Share your Nintendo NES memories!

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Baba Oh Really, Jun 30, 2013.

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  1. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    It's a matter of time, really. The reason adults don't tend to be as good is merely because we don't have the time to dedicate to playing a game relentlessly. We have other hobbies, a family, friends, responsibility, etc.

    As a kid, I had many days in a stretch with nothing to do so I played for many hours in a row.
     
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  2. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I was able to beat that one a few times myself, but it's definitely a tough game. Strangely enough, one of the levels that people seem to think is the most difficult (Level 3 - Turbo Tunnel) was one part that I always found quite simple. I never really understood why that particular level was regarded as being so notoriously hard.... the people who have trouble with it must be those same weirdos who think Contra is difficult too. :p
     
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  3. Grunge Master

    Grunge Master 8 Bit Enthusiast

    Location:
    Michigan
    And, you don't have to keep practicing at it to get better. For example, now if you're having trouble with something, after a few tries you Google it to see if there's an easier solution. Back then, you had to play it over and over to get good enough to get through whatever you were stuck at.
     
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  4. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    Okay, what the hell is going on during the intermission in "Ring King"?
    Seriously, WTF?? :eek:

     
  5. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    A relaxation technique? :)
     
  6. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Anyone want to play World Class Track Meet? I'll go hook up the Power Pad. :)

     
  7. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    1. Would play RPGs like Final Fantasy until the weekend hours of the morning.

    2. Traded my copy of TMNT for Final Fantasy. Think I easily won that trade. ;)

    3. Trying desperately to finish any Ninja Gaiden game. My friend beat the 2nd one but I was never great at avoiding death during the boss battles.

    4. Once, I finally got to the very last bit if Mega Man 2 but had to leave for 1h. Since there is no saving feature, I had to pause it and turn the TV off. One of my sisters turned off the NES while I was away. Oh boy, was I mad! Took everything I had to get back to that bit and I did beat MM2 but was unable to finish any other MM game. Boy, they were tough...

    5. Subscribed to Nintendo Power when they had that promotion where they'd give away a free copy of Dragon Warrior. Loved that game and couldn't afford to buy most games as they were insanely expensive over here. Some were 80$ CDN back then, so easily in the 3 digits in today's money. Having a free game I loved for very cheap was amazing. Played it to death, too. :)
     
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  8. The Hud

    The Hud Breath of the Kingdom, Tears of the Wild

    Wow! Great trade!
     
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  9. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    "Oh boy, the new issue of Nintendo Power is here!"

    [​IMG]
     
  10. OneChance

    OneChance Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA
    I got an NES in, I think it was, 1985 or 1986, and played SMB2 and Zelda way, way too much. Then in the summer of 1989, just before my senior year in high school, I went to a temp agency looking for a job, and they told me that they were hiring for Nintendo customer service positions. And I was absolutely floored. Me? Working for Nintendo? I took a test to see how much I knew about them and their games, passed, and a week later I was working for them in Redmond. I started as a Game Play Counselor, eventually got on the team that wrote the gameplay instructions, and finally quit after 6.5 years. One of the best and worst jobs I ever had.

    My picture is actually in an issue of Nintendo Power. You'll have to find it on your own. :)
     
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  11. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    *puts cartridge in NES*. :goodie:

    *screen blinks*

    :confused: :realmad: :shake:

    *blows into cartridge*. :whistle:

    *puts cartridge back into NES*.

    Wait, I did all this just to play Ghostbusters? Aw... :(
     
  12. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    You had a job where you got paid to play video games obsessively all day and talk to people about them on the phone?!

    Living the dream of every 10 year old in 1988. :)
     
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  13. OneChance

    OneChance Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA
    Except by the 200th call of the day, your head is pounding, your voice is getting hoarse, and you realize you still have 3 hours to go. Plus, they were keeping track of call length, how long it takes you to wrap up a call (you had to punch in a certain code depending on which game or issue they called about), and how much time you spent in "idle" because you had to go to the bathroom. Not to mention how hard it was to play games while helping someone through a difficult puzzle level in Castlequest or Lolo. So you often had to play games away from work on your own time after talking about games for 8 hours. Other than that, it was fun.
     
  14. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, I guess it wasn't as fun as I imagined it to be. Did you know they featured Nintendo Counselors in the movie The Wizard? I assume they were all actors, though.

    "Counselier's Corner? You're going to need counseling after playing this game..." -The Angry Video Game Nerd talking about Milon's Secret Castle.

    Does this bring back memories? :)

    Remembering The Nintendo Power Line - Geek.com
     
  15. OneChance

    OneChance Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA
    Yes, those binders were extremely helpful. Once we got to about 200 games, they got out of control, so we started putting the info on our intranet using a program that worked similar to HTML. I guess that was around 1991 or so. Unfortunately, it was extremely poor at handling images, so we still had binders of maps at each cubicle.
     
  16. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    FF was definitely a great game. Might have even been the first real RPG that I ever played (aside from the original Legend of Zelda, of course). At the time, FF was probably the *longest game* I had ever played, to boot... it took me *weeks* to finish that thing, even with the help of the Nintendo Power strategy guide!

