Memory Card: My Parents Unknowingly Shaped My Curiosity

People say everything we need to know we learned in kindergarten: Courtesy, taking turns, sensory activities, listening to instructions and the like.

We’re nowhere near masters of these fields by the time we move on to the First Grade but it really does teach us everything we need to know about the world beyond the classroom.

I was 7 when I got a Super Nintendo for Christmas and I can say, with little doubt or second-guessing, that it was the perfect gift. It came with Super Mario Bros (Becasue of course it did) but the first games I got for it were TMNT4: Turtles in Time and Bart's Nightmare.

And who wouldn’t want them? My childhood was a steady diet of cartoons, action figures and not nearly as much pizza for dinner as I wanted, and despite not being allowed to watch the Simpsons on TV Bart’s Nightmare was very much a trip through the dreamscape of a boy trying to recover his homework from monsters and insane cartoons living in his subconscious.

At any rate – my parents knew their child well and I believe it was the following Christmas that they did something that shaped my curiosity into what it has become today.

I don't know if it was a deliberate move but the first games my parents took a chance on were Best of the Best and Drakkhen.

BotB was a re-imagining of the 80’s flick but with more of a Fight Night meets Bloodsport vibe than a 2D fighting game had any business trying to create.

There was a training mode where you could spar, hit the heavy bag and work on your reflexes and stats that would raise based on the amount of work you put in.

Whether or not this made any difference in your character’s performance in the ring has yet to be confirmed.

It was a lot of fun by way of button mapping and measuring pixelated distance so your hits actually landed, but there was no way to save your game - so while it was a great game for sleepovers, it wasn't something you'd spent a lot of time playing unless you just decided this was the day you were gonna figure out how to get to the end of it and see how far it went.

Drakkhen was a completely different experience. When you start out you get to assemble a party of 4 adventurers and are given a bit of the lore of the world and direction to visit a nearby castle to truly start your adventure.

If you try, the game can apparently be completed in something like 8 hours but I don't recommend this. If you allow yourself to take in the world and really figure out how your party works best together this can be one of the coolest (Albeit shortest) Sword and Sorcery adventures you've ever played.

I found that doors don't always have hinges, the best treasures aren't out in the open and walking through water sometimes meant you fell prey to the things that lived in it.

I learned that potions weren't easy to find, there was never enough money to pay for everything you needed to get and if you weren't careful enough with the lives of your party members it took a days' journey to a temple to resurrect anybody.

And on the way you would get randomly attacked by a giant disembodied Doberman Pincer head.

Exhibit A:

Most importantly I learned Dragons could be more man than beasts and men could be less than human.

Things were new - wild and unpredictable.

They were dangerous and required more than a little caution. Or luck. Or quick thinking. Or reflexes or all of the above.

All of which I'd say I got my first real memorable taste of with a fighting game or RPG, even if I didn't know it at the time.

And that's where I find myself endlessly thanking my parents for what I've decided was foresight and a desire to expand my interests beyond cartoons because even today, some 25 years later, I still think back to moments of frustration or achievement or whatever passed for revelation that happened somewhere in that chapter of my life and feel it attached to everything from riding a bike on a paved road to learning to climb trees and sled down hills.

So, yeah. In short - my parents were visionaries and I love them very much.