Is it possible to be too old for nostalgia towards Genesis games?

I've done a lot of auction browsing lately and it's been borne in on me how little I want to be reacquainted with many of my old Genesis cartridges. Dragon Warrior or Mario 3 beside a box and manual still give a tug, but in Genesis carts all I see are cold prospects of gaming. I'm 33, so have known--and not always loved--the NES as long as two or three marriages nowadays, whilst the majority of members here seem to be 25. Nostalgia isn't normally associated with youth, but for most of you it will have been either a first console or a total retro adventure. I still prefer the Gen's library to the NES's, or, for competition's sake, the PS1's, but the sentiment's not the same. So I ask whether it's possible to be too old to feel nostalgia towards the Genesis.

Maybe you're not a Genesis fan?

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Originally Posted by Orchid87

Maybe you're not a Genesis fan?

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Wrong. I was going to dilate on some of the other factors, but it'd be more interesting to hear guesses and contributions from others. As I said, "cold prospects of gaming": I like to play the games, only that's where it ends.

As for me, I feel nostalgia towards a certain long gaming period: 1990-2004. I know it may seem strange, but it is my personal golden age.
From the awesome later NES games, to the Genesis and SNES masterpieces with some fighting games addiction, to the DOS PC stuff like Dune 2, Doom, and Duke 3D, to the Half-Life, Resident Evil 1/2 and other great titles on PC and PS1 (yeah, I wasn't in the Saturn boat, sorry folks), to my Counter-Strike addiction, to the Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 release (I was a PC gamer during the PS2/GC/Xbox1 period). And then, in 2005, the current console generation started with it's Hollywood-like games. I have almost no interest in the modern games (with some exceptions for Valve stuff).

I would ask the question: "Is it possible to be too young for nostalgia towards Genesis games". I don't know how anyone 10 years old can have nostalgia for a Genesis seeing how they didn't exist when the system was around, and by the time they were born SEGA was already done with console games.

There are people in their late 40s, 50s, and 60s that are fond of the Odyssey, Atari 2600, and NES. So I don't see how anyone could perceive something strange about 30 somethings having nostalgia for the Genesis or SNES games.

I think it's the opposite, actually (like said above). The older you get, the more nostalgic you will become about the subject matter. I giggle inside whenever I see a comment by a 16 year old reminiscing about games he played when he was young. But I suppose it's part of the ackwardness of growing up. So that's what I do, I just let them grow up.

P.S.> I sure hope my video game passion is intact when I'm 80. Otherwise, why the heck am I doing this for? ;)

One of my friends is in his early 30s now and I think he's more delighted with my NES and Genesis collecting habits than I am heh.

It depends on many things. The Genesis was the first system to break many kids out of the Nintendo orbit. I remember buying my Genesis thinking it would never do as well as a Nintendo system but it did quite the opposite. For that reason alone I feel very sentimental about it. While Sega was by no means a little company to me the Genesis was always like a big customers way of saying FUCK YOU to overly greedy companies, mainly Nintendo. This is also the reason why hardcore SNES sheep annoy me.

I will say I found the 16-bit era to be a bit long winded. Nintendo wouldn't stop beating the SNES drum and everyone was shitting their pants over DKC which was crap. The endless stream for SFII clones made it much worse for me. It was like games were devolving. 3d seemed like such a breath of fresh air at the time. However that era never felt the same to me. That console war just wasn't interesting to watch. Everyone knew Sega was going down no matter how hard they tried. All Nintendo had to do was rest on their laurels, which did cost them dearly, and the kiddies would buy whatever they shoved down their throats.

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Originally Posted by StarMist

I've done a lot of auction browsing lately and it's been borne in on me how little I want to be reacquainted with many of my old Genesis cartridges. Dragon Warrior or Mario 3 beside a box and manual still give a tug, but in Genesis carts all I see are cold prospects of gaming. I'm 33, so have known--and not always loved--the NES as long as two or three marriages nowadays, whilst the majority of members here seem to be 25. Nostalgia isn't normally associated with you, but for most of you it will have been either a first console or a total retro adventure. I still prefer the Gen's library to the NES's, or, for competition's sake, the PS1's, but the sentiment's not the same. So I ask whether it's possible to be too old to feel nostalgia towards the Genesis.

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I think I get what you're saying. I'm just two years younger than you and DO feel some nostalgia for the Genesis, but much MUCH less for 32-bit era stuff. The golden age for me was the early-80s to the mid-90s (2600 and contemporaries to TG-16/Genesis/SNES).

My earliest gaming memories are of the TI-94/a and the 2600, followed by the C64, NES and SMS. Then the Genesis came into the picture and I can totally remember when one of my friends actually got one. We were addicted to Altered Beast and Moonwalker. One friend had a Turbo as well, but it was just Keith Courage and Bomberman that I remember. If it wasn't for Sonic, NHL Hockey and Evander Holyfield Boxing, I'm pretty sure everyone would've ditched their Genesis for an SNES. By the time the Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat craze was cooling off, I was too much into chasing tail to care as much about games anymore. I still had a Saturn and PS1 then... but didn't care nearly as much as I did (despite the awesomeness of Dragon Force!).

Having a middle aged man talk about genesis games is just awkward.

I don't feel nostalgia for anything anymore. I either still like it or I don't.

I was already starting to feel nostalgic towards the NES, Genesis and SNES back in 2001, when I was 14. Sheesh. I pretty much ignored my PS1, N64 and Dreamcast (sold the former two), and picked up a Genny and NES, going to town collecting on the aforementioned 3 systems. And ever since I discovered emulation in 2002, I've been in an 8-16 Bit time warp ever since.

Nostalgia... Never had an Atari 2600 growing up and I can still enjoy games for it.

I feel zero nostalgia to the Genesis, because I never had one as a kid. Some of you might banish me for saying this... But I'm an ex-SNES refugee (well, technically I didn't have a SNES when it was new either, but work with me). Yes, at some point in my early years I was playing classics like Mario World, All-Stars, Donkey Kong Country 2 and Tetris Attack.

However, I'm not completely green to the world of Genesis. I had some of the Sega PC titles. Luckily, I had good ones. Sonic & Knuckles Collection, Garfield, Sega Smash Pack Vol. 2 (Sonic 2, Comix Zone, Shining Force, Vectorman 2, Super Hang-On etc) and Sonic CD.

In more modern times though, I've had a real Genesis for at least a few years. I've got a HDG M1 Genesis, a VA0 M2, a M2 Sega CD and two 32Xes and a very modest collection of stuff all around. Probably my most impressive is 19 32X carts with boxes and manuals, which isn't that impressive when you think about it. Yes, I'm a very uninteresting person, that's why I hide behind a veil of anonymity.

Who needs nostalgia? Genesis is awesome, period. It's not necessary to reminisce about old times to appreciate it. There are quite a few gems that I didn't discover until way after the fact (and thus have no nostalgia for), and I don't like them any less for it.