I can’t express my enthusiasm for the N64 before it was released. I was SO on board for whatever Nintendo had in store for us. Then I sat around waiting 3-6 months for every game while the other systems had more good games see release in a month than the N64 had in a year and...traded it for a Saturn and never ever looked back.
The food was bad, the portions small, the prices high. It sucked. N64.
I was so pumped for the N64 as a kid when they started rolling out advertisements.
I was like oh f*ck oh f*ck oh f*ck.
Me and my friends would basically piss ourselves talking about it at the lunch table. "SIXTY FOUR BITS ITS GOING TO LOOK LIKE OUTERSPACE. I HOPE IT DOESN'T BURN OUR HOUSE DOWN. MAYBE WE WILL GET A SUPER METROID 2. HOLYSHIT ZELDA"
We were oblivious to Sony Playstation. I only vaguely knew of Sony as a thing because my Aunt's CD player said Sony on it.
For Xmas the one year I was like YEAH N64. I NEED ME ONE OF THOSE. SONY ? WHATS THAT.
I played Tekken and some other stuff at my aunt's. "This is cool but Nintendo is cooler. The CDs can't be that important otherwise Nintendo would use them too!". ... deep down I knew Sega CD/TGCD stuff was onto something because of like, Lunar 2. Deep down, my child self was kinda worried.
Then I played Star Fox 64 at Sears and was like "... this is ... what this controller why grandma im confused at this thing, its OK I guess." She was kind of sad because I wasn't too enthusiastic about Nintendo. That was like the go-to thing.
and then I saw it.
I saw it.
FF7 was on
Playstation, not on N64.
I'd seen the commercials, but didn't really process that it wasn't on a Nintendo machine. I just assumed it was going to be on a Nintendo machine.
My brain was already trying to reason with itself to explain the gap between FF3 and FF7.
"Oh, Mystic Quest must be 4. Or maybe it's 6, and the game boy games are 4 and 5 but wait there's too many on gameboy. Maybe Adventure doesn't count. Maybe Mystic Quest doesn't. It's OK."
Boy, once I pieced that shit together. That's how I discovered emulators and ROMs. Playing the actual FF2 and FF3 on NES.
Anyway, I saw FF7 on display at Sears. SONY PLAYSTATION all over the place. Cloud standing there looking at me like a prettyboy piece of shit.
Yeah kid. You want this. You want to see what this stupid building is I am staring at in the distance. You're only 9, but Tifa's tits are going to make you feel stuff. You're going to witness murder in 3D you little f*ck. TELL YOUR GRANDMA YOU WANT PLAYSTATION. DON'T BE A BITCH.
I was holding a milkshake from dairy queen and squeezed it and gasped. Shits leaking everywhere like Chunk in the opening of The Goonies.
"GRANDMA. HOLY f*ck. I DONT KNOW WHAT SONY IS BUT NINTENDO IS GAY I WANT PLAYSTATION"
Grandma's cracking up while trying to yell at me. Her coworkers (she worked at Sears, lol) were trying to not laugh, too.
For Xmas that year, I got a Playstation. My dumbass friends all stuck to their guns and got N64s.
They f*cked up. You could see/hear it in their voices whenever they'd come over to play Playstation. They'd try to be like WELL N64 HAS... UH.. TUROK AND IT HAS A TRIGGER
... I HAD TO BUY A MEMORY EXPANSION BECAUSE UH... ITS BETTER THAN PLAYSTATION SO.
We were stupid kids man. but I was smart enough to not get a f*cking N64. I didn't squander my sweet Sears hookup Xmas present.
My grandma used to get sweet deals. She'd get dibs on layaways that people never came and picked up. So it would count as open box, and she'd get an employee discount.
Sears is going out of business now, and maybe that's why, but f*ck it. She got a Sega Genesis in 1991 for 65% off, brand new.
BTW: I got PS1 Xmas of 1997. Slightly behind the curve there. I was 9. SNES/TG/Genesis were fine, sorta. lol.
That was a magical f*ckin time to be a cracked out kid looking for games. FF7 was a year old and I traded in Kid Chameleon, Shaq Fu, and Risk for Genesis, and got FF7.
I didn't get FF7 at Christmas, and was sort of disappointed, but only kind of. It came with an FF7 demo in it. My grandma was like "See if you like it before you buy it."
I didn't understand what a demo disc was.
It was f*cking brilliant. That thing came with the FF7/Bushido Blade demo, and the other demo disc that had Fighting Force, Tomb Raider 2, Die Hard and a bunch of other shit on it to play.
Remember the demo cartridge compilations for N64 so you could sample all the ga..... oh.
lol.
That Christmas was like a coked out roller coaster ride anyways.
That side of the family (my dads) came over for Xmas eve and we did shit at night, and then in the morning we went to my other side of the family's house.
I was that weird kid that opened small things first. The big stuff waited. The first thing I opened was Oddworld. I kept seeing the commercial for it, and was f*cking nuts for it.
I was like "I don't have a Playstation... I can't play this." My mom took it from me and goes oohhh sorry... that's for your aunt/uncle's Playstation we gave it to you by mistake.
Me being 9, I was too dumb to piece together anything and just believed them and got sad. So I opened other stuff. Literally remember nothing because I was about to kick the tree out the goddamn window.
and then I open the last thing, and I didn't know what the hell it was at first because the PS1 box was red/gray/kind of plain until you ripped open and saw the top part.
Once I realized what it was, I had a stroke basically. Super amped up. HOLY SHIT LETS PLAY THIS THING. ---> Get told we'll hook it up in the morning ---> could not sleep. Rolled around like a fish out of water.
In a twilighty daze at like 10am, my dad was like "hey retard" (yes, this is how we all communicated, lol), "lets go hook it up".
I shot up and did that thing where you stand up too fast and black out. Faceplanted in the dining room, skidded, got called a retard again, and then we went and hooked that bitch up.
I popped in the FF7 demo and we all sat there like "Holy f*ck that is 3D as f*ck" and just stared at it. It was great.
Playstation f*cking ruled. Jumping Flash, Tenchu, Metal Gear Solid. My friends all f*cking hated me. I still go "dhruhdrdr QUEST 64. hduhrudrh" to my one friend to pick on him for being an idiot.
Ha, no shit. I’ve been doing my best to buy Nintendo hardware that wasn’t purple or clear purple or gold and it turns out N64 kids love that shit. Yet another side affect of eating breakfast cereal for every meal of every day, which as we know, N64 fans do.
I always wanted a Watermelon N64 but never got one. I just have a regular piece of shit one.
I once rode my bike to Funcoland to buy one because they claimed they had one.
I got there, they didn't have it, so I walked out with a Sega Saturn and Magic Knight Rayearth for a grand total of 60$.
Great things happen when you don't buy f*cking N64.
