Admittedly, when I first heard about Loot Crate, I thought to myself, “That’s insane, who would ever pay for that?" …Then I started seeing the kind of stuff people were getting in their loot crates and, well, let’s say I’ve changed my tune. Here’s how it works: You subscribe to loot crate, and every month you get a box filled with random swag. Each crate comes with its own theme, and the items inside follow that theme. You can check out previous Loot Crates here, and be sure to scroll down to look at the Mega Crate. So, every month you’re guaranteed one normal loot crate, but you’re also in the running for the one mega crate which often features full video game consoles and all sorts of other crazy stuff.
Courtesy of TouchArcade Deals, you can save 15% by signing up here and snatching a 3 month subscription for $49. That works out to about $16 a crate, which isn’t too bad when a lot of loot crates include a t-shirt which you’d typically buy for $20 anyway.
Wow - great article Shaun, brought back some fond memories.
B-but what about Pokemon red and blue?
My thoughts exactly, you cant say this doesnt count as an RPG...
Still, I guess Shaun is more about traditional RPGs.
By the way Shaun amazing article ! I must admir i read pretty much everything you write and im never disappointed, youre pretty much 90% of my reasons to log in daily, keep it up :) Being a long time RPG fan its always nice to see someone who might love them even more than I do
P.S. I like the rest of you guys too ;)
Shaun described this as the GameBoy's first life, Pokemon was more around the gameboy pocket time, perhaps thats for a future article
Excited to read his article on that era, Pokemon was my first RPG ever, played it forever even after my brothers friend deleted my save file. This article was a bit before my time, gotta be old enough to read to get into rpgs. Though still pretty interesting.
Wait for part three, guys. There's a reason I stopped at 1995. ;)
Ah yep thats what I was guessing, didn't see this response
I knew it. Shameless Pokémon plug
Ah, ok. Thanks :)
Can't believe you guys didn't understand that's what he meant by the second wind comments. You must be young folks.
Would be amazing if the edges of the gameboy could glow like that.
Spent ages saving up for a game boy when it came out £89 I think. Remember playing Ultima on the coach to school.
Great article by the way!
These articles are always fun to read.
Despite owning a Gameboy and a Game Gear back then, I never played RPGs much on the handhelds because I was afraid to lose progress when the battery died. I only started playing RPGs heavily during the DS-era with the ability to suspend the game by closing the system. Now I do most of RPG gaming on my Vita and my 3DS.
Didn't you ever lose progress when your DS battery died? :) Happened to me a few times. Never most progress on any old Game Boy games tho!
What I loved about the DS/3DS/PSP/Vita is the ability to suspend/resume games so to speak.
One of my most unforgettable incidents concerning the original Gameboy was when I was playing Link's Awakening. I was playing in the car until I got to class. I kept the gameboy without turning it off in my bag so I could continue playing the game after class. I pulled the system out of my bag only to find out that leaving the system on had drained the batteries.
Oh man... But it's so easy to save in Link' Awakening! I've had a couple times where my DS went red during suspend and I couldn't charge it before it died. :( It's so old tho that I'm sure the battery isn't very good anymore!
Love this article! I must go and find these to play! Final Fantasy Adventures!
Man did I love those Final Fantasy Legend games. Think I played and loved everything listed here that was available in English tho, even the crappers! Glad I wasn't the only one who liked Ultima: Ruins of Virtue. :)
Thank you for Part 2!
i had a green color gameboy. ah, nostalgia.
Aaaah, pure sweet nostalgia! Loving the article, well done!
You are bringing back some wonderful memories with these articles.
Being born in 1956 I grew up with computers becoming a reality in the home.
The memories of those early rpg's are still vivid for me and I love reading your take on them.
Thanks for posting them here.
Loved the Gameboy! When I was young our house got broken into and our NES and all the games were stolen. I bought the Gameboy with insurance money. Those were the days...
Absolutely stunning as usual Shaun! You brought back quite a bit of memories for me as well. I'm only 32 but I did have and played the mess out of my GameBoy. I remember playing most of the English ports you mentioned. I saw something about Mystic Quest. If I remember correctly I played that on Nintendo as one of my first RPGs. I was around 6-7 years old and I remember watching my much older cousin play through that and other games. He was my RPG mentor and was the one who got me reading Dragonlance Saga books and the such, which judging by my name, I still read and enjoy. I can't wait to see your next installment buddy. Keep it up! You have a gift
These articles are worthy of a much wider audience. *tweets*
Wow great read! Lot of inspiration came from these great games.
FFL2, Sword of Hope, and FFA were my defining RPG experiences at 13/14. I remember getting to the final battle of FFL2, but not having enough health restoring items to beat the final boss... but the save point was AFTER you started on the no-turning-back part of the endgame. So frustrating!
genius!
😍😍😍😍😍😍😁😁😁😁
Another excellent article! I remember playing one of the Final Fantasy Legends on emulator, not sure if it was 2 or 3, I think it was 3 because I can't recall any banana smugglers. What I remember is having two characters in my party who would eat monster meat, in the hopes of becoming some strong monster by the end of the game, but that only resulted in having two stinky characters most of the time - quite literally, as I always ended up using attacks such as "body odor".
Didn't really play much of Final Fantasy Adventure, but I went to it thinking it would be like SoM, and I remember think "so, yeah, this is where it came from. Done" right at the beginning. By the way that is a series that, in my opinion, never got any better that the "original" Secret of Mana (Seiken Deisetsu 2), for some reason. Does anybody think differently?
Really enjoying this series of articles! Thanks.
Thanks Shaun, as always, a great article, can't wait for part 2!!
Reminds me of Jeremy Parish's YouTube retro summaries. Love to go back to sixth grade. Good times. 👍🏽