My dear daughter,
When I got a Nintendo NES it was actually a Top Game CCE (from a Brazilian manufacturer). It was nice because it accepted cartridges in the Japanese and American formats. It sucked because you couldn’t remove the controllers, the cables were permanently attached to the console. And they didn’t have the same shape as a NES controller.
Mostly it sucked because it didn’t bestow the same status as a NES or a Famicom. Back then I cared a lot about status. When you’re a kid, status is more important than money or knowledge.
My Nintendo came with Mega Man 3. That’s a really good game and the title music is great. I can play it on the guitar nowadays. I don’t think it’s better than Mega Man 2’s, but it’s still pretty good. After a while I think I got Super Mario 3, one of the best Marios ever. Other than that, I mostly rented games from the club’s video rental store. I must have rented the whole NES shelf, I remember watching the salesman playing some of them for hours at the store even before I had a NES. Some of the games I rented wouldn’t even work but I remember renting them at least twice in hopes they would work on the second try. Most of them sucked anyway, as I found out later with emulators.
My parents brought me to the club almost every weekend. We would get there very early in the morning and the first thing I did upon arrival was go to the club’s video store, as soon as it opened. Then I would spend some time choosing a game. After that, I’d spend the rest of the day wishing I was home, and pestering my parents about leaving earlier to get home and play.
After we were already living at Rua Coronel Oscar Porto, near Avenida 23 de Maio, I finally got myself a Sega Genesis. It was actually the Japanese real deal, the Mega Drive. A friend of my father went to the USA and we asked him to bring me a Mega Drive. He had a hard time finding one, because I should have asked for a Genesis, which is what they have there. It was very frustrating when I got the Mega Drive because it had one controller and no games, so I couldn’t play. I could just stare at it. I had dreamed about it for so long and I could just stare at it. Then I got a crappy shooter called Gynoug and still couldn’t play it, because I needed to have my Japanese Mega Drive unlocked, which I managed to do at a videogames rental store. There were quite a few of those back then.
I rented most of the Mega Drive games I played. The first time I played Landstalker was when I rented it. That was the single coolest game I had ever played in my life. I already knew about it because I had read everything about it in a Videogame magazine.
I had already played tabletop RPGs, I already knew Dungeons and Dragons, Hero Quest, First Quest, GURPS and had played game books, but videogame RPGs were relatively new. I had already read about Master System’s Phantasy Star, had played Atari’s Adventure and Swordquest, I think Final Fantasy VI had already been released for the SNES and I believe I had already played Zelda – A Link to The Past at Nama’s (George), but nothing was like Landstalker.
It was an action RPG with an isometric perspective, which meant you mostly used the diagonals on the controller. It was made by Climax, the same from Shining in The Darkness and the Shining Force series.
I rented it quite a few times, and eventually bought it. It helped me a great deal to learn English. I had my dad translate some stuff while I was playing, and the rest I learned by myself.
It had a very evolving and entertaining story, relatable and funny characters, catchy songs, good controls once you got the hang of the isometric perspective, and something very close to an open world.
I got so addicted to it, there was this birthday of mine where we had a play-party. I rented Landstalker to show my friends, and at one point I had been playing for so long in front of them it was almost time to go, and one of them (Amato) had to beg me to let them play a little.
Let’s talk some more about videogame RPGs tomorrow.
Love,
Dad
Aspergers Dad 