You know what makes me angry? The whole notion that everybody has said the NES was a defining console generation and they are correct — and I was NOT part of that generation.
When American kids were unwrapping their brand spanking new NES’s in ’85 I was hanging out in Manchester with my ZX Spectrum waiting for Nintendo to release “that magic” machine to the UK for another 18 months. And by the time they finally arrived here in ’87 (and with that bizarre front loaded cartridge slot that bore no resemblance to the sleek NES released in America) I’d already moved on to the Commodore 64 and looking longingly at the Amiga 500.
I am angry at gaming nostalgia because American gamers look upon the NES as a kind of universal childhood experience whilst British gamers saw it as just another expensive import that showed up late to the party. My parents had already sunk a small fortune into computers and there was no way they were going to sink another £150 on “another games machine.”
But…that being said…I did eventually get my hands on an NES but not when it mattered. My friend Dave got an NES for Christmas in ’88 and I spent endless hours at his house playing Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. As a 12 year old that thought he knew everything about gaming I knew that something special was happening.
That first time I picked up that large heavy grey controller…it felt good. None of that floppy joystick nonsense like in almost all computer games. Just a nice solid D pad that worked perfectly every single time. Mario moved with a smoothness that my Spectrum games could never match and the music…man…the music was etched into my brain after about 10 minutes of play.
I recall thinking I was pretty annoyed that this thing was so darn good. I had a Commodore 64 with the best SID chip money could buy and a disk drive and yet this inexpensive piece of plastic was questioning all of my assumptions about the hierarchy of gaming. The graphics may not have been better than what I had at home but they were cleaner in some way more precise.
Dave and I would take turns playing Super Mario Bros. for hours on end trying to locate every secret item and warp zone. We had made maps on our school notebooks marking each of the secrets we had located. At this point in my gaming career (pre internet pre gamefaqs.com) you learned the location of the 1 up mushroom on the screen through trial and error and word of mouth at recess.
Duck Hunt was simple but that stupid dog still wants me to throw the Zapper at the TV. We would try to determine who could shoot the most ducks and there was always that moment of fear when the ducks began flying quicker in the final stages of the game. The light gun technology was pure magic…point at the screen pull the trigger duck falls down. How did it KNOW WHERE YOU WERE POINTING?!
There were also games that I had only dreamed of playing. The Legend of Zelda cartridge alone cost more than most full priced Amiga titles and Dave’s parents weren’t going to spend their money on it just so their son’s pal could go over and play it. I read about it in mags gazed at screenshots memorised reviews and didn’t even get to play it until years later when I purchased my own NES as an adult collector.
And THAT IS WHY I GET CONFUSED BY GAMING NOSTALGIA. To the Brits the NES existed in a parallel universe where amazing games were always just outside our reach. We would receive European versions of some games months/years after they were released in the States. Sometimes we would receive entirely different games that happened to share the same title. The disconnect was massive.
Metroid was another game that captivated me from afar. The concept of playing as an armoured space warrior exploring alien worlds and gaining new abilities that would allow previously inaccessible sections…this sounded incredible. When I eventually got to play Metroid proper in the 1990s I was amazed that Samus Aran was a woman…even though I had known that for years via mags that spoiled all the secrets.
Mega Man II was the first NES game I ever owned purchasing it from a boot sale in the mid 90’s for a few quid. The guy selling it to me had no idea how much it was worth and I wasn’t going to tell him either. Mega Man II was famous for its level of difficulty but there was something addictive about discovering the boss patterns for each of the bosses finding out which weapon each of the bosses’ weaknesses were and gradually improving at each section that originally seemed impossible.
What struck me most about the NES library was how…American it all seemed. Not in a bad way but certainly differently than the European gaming culture that I was accustomed to. Our games were often strange experimental sometimes brilliant and sometimes totally insane. But NES games were…polished commercial and seemed to be created to appeal to as many people as possible. There is nothing inherently wrong with that philosophy…obviously it worked…but it was a completely different philosophy than companies such as Ultimate Play The Game or Sensible Software.
Castlevania was available on a number of computer formats but playing it on the NES was an entirely different experience. The precision controls the atmosphere and the manner in which each of the sub weapons truly functioned…there was little doubt that Castlevania was created FOR the NES…not some haphazardly ported version of an arcade or computer game.
Contra became legendary amongst my friends primarily due to the Konami Code and simply the fact that it was ridiculously difficult without the additional lives provided by that code. The co operative multiplayer mode was something that we rarely experienced in computer games and seeing two people working together to clear screen after screen of enemies was clearly exciting.
The social aspect of NES gaming is something I was unable to participate in during the heyday of the NES. By the time I had regular access to an NES most of my friends had upgraded to 16 bit machines. However I believe I understood the appeal….games designed to be played for short periods of time easy to use controllers and multiplayer modes that actually worked. This was social gaming done correctly…years before anyone coined the term.
In reflection I can understand why Nintendo achieved what they did with the NES….they took an entire dying industry and transformed it into a smoothly operating machine with quality games reliable hardware and entertainment designed for fun not just to show off technology. The continued success of their flagship franchises nearly 40 years since the NES debuted demonstrates that they were successful in achieving something fundamentally correct.
However…I still feel like I’ve missed out on something fundamental….not just the games themselves….I’ve played virtually all of the classic games via whatever means….but the collective cultural experience of growing up with Mario Link and Samus. When American retro gamers nostalgically reminisce about the NES there is a common language of memories that I can only partially understand.
The NES was certainly a generation defining console….just not the defining console of my generation….in my country. We had our own classics our own shared experiences and our own cultural icons. Occasionally I ponder what 12 year old me would have thought if he had received an NES under the tree instead of another update to my computer. Would I have grown into a different type of gamer? Would I still have enjoyed the odd European game that established my taste?
Most likely neither and perhaps that is okay. Gaming history isn’t just one story….it is thousands of separate stories based on where and when you grew up. Whilst the NES defined a generation it was clearly not the sole element that influenced the gamers of the late 80’s. Even though we who pursued alternative pathways ultimately wound up at the same destination….old guys with too many old consoles telling our wives and kids about the games that meant something to us decades prior…we each travelled our own unique pathways.
David runs a pub in Bristol and has transformed his back room into a functional shrine to arcade cabinets and early home systems. By night he writes about arcade culture, MAME emulation ethics, and why certain games simply feel different on original hardware versus emulation. He brings a perspective that matters: he owns these machines, maintains them, and plays them regularly, rather than just holding memories of them. His technical knowledge of arcade hardware is matched only by his ability to explain why authenticity genuinely matters to the experience.
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