How I Got the SNES

I remember thinking I had no chance of ever owning a Super Nintendo. After all, as a kid living with your parents and playing it without them finding out is practically impossible. But somehow I managed it when the opportunity simply just presented itself.

During  Form Two, one of my classmate had a Super Nintendo system which he bought in the Netherlands when his father was stationed there briefly. This was a PAL system of course when most of the system you could buy locally here were either Japanese or American system. He only had one game that came bundled with the system which was the legendary Super Mario World, quite possibly the best bundled game even till today. So without the means of online shopping back in 1995, owning a Super Nintendo with just one game isn't very entertaining after awhile. He was desperate to sell the whole thing and in this lukewarm market I gladly took it off his hands for $12 if my memory is correct. I remember packing the Super Nintendo into my schoolbag and happily carrying it home that day without my parents noticing.

I'm not sure if everyone would agree with the rationale of paying $12 for a console which you simply have no feasible means of buying games for at that time. But the way I saw it I was plucking $12 down just to play Super Mario World, anything else afterwards would be a bonus. I was definitely not disappointed and managed to finished it numerous times with nothing else left to play. If you were wondering how I did it, I moved an unused television set into my room and waited for my parents to go to bed before playing it late at night.

Many years later, I re-discovered this SNES along with 5 games which I gathered over the course of time. When opening the box which I kept everything, I certainly was surprised because I must have bought these games much later and only played most of them sparingly.

Kept You Waiting Huh?

Time flies, I haven't had much to muse about in terms of games and 2 years passed since my last entry. Yikes

I loved writing and also reading my own blog, all these blogging are really meant for myself which some might find odd or ashamed to admit such. So while reading back some of my past entries recently, I stumbled upon a lie. Well not a lie actually but not the true for sure.

I do and still have a Super Nintendo.

Somehow when writing about Iwata passing in 2015, I have seemingly forgotten this and said I have always longed for a Super Nintendo. The Super Nintendo was not mentioned before unlike my early childhood years of playing the Nintendo Gameboy. Earlier this year while spring cleaning I stumbled upon my Super Nintendo. It was a great feeling especially when powering it up again, like finding a lost Christmas gift after all these years.

Sometimes certain memories just get buried away in some dark corner of the mind.

So now I have something to write about again.

Eternal Sonata

Dr. Franken is a Gameboy game that i remember with fond memories, especially since i had to pestered my dad to buy it for me from his business trip to US. During those days, it's hard to any game to be scary with pixelated 16-bit graphics, much less a GB game with just six shades of black. Dr. Franken went above and beyond most standard GB game, sure it wasn't scary back then and it sure as hell isn't scary now. But the level of detail packed into each room in the mansion is unlike anything you will come across in a 8-bit game or even a 16-bit game. Coupled with a soundtrack of endless moonlight sonata, Dr. Franken was able to evoke a creepy atmosphere that makes it memorable even if it features a mundane task of gathering the body parts of your dead girlfriend. The game features an intricate password system to make up for the lack of a battery backed-up save and an indication of how massive and deep the game is, i never got the same password twice during my time of playing it. Of course, it's pretty hard to considering the password is easily 16-letters long !

Like most great handheld games, it eventually inspire a sequel on the 16-bit Super NES and another back on the GB platform but this is where it all started. I can't believe how naive i was when i first played Resident Evil and heard jill playing moonlight sonata, thinking that it was ripped from Dr. Franken. I immediately thought of Dr. Franken which i still credit as the catalysis for my fascination with the survival horror genre and the game that made me believe video games could be scary even in the 16-bit era. If you are in the mood for some portable horror this halloween, you need to play Dr. Franken.

House of Memories

House of the Dead (the first one) is a game that i remember with fond memories, having played it with my schoolmates after school in the arcades though i never once got further than level 3 i believe. It's also a game with significant meaning for me as it was a precursor to my fascination with the survival horror genre. Sure there were plenty of other lightgun arcade games then which were more popular and far better than House of the Dead but i never once played any of them. The appeal of House of the Dead for me was always the idea of a haunted mansion and of course, the freakish monsters that inhibits inside it.

Interestingly enough, the first House of the Dead came out in the same year as the first Resident Evil game. By then, i had already given up on console gaming briefly after the Super NES era and have yet to be seduced by Sony charms. So Resident Evil fell completely out of my radar up until one day when i was looking for a new game to play on my PC and my best friend told me "Remember that game we used to play at the arcade, House of the Dead? You should totally tryout this game called Resident Evil, it's a bit like that except it's in third-person view. I bet you will love it."

I was sceptic and hesitant, even after seeing the boxart at my local game store which hardly gave me any clue what's the game about as it was the picture of the bleeding eyeball. Without the wonders of the internet to turn to during then, i had to take a gamble and sure enough, once the opening evil dead-style teaser played, i was hooked. If it weren't for Resident Evil, i would have probably gave up gaming during then but if it wasn't for House of the Dead i wouldn't even have taken the chance on it.

Over the course of the years, I did picked up the PC port of House of the Dead and eventually finished it but it sure doesn't feel as significant as it did back then. I have seen the other installments of House of the Dead playing in the arcades but never once played them. Now that House of the Dead 2 & 3 is returning to the Wii with a budget price, i'm pretty tempted to take a trip down memory lane and see what i missed out over the years.