Turning 40 - Gamer Edition
With it being the 35th anniversary of Super Mario, Nintendo has added Super Mario All-Stars to the Switch Online Super Nintendo library. I still think about the fun and joy I had as a kid playing through Super Mario Bros 2 and 3. But as is usually the case, with joy comes misery.
Super Mario Bros 2, while very different from the first and third games in the series, elicits two very different responses from me. The first is that child like sense of wonder because of how different and dream like the world in the game is and how, back then, the game was pretty difficult to master. The other response is that of frustration and a sort of grief. The first time that I encountered this game was on my nephew’s birthday. He asked for it for his birthday and was a total asshole about wanting to be the first one to play it. In retrospect I wish I had just told him to shove it up his ass and skipped out on his birthday party. But being the dumb little kid that I was a played along with his bullshit for just the opportunity to watch the game in action. Feasting on scraps, if you will. I wish I didn’t associate such a wonderful game with such a shitty person. It also still bothers me that, years down the line, his brother was the only one that reached out to me when I decided to take my leave of my biological family when the three of us were pretty inseparable growing up.
Super Mario Bros 3 was, at the time, the biggest game I had ever seen or played. Mastering it was a challenge that I very much looked forward to upon its release, but yet again, I played along with whatever attitude I was getting from family just to see it in action or to get the chance to play it myself. A few years after the game’s release if I recall, I had finally beaten it on my own. With no one to share that victory with, no one that really cared what I had accomplished, it felt like a pretty hollow victory. But it was still a victory. I guess it was at this point I had figured out that (serious) gaming was pretty much my thing and not anyone else in my family.
I hate remembering good times I had with people who ended up being really shitty to me.