My SNES - A Nintendo Memoir

Before jumping right into this weekend’s feature story, I wanted to give a brief background on its origins. Unlike other articles you will see on this blog, this one was written a couple of years back in a Feature Writing class. Our assignment was to write a memory piece and the following is what I came up with. I enjoyed writing the article so much, that it became part of my inspiration for the creation of Nintendo Awesomeness, as well as a series of new memoir articles that are intended to be the hallmark of this blog.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please look forward to future additions to this series.

For the past seven years my Super Nintendo Entertainment System has brought me more joy than I could have ever asked for. I could never forget beating Super Metroid, or the first time I played Earthbound, after searching for the game for two years. Even more importantly, I will never, ever forget the day I finally laid my hands on my very own SNES. That day was Christmas morning of 1998. But in order to give my tale more meaning, allow me to begin in 1992.

My family bought a Sega Genesis that year. My parents informed my three brothers and myself that we could get a new 16-bit video game system. We were only able to choose one, however, so the debate of whether to get a Genesis or a SNES began. The deliberation did not take too long, though. My brothers really liked sports games; something that the Genesis had a lot of. That is basically what it came down to. I would like to say that I had a part in the decision, but I was only six and my opinion on the Gulf War probably meant more to them than my views on the console war.

So at the end of the day, we welcomed the Genesis into our loving home. Accompanying the system were two or three sports games for my brothers and the pack-in copy of Sonic the Hedgehog for me. I won’t lie, I loved the Genesis and I still do. I have many fond memories of playing Sonic and Revenge of Shinobi, and requesting the aid of my brother to get me through difficult sections of the games. For years, I never really thought about the SNES or the games for it. I was perfectly content with the system I had and never really desired a replacement. However, that changed in1995 when I became friends with a Nintendo fan.

The Nintendo fan and I would spend a lot of time at school talking about video games, and even more time playing them at his house after school. As a Nintendo enthusiast, he had a large library of NES and SNES games, many of which I had never even heard of. Needless to say, discovering classics like The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Donkey Kong Country was a welcome surprise. As much as I looked forward to playing his newest games and reading about upcoming titles in his latest issue of Nintendo Power, it never really occurred to me that I could own these games as well.

By 1998, things were different. The Nintendo fan and I were no longer good friends, and the Genesis and SNES were no longer big names in the gaming world. The PlayStation and Nintendo 64 had been out for some time, providing gamers with a new era of gaming. 3-D games like Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider were ruling the market, making the sixteen-bit systems of the early nineties obsolete. Stores were beginning to clear out the old games, including a local video store, which had used Genesis and SNES games marked down to two for ten dollars. I only took interest in the Genesis sales since it was the only one of the two systems that I owned.

By October of that year, all thoughts of owning a Super Nintendo had been long-gone from my mind, which is exactly why I never expected to find one in the stores while looking for Nintendo 64 games for my brother. Nintendo had recently released a remodeled version of the SNES in the attempt to cash in on the system one last time. Apparently it was not too successful of an attempt because these SNES model 2s were selling for the extreme value price of $30. I thought “surely my parents will buy it for me now.” I thought wrong. Despite the low price point, my parents were insistent that I did not need another video game system, especially a defunct one.

After a month of begging for the system and getting the same negative results, I came to the realization that it was almost December and Christmas was right around the corner. I made up my Christmas list as soon as possible, placing the SNES as item number one. If memory serves me correctly, it was also numbers three, five, seven, 14 and 15. I thought for sure that come the 25th, I would be sitting under the tree, opening my very own Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

After weeks of impatient anticipation, Christmas morning arrived. My tradition of waking up far too early continued and, as usual, my family gave in to my nagging after a few short minutes and got up as well. After looking through the stockings and passing out all of the gifts, we began to open presents. My first gift was a Genesis game bought from the two for ten dollars sale. My second was as well. So was my third, and my fourth. With every Genesis game that I opened I grew happier, but I also slowly began to realize that I probably would not be getting a Super Nintendo. I figured that there was no way my parents would buy me a new system when I had all of these games to play. I looked forward to playing my new copies of Battletoads and Double Dragon, Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition and Virtual Bart, and as I opened up my twelfth Genesis game, I became content with the fact that the rest of my gifts would probably be more Genesis games.

Just as I had come to peace with that fact, I picked up a slightly heavier gift. I slowly tore off the wrapping paper to reveal the words “Entertainment System.” Realizing what I was unwrapping, I quickly finished the job to reveal my very own SNES. Without hesitation, I got up and started running around my house like a crazed weasel filled with excitement. After I calmed down, I finished opening my presents. I was not prepared for all of the games I would receive. Classics like Super Punch Out!!, Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, Star Fox and Mega Man X were all in my possession, and I could not have been happier.

As soon as everyone finished opening their gifts, I proceeded to set up my Super Nintendo. With a little help from my brother, I got the system up and running in just a few minutes. I knew that I wanted to try all of my games before I really got involved in a single one, so I put in Super Punch Out!! I quickly learned how to dodge attacks and provide offense of my own: Boxing had never been so fun. After defeating the first two characters (both by TKO), I was torn about what to do. I didn’t want to stop playing, but I knew that if I did, I could try out another game. I decided to stop Super Punch Out!! and play Star Fox, which provided the exact same problem. I did eventually try every single SNES game that had been given to me, and as soon as I did, I went back and tried them all over again.

Unfortunately, my game playing had to come to a temporary pause after a few hours as I was called away to partake in my family’s traditional Christmas dinner. As much as I enjoyed home-made lasagna, I could not help but think about my newly acquired games. With each forkful I stuffed into my mouth, a new thought would enter my mind: “I wonder what the second level of Star Fox is like” or “I bet I can beat that boss in Mega Man X next time I try.”
By the time I was able to get back to my SNES, it had been a whole two hours, but I went right back to where I left off. Now if I could only decide which game to play next.