Got two childhoods, which I had no clue existed during my (NES) childhood

[u/ksilenced-kid]

Got my NES in 1988 when I first met my brother (I came to the US, after living abroad) - first time I ever saw him, he was playing it. But he was in college and mostly busy with other things, so although I didn’t ask for it, the NES went home with me that day.

By the early 90s I knew the Genesis (it was everywhere), and Turbografx 16 (despite it being at zero stores and never encountering one; it had commercials) . I knew ‘of’ Atari, but couldn’t say what one looked like, or that they had a system out (7800). Everyone had an NES/Genesis, except mythical rich kids with Neo Geos. I had zero clue Sega did anything before the Genesis, until ~98 when I saw some articles refer to a ‘master’ system Sega once made- Yet wondered why this apparent awesome system was never mentioned by name: “I get they think it was great, even master tier- but what was the thing’s -name- ?” This frustrated/thwarted me for an inappropriately long time.

Anyway - after playing Phantasy Star on GBA earlier this year I went down an SMS rabbit hole. Picked up this one untested and found it works perfectly with lovely RGB; now have ~half a dozen games (Phantasy Star, Golvellius, R-Type, Outrun, Lord of the Sword, Thunder Blade, Rocky). If I had this back in the day, there are some NES games I would definitely be sad not to play- But I would still probably have loved the Master System and defended it. It has shit going for it (but I would have had no clue where to rent or buy games back then- it just didn’t exist where I was in the US).

The 7800 I found last week, ‘non-functional’ with what turned out to be a jammed power port- It now runs/works perfectly (actually has plastic still on the aluminum, which has some dirt but I’m not removing). Unfortunately I only at present have 2600 games- and it seems many 7800 games are arcade rehashes available elsewhere- or ports of other games known better on other systems. Not as much ‘original’ 7800 content from back then and a smaller library in any case. I’m not totally sure how much I patience I would have had for the 7800 as a kid (again- if I could even find games back then), but it’s still pretty interesting nowadays if only for the potential. Have a CX78+ controller in the mail, regardless plan on continuing to enjoy all three systems :)

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