I still remember my neighbor getting SMB 3 for his 10th birthday.
The size of the box was a giveaway. We knew it was a NES game before he unwrapped it.
When we saw that package it was fucking ecstasy. The party was over and we all ran to the tv to put the game in and watch.
I didn't have it myself either (until years later), but a neighbor down the street did. I remember all the kids in the neighborhood playing on that system.
IT'S THURSDAY YOU FUCK!!!
Post this kinda shit on a Friday so I can fucking dream.
It was Friday for over half the timezones on the planet when you posted that.
Do you have school tomorrow? 🤔
I have a job. I am currently getting ready to go to it. Then, since it is now Friday. I'm gonna order a god damned large pizza and then I'mma sit down in front of my big ass television set and play video games and eat pizza till I'm too tired to do either anymore.
Which, because I'm fucking old now, will probably be around 10:00 p.m. 😢
AND I'VE HAD SMB 3 FOR A LONG TIME
I remember the first time I heard of Mario 3 was in Nintendo Power issue 6:
“Mario will be able to fly, using a racoon tail as a propeller. Trust us. We'll tell you everything as soon as we can. Keep reading Nintendo Power for the latest.”
At the time, I pictured him wearing a coonskin cap and flying that way.
I remember going to see The Wizard because it revealed Warp Whistle locations.
I have a core memory of getting into my mom's car on a rare day (which happened to be my birthday) that she picked me up instead of me taking the bus home. Sitting there on the passenger seat was a copy of Nintendo Power Issue #11 that my mom had grabbed out of the mailbox (she had just signed me and my brother up for a subscription, and this was the first issue to arrive). I didn't have Super Mario Bros. 3 and wouldn't get it for another year maybe, but to be able to read all about this game was just so thrilling for my 13-year-old self.
10 minutes of blinking screen and blowing on the cartridge
The 8 year old me would be overjoyed! This was one of my favorite NES games, and there were enough good NES games that the title of "one of my favorites" means it was actually cream of the crop.
The 45 year old me would probably not be as happy, since I'd rather go to bed at a reasonable hour and crappy quality fast food pizza sounds like it's going to make me feel miserable if I have more than a slice or two anyway. Plus as awesome as SMB3 is and was, there are modern games I'd rather play at the moment if I were going to stay up all night.
Super Mario World was peak SMB for me. It took everything they did in SMB3 and refined it.
The only thing I think SMW was lacking was variety of powerups. You had fire and cape, plus Yoshi stuff. SMB3 had fire and raccoon, but also the weird, rare stuff like hammer, frog, tanooki, and the boot.
I've been following an indie dev working on a Mario-3-ish-clone and nothing excites me more than that it seems like they brought Kuribos boot back. Why is that stupid fucking boot power up from one level in SMB3 still so beloved? I don't know, but I feel it.
A raspberry pi running batocera has been a good cheap way I've been using to revisit some classics. You can integrate it with retroachievements.org too.
I don't have a name for the emotion I feel when I think of a 45 year old buying Pizza Hut..but it's some sort of sadness
Oh living the high life ordering pizzahut
Little Caesars pizza just hit different.
We only had domino's as a kid
Where my 5 dollar hot and ready people at?
Man, I miss being all agitated about the thing I bought, ordered or took as a gift. Idk if it's depression or just an aging thing, but I do miss being tempted like that. 1-day delivery and digital purchases kinda ruined it and I want an option to intentionally slow delivery down. Waiting and anticipating something that'd arrive on the X day added a lot to the value I see in a product.
I still get that when I buy things secondhand, from Mercari, Abe books, or other online thrift stores. I'm waiting for a cute tokidoki vinyl figure to show up. Maybe this week, maybe next. Who knows?
I still get that with anything that I don't buy from Amazon, also game releases that I've been following for a while (currently sitting patiently until the Elden Ring DLC finally drops for my time zone).
You can usually specify a delivery date. Just pick one week after the day you're ordering.
This is where selective memory wiping would be awesome . Can you imagine how awesome this could be to replace games like this, smw, and botw again for the first time (as long as there are no negative side effects from the process). I would love to replay the greatest heavyweights of Nintendo again for the first time.
Why would a 45 year old need permission to stay up late?
My wife's boyfriend doesn't want me to ruin my sleep schedule.
Sounds like a thoughtful guy.
It's a subversion of expectations because these posts are often about a time in your life where you wouldn't have a care in the world, so they end with "it's 1999 and you're 12" and instead it's saying "you can still enjoy those things, take some time to be happy"
I, too, have the game system set up on the bedroom TV because it physically hurts to get out of bed in the morning.
It'd be great if the spring on that particular model isn't crap out, forcing you to either use a game genie to have the console keep working or shove something inside to depress the cartridge.
Idk man, old games just dont have the same wonder and magic they used to and new games are just trying to suck as much profit out of me as they can.
42, but yeah.
