My True Love
I’m not gonna lie…
I am a huge Super Nintendo nerd…
I have no regrets about it…
I will never forget when I first got my Super Nintendo (even though I misremembered the year for almost 2 decades.) It was my eighth birthday way back in the mystical year of nineteen hundred and ninety three. Months before I had rented the system from Blockbuster (yeah, you used to be able to do that and by that I mean have a productive time due to Blockbuster) while also renting the game Tiny Toons: Buster Busts Loose. I still remember those green plastic cases you got for the game, which usually had incorrect info on the back with misspellings ahoy. I can still remember getting the system with Super Mario World along with a coupon good for Super Mario All Stars (which would be delivered by a Fed Ex man while young me reacted like poverty was ended permanently.) The events that happened after are still clear too: The Donkey Kong Country competition, which I lost and then rented the game plus Animaniacs while talking with my dad and sister at Lunch over McDonalds, the time I won a Tetris Attack hat which may or may not still be floating around my house or the many hours spent wondering the local toy store looking at boxes and boxes (or in some cases, yellow tags a plenty) of the great library that the system has.
After the SNES released its last game in 1998, I moved onto the N64 and then took a break from video games. I never really embraced CD based games as quickly as most did. The load times for one thing were something me and my fellow “cartheads” were not used to. Sure, the graphics were getting better and the sound was well…CD quality but the mechanical part was taken out. Reminiscent of when computers replaced steam powered machines (but not really) people just did not know what to make of the new machines. Being one of those people, I had these systems but never even came close to supporting them as I did my 16-bit one. My SNES nonetheless was taken to the basement, never to be heard from again…at least, that’s how it looked.
In 2005, I graduated High School. Around this time I started to reflect on my childhood that mainly took place the previous decade. The great nostalgic memories of limited but vibrant color ran through my head. A few years later, I went back down to my basement and low and behold the system I had put away almost ten years before was still there. Although yellow (like most SNES systems now) it still looked the same as it had back in the nineties. It still played well too despite it jingling around like a pinky bank. All 17 of my games were there as well…
Which became 25…
Which became 50…
Then, all hell broke loose…
The Begining of a Beautiful Obsession
As of the writing of this article, I have 145 games and hope to collect the whole library (believed to be about 724) as a goal of mine. It has become my (new) obsession. Since I made my first trade as a serious collector (my PS2 slim for Super Castlevania, Final Fantasy III/VI and others) I have discovered just how vast the library is: platformers, action games, sports, and trivia, among others. There are so many unique games that there are really not two games alike (even two baseball games can have major differences.) The genre in particular I rediscovered were RPG’s. Only owning Earthbound as a kid (bought a used copy so I can’t kick myself for throwing out the packaging) I discovered the richness of the story and game play that those titles have to offer. Most are like mini novels.
In closing, I hope you will enjoy the articles (and perhaps videos) of the games I will review in the future. We have only delved into the very beginning of the Super Nintendo’s games and overall history. Strap in for the ride folks, it’s going to be a blast.