Happy 25th to the NES!

[The Germanator]

We still have 173 (yes I counted) NES games at our studio, so obviously I still love our 25 year old friend (he's as old as me!

Favorite recent memory was of my friend beating Yo! Noid, which I always thought was both horrible and unbeatable, but he did it. Other memories are probably too many to mention and still ongoing.

[Storm Eagle]

So you want me to share my testimony? Well here goes.

Now the first console I've ever played was an Atari, and I don't remember the number it had. My cousins had it, and I'd play it when I'd spend weekends at their house. I must have been about 4 or 5. While I may have had fun playing it, the first console I've ever really had a desire to have of my own, was the NES. My other cousins got one for Christmas in 1988, and I'd play it with them when I'd spend weekends at their house, and sometimes they'd bring it over to my house when they'd spend weekends there. The game I had the best memories of was Super Mario Bros. I'd watch my cousin play it, and I'd always hope I'd see him finish it whenever he did play. I even got to play this a lot when visiting relatives in Wisconsin in the summer of 1989, along with Galaga and I think Pac-Man.

Later that year, my mother decided to take me to the store after picking me up from the after-school center since I had finished all my homework that day, and she got me an NES Action Set. So not only did I have an NES of my own, but two games to start out with as well. I was very happy to finally be able to play Super Mario Bros. pretty much whenever I could. Of course I was late to the game (no pun intended) since a lot of other kids I knew already had an NES for the longest, and of course had an extensive library. My own library would grow in time, but the next game I got was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and that was for Christmas of that year. I still hadn't finished SMB, so I still continued to work on that. It eventually finished it, and it was the first video game I've ever finished in my life. Even more fitting was how my mother took me to the movies later that day, and I asked to see The Wizard.

The next game I got that had an impact on my years of gaming was Super Mario Bros. 3, which I got in the summer of 1990. I always had fun playing that game, and I remember just what a big deal that game was. I was fascinated by the battles against Bowsers's kids, and all those new forms Mario could take. Things started to get really huge when I started school again in the fall of that year. Ever since I lent it out to this one classmate, I was feeling generous enough to lend it out right after getting it back from someone else. I even had fun playing it when over at a friend's house.

TMNT II: The Arcade Game is also memorable for me, since I remember how I used to see it being played in the arcades, and I was glad once I finally got a copy of my own, to play in my own house, even though the graphics weren't as good. Before I got my own though, I remember a code that Nintendo Power published in an issue that would bring your number of lives from the standard 3 to 9. The code turned out to not work, but that was because they printed it wrong. Thankfully they printed the right code in the issue after that. Then they publish a stage select code in another issue, and then finally published a code that gave you the options to do both.

Since I already had SMB 1 and 3, I thought it was about time I got myself Super Mario Bros. 2. So I got that for my 12th birthday. I remembered when my cousin showed it to me long before I got my own NES. It just happened to stand out to me from the other two SMB games. It looked cool how you could play as even the Princess, and also pick up enemies and hurl them at other enemies.

Some relatives got me the first Legend of Zelda game for my 12th birthday. I had Zelda II, so I thought I should own the first Zelda game that started it all. Ever since then, I've been getting all Zelda games. Ganon has to be the most menacing villain of all time in my opinion. You should see him in his original form as Ganondorf Dragmire in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. They even gave the dude THEME MUSIC. If that wouldn't send chills down your spine, then I don't know what will.

I've played Little Nemo the Dream Master when I was borrowing it from a friend at school. I got up to the very last boss but never defeated him. So I decided I'd want that game in my collection. I did get that game in 1992, and when I got an SNES for Christmas later that year, I thought I was done with the NES. So I decided to give it up in 1996. I ended up taking it back a year later, since even though I was enjoying the SNES, nostalgia kicked in and I just had to get it back. It's a good thing I did. Two years later, I saw StarTropics and Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II, at TRU, each for $4. Even after years of evolving video game technology (I had an N64 by then), I just couldn't resist buying those two NES games so cheap, and brand new at that.

The magic of the NES still didn't end there for me. In 2002, I got a PS2 and GameCube, and I revisited Zelda I and II through a Legend of Zelda disc I got for the GameCube for free, since I had renewed my Nintendo Power subscription. Then in 2004, I was treated to more 8-bit goodness through Mega Man Anniversary Collection. I had already played Mega Man 2 in 1992 since a relative from my church was cool enough to lend it to me until I finished it (which I did in about a week's time). Thanks to MMAC though, I was able to experience all the other 8-bit Mega Man games that came out for the NES that I had missed out on.

Thanks to the Wii, I'm able to experience even more classic NES games. The first game I went for was Kirby's Adventures in 2007, which I had always been curious about since I got Kirby's Dream Land for Game Boy in 1993. I've also revisited Blaster Master last year, and I first played and finished that in 1992 since one of my cousins had a copy.

I played Duck Tales back in the day, and since it doesn't seem like one of the games that will make it to the Virtual Console any time soon, I just decided to get a copy of it on eBay earlier this year.

Nintendo may get a lot of flak these days, but I can't hate on them. It's because of the NES that we're still playing video games to this day, and it's seriously my favorite gaming console of all time.