So I'm going to try to make every post in this blog at least somewhat Japan related. I read that to have a successful blog, you should only write pertaining to the theme of your blog. For example, if you have a travel blog, you should write about your travels, not about your political views, or how cute your dog back home is. This is supposedly because people are coming to your blog for a specific purpose, and might not care about the other parts of your life. I suppose this could be true, although I can't say I won't ever have an unrelated post.
Lately I've been doing some hardcore cleaning of my room: making sure everything is spotless before I go to Japan. I came across all my old SNES games and felt compelled to take pics of them all--not really sure why. I figure since the SNES is Japanese and most of the games were made in Japan, it was related enough to post in this blog ^_^
懐かしいなぁ。。。
The Mario shot.
Some of the games in this collection have my name on the front. My Dad did this when we first got the SNES in 1991 to differentiate my games and my sister's games. My sister owned maybe one game so that was rather pointless :P
Super Mario World was one of the three games I got with the SNES itself when it first came out (the other two were Pilot Wings and F-Zero). I may have played that game more than any other SNES game. I still remember getting super depressed when I beat the game after many months (I was really bad at games back then) and the text "Mario's adventure is over," came up on the screen. I didn't want it to be over :(
Misc. shot.
Batman Returns is surprisingly a fantastic beat 'em up game, in the vein of Final Fight. Movie-based games back then and even now are notorious for being horrible 99% of the time; this game was an exception.
Axelay and Plox are both games I rented when I was young, then bought when I was much older. Neither aged as well as I had hoped >_< Actraiser 2 is immensely fun, but it is so insanely hard that I could never get very far without getting frustrated. Never played the first Actraiser.
Sports shot.
Yeah, I know MK2 isn't sports, but I only had three "sports" games, and only one fighting game. This MK 2 cartridge has quite a history behind it. Back in the day, when MK 2 was new, my dad forbade me from buying it, because it was too gory. This was killing me because I wanted no game more than MK2. This was THE game at the time. Everyone was playing it, all the time.
So one day I went down to Blockbuster on my bike with my friend, Cyrus, and I saw this cartridge in a used bin. I bought it and played it with Cyrus and his sister in secrecy in my room. The problem with my room is there's no lock on it. So we would take turns sitting in front of my room door while the other two played, so if my Dad unexpectedly burst into my room, we would have three seconds to shut off the system and hide the game.
Of course one day that exact scenario happens, as poor Cyrus is blocking the door. My Dad tries coming into my room only to have the door shut in his face as it's starting to open. We all panic, and throw the game into the corner of the room as he finally bursts in. We three of course are looking EXTREMELY suspicious and start to sweat. He asks us what we were doing and why we were blocking the door. I can't remember what lie we came up with.
Once Cyrus and his sister left my house, my Dad sat me down and asked what was really going on. I eventually caved and told him the truth. To my relief he started laughing. "Oh I thought you kids were doing drugs or something in there," was his response. We laughed together; I asked if I could keep the game; he said no and took it away from me--ass. Around 2008, my Dad comes into my room with this MK 2 cartridge. "I found this while cleaning the garage," he says. Reunited, and it feels so good!
P.S. F-Zero is still the best racing game ever.
2's shot.
The Final Fight series is my favorite of the beat 'em up genre. Some say the Streets of Rage series is better, but while I like that series too, Final Fight is better, if not for one reason alone: better hit detection. The single most important quality in a beat 'em up game is good hit detection. Streets of Rage was a little off, as were most other games of the genre. What I mean by this is when you punch an enemy, he reacts/recoils a fraction of a second after he should. Final Fight, even from the first game, had perfect hit detection. It made the entire game so much more fluid.
And the EWJ games are still the funniest games ever made. I think I was the only person alive that actually enjoyed the EWJ 1 level where you're in the glass bowl vehicle, running a gauntlet in the water.
The Konami shot.
Not much to say here. The best Contra game of all time. Besides SOTN, the best Castlevania game of all time. The best TMNT game of all time.
RPG shot.
Earthbound: a classic. Such a unique game, and on my top five games I regret never beating list! One day...
Equinox and Y's 3 haven't aged that well. Y's is smash-your-head-against-the-wall-hard. I remember playing it for the first time since I was little--after I got it from Ebay--and dying to the first enemy multiple times.
Capcom shot.
The X series is amazing. I always eagerly await new Mega Man and X games, not because of the enjoyment I get out of them, but to see what bosses they come up with. It's hilarious to see them run out of ideas. For example the first few Mega Man games had awesome guys like, Ice Man, Fire Man, Cut Man, Skull Man, Spark Man, etc. and by Mega Man 6-10 it was shit like Ski Man and Fart Man or some such.
Same with the X series. X1 had Chill Penguin, Flame Mammoth, Sting Chameleon, etc. By X4 I'm pretty sure the development team was huddled around the T.V. nightly, hoping biologists had discovered some new species. Instead I think they just started making animals up.
Misc. shot 2.
Tetris Attack is tied with the original Tetris and Lumines as the best puzzle game ever, in my opinion. I remember owning at Tetris Attack so much for so many years that eventually all of my friends refused to play me in it. Then one day in college my friend, Amitoj, mentions he loves that game; with a smirk on my face I ask him if he wants to play me. He agrees and then proceeds to to utterly destroy me in about 10-15 consecutive matches. I was devastated. I finally ended up winning one match, and then refused to play anymore, so I could at least say I won our last game--which pissed him off.
Nintendo shot.
This was the best Zelda game that ever was and ever will be. I remember DKC1 was such a big deal when it came out that a kid in my elementary school brought it to school in a zip-lock bag to show it off. And it worked: kids were lining up to see it.
Misc. shot 3.
Best Metroid game ever. And best Bomberman game ever. Bomberman 2 was soooo fun multiplayer. I had the multitap and four controllers, and would often bring it over to friends houses, even once the SNES had long since peaked.
Awesome shot.
I found this gem while puttering around the local mall in Ozakazi, Japan, while I was studying there for three months in 2009. I nearly gasped. Ogre Battle is super rare in the U.S., and here it was, with a good-condition box and instruction manual, for roughly $5. Maybe it's not rare in Japan, but I had to have it.
Dang, I wish I could write food reviews with as many words as I can with video games.
