Stu's Nintendo Appreciation Thread

[Crono]

My story is quite similar. My parents originally bought a NES shortly after it came out for my older brother. I actually started playing it when I was 3. We had lots of games, at least 40. I remmber a few years later, I was probably like 7 I think, well, it was right after SNES came out. I saw it in the store and asked my Mom if I she could buy it. She gave the old excuse: "it's too expensive". But the christmas of that year, I opened up one of my presents and there was my brand new SNES. I ended up with lots of games for SNES too, most of them good, although some were pathetically gay (Michael Jordan In the Windy City, LOL).

In early 1996, my brother gets a PlayStation. I remember watching him play all those cool new games, I just HAD to have one. Christmas that year, I wanted to get my own PSX. My Mom new that since my brother was 15 he wouldn't want to share his PSX with me, so he said she owuld get me one for Christmas.

... what is about to happen next pisses me off so much!... even today I still think about it, and it still makes me mad...

One day I told my brother that Mom was getting me my own PSX for Christmas. However, he said "Why not get an N64?"... and I was like... "well... there are so many cool games on PSX I really really want one." ... he says "Don't worry about it. You can play my PSX, and if you get an N64 that means we'll own two cool new systems. Besides, Mario is your type of thing anyway."
obviosuly I was suckered into his statement, and I then told my Mom I wanted an N64 instead of a PSX. So that Xmas I got my N64 with Super Mario 64.

"You can play my PSX"......... LOL... what a joke.
As you can probably tell, My brother still never let me play his PSX. I was so mad! And every xmas when I had the chance to get a PSX, I got N64 and GB games instead. Argh.... and guess what? on Xmas morning, I didn't even get to be the first one to play my N64, instead my borther goes and hooks it up and starts playing ! What an asshole! Sometimes he would he even play MY N64 without letting me go downstairs and play the PSX.

Well, 5 years later, in April 2001, my brother moves out. Two months before that he also bought a PS2. He let me play it a few times. Also, I played it at school with some friends. Later in the summer, I had happened to go to my friend's house where DarkMaster was also there and he had the FFX demo for PS2. I played the demo, thought it was pretty awesome. Later that year... I was forced to make a decision.... GCN was about to be released and once again I had to choose bwteen Nintendo and Sony, although this time I didn't have some idiot trying to decide for me. So, I ended up choosing the PS2. I got FF:Chronicles and Dragon Warrior VII, and I found Breath Of Fire III at my local EB for 30 bucks and bought that too. In late January, I bought FFX. Three months later I picked up Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Cross. I was so happy that finally I was able to choose the good system that I wanted. Later that year, I got a GCN with Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil, and bought Super Mario Sunshine shortly after.

With all the good games that have come out for PS2, I am glad that I went with the PS2 in 2001 instead of a GCN. Since then, although I still like Nintendo, I can say that I like Sony and PS2 much more. I never took an immediate interest in Xbox, but I do plan on buying one later this year.

The major thing that pissed me off about not being able to get a PSX was the fact that I missed out on so much. RPGs are my favourite games and I missed out on tons of them, which is why I plan on buying quite a few PSX games when I get a job. To think that I could have enjoyed all those games years before really makes me mad, but only my brother is to blame becuase he lied to me. But on the bright side, I was blessed with Ocarina Of Time, which I thought was aboslutely the best game I've ever played, until I played Chrono Cross.

[TheGame]

I was a NES man, then a geneses man, then N64 was probably my favorite system of all time. I too also thought GCN would be my 'main' or 'favorite' console for this gen, but Nintendo dropped the ball again. I mean, they lost the WWF games, the 'real' Zelda, and the biggest reason for me thinking GCN would hold it's own this Gen, Perfect Dark (or Rare in general).

Nintendo's so called heavy hitter exclusives were not that great... I reted metriod, hated it, then when I got a platnum cube I chose to get it in the free game deal to give it another chance, still didn't like it. Then WW... the game that's great to start then gets so bad that I couldn't even play it much anymore. Smash Brothers was fine... I thought ED was an average game... SMS was ok.

