Monday, March 7, 2016

NES games that really bring me back

I have a lot of video games, NES games in particular seem to take up the most real estate, my physical collection is less than a tenacious veteran (or well funded) collector, but more than most people would think is necessary.  Throughout my entire childhood I probably only played maybe 40-50 different console games, and probably fewer than 20 are tied to strong memories. If  this blog is an indicator, I'm guilty of being very nostalgic for old video games.  Discovering games from that time that I never played is fun, but sometimes you gotta revisit those go-to titles that defined what really made you a gamer. Going back to a familiar place after being gone for years or hearing a song that reminds you or something too specific that your brain just won't let go. Sights, smells, sounds, all come flooding back.  These games in particular always bring me back and remind me why I still collect and play games.

Wizards and Warriors. This game really reminds me of hanging out with one of my good childhood buddies.  It was his favorite game.  He and I met when I was 4, he was throwing sand at me or something and threatening me with a cardboard sword he had made and I freaked out and we got into a fight or something.  After the dust settled my mom talked to his mom, they made us shake hands and be friends and just like that we were best buds. Anyway, so I was staying at his house for the weekend, I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.  His mom had to run errands or something when I arrived so my buddy and I tagged along (like we had any say in the matter). The upside was we ended up at Blockbuster.

On the way to the store he starts talking about this game, Wizards and Warriors, I already like the name, I don't remember much about what was said, but I do know that I was sold sight-unseen on committing some time to this thing.  Cool part was, we didn't just rent it, it was on sale and his mom was feeling sympathetic after dragging us around town so she bought it for him.  We took this thing back to his house and played it for most of that weekend.  The game was so cool, the dark backgrounds, the armored-out protagonist, and saving babes (yes babes, I don't even know why that was exciting for me then but that's what sticks out in my mind).  I distinctly remember the kick boots were the best thing ever.



This game was very forgiving to my young untrained gaming ability.  It was difficult in parts, but it has a very leisurely pace, and even though my friend and I were terrible and couldn't get too far, there was no game over and we could keep on trucking for a whole weekend.  The potion music was my favorite.  I was super into knights and medieval stuff at that age so this game definitely piqued my interest in that regard, lots of love for that game, even now.  I think another reason why I like it so much was my buddy took a little creative license with the storytelling as we played and he knew how to really sell it so it enriched the experience for both of us.  A lot of games had some decent back story on the NES, but W&W had virtually none that we were aware of, so we had a good time filling in the blanks.

Gun.Smoke.  This game was (IS) very difficult, I played this frequently at a few different friend's houses around the corner from where I lived in my formative lower grade school years.  I really don't know how we kept finding the will to go on but it did involve some hilarious rituals and some creative licensing on our part.  If I had to take a few stabs at what made the game rich enough to come back to, great soundtrack would be at the top.  It set the mood, kept you energized, and really carried the game.  The controls were tight, and unique, most deaths could be blamed squarely on the player so I couldn't really harbor much resentment towards the game itself.  The fondest memory that sticks out for me with this game was the wanted posters at the beginning and end of each stage, a buddy of mine and I would shout how much the bounties were worth in an over-excited-cowboy voice, also lots of exaggerated "yee-haws" and the like when the bullets shot up the wanted poster after beating a boss.  So satisfying.




Super Mario Bros 2.  I loved this game because I loved the Super Mario Brother Super Show.  Toad is one of my favorite video game characters of all time because of both that cartoon and that game.  The game itself was fun, I played it sporadically where I could, it was a game that got passed around a lot and must have been popular to rent rather than own because I don't remember anyone having the game for very long.  I grew up in a fairly rural area, so that, and the fact that the game wasn't packed in with the NES kept this out of anyone's collections that I knew growing up.  Managed to play it a lot though. Though I had Mario All Stars on SNES and played this game a ton that way, I only managed to get my hands on an NES copy in the last 2 years.




