Nintendo Franchises

Super Mario Bros - Completed (I can remember thinking that it was like Super Mario Land in colour. Strangely, though, despite playing it at a young age and having the potential to love it, I don't seem to have any emotional connection with this.)
Super Mario Bros - The Lost Levels - Completed (The story of this game is much the same as the aforementioned one. I cannot recollect any internal adventure or resplendent memory in my head in my thoughts for this game.)
Super Mario Bros. 2 - Completed (In the GBA version, I remember the overwhelming layers of sound coming out of my GBA's speakers when I went into a cave for the first time. The feeling of a handheld adventure with aesthetic abundance the likes of which I'd never seen on a handheld made this strangely exotic Mario game all the more exhilarating in the thought of what would lie ahead for the new GBA system. For this powerful memory, this Mario game is one of my favourites.)
Super Mario Bros. 3 - Completed (Having played it so late in the day--after World and World 2--I found Bros. 3 to be…almost a bit regressive. I suppose that's because I played it first as Mario Advance 4. For lacking the aural and level diversity of the prior two Advance games, I could never bring myself to feel much for Bros. 3. Perhaps more importantly, I was not at all fond of its music or its venues--and I didn't much want to remain in its world any longer than I had to.)
Super Mario Land - Completed (Rich memories of orange summer evenings outdoors, the smell of barbecue charcoal and a slight chill in the air, accentuated by the isolated warmth of the barbecue, colour my recollections of this game, which took me to locales that I've nary seen again in any other Mario game. From Easter Island to Chinese gardens, this was a Mario game that, more than any other, took me on summer holidays across the world just on the merit of a handheld cartridge. It is, in almost every way, the reason I feel antipathy for the perpetual recurrence of the Mushroom Kingdom, because this game is what gave me the expectation that Mario could go anywhere--even to places that resembled those on Earth.)
Super Mario World - Completed (I had waited a long time to play this by the time I finally got round to playing it. I'd seen screenshots in old catalogues of the game, and I'd heard of its legacy in magazines, long before I'd ever get a chance to play it as a GBA re-release. For me, it was that legendary and exalted Mario game that existed in a different era to my own. More than the game itself, that sense of being a precious and ancient relic remains entrenched in my memory.)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - Completed (This was the game that brought my primary school class together. I remember bringing a GB into school and playing this game on it during break-time, and everyone crowded around to catch a glimpse of the thing--because, for us youngsters out in the sticks, we'd never seen anything like it. Afterwards, lots of other classmates picked up a GB with this very game, and I remember us all exchanging word of our enterprises in the game, with most discussing adventures in the Tree World--where most got stuck and spent most time early on--and others thinking about how to get to the moon. Best of all were discussions about how to access the secret levels in each world. Along with Link's Awakening, this was a game world that I was living in with my friends. It might well be my favourite Mario.)
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - Completed (Its memories are shared with the first Mario Land. Wario's island was one that I spent those beautiful summer evenings traversing. It was a swampy world--a muggy treasure island perpetually cloaked in the evening light where I would tread through shallows and search behind walls of water to find secrets. Like Link's Awakening and Donkey Kong Land II, I loved the whole "desert island" feel--it was perfect for GB voyages during summer.)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - Completed (My abiding memory is waking up on school mornings, drowsy from a hot shower, and playing through a level of this each morning on my GBA before heading off to school. Something about the 'underground level' music in this game captures I how felt during that somnolent state in the early morning, desirous of extra sleep, and heavy with thoughts of the ensuing labours of the day.)
Super Mario 64 - Completed (There will never in my life again anything half as exciting as the day I got this game. I had to go to a cousin's graduation celebration with my parents in the evening before I could get home to play the game. I remember poring over the instruction manual on the glass stairs of a beautiful hotel, breathless with anticipation as I looked at the renders of Mario, doing flips, sliding up against walls, and doing a litany of other manoeuvres. This was my third game ever, preceded by Wave Race 64 and Mario Kart 64, and I simply could not comprehend how astonishing moving Mario about would be. I arrived home at around midnight, and at 7 years old I was well past it--but I spent five minutes watching the opening cutscene. I went to bed shaking.)
Super Mario Sunshine - Completed (Best memory of this was watching the clips on NGC Magazine's E3 2002 preview DVD. This was around the time my family got its first computer, so the memory of watching these clips on DVD couples with the enormity of what a personal computer implied in my head. As such, Sunshine gives me fonder memories than it might otherwise.)
New Super Mario Bros. - Completed (I did not like this. I half attribute this to the fact that I wasn't overly partial to the original SMB.)
Super Mario Galaxy - Completed (I can see so much in this that I know I would have loved--the dark colours; the deep and moving soundtrack; the design--it all looked, to me, like everything a Mario 64 sequel should be. But I am an inferior being and I was slain with motion sickness whenever I played it; and I could not abide the Wii controller.)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Completed (While I merely disliked the DS game, I rather actively hated this one. At this point, my feelings for Mario games were turning very, very sour as Mario revisited themes of worlds and aesthetics of worlds that reminded of the Mario games I felt nothing for. I was starting to realise that the Mario Land games and SMB2 were aberrations and would not be emblematic of a trend in 2D Mario games to be weird unto themselves.)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Played (Good memories of finishing exams, but none of the game itself.)
Super Mario 3D Land - Completed (This imported a lot of my frustrations with the NSMB games into a 3D space. I'm not happy with Mario's world evincing signs of being locked into an aesthetic mould.)
New Super Mario Bros. 2
New Super Mario Bros. U
Super Mario 3D World


