It was 25 years ago when the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in America. I have made a list of 25 memories not it any particular order I'm not really sure which memory is the best. This is just a list of 25 memories not a top 25 list.
1. Getting my NES – I remember having a NES when I was 3 but I bit the dust very fast. Then on my 5th birthday my parents took me to the store and bought me my own NES and I remember it having the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt cartridge with it and I also got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with it and I loved my NES and it still works.
2. Family Game Time - Playing Win, Lose, or Draw with my parents and older sister was always a blast even though couldn’t spell
3. Mega Man – Mega Man was and still is an awesome games series. Mega Man 3 is one of the first games I ever beat on my own and I beat it a lot.
4. Seeing Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time - The Wizard might have been a bad movie but when you saw a glimpse of Super Mario Bros. 3 it made it worthwhile.
5. Playing Super Mario Bros. 3 for the first time – I remember seeing the game at the video store and grabbing it as fast as I could shows my older sister she got very excited too. I ran upstairs popped it in the NES and played it so much. I also remember my mom running a day care at our house and during playtime I would play with my Little People neighborhood with the other kids take my character I played with and put it in front of its TV and hummed the tune of World 1 and pretended his was playing Super Mario Bros. 3.
6. Beating Contra - You either had to use a game genie to beat this game or the Konami code and when you did that it felt more legit.
7. Playing Duck Hunt - For most of us that was the first time we got to use a gun and it was awesome.
8. Super Mario Bros. – The game that started it all with its awesome platforming, catchy tune and the famous quote “Thank you Mario! But out Princess is in another castle!
9. Getting mad when your games glitches up – Not all memories are good but this was what the NES did you had to play through the glitches and if that glitch reset your game your either walked away very mad or you just started over and if you were playing a game like Mega Man 2 or Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse you just put the password so not all hope was lost.
10. Renting Games – When renting games was cheep I used to rent games every weekend and I remember renting games multiple times just to beat them but times have changed and so has renting games.
11. Games being so hard – The American NES games we usually harder than Japanese NES games. In Japan they were able to rent games so you had to buy them. I don’t think they liked the fact Americans could rent games so they made them harder so that it couldn’t be beaten in a weekend and we would go out and buy the game. They did make these games hard cause its almost impossible to beat games like Battletoads, Double Dragon, Ninja Gaidan, Castlevania and Metroid in one setting. It took a lot of play throughs to learn how to beat these games.
12. The Game Genie – The tool that made it possible to beat any game no matter how hard.
13. The A, B, B, A Code – That is how you beat Ikari Warriors. A, B, B, A is what gave you infinite continues and it was only in the American version of the game because they said the Japanese was so hard they added the A, B, B, A code to the American version. The game is hard it took me a few hours to get through the first 2 levels as a kid so you got to have the A, B, B, A code.
14. Super Mario Bros. 2 – This game was fun it was only 1 player and very different from the first SMB game but not only could you use Mario and Luigi you could also use Toad and the Princess as well and it was a lots of fun.
15. The Track Pad – Playing world class track meet it was a way to get couch potato gamers off their butt and up and running even though most of them just hit the pad with their hands.
16. R.O.B. the Robot – You could only use him for 2 games Gyromite and Stack Up but he was the reason the NES sold in America. Nintendo used the selling point use R.O.B. to play with you and you can always have a gaming buddy. He was very slow but he got the NES to see and he is worth a lot on eBay.
17. The Power Glove – Everyone wanted this after they saw Lucas play Rad Racer with the Power Glove. Unfortunately it didn’t work very well. It worked ok with racing game and you could actually land the plane in Top Gun with it. In the words of Lucas “I love the Power Glove…It’s so bad.” Yeah it’s bad very bad.
18. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! – It also intrigued me to see a tiny guy named Little Mac who was only 17 beat up adult boxers that were 5 times his size. I had so much fun playing this game as a kid and never landed a punch on Mike Tyson. I also remember them dropping Mike Tyson from the game and just called it Punch Out!! Mike Tyson was replaced by Mr. Dream from Dreamland.
19. NES RPGs – Most of theses I didn’t understand until I was older I remember renting Dragon Warrior and not getting anywhere because I didn’t know how to play. I also remember watching my friend’s dad play Final Fantasy and that game really intriguing me and when I got more gaming experience I started loving these RPG.
20. The Legend of Zelda – I loved this game as a kid and I love it now. It still holds up as one of the best action RPGs out there. This was such a fun game my sister and I used to play it together all the time.
21. The Nintendo Spin Offs – It’s still the same today people will do anything to make money and to do that they milked the Nintendo market. They made a few shows like: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, The Legend of Zelda and Captain N: The Game Master. These were some of the shows they made and there weren’t the best shows but we watched them. There were also made toys, clothes, snacks, cereals, and an awful movie. I watched all the shows no matter how bad they were it was Nintendo I also ate the cereals, played with the toys and wore the clothes.
22. Kirby’s Adventure – Kirby was awesome running around and sucking up enemies and taking their powers was awesome and this game was so awesome its one of the best Kirby games ever made
23. Castlevania – This is nothing more fun the tracking down Dracula and killing him and it was on heck of a journey the Castlevania games were so hard and as a kid I couldn’t get very far and as an adult I still haven’t beat the Castlevania on the NES but they are on my list.
24. Metroid – This was another hard game but the biggest memory is when you find out Samus was a girl and that wasn’t normal back in the day.
25. Kid Icarus – This was one of the first games I owned and it was the game my Dad played more than I did when I was a kid he was the best at this game.
I have so many memories and I’m still making new memories because I still play my NES and I will always play my NES. I also hope in you reading my memories that it brought back memories for you when you played your NES over the years. Happy 25th anniversary NES.
