Being born in early 1990, I came into this world on the cusp of the 16-bit era’s explosion on to the scene. Following Nintendo’s dominance of the 80’s, other companies sought to compete by simply overpowering the aging, but ubiquitous NES. Rather than futilely compete in the 8-bit marketplace monopolized by Nintendo, other companies moved on. NEC and Hudson released their Turbografx-16, and SEGA their Genesis; both 16-bit machines that outclassed the NES’ technical specs in all categories. This critical point in gaming occurred mere months before my birth, perhaps making me one of the luckiest bastards on the planet.
After an uneventful, and game-less, infancy, I was two-years-old and already interested in gaming. My cousin, who was 12 years old at the time, had the SEGA Genesis and an impressive collection of games. In this collection, he had a brand new game, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, which absolutely blew my mind.
Eventually, he plugged in a second controller, put it in my hand, and said “you are Tails.” I mindlessly followed him around as Tails, amazed how he was able to make it all the way to the Oil Ocean Zone before I was forced to leave by my parents. I am astonished how vivid my memories are of this time, despite my being a toddler. The impression that moment had on me truly changed my life.
As 1992 gave way to ’93, I spent more and more time exploring my cousin’s SEGA collection. Playing the likes of Streets of Rage 2, Mortal Kombat, with blood mind you [ABACABB… get over here ;)], and Golden Axe.
That Christmas I had one Goal: Get a SEGA Genesis. My pleas were noted and on Christmas day 1993, I received a SEGA Genesis and a selection of games including: Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2, and Kid Chameleon. I remember at first being confused when I took it out of the box, it looked much different than my elder cousin’s console. Now I know that I had the newly released Genesis Model II, while my cousin had the Model I, but at the time I thought I had a special SEGA just for kids like me.
That same year another cousin, who was my age, also received a Genesis with a similar collection of games. She, like myself, graduated from the same formal education program my older cousin provided. She and I also happened to be in the same preschool class, and following our daily 12:00pm dismissals we played the Genesis religiously.
Each day I brought my Genesis titles over in a lunch box so that we would have access to a larger library of games. Our 3-year-old selves struggled to complete the games, dying possibly thousands of times in Sonic 2’s “pink water board,” or in adult-speak: Chemical Plant Zone 2. I will never forget the sense of elation after we finally cleared this level and blazed on through to the latter portion of the game, finally dying on one of the Metropolis Zones. This same lunch box, along with some of my original Genesis titles, are still at her parents house in storage. It brought back so many memories, and that same sense of elation, when we came across the lunch box in recent years. I figured they had been lost to time, so it was encouraging to see that they still exist… perhaps we are long overdue for another run at completing Sonic 2?
These Genesis play sessions were abbreviated by forays into my uncle’s NES collection, prompted by my confusion that consoles other than the Genesis existed. After slaying thousands of ducks and crushing hundreds of Goombas with the help of my cousin, I yearned to include Nintendo in my collection. After much playground inquisition and in-depth research, I discovered that an improved, more powerful Nintendo console was already on the market for years: the Super Nintendo.
Therefore, my target for the Christmas of 1994 was the Super Nintendo. I gently, forcibly, aggressively reminded my parents of this desire on a daily basis. They made it seem as if it was a hard no every time; needless to say I was devastated. However, to my surprise on Christmas day I unwrapped a Super Nintendo with Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario World, and Super Mario All Stars; completing the best back to back Christmas combo of my entire childhood.
In the ensuing year, I spent so much time on my Super Nintendo that my parents started to realize how seriously invested I was in this hobby. This lead to me eventually obtaining Goof Troop, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, and a few other awesome games.
My fervor continued into first grade, despite only being allowed to game on weekends when I started “real” school. Before the start of first grade however, I finally completed a game on my own: Super Mario World, and it was the greatest feeling of accomplishment I had felt up to that point in my life. Finally traversing that dark hallway and figuring out how to defeat Bowser is a feeling I will never forget. I then revisited the game with an older, more knowledgeable friend, who helped me 100% the game in co-op, which was totally “tubular.”
Thinking back I am appreciative of all the support I had in my formative years in gaming. I am incredibly thankful for my older cousin for allowing a pestering toddler to tag along on his adventure to stop Dr. Robotnik, my female cousin who was always down for some co-op mayhem on the Genesis, and my parents for making the sacrifices necessary to get me all those games, despite struggling through the early phases of starting their own business at the time.
This period of my life is clearly one of the most influential time periods for me, despite being so early on in my childhood. The 16-bit era is my favorite era of gaming; I even created this website to talk about these games for crying out loud! Many of the games I played during this time I revisit almost yearly, which shows how timeless these classics are, and how lucky I was to come up in one of gaming’s golden eras.