When I first managed to get my hands on a (moderately) newfangled NES back in 1987, I had no interest in bouncing on turtles or shooting ducks. Not this kid! I craved adventure, and that’s something that no “kiddie game” was offering at the time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the Mario series, and have spent many, many hours plucking ducks and clay pigeons out of that virtual sky, but that came a bit later. Strangely enough, I had to grow up a bit to properly appreciate the brilliance that was Nintendo’s approach to interactive entertainment. My first NES steps required a trip to the local video rental store, where I happened to stumble on a wee bit of artwork that seemed to be the very fix I needed – Simon’s Quest. Or as some folk like to call it, Castlevania 2.
I was an Atari kid. As such, I got into the NES a bit on the late side, I guess. I remember seeing the commercials for Mario and Zelda, but for whatever reason, they never managed to win me away from Joust, Pole Position 2, and the entire back-catalog of about a thousand (give or take several hundred) Atari 2600 games. Then came Keith. Keith, with the instruction manual to Zelda 2.
After pouring over the text and screenshots in the Zelda 2 manual, I was sold immediately. Using items? Talking to residents?? Overworld map?!?! I rushed to the video store fully pumped and ready to brandish virtual sword in hand to vanquish all foes who dare approach and… and… they didn’t have it. Take a moment here to play a bit of sad music in your head to appropriately capture the scene. Or play “Yakety Sax” if you wanna yuck it up a bit at my expense.
Nearly heartbroken, which should seem pretty weird if you decided to go the”Yakety Sax” route, I scanned over the wall that displayed the handful of NES carts available for rent, and stopped instantly at the medieval clad figure posing heroically before a sinister black clad demon of sorts in a castle archway, and forgot, at least for a moment, that Zelda 2 even exists. This, I now knew, was my new plan for the weekend.
That weekend felt like a lifetime. Murky woods, decrepit manors, downtrodden villages, cryptic clues, and the constant threat of a villain’s cursed presence provided memories and moments that were as vivid and important to my childhood as any of my “real life” experiences. Decades later, when the night sky chases away the day, I find that I can’t (and may never) escape that simple phrase from my youth that filled me with simultaneous dread and fortitude, throwing down the gauntlet while evoking whatever form of “come at me bro” was cool and trendy at that time. Decades later — “What a horrible night to have a curse.”
Fun Fact – When day gives way to night, the Japanese version reads “And so the shiver of the night has arrived.”
