If you were a child that grew up in the '90s, especially one who had access to a Super Nintendo console, you can't help but look back at that era with a great deal of nostalgia. The console produced some of the best games ever made, some of which have gone on to become even greater series or others that have been re-released on later consoles.
The best way to ramp up the nostalgia for the '90s is to dig out your old SNES and give it some love. The second-best way to take a stroll down memory lane is to check out some hilarious memes that will make you wish you were a kid again.
10 No Updates Needed
One thing that you can't help but miss about the '90s is that when you wanted to game back in the day, you just switched your SNES on, and off you went. These days, you play update roulette on whether you'll actually be able to play straight away.
The downside, of course, was that your cartridge might randomly decide to stop working. This usually resulted in you blowing into it for a good five minutes and then putting it back in and trying it again multiple times until it worked.
9 Older Siblings
If you had older siblings, they were your salvation when it came to tricky or difficult levels and you'd often turn to them for help after hitting a wall in a game. You were usually at the mercy of your brother or sister, and sometimes it took some bargaining of chores for them to agree to help.
Additionally, if you were very little, your older siblings may have passed you the controller on the odd occasion, and you had never felt so important. It was only later down the line that you realized they were only letting you do the bonus stages where you beat up cars in Street Fighter.
8 We All Did This
Everyone did this. In fact, many people still do this to this day. It's a strange phenomenon really as everyone knows that pushing the button harder doesn't actually make a character go any faster, but it is still done anyway.
Regrettably, it was one sure-fire way to wreck a controller more quickly, not that it stopped you complaining when the button eventually got stuck inside the pad. Even knowing that you didn't handle the controller with the most care, you'd still consider yourself blameless when it stopped working.
7 Super Mario Bros 2
As Nintendo didn't want America to be put off by the difficulty of the true Super Mario Bros 2, it took a game called Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, re-skinned it with Mario characters, and released that as Super Mario Bros 2.
The joke's on them though, as many customers loved this game regardless. Don't worry, the real sequel eventually got released in America under the name of Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels. So it was a win-win situation.
6 Does Your Memory Lie?
Nostalgia can certainly cloud someone's judgment, so sometimes it's hard to rely on your own memories as to whether a game was actually any good. Just because you loved it as a kid, would you still love it now? Was the game actually good, or not?
The same can be said about how the game was presented. It is not unusual to remember games as looking a lot better than they really do, just because it looked good for the time it was released. Now that we are spoilt with modern visuals, all too often we pick up an old title and are horrified by the graphics.
5 The Pain of the Lion King
Though gamers often complain about games that are really difficult to beat now, namely the Dark Souls series, you could argue that it was way worse in the '90s. Games could be just as difficult, if not more so, there were fewer save points, and no online play so another player could jump in and help you.
There were no guides really either, as the internet was still fairly new. Consequently, you either had to convince your parents to accept the cost of ringing a premium tip number, or hope a friend or a sibling could beat the tricky level for you.
4 All-Stars
You'll never be able to forget this version of the well-known Smash Mouth song now. This meme completely sums up how it felt when you were a child and you finally got your hands on a copy of Super Mario All-Stars.
All-Stars was a massive hit as it contained remakes of four different Super Mario games in one cartridge: Super Mario Bro, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros 2, and Super Mario Bros 3. Not only did the games get makeovers in terms of graphics and visuals, but many glitches were fixed and new features added, such as parallax scrolling.
3 Console Wars
It feels like no matter the generation of gaming, there's always going to be a console war. The era of the SNES was no different, as it found itself up against the Sega Genesis, and both shared many of the same game releases.
There were many playground debates as to which was the better console overall, which had the better controllers, or which games performed better on which console. As with all console wars, the answer was never truly found.
2 Blisters
You can feel the pain just by looking at this meme. The edge on the d-pad could be pretty brutal for any gamer who spent a long time playing games, especially when those games required a lot of button bashing and smashing, such as Street Fighter.
The easiest way to give yourself some relief back then was to whip the bottom of your t-shirt over your thumb. Fancy grips that go over buttons were not available back then. The introduction of the analog stick lessened this issue but didn't remove it entirely.
1 Skills
If you have any experience with consoles that took cartridge games, you'll know that the games would often randomly stop working. In these situations, you'd have to resort to the old trick of blowing on the cartridge until it started to work.
When you managed to successfully get it working again, especially as a kid, you felt as though you were a god with ultimate gaming skills. However, this could be a lengthy process sometimes, as even if you managed to get the game to boot up again, sometimes it would freeze shortly afterward anyway.