Resident Evil 4 is right up there in making me grin ear-to-ear every time the iconic “RESIDENT EVIL” voice scream’s the game’s name at you when you start a new run. Thinking long and hard about it as I went through my school life through Persona 4’s year-spanning murder mystery, I quickly came to the realisation that this isn’t the only game that makes me feel this way. So, then, what is it? And what other games make me feel this way? So why did replaying it make me happy? Is it because Persona 4 is a really good game? Sure, it’s a great game, but I don’t really think that has much to do with any of this video games have evolved quite a bit since then, and Persona 5 surpassed Persona 4 in just about every way except for maybe the story. Sure, racism and sexism are pretty messed up, and life definitely wasn’t as nice back then as it is now, but damn was the Total Recall a great movie. We like to ignore the realities of the world, of course. I mean, sure, we all have nostalgia for a wide variety of things, be it music from the 60s, movies from the 70s, or video games from the 90s. Eventually.Ĭomfort food, as a concept, has many different facets to it, but I do believe that the chief among them is nostalgia the idealised version of a simpler, happier past that may have long passed you by, reality not withstanding.
What does this have to do with video games, you ask? Bear with me. This weird pursuit eventually led me to looking back at just what makes the simplest of meals my mother cooked for me in my childhood some of my favourite memories of ever eating. The idea of ‘comfort food’ isn’t exactly new, but to truly understand what it means in the greater context outside of just eating things you like is a curious process.