The Legend of Zelda - Completed (Once upon a time, I hated this. Ocarina was my first Zelda game, and I had loved everything in it as new and original. That I could see elements of it in this game that I hated reinforced my hatred, because I felt like this first game was causing antipathy for something that I could link to Ocarina--a game I never wanted sullied. Eventually, though, I kind of grew to like the first game for just letting me go off and explore and fill in the blanks by myself. In a way, it let me be a kid again by letting me draw my own inferences and letting me devise a sort of plot of my own liking--because there wasn't one forthcoming.)
The Adventure of Link - Completed (Unlike the first Zelda, I liked this one off the pat. I like tropical beaches and the fact that the first dungeon in the game was a seaside temple just resonated with my own weird likings. It returns to that "desert island" fetish; it's nice to picture oneself as washing up on a desert island and exploring--and for me, the first place I'm going to comb is the beach. The second Zelda lets me imagine the world through this sort of lens, which got me off on the right foot and let me appreciate it for its own merits later.
A Link to the Past - Completed (I couldn't warm to this. I played it long after Link's Awakening, and it seemed devoid of LA's intrigue, aural variety and scenic variety. It seemed also to have a relative lack of general variety in terms of available actions. Not because it had fewer tools--it had more--but because LA demanded more variety in terms of approaches with the tools that you did have.)
Link's Awakening - Completed (It's everything that I would ever want in a game. It's a tropical island, all to yourself. It starts off with humble mysteries that you can create on your own--I had a personal sense of wondering when I read the sign for the "Mysterious Woods"--but it has its own mysteries, and they are great indeed. It is, at once, a very personal journey--there's no princess; at leisure, you could explore an island--and a grand one, informing you later on that your actions will beget the erasure of an entire island and its people. With friends, I found no dearth of secrets in LA, and we constantly referred back to each other for information, charting this hugely detailed island where every tiny square of the map had something to find in it--and that sense of adventure and discovery is something that I feel every Zelda should be about.)
Ocarina of Time - Completed (Christmas Day 1998. That opening cutscene. Wandering into the Lost Woods and accidentally stumbling upon a gate to the Goron City. It's too hard to piece together the strength of the emotions with this one.)
Majora's Mask - Completed (This was the first time, as far as I can recall, a game was able to elicit a genuine feeling of reverence within me. With its grim and occasionally sorrowful story, this was the first game I played where sadness and frequent absences of happy resolution pervaded. Watching the sullen king of Ikana turn to dust after describing a hollow soldier that could be conjured by the Elegy of Emptiness--itself a reflective and woeful bit of music omnipresent throughout the Stone Tower journey--brought with it recognition of the earthly gravity of death, something that Ocarina and its preoccupation with divinity and command over time seemed above.)
Oracle of Seasons - Completed (How wonderful was it that, early in your journey, you can stumble upon the gate to some ruins with four slots for something to be added. And how wonderful was it that, separate from your immediate priorities, you could--often by accident--find different key item jewels hidden in enclaves throughout the land…which could be inserted into the indentations at the ruins. Seasons made me so incredibly happy because it was, in some way, about piecing the world together, much like the first Zelda. And you could, if so moved, do it at your own leisure, with your own itinerary. Complement a relatively non-linear world with four different forms of the world, creating a diverse and intricate playground for exploration--one which, like LA, packs details onto almost every square of the map.)
Oracle of Ages - Completed (A more story-oriented Zelda than Seasons, Ages created a lot of those personal mysteries like LA did. Going to the graveyard in the present and then warping back in time would compel a "mysterious force" to send you back to the present. I can remember puzzling over what on earth existed at the graveyard way back in the past, because it was the one area in the game that seemed impossible to reach.)
Four Swords - Completed (No prevailing feelings one way or the other. I linked with a friend perhaps two times, in total, and Pokémon seemed a much more appealing prospect at the time.)
The Wind Waker - Completed (Though perhaps a bit more linear than I would have liked, it did create the illusion of exploration whenever you passed by an atoll and afforded yourself the time to disembark from the planned voyage and have a look around. Dragon Roost Island's music, too, would be the last bit of Zelda music I would hear for a long time that would genuinely touch me.)
Four Swords Adventures - Completed (I worked through this in Japanese and while I found the exercise intriguing I would eventually get a bit of a headache from it. It's not one of those games I'd wish to revisit.)
The Minish Cap - Completed (Never took to this at all, distressingly. I found it too--and this is going to seem rightly ridiculous--expressive for my liking. Mostly, though, I disliked its music, visuals, dungeons, and the aura these elements combined to create.)
Twilight Princess - Completed (Never had I been more excited for a game. But I found the actual thing completely contrary to my hopes and expectations. Though I think it has genuine problems, I'm resolved to accept that I perhaps see complaints beyond those which are fair--owed to it not being the game I wanted it to be.)
Phantom Hourglass - Played (No happy memories here.)
Spirit Tracks - Played (No happy memories here, outside of appreciation for a much more melodic soundtrack than PH.)
Skyward Sword - Completed (The trek to the first dungeon was, for me, magnificent, for it packed in all the detail I had desired since LA; and it showed off areas you wanted to access but couldn't for the present, inspiring a desire to play the game to fulfil your own desires for exploration. Nooks and crannies as far as the eye could see really made me think Skyward Sword was all that I wanted from a Zelda. Sadly, though, this did not survive the rest of the game. Revisiting areas if fun on your own terms, but not when the game does it for you in relation to a small number of overall environments. Repeated boss-battles--with one very big example being particularly irritating--made it very, very hard to want to finish this.)
A Link Between Worlds - Completed (It feels like a humble package overall, but it's the most fun with a Zelda game I've had since 2003. No particularly happy memories to recount, owed to the context in which I played it, but I love how immensely playable it feels--something I didn't remark when using touch-screen controls for the DS games.)


