Post for: #NES ^{(23 Posts)}

About a month ago I was introduced to the YouTube channel of Hungry Goriya, and I honestly don't know how I hadn't heard of them before (proof that the YouTube algorithm must be awful)! They had a video called 9 NES Favorites (So far), and the way she spoke of these games made me want to really try them for myself. Not try as in fire up the emulator and play for a few minutes and put them away kind of try, but really sit down and try to learn these games. Two of them on the list I had finished already, Kid Icarus and Darkwing Duck, and I'd only played a few of the others.

Jammin Honey is a hombrew NES game that scratches a nostalgic itch that I'm not sure too many people besides me have. There was a game in the 1980s on Commodore 64 called Jumpman, and my best friend and I loved the heck out of that game. The graphics were simple, but readable, the music was sparse, but catchy, and the action was frantic. It was a series of single screen levels where you had to collect these orby things while robots and other enemies tried to kill you. What made the levels really fascinating was that sometimes when you collected an orb, it would change something in the level, like a platform or ladder might appear enabling you to get to places you couldn't before.

As I was looking around Archive.org recently for Nintendo Power magazines, I stumbled upon this gem of a video that instantly transported me back to my early teens, browsing the Toys R Us video game aisles. It's the Nintendo Power Previews 1994 laserdisc!

Here we are, issue number one, and it starts off SUPER strong with the iconic cover art! Mario looks fantastic, but let's take a moment to appreciate the impressive clay rendition of Wart. They really nailed it! In another decade most game magazines would just be using official artwork for covers, and it always seems so bland to me. I love when artists in these old magazines were allowed to go weird and wild. And as we'll see inside, boy did they ever!

Nintendo Power magazines are still one of those huge ways I can get a dose of pure nostalgia so quickly, especially those old issues. From the unique art they used on their covers to the very Japanese style of layout they employed. From the sometimes weird illustrations they would have in their pages to the oh so beloved comics like Howard and Nester. I'll sometimes just grab a random old issue and flip through it, reliving a time when this was my one connection to the latest video gaming news and strategies for beating the toughest games.

I thought this was kind of a funny coincidence since the Tetris movie had just happened and everything. So I and some friends and colleagues have a Tetris high score board going. We play the NES game on game A, and for a while I was in second, then eventually bumped down to third. Last week I hopped in for a round, not really planning on doing much, but just playing to play. And I…