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Thread: NES memories

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    Default NES memories

    I just got my copy of the 1989 variant of Metroid, CIB, semi-rough shape. Skimming through the manual I notice that they repeatedly refer to Samus as "he." I had figured they wouldve avoided pronouns altogether rather than deceive the reader. Maybe this was to good effect though for a kid playing the game for the first time in the 80s because itd have been more of a shock at the ending.

    Well anyways I threw it in my unmodded NES with original 72 pin that was last cleaned maybe a week ago with the original "pull out cleaner" thing that Nintendo made. For having not cleaned the cartridge contacts and my 72 pin being looser than Miley Cyrus on a Friday night, I was shocked to see that it started instantly. No blinking or garbled graphics. I consider myself very lucky at this point. I dont know how much longer this NES will last me given it likely was produced between 1988 and 1990. Gotta love that there are so few moving parts on the console, zero noise.

    When I heard that title music start up it instantly brought me back to the 90s and early 2000s. Of course we had the newer consoles but we still played the NES on occasion. Metroid was a game I never got very far on but I enjoyed it. I had always preferred Super Metroid because it was easier, more colorful, less repetitive, no annoying password. But I always wanted to give the original a shot.

    Well anyways this was a simpler time. There were no strategy guides for the game that I was aware of. There was GameFAQs in some capacity or another as well as Game Genie but the internet was slow and entering the cheat codes every time I wanted to play was tedious. So essentially I would just play it til I was too frustrated to continue.

    This leads me to what I feel was special about this period in gaming when there was still some mystery to these games. I never know what the hell Metroid meant (still dont actually) or any of the history behind the game. Hell I didnt even know where my mom bought the game in fact. For as long as I could remember we always had about 10-15 NES games and I sucked at most of them. Now there are speedruns of these games I had always considered impossible, full maps, strategy guides, videos, you can see the endings of all the games, etc.

    I embrace the present and what gaming is now because of the internet but every time I go back to these games I remind myself that information used to be very scant and you were damn lucky if you knew anyone else who had played these games (at least that were my age.) Most my friends were playing N64 or PS1 and many had played Genesis before moving onto said systems. But yeah no one my age was playing NES games in the mid to late 90s

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    I never know what the hell Metroid meant (still dont actually)
    The name 'Metroid' is referring to the enemy Metroid(s) in the game Metroid.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bb_hood View Post
    The name 'Metroid' is referring to the enemy Metroid(s) in the game Metroid.
    right, just meant that I didnt know where the name came from. I always assumed it was a portmanteau of "meteorite"

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    The earliest NES memory I have is from about 2002-2003, I would have been about 10. My good friend Zach had an NES with Final Fantasy. I didn't know what it was, I knew I was looking at an older console and game but I'd never really been exposed to anything that old. I didn't even find out about SNES until 2005, and I had a Genesis as my first console, and the N64 was the first console I ever played. Weird, I know. I knew that Sega Saturn and Dreamcast existed too.

    I didn't appreciate older consoles as a kid (before age 12). Always had to have the latest and greatest. I ended up getting my own NES in 2006 at age 13 and had some fun with it. I remember it being so special finally getting to play the original Super Mario Bros after 20 years.
    Real collectors drive Hondas, Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, etc... not Rolls Royces.

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    good times. NES cart prices were still reasonable then but I remember them starting to creep up back then even in 2003-2005

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    I remember back in '06 being able to pick up a good number of NES carts for $2-3, CIB they were usually $5-10 for most titles (the rarer/more desirable titles were more expensive than that). Master System games, CIB, were usually in the same $5-10 range.

    I remember going in to my favorite retro game store (Video Games Etc., Gallatin, TN) and getting 6-8 new games, usually CIB, for my collection for about $50, anything from Atari 2600-era to 32-bit era. VGE closed in 2009 (RIP) and nowadays $50 might get you 6-8 cart-only, common NES games.

    I've heard tales of them practically giving away NES games at Funcolands back in the late 1990s.
    Real collectors drive Hondas, Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, etc... not Rolls Royces.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    right, just meant that I didnt know where the name came from. I always assumed it was a portmanteau of "meteorite"
    Did You Know Gaming mentioned the inspiration for the word, but I forget what their explanation was.

    My earliest NES memory was going to a friend's house and seeing SMB. I don't know why but seeing Mario grow big amazed me. I remember later saying that he filled up the entire screen (I was like, five at the time).

    My first two NES games that I got for Christmas were... the Mario Duck Hunt cart... and Skate or Die. My parents chose the latter and I'm sure the former was a pack-in. I still have both to this day, but not the original packaging.

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    Metroid was named by Hirofumi Matsuoka at Nintendo. It was originally a combination of the "metro" that runs underneath the streets of Paris (an inspiration of sorts for the underground worlds of the game) and "android", as in the outward appearance of the main character. Naming of the enemy species came after the fact.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond Dantes View Post

    My earliest NES memory was going to a friend's house and seeing SMB.
    Mine too. I remember seeing SMB and immediately began drawing comparisons between it and The Great Giana Sisters that I played on my Commodore 64.

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    At the time the only video game systems my family had were the Atari 2600 and the Oddysey 2... I think we still have them actually, and we had a lot of Atari games... but I just remember my mind being blown by the NES as it just, there was nothing like it.

    I wouldn't get my own NES until a year or two later after moving to another state entirely...

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    Quote Originally Posted by WelcomeToTheNextLevel View Post
    I've heard tales of them practically giving away NES games at Funcolands back in the late 1990s.
    Depends on the game, of course. In the mid-late '90s, one of our relatives needed a game to test an NES they'd just gotten, and we picked them up a copy of Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt from Funcoland for 19 cents or so. Looking through the catalogs, the truly common games would be priced under a buck, while the more rare/desirable (at the time) titles were higher. I don't remember buying many NES games from them, but I did help myself to several accessories, which were very affordable back then. NES Advantage and Max controllers for $3 or $4 apiece, along with all sorts of oddball stuff like the Acclaim wireless controller set, and some oddball programmable controller which wasn't very useful, but it was neat nonetheless. Some games and controllers were not cheap even then; a NES copy of Ms. Pac Man or the Arkanoid Controller sold for as much as a NES Deck did (and twice as much as a NES copy of Arkanoid itself) in 1999. Of course, everything is relative; in the above-linked flyer, Stadium Events was priced at $0.29, compared to what it goes for now..........
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond Dantes View Post
    At the time the only video game systems my family had were the Atari 2600 and the Oddysey 2... I think we still have them actually, and we had a lot of Atari games... but I just remember my mind being blown by the NES as it just, there was nothing like it.

    I wouldn't get my own NES until a year or two later after moving to another state entirely...
    Going from a 2600 to an NES at five years old must have been a mind blowing experience. Especially, the 1st time you laid eyes on SMB. I still remember being extremely impressed with SMB even though I had already played The Great Giana Sisters on my Commodore 64 which is virtually an exact copy.

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    My first memory of playing one in person was when I went to a new friend's place around 1987/88. The first game I saw was "Mike Tyson's Punch Out". To me, coming from a VCS and a Tandy CoCo 2, this was like seeing a truly controlable cartoon. I was floored. Using the controller was an alien experience as I grew up with single button joysticks. He liked to tease about having something I didn't.

    Sometime in later 88 my parents got me an Action Set and the rest is history. When I got a paper route, from the time I started until the time I moved to acsmall town Freshman year, I rented and played over 100 games. Ooo my mom was pissed at this "waste of money". Years later I fired back and said I got a lot of entrrtainment for not a lot of money per cartridge.

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