A kid’s world is small, and if you couldn’t beat Super Mario Bros., you were in serious trouble. Honestly, I think it was my nerves more than anything. I’m well aware that it’s possible to beat, and for many, even easy. I just had so much trouble with 8-3, and even on the rare occasions that I’d survive it, 8-4 was right there to destroy me in ten seconds. Please don’t take this to mean that I wasn’t a serious Super Mario player. It’s the biggest shame of my gaming career, which is really saying something. I feel like everyone else on the planet has, even if they’re only being born at this very moment. I wouldn’t even care if he beat me in five seconds. All I wanted was to fight the Great Puma, just once. It’s fitting that this supposed puma looks more like a sea monster, because for a while, he was my white whale. You could only fight him by beating the normal wrestlers like a hundred times in a row, and I was nowhere near good enough to pull that off. With zany characters, vicious maneuvers and music that lent itself to a lifelong hum homage, it’s still utterly playable today.Įvery time I read though The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide, I’d stop and stare at the Great Puma. I was a huge wrestling fan, so it was only natural, but it helped that the game was so damn good. Pro-Wrestling was amazing, and definitely one of the Nintendo games I played the most. Drinking four ounces of sugar water was never that fun again. In truth, all I did was run around like a buffoon, knocking into things. I was young enough to be gleefully stupid, and every time I drank one, I’d act like I was turbo-charged and able to lift cars over my head. Once I realized how much a cherry quarter drink resembled the red Water of Life (or “2nd Potion,” as you may remember it), I was beyond hooked. Not a day went by without one of those down our throats. The quarter drink was an important part of our lives, available in every school and at every local deli. I don’t know if this was a regional term, but as kids, we were always buying these small beverages colloquially known as “quarter drinks.” You may remember them as the intensely colored punches sold in barrel-shaped plastic containers. No regrets here, partner.Īnyway, the memory. I am the only idiot who ever chose the Water of Life over the Heart Container when that weird old guy got with the giving. I just wanted to make crude doodles over crude photos.) (And because writing about video games is an open invitation for split hairs, yes, I know that drinking the red version just transformed it into a single-use blue version. The blue one only worked once, but you could use the red one twice. In The Legend of Zelda, Link could purchase the “Water of Life” – a jar of brightly colored who-knows-what, which replenished his life meter. Using The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide as a mutant version of a photo album, below are ten random memories about ten random Nintendo games. Some were your everyday video game memories. Thumbing through the pages again sparked a lot of memories. I must’ve drawn the cast of Castlevania a thousand times, despite sucking so badly at the game that I never made it past those twin mummies. I was never as into video games as a lot of you were, but I sure loved the lore. The guide told the stories of Nintendo’s top titles, and even better, it listed all of the characters’ names and traits. ![]() If you grew up with a Nintendo, you know what I mean.Īnd this book was like getting 90 super-sized versions of those instruction manuals, all at once! I loved The Legend of Zelda, but I doubt I would’ve loved it as much had it not come with a 5000 page manual filled with awesome sketches and goofy enemy descriptions. I really, REALLY love this book.įor me, the little instruction manuals that came with Nintendo games were often as interesting as the games themselves. Published in 1987, The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide is easily among my favorite pieces of literature ever. They had a Nintendo, one that I played much more often than them, and along with it, this book. My sister is much older, and she and her husband used to babysit me often. ![]() It all started when I came across that book, hiding in a cabinet at my sister’s house. And all jokes to follow will be stolen from, I don’t know, Austin Powers. In addition to the lame title, I’m also imbuing every photo below with an irritating Miami Vice-style color overlay. Since I’ve already blown it before Word One, I may as well go all-in. Nintendo Memories? Well that’s not very original.
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