The Video Games that Impacted my Life, Part 1: NES - Mario, Mickey and Kirby

in #gaming6 years ago

Since the time I arrived on Steemit, I've been considering writing about the video games that played an important part in my life, but I was unsure how to structure everything. I've finally managed to organize my ideas, and now I bring this post, starting the series on the video game consoles and games I've had, and the memorable happenings from the time I played them.

Despite being visually impaired, I've always liked video games. Because of my low vision, I had to stay really close to the TV to be able to see anything. I was a terrible player, and my mother ended up having to help me (I.E. play through) the parts that I had trouble with (that is, practically the whole game :P ).

My first video game console was the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), which I got as a Christmas gift in 1995 when I was 7 years old.

Picture of an NES with a controller

Image source: By Evan-Amos [Public Domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Super Mario Bros. 3

The game that came with the console was Super Mario Bros. 3., whose sounds still give me nostalgia to this day.

Since it wasn't possible to save progress in the Mario game, we lost all our progress every time we turned the console off, and when we returned to play the game again, the only way was to do everything all over again from the beginning. It took us many days to clear all the stages from the first world, and I still remember the joy of saving the king from the first castle and thinking that the game had ended! ... Only to discover that it was just beginning. We had cleared the first world, and there were seven more besides it!

We spent several weekends trying to clear all the stages and reach the eighth world (the last one) without using the warp flute that skipped worlds. We managed to reach the eighth world, and a stage that only years later I discovered was the one before the last stage, but unfortunately we never managed to clear the game.

Another event that I never forget is one day we were collecting lives (we needed that, because our Mario died a lot). We were taking advantage of one of the fortresses in the seventh world, which had a lot of bricks that turned into coins. What we did was to get a bunch of coins (100 coins = a life), then die (sacrifice a life) and repeat the process to get more coins. As we got a lot of lives, we became curious to know what was the maximum number of lives possible to get... and as the saying goes, "Curiosity killed the cat," or rather, the game. We reached 99 lives, and when we accumulated enough coins to get one more... the game crashed and restarted from the title screen! In recent games this kind of thing doesn't happen anymore (if the maximum is 99, picking up more won't increase the number), but at the time, we couldn't even have imagined that this could happen. How frustrating. It had taken all day to get to world 7. The whole Sunday lost...

For the nostalgia

I decided to search for videos on YouTube for the nostalgia, preferably one that cleared the whole game without using warps. The first video I found was this one, by the user Various For. I still couldnn't watch the whole thing, but at least in the first world, the gameplay is quite similar to what we used to do (though of course the player is much better than us and doesn't keep dying all the time). I also found this video, by the user hyrulesmasher, showing the fortress where we used to collect huge amounts of coins (where the 100th life glitch happened to us).

Mickey's Safari in Letterland

This was the second game I had. An educational little game in which the goal was to go through the stages and collect all the letters of the alphabet. A game intended for little kids, where it was impossible to die and had no game over. But it became very important to me, since it was thanks to this game that I learned the alphabetical order, the letters that Mickey uttered in loud and clear English (something rare for a NES game!), And some basic words in English with three letters. The first things I learned in English. (my native language is Brazilian Portuguese)

Here is a gameplay video, by the user nesguide.

Kirby's Adventure

In May 1996, I got the game Kirby's Adventure, my first Kirby game. And something that surprised me. Unlike in Mario, it was possible to save our progress in this game! And also unlike Mario who died if he touched anything when he had no powers, Kirby had six balls of vital energy, so he would only die if he touched enemies or took blows six times, and this made it a lot easier for me to play. We were able to complete 100% of this game! And the names of Kirby's abilities added a few more English words to my vocabulary.

Video

Here is a link showing a gameplay video, also by nesguide.

Yoshi

A Mario puzzle, in the Tetris style but much simpler, in which Mario had to stack pieces (which are the usual enemies) without letting the stacks reach the top of the screen. Matching two equal pieces made both pieces disappear, but fitting two opposite halves of an eggshell made a Yoshi hatch from the egg. The more enemies "sandwiched" between the two eggshell halves, the bigger was the Yoshi that hatched.

I liked the game so much, and was disappointed when (already as an adult) I looked the game up on Wikipedia and found out that the game wasn't well received. At the time we played it, we had a lot of fun playing in versus mode. Something I also liked a lot was the music (which reminds me of classical music). And according to the game credits and Wikipedia, the composer is Junichi Masuda, and the game was developed by Game Freak, now well-known for the Pokemon games!

Video

Here is a gameplay video, also by nesguide.


And this was the first post in my series about my video games. In the next post, the Super Nintendo!

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Excellent post! I could be content in just having one game per post it would give a posting streak and plus it would make us keep coming for more! maybe you should think about it and although it was very well written, you should have saved a little for later.

Even though it might've resulted in a greater number of posts and more frequent updates, I think splitting this post into one per game would've resulted in short and uninteresting posts. One post per game would work if I were to do a full-blown review of each game, but this isn't the idea here. I just want to touch upon each game briefly and highlight what most mattered to me. I still have a lot more to say about all my consoles that came later.

GREAT POST!

Couldn't agree more. These early consoles/games got a socially awkward kid who didn't get along with others through a dark childhood.

Upvoted & Followed & Re-Steemed my friend!

CANNOT wait for SNES; (my fav console). I love oldschool games.

Especially arcade. Easy to play yet hard to win.

Not like today's games; hard to play but easy to win. My favorite by far was Super Mario 64 (N64) but SNES was my favorite console.

I have a lot to say about SNES. Just began writing, though.

Years later I got Super Mario 64 too (it was fun poking and pinching Mario's face at the title screen XD ). I didn't enjoy the game as much, though. Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES still remains my favorite Mario game. It has a special place in my heart, and its sound effects have a special place in my ears :P .

Well share it all my friend. I'm all ears :)

Hi @aiyumi,
Thanks a lot for taking part in my little upvote contest. I've upvoted your post.

I enjoyed to read through your post. I'm somewhat older than you and I can remember very well my first games on my Comodore 64 computer. I had a nitendo as well but it only came later.

I remember each time I bought a game for my computer, there was a big chance that it wouldn't work. There were huge black floppy disks that if you left them in the sun or next to a magnet, would simply be destroyed as a result ;-).

Best regards,
Achim

I've never touched a Commodore 64 before, but I can imagine the unease about the floppies...

Thank you for the upvote and the contest.

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Nice article! I'm a little big younger, so when I was born I started playing Playstation imeediatly, but it's nice to see how different games impacted another people in a similar way that did it to me.

I also intend to write about the Playstation later! I have many memories of it too!

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