My defining moment when I realized that I become a gamer.

Going back to my childhood, I used to get beaten up physically and mentally by people, at school and outside of our home because I'm "different" from what a "normal" person should act. My refuges to the these real struggles are books, video games, and with the late addition of anime and manga reading online.

Back then, I'm only playing games like Super Mario Bros., Zelda, Bomberman, Contra, Castlevania, and many other classics under a Nintendo Famicom that have built-in games inside the console. But that changed when I got my hands on the Super Nintendo.

It's been over a decade since it broke down and gave up on me, but the fact that it changed my life as a person and the start of me as a gamer didn't go to waste, because there are lots of sweet memories that are still engraved to my heart that I will treasure forever, especially when games like Final Fantasy II(IV) changed my viewpoint in games.

Yes, the story of Final Fantasy II(IV) would be like every man's dream, saving the world for the sake of the people he cares about and for his loved one, but it's moment like that makes me smile, and I realized that I'm not playing a simple video game anymore, that involves scores, rankings, or on how skillful you are, you're playing a book that have morals on it if you're going to look at it deeply. Sounds silly and ridiculous, but it's quite true. Back then I don't know the term RPG, nor I don't know that there are tons of genres of video games out there, and from there on, I crave for more and more of RPGs, and I didn't care if it's made from Japan or from US or Europe(EU today), it is because I want to savor up the stories like I slowly submerge myself into reading books by Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Lewis Carroll.

From there on, I told myself that I become a gamer, and I know for a fact that I only scratched the surface, but what the heck?! The game itself was my defining moment, I know the game has been remaked, but I play it up on my ZNES emulator time and again to take me to that moment and savor it once more, and I'm not afraid nor turning back on my roots from gaming. That is an assurance.....