World Class Track Meet.  This was the first and last Nintendo game my parents approved of.  Probably because you actually got exercise playing it.  Was the closest I ever got to trying to convince them to buy a Nintendo...  Obviously the game kinda lent itself to cheating (jump off the pad for the long jump anyone?), but one of the guys I knew growing up who had this game insisted we keep things sporting by actually playing the game "for real".  This guy was something of an athlete with a knack for competition, he pretty regularly beat me at this game, he was also kind of a jerk, the combination of the two eventually drew us apart, but I always remembered the game fondly. Last year I got lucky and scored a Power Pad at the flea market, so perhaps I can revisit this game and try and associate some better memories with it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were insanely popular and everybody had this game.  The dam level (heh) was so difficult that most kids I knew just started to speculate what actually happened the rest of the game.  Some were bold enough to claim dominion over the dam, but could never prove it.  I was 19 before I saw the Turtle Van in all of it's glory for the first time (well more than a decade after I'd originally played it).

Despite all of its flaws, I cannot hate that game to this day.  After I finally beat the dam, I took it a step farther and picked up a game genie and played through the game to finally see the ending.  I was an adult, but this was before YouTube, so I couldn't just look it up and my curiosity had to be satiated. It was glorious, and although it took some heavy creative licensing with the source material, I still loved it, and it made me love the game even more.

I was surprised once YouTube picked up steam that so many people disliked the game, sure it was difficult, but you got to play as the Ninja Turtles! I think my love of TMNT overruled the somewhat poor gaming experience this title provided.

Another factor that played heavily into my love for the game was the use of issue #4 of TMNT being used as the box art for the NES game.  I have always had a great fondness for the comic series, I got into it at a young age, no clue how I got my hands on some of those original comics, I was a baby when the comic debuted, and I should have been as clueless of the original source materials as the other kids I grew up with were. But I digress, the cover for issue 4 is my absolute favorite single frame of artwork for that entire franchise (and probably beyond).  I had a huge poster of it in my room for years, I had a t-shirt, and it always amused me the number of questions that particular cover art always brought up when I had friends over.  Why are they all Raphael (all wearing red bandannas)? Why are they fighting a bunch of Krangs that don't look right?  What is that crazy machine behind them? Are they in the Technodrome? Where's Shredder? Are they losing? Needless to say I was in a very small minority of kids my age who had any knowledge of the comics, and I was always happy to oblige their curiosity when the inevitable wave of questions came my way from my peers whose experience was only with the cartoon, toys, and movies.



Dragon Warrior 2.  The first RPG I had ever seen. I was probably 6 or 7.  This game blew my mind, but I pretty much observed this game primarily from the sidelines.  This was something a buddy's older brother played the shit out of and he obviously had the patience and gaming clout to play through it without Nintendo Power, or any kind of hint book.  I was fascinated by this game, and loved watching my buddy's older brother play it.  The music, the character design, the colorful sprites, everything had such a cool look/sound/feel to it.  I would draw all kinds of pictures of them battling in my spare time and I just got that same feeling after watching this game that you would get from reading the coolest book you'd ever read.  It had a very profound effect on me, and I didn't even play the game myself and finish it until I was in high school myself.  It just really captivated me, and I have since played and beaten every game in the Dragon Warrior/Quest franchise to date and every time I hear about a new game being released in any form from that series it just excites me to no end.  Dragon Warrior is ingrained in Japanese culture, I get it, and it's something I'm happy I can enjoy with that same level of excitement from an ocean away.



Battletoads.  I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I love this game and it takes me back.  I had two friends who owned this game, and we never got past the turbo tunnel (level 3).  Like Ninja Turtles though, I loved this game, it was so compelling and I wanted to get good at it so badly that I just always tried to play it when I could. My buddies and I came up with names for the large boots or fists at the end of your hit combos, we would discuss and theorize what the story was and how the game ended, yeah, we were dorks.    I had a dreading feeling that it was unbeatable, and even when we used a game genie to skip to the last level, we could never get to the end.  Turns out the game was just that brutally difficult, even when I grew up and was able to get past the turbo tunnel, I think the farthest I can get even with warps is level 8.  Yeah, I finally figured out how to beat level 12 (using game genie to skip to the last stage), but I can say with confidence that I will never beat this game start to finish, and I'm at peace with that.  It's still bad-ass, and I will still fire it up every once in a while for old time's sake.


A lot of collectors around my age talk about nostalgia being such a huge factor in fueling that desire to collect or play old games, but it's always fun to hear the stories that paint a vivid picture of what goes through a person's mind when they fire up a familiar title, it's what inspired me to recount some of the games that captivated me and made me a lifelong gamer.