Launch titles are notoriously bad, and perhaps it is nostalgia speaking, but I remember a few good ones back when I was young. In particular, I remember getting a Sega Genesis with Altered Beast and playing the thing constantly. Altered Beast always sat at the head of all my Sega Genesis games because it was the First, whether I thought it was fun or was bored with it. While it wasn’t a launch title, I remember getting Final Fantasy VII when I first got a Playstation. I played it through the opening scenes before I realized I needed a memory card, but I kept playing the game anyway just because it was so much fun. Star Ocean: The Last Hope on XBox 360 was the same (minus the memory card issue); I still play it not only because I like the game but because it has this feeling of entering into a new world.
Maybe I’m just reminiscing, but there’s always something special about those first few games you get on a console. Does anyone else have any stories like this (or just want to reminisce with me for fun)?
The Wii was the first console I personally owned (everything before that point technically belonged to my older brother), and I remember it coming with Twilight Princess. I hadn’t played a Zelda game since OoT and I just fell in love with the world and the characters and even the terrible waggle controls. The game glitched out on me about 2/3rds of the way in - my bow disappeared and I accidentally saved it, meaning I was unable to continue. It broke my heart and I haven’t gone back to it since. I just realised that was now 10 years ago, so it is probably about time I made the return trip to that version of Hyrule.
I also have fond memories of playing F-1 World Grand Prix when we got our n64. I don’t know why my brother chose that game. I never really enjoyed racing games, but I remember being enamored with the weather effects and being able to watch replays of your races.
I always thought the whole “launch titles being bad” thing was wildly overblown since there are plenty of examples I could point out of great games that happened to be there on day one of a console launch.
The NES had the immortal Super Mario Bros. which I spent a ton of time with after beating it, especially since I used it to test out random Game Genie codes I’d make up.
The Genesis had quite a few with Golden Axe and Altered Beast, the latter of which I bought every version of despite beating it on day one.
The SNES had Super Mario World.
Virtua Fighter 2 was there for the Sega Saturn, possibly one of the few reasons why I wanted the system.
N64 had Super Mario World which, for many, was the reason to buy the console.
The Gamecube had Luigi’s Mansion, a game that actually made my sister play the system more until Smash came out.
Xbox had Halo and Dead or Alive 3. The former got constant rotation whenever friends came over and the latter was my reason for buying the system in the first place.
For my DS I needed Feel the Magic XX/XY. Quirky but it made me fall in love with good touch controls.
My PSP had Ridge Racer and Lumines stuck in there at almost all times. In fact, despite buying more titles for the system, I always went back to these when I played my PSP.
My Xbox 360 had some Ridge Racer 6 going on while I bought my Xbox One almost solely on Killer Instinct.
Then there’s the Dreamcast which had Ready 2 Rumble, Power Stone, and a version of Soul Calibur that’s still loved compared to the XBLA re-release.
About the only family of systems I can easily say I had no launch titles I was interested in were the PlayStation systems. Up until the PS4 with Resogun, I never had a desire to buy any of them at launch since I was never interested in any of their launch lineup games.