My Favorite Games

When I started planning my blog, I knew that I wanted to have a favorite game page. But I wasn’t sure how I would go about narrowing it down. Finally, I came up with the most Kat thing ever. A page highlighting a favorite title from each console I’ve played. So, here we go. A beloved game from every console I’ve gotten my hands on, and every PC I’ve personally owned. Eventually, I want to eventually do a top five for each console (probably one for PCs in general as well) eventually, but that’ll take time. Anyway, let’s stop stalling and start recalling…

NES: Final Fantasy 1

This was the first game that I ever played and understood. That I was able to traverse without my disabilities getting in the way. That I ever beat without someone else fighting the bosses for me. My family’s first Final Fantasy save had two warriors named Ruff and Tuff, a white mage named Boo, and a monk named Kung.

SNES: Final Fantasy II

Now known as Final Fantasy IV, this originally released as Final Fantasy II in North America. It was the first game that I actively sought out and wanted to purchase. It’s also one of the first three games I ever beat, along with NES Final Fantasy and SNES Final Fantasy: The Mystic Quest. It has my favorite gaming soundtrack of all time, one of my favorite storylines, and one of my favorite casts in all of gaming. 31 years later I still consider it my favorite game of all time.

N64: Diddy Kong Racing

N64 was one of my last favorite consoles, but Diddy Kong Racing is one of the best and most original racing games ever. It will always have a special place in my heart because it’s a game where me and my less gaming-inclined brother, Mikey, would race each other as Pipsy and Tiptop on the Haunted Woods course.

Playstation 1: Final Fantasy IX

This was a gift from my grandmother for Christmas. I still remember going to the mall on Boxing Day and picking up FFIX, its strategy guide, and a Moffatts CD. I loved seeing the series go back to a more traditional fantasy setting after the more sci-fi inspired FFVII and FFVIII. I found and bought boots similar to Garnet’s, and even went so far as to get orange pants to go with them when I was in university. Yes, sometimes I was a fashion dork. LMAO.

Playstation 2: Wild Arms 4

A compelling story and a really great and original battle system lead me to end up beating this game completely. That involved crawling up and down my family’s basement stairs to print off instructions every time I got stuck. I still think about Jude, Yulie, Arnaud and Raquelle’s adventure to this day. Jay has my copy of this and a PS2. I really need to get him to play it.

Xbox: Knights of the Old Republic

I never owned the original Xbox directly. It belonged to my brother, Shawn. But that is where I ended up playing Knights of the Old Republic. Which had such a strong impact on me that when I bought my Xbox 360 and made my gamertag I named myself Lady Bastilla. KOTOR was my first time playing a Bioware game and they’ve been one of my favorite developers ever since.

Nintendo GameCube: Fire Emblem Path of Radiance

I remember being so nervous when I bought this game. The idea of playing something that hard character permadeath terrified me. And oh yeah, there were some times where I restarted a mission because a character fell down and went boom. Even with my trusty strategy guide in hand. But I kept at it and can still recall sitting in my family’s livingroom on a Saturday afternoon with a Mug root beer and a bag of Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips and finally beating it.

Nintendo DS: Animal Crossing Wild World

When I first got this game, I’m pretty sure it didn’t leave my DS for a month. I was a big fan of the Animal Crossing game on Gamecube, but was really excited to get the DS version and be able to play with others. I got the Mario Kart DS and game and gave a copy of this and my silver DS to my brother Shawn. I also got my aunt so into this game that she bought her own DS to be able to play it.

Xbox 360: Dragon Age 2

I’ll take a dollar for every reader who gets to this listing and suddenly feels a tinge of horror. There are a ton of games I adored on the Xbox 360. Why did Dragon Age 2, which EA made Bioware churn out in little over a year, make the cut? Because I loved it so much that I played it three times. One each to romance Anders, Fenris, and Merill. Runners up are The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Tales of Vesperia, and Bioshock, if that makes you feel any better.

Playstation 3: Eternal Sonata

A gorgeous game about music and coming to terms with death. I adored the art style, thought the music themed character names were cute, and really liked the combat system. This is a game that hasn’t gotten a re-release on any other systems besides the PS3 and Xbox 360 and someone should really, really change that. Please?

