1. To begin, blowing on the cassette.
2. At school, classes were generally divided into a Draqon Quest faction and a Final Fantasy Faction. But there would always be that one guy on his own who was into Wizardry.
3. Declaring that you would play Famicom all through the night on New Year`s Eve, then giving up halfway through.
4. Pushing the reset button again and again and again because the game wouldn`t start.
5. Getting into a fight while playing a simultaneous 2 player game.
6 Having it hidden by your parents.
7. When playing a two player game and the 1P player was about to lose, pushing the pause button in rapid succession (to mess up 2P`s timing, 2P not being able to retaliate as the 2P controller doesn`t have the pause button).
8. Playing a racing game and moving your whole body with the game. Then doing it a bit too much, pulling out the cord and causing the game to blink off.
9. When you finish the game, waiting for a bit to watch the end screen.
10. Your parents, while carrying the laundry, tripping over the Famicom and causing the game to freeze.
11. Loving it when you played by yourself! Hating it when your friend came over!
12. When your friend was playing, amusing yourself by playing with the microphone in the 2P controller.
13. 20 years later, finally actually reading the instruction manual for the first time and realizing what the game`s story was all about.
14. Buttons getting stuck in.
15. When inserting the cart, having to carefully push both sides in equally.
16. Being incredibly anxious the first time you played Dragon Quest 3.
17. Not being able to save a game, just leaving the Famicom on when you went to school. Then coming home and discovering your mom had turned it off.
18. Writing your name on the back of the cart.
ahh memories...
ReplyDeletePretty sure I still move my whole body (or at least my head) while playing racing games :)
ReplyDeleteweird to think they played this 25-30 years ago. That's ancient history. Young people today are nostalgic about gamecube.
ReplyDeleteI move my body when doing racing games too. Its how they were meant to be played!
ReplyDeleteAnd wow, people are already nostalgic about the Game Cube? I still think of that as almost being a new console. Time flies to fast.
It's really funny how some of these relate so much to English audiences. I can definitely vouch for the "leaving the game on because the game doesn't save" thing.
ReplyDeleteYep, almost all of these - save for the ones specific to Japanese hardware, like the ones involving the microphone - sound like experiences I had as a kid playing NES and SNES. I'm surprised there wasn't one for "begging your parents to buy you the guide book."
ReplyDeleteA few that are dear to me, and probably some other western gamers:
- Getting frustrated with Nintendo Power for not including guides to the final stages of a game
- Getting frustrated with Nintendo Power for its enthusiastic coverage of a game that turned out to be really shitty
- Calling the Nintendo hotline (with parent's permission, of course) to get a hint that in hindsight seemed really obvious
- Using Game Genie or cheat codes just so you could see the ending, dangit
- Calling in your parents to mediate who gets to play the system, then getting mad when they make you both play a two-player game instead
Awesome list there!
ReplyDeleteI would add:
Having a friend who owned a Game Genie and always asking him to bring it over so you could see how your games end, but him having owned the Game Genie for a while and gotten bored with it always refusing your requests.
In response to 17.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's some bullshit right there.
In response to 17.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's some bullshit right there.