When I first started using the internet independently as a kid, I was really into Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon R had just finished airing up to the usual part where the dub cut off mid story arc and it started from episode one again. Desperate for any other information I could find out about the series, I spent countless afternoons on different GeoCities Sailor Moon shrines. Finding out the Japanese names of the characters, discovering there were even more Sailor Senshi than just the inner five – it was like a whole new world of this series opened up to me. Don’t get me started on the soundtracks, because I was all over that. In midi form, of course…though I somehow amassed a rather large collections of .ogg files as well. I eventually came to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to download all the newer episodes on my pathetic dial up connection, and gradually became engrossed in other anime instead.

As a teen who completely missed the 16 bit generation, emulators were crucial to filling the gaps when I was broke in high school with no easy way to track down classic consoles. I forget how I initially stumbled upon them, but it was amazing to finally play all of these games I had read about online. The majority of them being Japanese RPGs. Games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy V, and Terranigma. Of course the most awful thing about using emulators was the throw-away nature of the ROMs. If something didn’t keep my attention past the first three hours, I usually dropped it pretty quickly and moved onto the next game. Continue reading