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The 90s were a magical period for animation, a renaissance of sound and sight that inspired a musical generation. Within that period, there were multiple generations of console videogames that came and went, as well as a burgeoning market within which games emerged. The colors were some of the most vibrant either scene had ever experienced. No longer content to merely present a piece of performance as itself, the Disney era during this period was one that was collectively subverting the minds of youth worldwide, instilling a sense of doubt and wonderment that was entirely new. Cartoons, in the west, had begun to bloom with the epic musical. Videogames similarly had begun to explore the realm of new technologies that were rapidly advanced upon them, with creative hits and bombs the likes of which have not really occurred since.
The reason for this is because the market’s walls had only begun to be built. Previously, creating a game, accessing the market itself, had less limitation. Cost had always been a factor certainly, but the approbation of product did not come into a formative lockdown until the intervening of collective Nintendo and Sony interests. Due to Sega and Nintendo having relatively accessible (and a distinction of quality) formats, the games that came with them actually had a sense of freedom about them. No longer guided by the dissident platforms, with a single developmental construct to work towards, rather than for or against, developers had creative mediation with their audience. Their audience was also collectively younger than much of the current audience.
As a child, the greatest gift was not the game itself, not that “thing” under the tree on Christmas, but the uncertainty that came with the experience. The magic that was within the solid object, taken out of the ephemeral. Call this silly and reminiscent, but when an object has real, physical weight, it is burdened with all the ideas and collective creation that it contains. To sluff off our desire and relation to the physical is to call ourselves away from the contention of what an object portends. To own something physical is to essentially understand the object, the correlation of that object, as real.
Waiting under that tree was something that was more real than the mediation with which that object intends, something that experiences me. To interact with an object is to make it real, to experience an object is only to incompletely understand. This applies to all media, not simply videogames. Playing those games on a cool night, staying up until the wee hours of the morning is something for which mourn the loss of everyday. In a sense, videogames recall a sense of freedom that was grasped at temporarily in the past, and they inform the reality of our past through a cliche nostalgia. But that nostalgia encourages and increases the value of our lives. It breathes into us.
Videogames then received a breath of life during the 90s as animation did, an exploratory mode that we only desperately hang on today, dangling to pieces like Cave Story or Frogatto, to reminisce about Toejam and Earl. Animation has gone through a similar crisis, whereby we cling to Tatami Galaxy or the animated Avatar series, and hope for another Revolutionary Girl Utena or Princess Mononoke. While it is true that we are borne upon with Flower and other rarities, these are the cultural icons of today. No longer can they exist as a singular entity to be expanded upon, for the grinding reality that ideas are only recreations of a nostalgia is a heavy burden. Thusly, we hope for the excitement of something under the tree, something that is mysterious, just out of memory’s reach.