TV ads had been talking about the sequel to zelda all month and as such my mom had had such a fill of this by the time the week before Christmas rolled around that she must've had no choice but to bend to the whims of her sons and buy the game for us. But how could we be certain?!?
We'd dropped every hint we could think of. Drew pictures of the game, pointed it out on every trip to the mall we embarked on in the first few weeks of December. I had probably spent more time playing the Legend of Zelda than all of the other titles I had in my library combined. It was, in it's time, an almost flawless game and all of the little visual spoilers that emanated from our 24inch RCA television told me that this sequel would blow the first game out of the water.
Okay here's a tangent for you, but I promise it will arrive at a point. Have you ever been sitting in a chair and it made a weird squeaking noise and the person nearest you pointed in your direction and announced to everyone else that you had broke wind, floated an air biscuit or whatever phrase was the colloquialism at the time? YOu would plead your case to the room and tell them that it was only the chair and so you would get up and sit back down trying your best to recreate the sound that had occured.. all to no avail. Well trying to record the Zelda tv commercial was alot like that.
When I wasn't downstairs playing on my NES I had my eyes trained on the TV upstairs, VCR loaded with a fresh blank memorex tape, remote in hand finger poised on the record button. Hoping against hope that I might catch the 30 sec trailer for the long awaited follow-up to Zelda. Of course, just like the mysterious chair noise, the commercial I had seen would not play any time I was tuned into the tv.
Thanks to the interweb, Commercial link here.. where was this in '88?
The week before Christmas rolled around and the underneath of our Christmas tree started to populate with wrapped goodies. Every calendar in the house mocked me with it's announcement that it was December 18th. It's a good thing that Intervention and Dr. Phil didn't arrive on the scene until much later otherwise the next part of this story might have gone something like this:
Hi, my name is 8bit Bobby and I'm a nintendo addict. It started out with trading chores for gameplay time, then trading away furnishings for games [blog entry about this to be added later]. Before long I downspiraled into a boy who devised a plan to determine once and for all if his constant gift pesterings had fallen on deaf ears. I had to know if Zelda 2 was under the tree this year or not.
I took my original Legend of Zelda box and headed for the Christmas tree late one night. With my gift-finding size comparator in my hand I began the process of eliminating the gifts under the tree by the size of the box in which they were wrapped. I finally came to a box that resembled a nintendo game. Turning over the package I saw that the tag read that it was for my brother and I.
By this time I had defeated the original game several times and had also done the 2nd quest (for those of you unaware it's the same thing except the items and dungeons are in different locations. It is accessed by choosing the name Zelda for your username).
My palms were sweating, my heart was beating fast in my chest, every creak in the floor alarmed me and made me almost jump out my skin. I had to know. Was that the game behind the brightly coloured paper? I gently tore at the seams where the tape fastened the folds of the wrapping together until I could peel away enough to see the spine of the game.....
<<< The Adventure of Link >>>
"Holy shit!", I exclaimed and almost woke up everyone in the house. Now one would think that knowing, without a doubt, that the one thing that was on every Christmas list you drafted up all year was yours on Christmas morning would be enough. Sadly, it was not. Now that I was holding my personal holy grail I had to know if it was as good as all of the hype. I carefully unwrapped the game and replaced it with my comparison box, rewrapped it and put it under the tree. I tiptoed downstairs with my treasure in hand knowing full well that I had probably broken several cardinal rules in the process.
Oh Nintendo... the tagline for your company should've been: "Now your submitting to Power".
This, my friends, was what Nintendo meant to me (and so many others I'm sure). It kept us up nights and made us do crazy things. I won't bore you with the details, but here's the gist of the next week before Christmas:
My brother and I managed to beat the game before Christmas morning.
Total hours of sleep for the week: Probably 20 I am NOT KIDDING...
I managed to swap it back with the decoy box before anyone was the wiser.
It was everything I had hoped it would be and fast became my control deck's mainstay.
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Maestro -- cue up the sappy music
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But it also made me strive to be a better person. A kid who would not deceive those around him for their own selfish gain. I learned about patience and having faith that my mom always did her best to make my brother and I happy despite not really being able to afford to do so.
That fact haunted me after this little stunt and really made me strive to be a better kid. I might even be more ashamed of this than of my NES controller
body count. Not sure. Have you ever pulled a similar stunt in the name of Nintendo? Leave a comment and let me know.
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