Metroid - Played (If I ever work out how to use save-states, I might be able to survive a few minutes in this.)
Metroid II: Return of Samus - Played (I rather enjoyed Metroid II for its mind-boggling upbeat soundtrack in the tunnels, but I didn't play enough of it to find that sort of depth or complexity that fascinates with most Metroid games.)
Super Metroid - Completed (One of those rare games that I have played in my dreams. The verdant Brinstar section became a labyrinth within which I got lost for quite a while, and its many sights and catchy music embedded themselves into my head so firmly that I saw them when I was asleep, and I imagined myself there, seeking out an exit.)
Metroid Fusion - Played (All told, I'm just not fond enough of 2D Metroid games to want to try any more of this--though I like getting occasional messages from someone in games where the loneliness starts to take its toll. It creates a tangible want for more contact. But, that being said, it seems you're seldom so cut-off that you can't at least generate the same contact again and again.)
Metroid Prime - Completed (Couldn't understand the appeal, at first. It was my first Metroid game, and I felt disoriented and uninterested due to a seeming lack of narrative. But when I hit Phendrana, it just clicked: I understood that the joys of Metroid came from exploring and finding new things through investigation and incremental gaining of power-ups to access those unreachable bits. Following this revelation, all the dislike I had for the first Zelda was dispelled.)
Metroid: Zero Mission - Completed (Save for liking the Norfair music, I was too reluctant to feel connection with my feelings at the time of playing Zero Mission, so I regret to say I didn't give it a chance to entertain me.)
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - Completed (It's my favourite Metroid. Every night, after finishing homework and study, I would spend about an hour getting deeper into Prime 2. I'd spent a lot of Prime not understanding its appeal, but I was ready for the Metroid experience in Prime 2 and so, throughout, I was able to enjoy it. I think Oxx said a few years back that the final third of Prime 2 is probably the best experience of any Metroid Prime game--and I agree: the Sanctuary Fortress experience, from its sights and sounds--unlike anything seen in the first Prime--to its deft interplay between Light and Dark worlds, was powerfully engrossing.)
Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - Completed (I did not like this! But I remember coming home after a long and tiring day in December and discovering the winter part of Bryyo not long before Christmas, and I felt a rare moment of connection between the real world and the one of the game--and that sense of connection goes a long way to entrenching oneself in a make-believe land.)
Metroid: Other M