There is nothing out so far for GCN that's locking me to buy it next gen (keywords: 'so far')

[BreakABone]

My story is a bit different since most of my brothers are older than me, I grew up watching people play Nintendo games. But ofcourse in a house full of boys not much lasts, so we went through like 4 NES or something like that, with the final one I was able to actual play the games even though we didn't have much at the time, my NES collection could be broken into two camps, CastleVania and Super Mario Bros, and basically that was the 6 games I own. I guess that's why I have such a love for Mario and still like CastleVania but don't care much for handhelds so I haven't played the last three.

Anyhow, in I think it was 91 or 92 my mother won some mini-golf tourney and her prize was a Super NES with Super Mario World, it was a fun game for what I got to play... later that year my brother left for the Army or something along those lines and took the first SNES with him so it was back to the NES for me. One X-Mas, I forget the year, I got a Genesis. I really enjoyed it and at the time saw no real reason to get a SNES nor did I want one, I mean I had more than enough cool games on my SNES. Then in 96 I think it was, I got my second SNES with Super Mario AllStars and Super Mario World which were fun games, and at the same time got my first PSX. The simple fact is, most all my other brothers enjoy sports games, I don't so when you have a system with nothing but NBA games, you really don't care for it so I guess I just never had any interest in the PSX like that because of all the sports game. So I was content with my SNEs again with games like MegaMan X and Lemmings. At the time, the n64 was also making strides, at the time, I thought it had one of the most unorthodox controls ever. I mean looking at images, it looked like the controller had threee different ways to move the character and I thought that was just weird (In essence, I was right and wrong on that case since several games ultizied a different control configuration.) So I had no interest in the n64 nor Mario 64 or anything else at the time.

In the fall of 97, I begun to hang out with friends more and begun to play WCW vs nWo: World Tour for the n64. I had no idea how to play at the time, but was able to survive and sometimes even win on pure luck, but the game had me hooked so I would play it more and more and bit by bit learned a little bit more about it. Anyhow Christmas 1997, my brother finally paid back for that SNES he "borrowed" some 5 years earlier by sending an n64, he also sent WarGods which was a decent fighter, but nothing too grand, but I also invested in World Tour and was finally able to master the game which was always a weird thing to me. Then Acclaim released WarZone which wasn't a great game, but had some cool features. Then Revenge and so on. So in essence, my n64 became my wrestling game system, but since they aren't released too often, most games I purchased for my n64 were fillers between my wrestling games. I mean some of them were rather cool Mario 64 (even though I still consider it to be one of the lower games in the series), Banjo Kazooie, and some others. Some were decent like Glover and Chameleon twist and some were just bad like Art of Fighting or some crap like that and War Gods.

Then all this hype begun about this "Dolphin" system and I was intrigiued, I guess it was the prospect of knowing about a console from the floor up or something, but I followed it for quite some time until it was officially shown at SpaceWorld 2000. In the meantime, the n64 games were a dying breed so I invested in a DC to bide my time. Boy o boy was it a great system with games like Sonic Adventure, Marvel vs Capcom 2 and ofcourse my favorite RPG, Skies of Arcadia. The DC would rank among one of my favorite system which is only tarnished by not having a true wrestling game (I don't import, even though I have played Fire Pro D for it)

I invested in my Cube a few days after launch. It's the first and probably last system I ever purchase out of the gate. Launch always seems to have some cool games then it dies down for a bit then more games are released. I guess I would prefer to have a nice little backlog of games before investing in the console. As a whole, the Cube has been a fun console, but nothing other than maybe Wind Waker has been truly memorable in my mind.

I guess that's that...

[Joeiss]

Jason, what is a Sega Channel?

[nWoCHRISnWo]

I like Nintendo simply because their systems have the funnest games, period. I had a NES for as long as I can remember, with games like Wrestlemania, Wrestlemania Challenge, Battletoads, Bucky O'Haire, Blades of Steel, Zelda (the first one, my favourite by far), Mario 1, 2, and 3, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, Marble Madness, Snake Rattle n Roll, Turtles 1, 2, and 3, Abadox... These games are what I consider classics. I still love them now, and the list goes on and on... NES was probably the best video game system ever made. No competition at all.