2008 PC: World of Warcraft

This one comes as no surprise. I literally bought this PC to play World of Warcraft with my boyfriend and one of our best friends. My character for the majority of my time in WoW was a Draenei shaman named Katallina. Yep. She was the original inspiration for the avatar I use on my site. She’s shifted from a space goat to a were-fox, but here color palette and overall style have remained consistent. I chose to highlight Wrath of the Lich King since that’s the expansion we were most active for.

Nintendo Wii: Trauma Team

I actually watched Jay play this, rather than playing it myself. For context: I played and loved the DS game Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Unfortunately, the Wii and I had a rather…crappy…relationship. But this wasn’t just a good Wii game, it was an incredible game in general. Just writing about it is making me want to get Jay to play it for me again. An experience very much worth having if you can get your hands on the hardware and the game.

2010 PC: Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn

It took years longer than I expected for the PC I literally built to play FFXIV to be worth using to play it. Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 sucked. But A Realm Reborn was solid, and both Heavensward and Stormblood were incredible. Long live the Kawarthas Carrot. Jay’s the only person who’s gonna get that, but I’ll put it here anyway. Next to Genshin Impact, this is the game I most credit with gaining a bit more independence during multiplayer, rather than just following Jay everywhere.

Nintendo 3DS: Fire Emblem Fates

I love all three versions of this, but I’ll give the shout out to Birthright, the version I started with. I think one of the things that really stuck with me about Fates, outside of the fact that it had three separate campaigns to buy and play, is how it shifted me from hating Takumi to him becoming my favorite character. I spent so many hours playing this game, the pink Nintendo 3DS my grandma bought me–her last gift before she passed away–in hand. This game, and that 3DS, will always hold a special place in my heart.

Wii U: Super Mario 3D World

My name is Kat. You play as a cat Mario in this game. Balance and jumping tend to be my weakness in Mario games, because my eyes have issues with depth perception. This is the game where I finally, for the first time in my life, beat Bowser. And I got to do that with Jay. I love a lot of Super Mario games, but I’m pretty sure it comes as no surprise that Super Mario 3D World is my favorite, given all that I just said. I love this game so much that Jay and I bought it on the Wii U, and then he bought it a second time for me, for my birthday, when it released on the Nintendo Switch.

Playstation 4: Death Stranding

Jay and I played this, long distance, using discord and a phone camera on a tripod. That took a lot of patience, because the camera kept wanting to move. But we were so deeply invested in the story, and so intrigued by the characters and what was happening to them, that these minor annoyances were easily shoved into the background. An unforgettable game shared with someone I love. What could be better?

2017 PC: Genshin Impact

The only game that has ever threatened Final Fantasy IV’s position and crown as my favorite game of all time. Genshin Impact wasn’t just a game to me when I played it from November of 2020 until April of 2022. Mondstadt was my home, and characters like Zhongli, Tartaglia, Wanderer, Kokomi, and Ganyu were dear friends. I cannot praise my time in Teyvat highly enough.

Nintendo Switch: Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom

On a gameplay level, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom did for the Zelda franchise what Super Mario 3D World did for the Mario series for me. I love how the emphasis is on creative puzzle solving and everything generally has more than one way that it can be resolved. I also love the vibrant art style, which looks like something out of a children’s fairytale book.

Current PC: Palworld

The first Pokemon game I ever ‘beat’ was not a Pokemon game. A low blow, but Nintendo and Game Freak deserve that for what they are doing here. Palworld is not good because it is a ‘mere’ Pokemon ‘clone’. It is good because it takes the concept of catching and battling with monsters and mixes it with unique crafting and survival elements in a way that is truly compelling and made the game really hard to put down. The blend of both cute and cool creatures to collect also helps a lot. And the game has the best base building / house building tools I’ve seen in a survival game, bar none.

Anyway, that wraps up my gaming history for now. I’ll add to this list as new consoles or future PC builds bring forward other fabulous games that deserve to be highlighted. I hope you’ve enjoyed accompanying me on this trip down memory lane. I’m really happy to have finally recorded all of this somewhere.