Star Fox - Completed (It took me quite a while to get used to…whatever it was I was looking at. The only SNES game I have on cartridge, I have a great deal of affection for the Star Fox world, though I confess that I don't have any memories of the first game that stand out. But I love the unreleased Star Fox 2.)
Lylat Wars - Completed (I've written about my friendships with school friends and our experiences with games, but this was the one experience to tower above them all. The setting and intrigue of Lylat Wars impressed us all so much that we pretty much wrote our own stories of the paraphernalia of the Lylat System, writing ourselves into it and the game's own characters out. That aside, the best memory was definitely managing to get to Sector Y to the first time. I remember finally reaching Sector Z by going down that pathway and I didn't want to lose my progress--but I was due to go Christmas decoration shopping with my parents, so I left the N64 on. I spent the entire time away fearing that the N64 would catch fire from being left on too long.)
Star Fox Adventures - Completed (It has faults upon faults, but I love it for its beauty and its sound and for starring Fox McCloud who, despite being an uninterested sort of individual in this game, is still the avatar for one of my Big 3 Nintendo Franchises: Mario, Zelda and Star Fox.)
Star Fox: Assault - Completed (Wonderful memories of a summer in 2005 spent with friends in a foreign seaside apartment, playing the Sargasso Hideout level together, planning out how to get to the final target before getting killed for the umpteenth time. In a real sense, my friends pretty much served as my own sort of team, providing advice and assistance. That level notwithstanding, I would say I dislike the game, but that memory is a great one.
Star Fox Command - Completed (It's not what I wanted, but I care a lot for Star Fox, so even though I had apprehensions, I was still willing to give it a go.)