Then a while after SNES was released, I got that. Almost as good as NES was with games I loved like Mario again, Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3, NBA Jam, NHL 94, Zombies Ate my Neighbours, Biker Mice from Mars, Ken Griffey Jr, Royal Rumble, WWF Raw, Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, etc. I didn't know much about Playstation until I got N64...

I wasn't so interested in N64 that I had to get one as soon as possible, but I knew I'd end up getting one sooner or later. Then I saw WCW vs nWo:World Tour. So I got N64 and played what would be the first game in my favourite series of games ever. I loved PilotWings, Banjo-Kazooie, and some others, but the wrestling sequels kept coming and I loved all of them. Revenge, Wrestlemania 2000, and the best game ever made, No Mercy. I never even thought about getting a Playstation. There were barely any games that I wanted, and N64 had games I HAD to have.

Then a while ago I got a PS2 because of GTA 3 and NHL 2002. It was awesome for the first while, but it got pretty damn boring after that. I got a Gamecube a while after that, and although it's probably my least favourite Nintendo system yet, it's still far better than any other companie's systems aside from maybe the Genesis. I like both Super Monkey Ball games, Smash Bros Melee, Eternal Darkness... And I'll probably never want an X-Box. So this gen=worst for me, but back to Nintendo, they always have and still do have the funnest games.

[GameMaster]

My mom bought my dad an NES. I started playing it, got hooked. Got a Genesis for Christmas in 1992. Had some of th greatest games ever. Got an N64 for Christmas. Enjoyed it, missed Sonic though, as well as some other Sega titles. Bought a Gamecube the day it came out, I've enjoyed it a lot. My friends and I play Smash Bros. every week.

Genesis is my favorite. Best games and memories came from that system.

Joeiss, Sega Channel was a cable service you could get for Genesis. You got a special cartridge that was wired to the cable I think and each month for a nice fee, you got about 20 games that you can play. You would just choose from the menu and each month you got new different games. I guess it was only a U.S. deal?

[Seth]

Gamecube's the only console i've ever owned. I played a lot of SNES and Genises at my friends place and stuff, but i never actually got a console.

I've been a big PC gamer my whole life. Nintendo makes my favorite console games though...so i stay with them. Not much of an RPG fan. Games are too repetitive and boring.

[Dyne]

Now that I have some time, and a bit of biased views off to the side () I think it's time for my story.

You'll be suprised to learn I started out as an avid Arcade goer and hardcore Apple 2c-er. My parents went to arcades during the whole nineties and they would take me with them, when I was a baby. I grew up in the arcade environment. When I was old enough to understand what was going on, maybe about 3, they were mean and held me up to the demos that were playing. I thought I was playing the game at that point. Lol. Eventually they payed for me and I played great games like Outrun and whatnot.

My dad made his own computers beforehand (got a degree in Comp Science in University). The Apple 2c wasn't really meant for gaming but they were a nice addon. I think maybe 1990 they went to a garage sale here in BC, (we had just moved from Ontario) and found a lot of games for it. My parents weened me on games like Lemonade Stand, a Donkey Kong port, and other stuff like that.

Well, pretty soon, I got to be pretty good. My parents and grandmother both chipped in and got us a Super Nintendo. I was thrilled. We got it for christmas, and I got Super Mario World, Super Tennis, and Super Mario Kart. I was treated very well on the Super Nintendo. I got Super Scope. I got Mario Paint. I got every hot game whenever it hit the shelf. It ended up being my system.

During that time, I also had access to a Turbo-Graphx 16. My uncle owned one, and I remember playing one of the funnest titles ever: Bonk. I also slightly remember a racing game of some sort but it's really fuzzy. NES was in the picture. My first glimpse of it was my best friend's (who introduced me to Chrono Trigger and stuff) who had Marble Madness and other games for it. I would go over to his house to play it sometimes. Eventually he sold it for a Super Nintendo. And finally.. Genesis. I remember when I first saw it, I thought it was pretty cool. I never really played it much, but cool things like the lighted Game Gear, and Genesis were really.. cool.

