Maybe it was a recent birthday, maybe it was watching Georges St. Pierre win a UFC title, maybe it was because an old high school classmate contacted me on Facebook to ask if any 20th reunion plans were in the offing*, or maybe it was for all these reasons that I've been recently feeling very nostalgic. So it was in this spirit that my brother's recent purchase of an SNES Classic fired me up like few things in recent memory.
* = apparently I'm "the most connected of anyone" to our former classmates, by which I suppose means I'm friends with the most people? The fact that I actually keep in regular touch with a dozen people tops is besides the point. How did I somehow end up at the center of a social nexus? Can't I pawn reunion organizing duties off on a class president or something?
Or, the hell with the nostalgia talk...does one really need a reason to enjoy such an incredible device? Twenty classic games! All on one console! Gloriously remastered but with nary a pixel touched so we can all enjoy these classic games in their original form.
Now, okay, "classics." I freely admit that I'd never heard of at least a half-dozen of these games, and hadn't actually played several others. The ones I had played back in the day were...
* Super Mario World. My vote for the single greatest game of all time.
* Super Mario Kart. Another extremely big contender for the gaming GOAT, though most people prefer the N64 version.
* Donkey Kong Country. Another fantastic Mario-style 'building a world' type of scrolling-screen game, and it just felt right that an iconic character like Donkey Kong finally had his own great franchise to carry.
* Street Fighter II. I don't want to say I'm unbeatable as E. Honda, but merely *mostly* unbeatable as E. Honda.
* Super Punch-Out. I didn't play this one nearly as much as the old Punch-Out for the original NES but it's still fun. Canada gets some representation in the form of Bear Hugger!
* Star Fox. Okay, so this game was garbage. Just one man's opinion. Maybe it was a product of too much hype for all the cutting-edge graphics of the time, but actually playing it back in 1993 was just a gigantic letdown.
So you'll notice that this isn't even a third of what the SNES Classic has to offer. As a kid, I simply never got into the Zelda, Mega Man, Castlevania, Final Fantasy or Contra series, so these are all new to me. (I also never played the SNES Kirby games, though I absolutely adored the original Kirby's Dreamland for Game Boy.) I'm kind of interested in playing them as an adult to see how they stack up now, or if it was just a "you had to be there" thing where if you didn't fall in love with these games as a kid, it just won't be the same. My brief experimentation with Contra III the other day didn't impress me much --- being touched by ANYTHING, just ONCE kills you? Seems a bit difficult.
It'll also be hard to try out new games when all my old favourites are right there. Like, I'm supposed to be interested in Castlevania when Mario World is RIGHT THERE? Weirdly, I somehow never played Yoshi's Island (the Mario World sequel) either as a kid, so I'll have to check that one out as well.
You might be asking yourself just what exactly did I play back in the day if I somehow missed all of these other household name-games. Hey man, when you have Mario World, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Street Fighter plus other obsessions like NBA Jam, NHLPA 93, Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, Mortal Kombat, various Ninja Turtles games, and that one where Spider-Man and the X-Men team up, what more did one need? I had to go outside every once in a while. (This is a lie, I also just had regular TV to watch.)
My brother had the SNES Classic for about a week before I showed up to play, and even despite this head start, I am enormously proud of the fact that I beat him in my very first Mario Kart race in over 20 years. Still got it! It may be true that he proceeded to beat me in roughly 31 of our next 32 races, but whatever, it's the first one that's really the most important. Had I not been so keen to play, I really should've just put the console down after that first race and just walked away, dusting my hands triumphantly and refusing to ever play again. I could've had a lifetime of upper hand, dammit.
* = apparently I'm "the most connected of anyone" to our former classmates, by which I suppose means I'm friends with the most people? The fact that I actually keep in regular touch with a dozen people tops is besides the point. How did I somehow end up at the center of a social nexus? Can't I pawn reunion organizing duties off on a class president or something?
Or, the hell with the nostalgia talk...does one really need a reason to enjoy such an incredible device? Twenty classic games! All on one console! Gloriously remastered but with nary a pixel touched so we can all enjoy these classic games in their original form.
Now, okay, "classics." I freely admit that I'd never heard of at least a half-dozen of these games, and hadn't actually played several others. The ones I had played back in the day were...
* Super Mario World. My vote for the single greatest game of all time.
* Super Mario Kart. Another extremely big contender for the gaming GOAT, though most people prefer the N64 version.
* Donkey Kong Country. Another fantastic Mario-style 'building a world' type of scrolling-screen game, and it just felt right that an iconic character like Donkey Kong finally had his own great franchise to carry.
* Street Fighter II. I don't want to say I'm unbeatable as E. Honda, but merely *mostly* unbeatable as E. Honda.
* Super Punch-Out. I didn't play this one nearly as much as the old Punch-Out for the original NES but it's still fun. Canada gets some representation in the form of Bear Hugger!
* Star Fox. Okay, so this game was garbage. Just one man's opinion. Maybe it was a product of too much hype for all the cutting-edge graphics of the time, but actually playing it back in 1993 was just a gigantic letdown.
So you'll notice that this isn't even a third of what the SNES Classic has to offer. As a kid, I simply never got into the Zelda, Mega Man, Castlevania, Final Fantasy or Contra series, so these are all new to me. (I also never played the SNES Kirby games, though I absolutely adored the original Kirby's Dreamland for Game Boy.) I'm kind of interested in playing them as an adult to see how they stack up now, or if it was just a "you had to be there" thing where if you didn't fall in love with these games as a kid, it just won't be the same. My brief experimentation with Contra III the other day didn't impress me much --- being touched by ANYTHING, just ONCE kills you? Seems a bit difficult.
It'll also be hard to try out new games when all my old favourites are right there. Like, I'm supposed to be interested in Castlevania when Mario World is RIGHT THERE? Weirdly, I somehow never played Yoshi's Island (the Mario World sequel) either as a kid, so I'll have to check that one out as well.
You might be asking yourself just what exactly did I play back in the day if I somehow missed all of these other household name-games. Hey man, when you have Mario World, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Street Fighter plus other obsessions like NBA Jam, NHLPA 93, Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, Mortal Kombat, various Ninja Turtles games, and that one where Spider-Man and the X-Men team up, what more did one need? I had to go outside every once in a while. (This is a lie, I also just had regular TV to watch.)
My brother had the SNES Classic for about a week before I showed up to play, and even despite this head start, I am enormously proud of the fact that I beat him in my very first Mario Kart race in over 20 years. Still got it! It may be true that he proceeded to beat me in roughly 31 of our next 32 races, but whatever, it's the first one that's really the most important. Had I not been so keen to play, I really should've just put the console down after that first race and just walked away, dusting my hands triumphantly and refusing to ever play again. I could've had a lifetime of upper hand, dammit.
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