i'm having the greatest time playing heroes of might and magic III with the partner, hotseat style. it's so nostalgic! i remember playing it in my childhood home - after school but before parents came back from work, pure gaming time! i was so wow-ed by the graphics. obviously not by their realism but by their effectiveness. the sparkles and twinkles, the foliage of the trees, it all felt very rich and magical. oh, the animations on the spell book, flipping between sections - so good! each of the towns so atmospheric. i used to imagine myself in there. the sound design!
i love exploring the maps, managing resources and towns, only vaguely bothering with each hero and their skills. turn based, low stress fights. and don't you just miss games that were self-contained?
a big element of the nostalgia is also the internet of the 90s. i encountered a lot of the aesthetics from the game on the early witchy and occult pages out there around the same time. the pixel art, the greens and browns, the ever-present celtic music. i wasn't particularly looking at druid stuff but i guess that was the flavor of the internet i managed to find. making a herb pillow for better sleep, listening to the same meditation tape (also for sleep) over and over until the sound got all weird (descending in a kind of self-hypnosis and swimming with the whales!) printing out all sorts of various corespondences and filing them into my witchy binder. wonderful times.