    I never owned those ones as a kid, but I do remember them being very difficult.... I got pretty far when I rented/borrowed them, but I'm not sure if I ever managed to finish them or not. (Unlike the 2004 version on Xbox, which I could barely even get past the first boss!)

    I didn't own MM2, but I know I beat it whenever I rented/borrowed it. Great series. I did own parts 3, 4, and 5, though.... and beat 'em all!

    Yeah, DW was another one of the great early RPGs... didn't play it as often as Zelda or FF but it was still fun. Again, needed help from Nintendo Power to finish it.... ;)
     
  17. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    Ahhh, good old 1990.... back when getting an issue of NP in the mail was probably the thing I looked forward to the most each month! ;)
     
  18. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, that was always a good way to unwind if I had a bad day at school or something. "Let's see what the codes are in the Classified Information section....".



    Now if you'll excuse me I have to go watch Captain N: The Game Master. :)
     
  19. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Another one I remember is my local video store somehow having a few Japanese imports (with the cart extender/converter). One of them was what is now called Super Mario : The Lost Levels but in reality, that was Super Mario 2, as far as the Japanese are concerned. It was essentially the same game as SMB with the exception of a poisoned mushroom and additional new harder levels. It was definitely challenging but after a few years of playing NES games, I was expecting better graphics and something more innovative. Ironically, it took many years before the North-American market ever saw the game and I believe it was only ever released as part of the Super Mario All-Star compilation for the SNES.

    At some point, there was another game that was always out and unavailable for rent with some made-up Mario name by the video store's owner. After weeks of trying to get it, my friend and I stayed in the video store for hours in end until it eventually came back. We then rented it and came back home to see... SMB3! Again, the NA market wasn't going to see it for quite some time and we really had no idea what the game was until we got back home. Boy, did we enjoy it! I knew then why it was always unavailable. My friend waited in line the day it got released to pay 115$ (taxes in) for it which was and still us a ridiculous amount of money for a game. In 1990 dollars, that was $92 US!

    A Japanese friend of the same buddy I mentioned above brought home a copy of what was going to be known as Dragon Warrior 3. Of course, it was in Japanese and we needed to use the converter but it was fascinating and we ended up finishing it. One of the great moments was killing Baramos after endless hours of gameplay and thinking we were done when it was revealed a tougher boss was pulling the strings and that we had roughly another 40% of the game left to play.

    That same friend managed to get a game called Master Blaster from some Native black market for an unbelievable price. It was the genuine article, not done bootleg. A truly wonderful game I otherwise never would've discovered. Everything about the game was topnotch with the exception of the final boss who was utterly impossible to defeat without a Game Genie. Pretty much the only time we ever used one. Highly recommended game!
     
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  20. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Got it for Christmas as everybody said it was the best game ever. The gold cart was pretty cool but the game itself left me cold. I was so disappointed by it. Really didn't take to it. Had I known then what I know now, I would've traded it for something else! There were so many other games I enjoyed more. Tried Zelda 2 and even though it was entirely different, I still didn't like it. Tried probably 4 different Zelda games and never warmed up to them.

    Never needed NP to finish any game, although for FF, I ended up calling the hotline! Why? Because I was supposed to use an item called Warp to get to a different level within one of the last dungeons but couldn't figure it out. The guy on the line clearly hadn't played it and ended up telling me it's just an item that is used automatically. When I asked where to get it from, he couldn't answer. It was a disappointing and costly interaction which didn't give me any additional info than what I had to start with. Eventually, I got the Warp and it did automatically send me to the upper level. Never called again.

    Really? I thought the first one was as straightforward as they came. DW2 was super hard to finish but plain fun. DW3 was on another level. DQ4 was a lot of fun as well and certainly different but I didn't enjoy the AI and for some parts of the game, you couldn't manually take control of your additional characters and had to anticipate whatever dumb moves they would make regardless of the chosen strategy.

    There were remakes for the first 5 DW games ; the first 3 on SNES and the 4th one on PSX, IIRC. DW5 was on the PS2 and by far my favorite remake. Translations can be found online so the ROMs can be patched. It was great fun to go through these games again with battle animations and updated graphics and sound. DQ8 is a masterpiece. Love the symphonic music which is part of the game... instead of MIDI.
     
  21. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    "Oh wow! A code to get right to Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!

    *enters code*

    *gets clobbered in under a minute by Mike*.

    :(
     
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  22. Al Kuenster

    Al Kuenster Senior Member

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV - US
    My favorites NES games were Mario, Zelda I & II and Lolo I, II & III
     
  23. jazon

    jazon A fight between the blue you once knew

    Location:
    ottawa
    I always liked the Super Mario games but really i always preferred playing the Commodore 64. Way more games and they were basically "free" as my dad just copied them from friends. I still have the NES in the original box, still works last time I tried it. My parents still have the Commodore 64 but i think its gone through a couple of monitors and disk drives over the decades. They also had an Amiga I think they still have somewhere but it hasn't been hooked up in probably 25 years.
     
  24. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Well, that's obviously stealing but anyway...

    A console with more than 700 games ins't one I'd consider having a small pool to choose from. My 2 cents.

    You can easily get an emulator onto computers for those long-gone systems like C64 and Amiga. No need to plug the actual systems in. :)
     
  25. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    "Oh no! Toys R Us is all out of redemption tickets Mega Man 2!". :(
     
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