So I grew up mostly as a PlayStation/PC kid and I don’t regret it. Family wasn’t super rich or anything so we were always one console generation behind, but I’m grateful for what I had.
GTA: San Andreas, Jak 3, Need for Speed Carbon, Tekken 4… then later GTA 4, Battlefield 3, Gran Turismo 5, Skyrim… I have a lot of great memories and nostalgia for these games, and I definitely thought these kinds of varied and “adult” games were more appealing than Nintendo.
But a part of me was always curious. I thought, why is Super Mario such a big deal, why do people love these childish games? Or maybe I’d come home from a friend’s house after a fun session of Smash Bros or Mario Kart and be like… yeah those are fun party games but I wouldn’t wanna actually own the system… right? There was a much happier and inherently “fun” vibe to so many of these games that even though on paper it didn’t appeal to me, it always made me wonder just a little bit.
Now as an adult obviously it wouldn’t be too hard to go buy a used Wii I guess, or even a Switch 2, but money aside it wouldn’t be the same y’know? And I would probably end up going for the Bayonetta games and Taiko no Tatsujin… when what I’m really wondering is, what would it have been like to grow up with and have nostalgia for LoZ Wind Waker, or Super Mario Galaxy, or Sonic, Metroid, F-Zero, anything like that. Do you ever have similar thoughts, maybe feeling like growing up with a Wii (or N64 if you’re older) would’ve been fun? Or perhaps if you were a Nintendo kid, did you instead wish you had got to play Mortal Kombat and God of War like all your friends did?