Whooo, it was really interesting to read the stories of the senior members here. XD
I guess it’s my turn now?
Let’s see…
Ten years ago I stole a random japanese GBA game from a friend of mine 'cause I was a terrible kid. Of course that was Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken. I remember playing the game for like 2 minutes, without being able to understand what was happening or wtf the characters were saying, then getting a game over and promised myself not to play that obnoxious game anymore. Pokémon was so much better.
After some time I was bored so I tried to beat that mysterious game again, and this time I managed to get to the last chapter with only the lords left – I didn’t even know you could promote units, lol. I was like “OMFG THIS OLD GEEZER IS AWESOME”
After that, I think I beat Rekka no Ken about 20 times. It was becoming an obsession. It took me 10 playthroughs to understand how to recruit Raven! (not being able to understand a word of what they were saying didn’t help at all)
Then I bought the English version of the game (I was in Switzerland at the time and for some reason they didn’t have the PAL version) and… well, that was pretty much how I learnt most of my English; through Fire Emblem (and Pokémon, to some extent).
Some years later I bought FE8 but I really hated it, I remember being so jealous of my neighbour because he had Path of Radiance and it was so much better from my point of view. I think that the insatisfaction I felt that time was what drove me to hack FE8 instead of FE7, and make a better game out of it, actually…
I played all of the FEs that came out later, and I was reaaaaally disappointed with Shadow Dragon. The only good thing about that game was the online imo – It felt so underwhelming after playing the GBA FEs.
I joined SerenesForest in 2012, mostly because I wanted to share my hack.
I remember how sad and frustrating that period was to me – my life sucked at the time and all I had left to feel ‘alive’ was that little project that was constantly bashed by other members. However, I didn’t give up on that dream and I created Midnight Sun. Looking back at it, while the very first moments of my hacking experience have been terrible, I had so much fun later on. I met some awesome people thanks to Midnight Sun (first of all Regina aka Arcfalchion) and I believe I spent some days doing what I really wanted to do. It was satisfactory.
Despite saying, back in 2012, that I’d never abandon Midnight Sun, I have to admit that I have little to no motivation to work on it anymore. Midnight Sun was born out of my insatisfaction for life, out of my boredom, out of my lack of love. I wanted to be acknowledged by others while doing something that made me feel alive at the same time. Now that I’ve achieved both of these goals, and now that my life doesn’t suck anymore, I don’t have much motivation anymore.
But a promise is a promise, and I don’t like to leave things unfinished.
“I won’t abandon this project, it’s important to me. It has a special meaning. So, I’ll bring it to an end, even if it’ll take me months, years!”
See ya, folks of FEU!
P.S. I love this place.