this single level of gameplay.

 

In the decade that has passed since that time, my mind has turned to Ore no Ryouri on numerous occasions. The title was never released Stateside, which I still consider one of gaming's greatest crimes.

 

​A couple weeks ago, I decided to once again scour the internet to see if I could locate a copy of the Ore no Ryouri, my personal lost gaming treasure. Even if I did find the game, I knew it would likely be a heartbreaking experience. I met someone online who said they saw the title pop up on eBay a time or two, usually going for around $150. Even then, I'd need a modded PSX in order to actually play it.

 

Next thing I know, some fantastic stranger informs me that my white wale title quietly released on the Japanese PlayStation Network, and it could be mine for just 15 U.S. dollars. I can honestly say my most anticipated game of the year could have released early that day, and I would not have even noticed.

 

I had Ore no Ryouri purchased and downloaded that very night, then spent the next 14 days obsessing over it.

 

The game's not big on graphics, so it still looks dandy today. And the controls are just as spot-on as I remember them being. It's amazing what muscle memory is capable of. Within minutes, I was playing as if I had never put the controller down.

 

And, just like that, a decade-long void was bridged. My mind was filled with all those wonderful memories of a simpler time in my gaming life when a single title (or even a demo) could keep me entertained for months, and play sessions frequently took place with half a dozen friends at my side to share in the experience.

 

Nowadays, having a job means I can fund my favorite hobby pretty easily. The problem with that is how quickly those experiences tend to end. In order to get to the next title in my backlog, I find myself blazing through a campaign, spending a few days in multiplayer, then moving on to the next game in the stack.

 

And now that I've grown up and moved away from most of my friends, getting in some actual couch play with anyone is much harder than it used to be.

 

I miss those days when I truly appreciated every game in my collection and the people I could enjoy them with, and regret knowing I'll likely never be able to truly recapture those experiences.

 

I'm just happy I got to revisit those good old days one more time, and it's all thanks to some obscure Japanese cooking game I found buried on a demo disc more than a decade ago.