Don't Remember

To best understand.. I suggest listening to

Don't remember.. Sometimes your mind needs to shield itself from pain.

 * I wonder now how many people have the secret I hold.. something too disturbing to even share the knowledge with the rest of your mind.


 * I'm sorry.. in terms of stories, this may be bland. No hyper-realistic tears were shed, though, I wonder if I cried then. Please let me begin before I confuse us both.


 * I was spoiled as a child. Though my parents held fast to gender roles, the fact that my uncle and brother played games earned me the right to receive games.. though my own game systems were far in few in between. I'm not greedy, there was always a free Genesis or SNES to borrow while my brother and uncle played the other.. even a PlayStation or Saturn while they played the Dreamcast or GameCube. I was blessed. I actually played Earthbound, Final Fantasy 2 and 3.. though we now know better that  this was American numbering. 7th Saga and many heart warming games while young. I played many bad ones too, though I though Bubsy had charm and Buck Rogers would keep  my interest.


 * But.. this game..
 * I was watching Game theory, a popular video series on YouTube when they spoke of the game. At first.. I had faint memories of begging my brother to do the special  moves for me. The hardest was one where you had to slide. Maybe I was just completely hopeless in action RPGs, but I remember.. not wanting to finish the game as well.. Not why I did not want to, but just that it wasn't because I wanted the game to continue forever, but because I got a weird feeling.


 * Writing this is helping me to bring forward the memories.. but.. I still have a weird sense of fear. It started early.. a gate appears and this demonic thing asks you to save your game. I do, I am a RPGer at heart and I even.. was there a guide I had? I think so, because I remember vividly that I did a hard to miss side quest. Again, please excuse my vagueness, I should look up this information to better explain what I'm talking about, but the fear is so strong, even many years later, that I have to share it verbatim.. if that can be done with emotions rather than words.


 * The main character was stuck on a raft at one point with a girl. I remember the feeling started there... with no food and no water, I feared they would have to.. but no, fish arrive to save the day! My brief relief from the gut wrenching feeling was drowned out when she pointed out that killing a fish to eat is horrible.


 * Wait.. how were they on the raft? Something must have happened on that gold ship. My memory floods back now.. as if to punish me for digging. It was the ship. The once beautiful vessel made of pure gold, the crew eager to find their captured king, his queen, huddled in a blanket.. or seemed to be. Determined to find him. The character had nothing to do but sleep. Waking up to the rotting corpse of a ship, bones and holes littered it, each place the Incan stood in life was where their bones now laid forever.. and..I think.. one the main character's friends were eaten alive.


 * I do not want to remember more.. even that part hurt.. but I have to continue. I have to face this, don't I? But.. the slave trade.. Matt glanced over this, but, I remember now.. You had to do something unspeakable.. Luckily typing is not speech. The place you awoke after the raft was adrift. I think over a week. I remember the entrance to the town was lovely, roses filled the air as you exited the house of the one who cured your scurvy, but then, you wander deeper into the town. It's natural for a RPG lover, but, there were slaves and slavers there.. the children and adults captured looked malnourished, huddled in fear as you are asked if you wanted to buy one.. That was not the bad part.. to get the ultimate ending.. and the reason I knew I had a game guide.. was that I had to turn in a runaway slave. Somehow.. they escaped this cruel monster, weak from hunger and overworked. And here I came to send them back to mine down into the pit. If they were like the United States once behaved.. that poor child would have been whipped to death..


 * Its ones and zeros, pixels. I tell myself now as I told myself then.. but I could not help the self loathing I held. It didn't help.. The next area I remember was a group of angels, living deep in the earth afraid to let the light hit their skin. I could only think they were more demons.. emotionless and vain creatures posing as good people, despite only one of them actually hurting Kara by sucking her into a painting.


 * Then, I remember her pig.. it sacrificed it's life to feed others at one point.. I remember actually screaming as he walked onto the fire to save his friends from cannibals. The fire toasting his flesh.. imagining Kara watching her only friend for most of her life roasted and consumed.. Poor Hamlet.. I remember.. I do not want to remember more.


 * Even as an adult it hurts. I cannot imagine being a child then.. Why did I continue to torment these characters? How much more did they have to suffer..


 * I remember I had all 100 Gems.. I could defeat the ultimate boss.. I saved before I did and went onto the tower of babel.. It had to end.. as it needs to now. Kara.. is at the top of the tower. At this point, all my usual feelings of plot holes are lost as.. I see.. nothing but spirits remain.. praising evolution..
 * No.


 * It's killing you.. killing everyone.. the comet is causing death to enter the world.. from Will's lost friend.. to Hamlet.. to.. these poor creatures.. I caused this..  If only I had not bought it.. If only.. I cannot remember where the cartridge is now, though my others are safely in my heart.. The ending cannot fool me.. there is no  happiness for these poor souls..


 * I write this to you.. one day, you'll have children who love games.. watch them play and help them understand what is happening..


 * And never.. ever play Illusion of Gaia without a box of tissues.