Donkey Kong - Played (Best memory here is trying to find out what the composer for the game did after composing the music for this game.)
Donkey Kong Jr. - Played (No memories.)
Donkey Kong 3
Donkey Kong Country - Completed (Though the first water level would be the obvious choice for best memory, my favourite one was reaching Vine Valley for the first time. Tonally, the game seemed a bit darker there. The composer switched for those levels, and they were moodier and less rich in sound layers. For me, I felt that old Jungle Book vibe, where the jungle itself feels forbidding and filled with danger. Mario's worlds were always out to get you, but I always felt more aversion to the creatures than the natural hazards. Donkey Kong was often much more about the enemies, and yet I felt a distinct sense of unease because of the visuals and sounds that it was the world itself that seemed out to get me. There's an animalistic sense of survival here--appropriate, all this considered.)
Donkey Kong Land - Completed (At least…I think I've finished it. Controls are wacky and unfair, but its homages to the DK games of old are heartwarming. Its main asset is its horrifically catchy soundtrack--catchier, even, than its SNES counterpart.)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest - Completed (Wasn't thrilled with this at first, but I remember mornings where I woke up very early and feeling poorly, and I spent time in a sleepy and dizzy state soaking up a game whose sounds are…in a strange way, almost transcendent. Marry the state of mind with that music and the experience could be certainly be described as ethereal.
Donkey Kong Land 2 - Played (Bafflingly musical implementation in the first levels made this game seem like a parody of its SNES version and so I took it none too seriously.)
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! - Completed (My favourite Country game, because it embodies throughout that feeling I try to describe in the entry for the first game.)
Donkey Kong Land III - Completed (My favourite DKL game, for its hair-raisingly consonant soundtrack, which takes the third SNES game's unusually sullen and understated sounds and makes them even more severe and threatening than the SNES equivalents. Underscores that survival of the fittest theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGFN9kavZIs)
Donkey Kong 64 - Played (OK, I'm pretty tired now so I'll write more if the compulsion takes me…)
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Donkey Kong Country Returns - Completed
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze


Super Mario Kart - Played
Mario Kart 64 - Completed
Mario Kart: Super Circuit - Completed
Mario Kart: Double Dash‼ - Completed
Mario Kart DS - Completed
Mario Kart Wii - Completed
Mario Kart 7 - Completed
Mario Kart 8


F-Zero - Played
F-Zero X - Completed
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity - Played
F-Zero GX - Close as dammit to getting that AX cup…!
F-Zero GP Legend
F-Zero Climax - Played


Red/Green/Blue/Yellow - Completed
Gold/Silver/Crystal - Completed
Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - Completed
Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - Completed (I think the magic had evaporated by this stage, but it might have been also due to my grievances with the way the game felt. I no longer got a sense of joy from moving the character on screen; he/she felt too heavy after the breezy feel of RSE.)
Black/White - Completed (Ironically, for so juvenile a thought, I just felt too old when playing this.)
Black2/White2
X/Y

Super Mario Bros
Super Mario Bros - The Lost Levels
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Land
Super Mario World
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Super Mario 64
Super Mario Sunshine
New Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Galaxy - Completed
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario 3D Land
New Super Mario Bros. 2
New Super Mario Bros. U
Super Mario 3D World


The Legend of Zelda
The Adventure of Link
A Link to the Past
Link's Awakening
Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Oracle of Seasons
Oracle of Ages
Four Swords
The Wind Waker
Four Swords Adventures
The Minish Cap
Twilight Princess
Phantom Hourglass
Spirit Tracks
Skyward Sword
A Link Between Worlds


Metroid
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Super Metroid
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Prime
Metroid: Zero Mission
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Metroid: Other M


Star Fox
Lylat Wars
Star Fox Adventures
Star Fox: Assault
Star Fox Command


Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Donkey Kong 3
Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong Land
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
Donkey Kong Land 2
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!
Donkey Kong Land III
Donkey Kong 64
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Donkey Kong Country Returns
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze


Red/Green/Blue/Yellow
Gold/Silver/Crystal
Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald
Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
Black/White
Black2 /White 2
X/Y


Kirby's Dream Land
Kirby's Adventure
Kirby's Pinball Land
Kirby's Dream Course
Kirby's Dream Land 2
Kirby Super Star
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror
Kirby: Canvas Curse
Kirby: Squeak Squad
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Kirby Mass Attack
Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Kirby: Triple Deluxe
Kirby and the Rainbow Paintbrush


Super Mario Kart
Mario Kart 64
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Kart: Double Dash‼
Mario Kart DS
Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart 7
Mario Kart 8


F-Zero
F-Zero X
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
F-Zero GX
F-Zero GP Legend
F-Zero Climax