SLALOM: Nostalgia & Color Palettes

In my youth, there were a series of NES games I experienced not because I had immediate access to them, but because I had family that owned them. I think most consoles players can relate to this experience. You never had to own all of the carts if you had friends or family you could swap with from time to time.

I never personally owned Slalom, but it resided with a mighty collection of NES carts at my Grandma's house. My Grandma didn't jam much on this game, but she had her three go to games: Kid Icarus, Gauntlet, and Legend of Zelda. How hardcore of a gamer was my Grandmother taking on titles of this difficulty? The hardest of the hardcore of course! At one point, my Grandma had the entire over world from Legend of Zelda mapped and gridded out with all secret and dungeon locations revealed. She even mastered the second quest unaided. It's also fair to mention, she didn't sleep much either.

I digress.. Slalom is one of the many titles that when I fire it up, the smells of long spent menthol cigarettes, acrylic paint, and the old wood floors of my Grandma's hobby room come back to me for just a flicker of a moment as if I'm back in 1988. Briefly in my mind, I'm back in that room playing NES with my Grandma. Some games are more than just fun to play, the are a window into my own youth that reverberate so powerfully I can fully recall those moments. These games in many ways, are like my own personal flux capacitor, they make mental time travel possible. The visual stimulus that stays with me from this cart is the color palette from this game. The palette isn't deep, but it's a strong visual mix. The color themes can be seen throughout each of the screen caps in this post, I have a breakout of these at the bottom of the post.

Nintendo Comics System No. 2: Photo Gallery

While reorganizing my basement, I yet again stumbled across this old gem. Issue No. 2 of Nintendo Comics System. This divine tome was originally acquired circa 1990, barely cooled off the presses prior to a long road trip with my family. I was 7 years old at the time, and this book kept me entertained to no end. Cherished then, still cherished now. 

Growing up a Nintendo fan boy, this comic collection had it all! I was a huge fan of all the Nintendo franchise cartoons airing around the same time this was birthed off of a printing press, so this was merely another awesome extension of the franchise for my young video game anything and everything hungry eyes.

The cover is tattered, the adhesive in the binding has lost it's grip on the pages within. No more perfect time than now to snap some shots of some of my favorite panels and pages before I tuck it away to be once again discovered by my future self.

Enjoy.

Pokémon Yellow: Pikachu ONLY Challenge!

Growing up, Pokémon was just getting hot while I was in 5th grade. I watched the Saturday morning cartoon, played the CCG with my bro, and faced off on Game Boy against friends. Often mocked as being a "kiddie" franchise, I could have cared less and could still care less. Fun game, solid entry level RPG all things considered.

Being able to run a Game Boy Advanced emulator on my phone has afforded me the time to squeeze in a revisit of Pokémon: Yellow Edition in my free time (Which currently comes at a premium with a 5 month old around! :D) What's not to love? You get Pikachu right off the bat, he follows you around the game, you can check in on his mood, and get to play through the story more like the way the cartoon played out.

To make this more challenging on myself since at this point the straight up gameplay is all I care to do (the side quest of collecting 150 digital animals has minimal appeal to me at this stage of my gaming "career"), I am going through the game only using my initial Pokémon to do any/all fighting. If he is knocked out in a fight, I reset, reload, and try again. I decided that Pikachu, being my champion, needed an appropriate nickname. I settled on "Mouse Lord". I will of course be picking up a handful of other Pokémon along the way so I have a means to use the HMs Cut, Fly, Surf, and Strength. These are essential for progressing through the game and can't be learned by Mouse Lord.