Duckys418
This could very well be the first video game I ever played, when I was about six years old. It was a favorite of my dad's when he was in law school. He would draw me maps of the levels which I would study closely, but my coordination wasn't quite there yet to finish the game. Despite its many flaws I'll always view it nostalgically as an excellent fantasy adventure.
The first game I ever beat. I have basically no memory of the movie but I do recall a lot about this game and the one on PC as well. The platforming in this one was incredibly slow but at least there was some variety in the levels. I don't remember the game being longer than about an hour.
A genuinely underrated side-scrolling platformer for the GBA. Keep in mind I was really young when I played this and my cartridge is broken now so I might be clouded by nostalgia goggles. Mysterio's Menace was short but really felt like the superhero experience I was looking for at the time. Really solid environment variety too, and decent bosses. Dunkey would appreciate that you actually fight Big Wheel in this game.
An extremely rudimentary take on a Lego Harry Potter game, well before Lego Star Wars established the formula. This game was pretty weak and I didn't understand the objectives as a youngster, but I remember enjoying just walking around Hogwarts and running into the familiar faces. Nice soundtrack on this game too.
Fun minigame compilation with a great sense of progression. The game did a great job letting you explore the different Neverland environments and meeting all of the Peter Pan characters. I had a blast with this one in my youngster days.
I had a number of these Disney activity centers on PC which I played a lot of around Kindergarten or 1st grade. This was my favorite and I remember especially liking the mini-game where you'd drop the batteries on Zurg in the toy store as Buzz.
What an excellent experience this was as a Kindergartener. The depth of the management went over my head but jumping in and getting to control the operations of a Six Flags park was a thrill in the day.
2004
Maybe not quite as fun as RCT2 back in the day, but I remember getting much more of a grasp on School Tycoon's mechanics and making some real progress from the ground up. A really fun management sim with a delightful cartoonish aesthetic.
A chill PC point-and-click adventure that was pretty simple but was charming and had a great art style. While brief it was fun working my way through it at a young age.
Bought this out of the Scholastic catalogue at school and it was surprisingly very fun despite the educational intent, with solid storytelling and characters. I always wanted to play the other Reader Rabbit adventures and even got the disc for 2nd grade a year later but this was the only one compatible with our computer.
This was Wendy's game and it was incredibly simplistic with just eight minigames to check out but we had a lot of fun with it anyway. The penguin dropping minigame was my favorite. We definitely burned through a lot of printer ink printing out the sticker pages.
Maybe my favorite of the PC games I owned pre-GBA era (before I turned seven), with a solid campaign through different thematic worlds. My cousin Colin and I played the competitive modes a whole lot too. Grandpa was GOATed.
This was a pretty solid isometric puzzle platformer for the GBA. There was too much going into the inventory to equip a different spell, but the overall experience was a fun one with lots of secrets to uncover including very sprawling optional dungeons. It's also a strong retelling of the movie with plenty of dialogue on the way. I'm sure the puzzles would get incredibly monotonous for adults but this game really got the job done for me as an early Elementary schooler.
I made a pretty bad YouTube review for this game in middle school. I won't link here because it's too cringe, but there was definitely something about this one that made me want to give it extra attention. I actually think this GBA port is better than the console version, with a whole lot of gameplay variety and a fun card collecting system throughout. The three Triwizard Tournament tasks were handled really well and the Yule Ball minigame is a surprise standout. If I had one major complaint it's the final boss fight against Voldemort is laughably easy.
Had this for PC. The idea of a Quidditch game seems good at first until you think about the mechanics of the game. While from a presentation standpoint I really like where they took this as a Harry Potter fan, the game is far too easy and suffers from the broken rules of Quidditch as JK Rowling conceived it.