My second console was a second-hand 1989 game boy, and I got it about halfway through SNES's life. I got Super Mario Land, Castlevania, and othe great titles. Soon I discovered Pokemon, and well, you know the rest.

In the mid-ninties I was pretty closed-minded. I only had a super nintendo and that was good enough for me. If the playstation would have come out for it, I would have had it in a jiffy. But nope, they called it off. Anyways a good friend moved in next door, and he had tons of Sega stuff. I truly discovered what I missed in Sega then and there, and his older brother (he was 8, his bro was 23. yeah, age gap) owned a Virtual Boy. Then I discovered what bad was. Lol.

I discovered N64 with my other best friend who moved away from me when I was young. When I went to visit him, he had an N64. He also had every single Nintendo Power from '95 to the N64 launch, so I filled myself in. And oh my ****ing god, I was born the first time I played Goldeneye. Other games like Super Mario 64 were cool and we also payed Quest 64. It didn't hold our interest long because we wanted to play Goldeneye every breathable moment.

When I got back, some time passed, and my Sega friend got an N64 with goldeneye. Well, it happened again... I spent every day I could over at his house. From time to time we would play some other games, but Goldeneye.. heh. The bomb. Eventually my parents got me AND my brother one. Then I had to learn to share. Well I played Zelda and stuff on it. The only Playstation I knew of was FF7 and Resident Evil. All I knew about them was that they stole Square and I wasn't too happy about that at all.

Somewhere in the lifespan of N64 I subscribed to Nintendo Power. I was never really hardcore into gaming at all at any point, but I started regarding it as more of a hobby when I played Goldeneye, and after Pokemon, when there was nothing to do, I learned how to be hardcore. So I expanded my knowledge and, through many trial and error, turned "hardcore" gaming. Pretty soon I learned my best friend (NES chrono trigger guy) buddy got Smash Bros, and it wasn't exactly a Goldeneye, but it was an experience of it's own. Unfortunately, after a while, he sold all of his stuff for a playstation and FF7. I was devastated. From then on I had only known Sega, Nintendo, and NEC. I remember seeing a couple ads for Sega Saturn and thinking my parents would never buy me one. I also looked at Dreamcast and went.. "sports only. Meh." Didn't even know of Sonic Adventure. Lol, showed you how open I was allowed to be.

And well, I think you know the Gamecube/Playstation2 ways.. well.. it's obvious... Bought GBA first. Held in with Majora's Mask during the PS2 launch. After the PS2 launch, I did something really naughty. I bought a Sega Game Gear for $5 at some secondhand shop, which totally went against my Nintendo ethics. Soon I bought a PSone for ff9 (my favourite non-nintendo game), and was so hyped my parents got me a PS2. Well, knock knock. Disappointment. No Goldeneye, no final fantasy (yet), and no fun. I tried GT3 but I thought it was slow. I blamed games like Onimusha for making up the poor PS2 lineup. Unfortunately, and maybe luckily for me, the thing broke. We tried to phone Sony Reps but they praised nasty words into our ears. My parents almost filed a complaint to Sony. We had a broken $500 piece of plastic/metal, and it just sat there. Eventually I sacrificed it.. well.. threw it in the garbage.

Instead of replacing or repairing it, we saved money for Gamecube, which I thought we lead us to bliss. Now I've been buying titles, and about the summer of 2001 I got really bored. During the beginning I checked out Dreamcast for real cheap, and I discovered Shenmue. Once again, I was born. This time, I had been baptised a hardcore multi-platform gamer. Finally I had spread my wings to the fullest. I forced myself to find Shenmue 2, because I was really into it. Unfortunately it was really expensive. Luckily though I had some cash, and bought Xbox. I tried Halo, but it was no Goldeneye, unfortunately. Fun for a while. I never bought it, and still haven't.

So I've been playing games here and there for 2002/2003. Here I am. About to start Grade 12. This summer I'm going to give PS2 another chance and buy it. I guess I've missed a lot.

Anyways, that's my story. I left a lot out so I wouldn't bore you more than I already have.