Crystalis - NES

[SkyeWelse]

While we are on the subject of old games, how about Crystalis for the NES? (Not the terrible GB Color Port)

Growing up and I think even to this day, Crystalis happened to be my all time favorite game for the NES. The gameplay was fast paced like Ys, you had a multitude of different powers and abilities, different swords that worked very much like the swords from Ys VI, interesting boss characters, solid dungeon layouts (and some that completely look as though they were done by the graphic artists of Ys II for NES) and an overall answer to those looking to explore a world in search of many secrets and well-placed hidden items.

Just wondering if there are other Ys fans out there that by chance are also fans of this incredible NES title.

-SkyeWelse

[NightWolve]

Like Faxandu, this was another top game for me in my recollection of the NES days. While I beat it as well, I can't remember specifics. I was so fast-paced those days. I'd rent a NES game for nearly every weekend and try to beat it before it was due back. I beat about 170 NES carts that way (I used to keep a list, heh). Same for TG-16 and SNES for a time. But ~170 will go down as my greatest record of games beat for a particular system (played too, for that matter). (Nowadays, I'm lucky if I complete one game for the whole year. I spend my excess time on hacking projects, or other projects of interest to me. I grew out of playing, in favor of differing hobbies and work of course.)

OK, if I had to pick some top NES games, I'd go with the following: FF1, DWIII, DWIV (eh, whole DW series in fact), Blaster Master, Zelda, Alpha Mission, Lifeforce, Deadly Towers, Swords and Serpents, Magic of Scheherazade, Rygar, Clash at Demonhead, Astyanax, Metal Gear I&II, Contra, The Battle of Olympus, Kid Icarus, Punch Out, Metroid, Guardian Legend, a few other of the prominent RPGs by ENIX, Castlevania series of course, and the great Megaman series by Capcom. Those were some good times.

[malducci]

Crystalis was awesome! The musics for me were very memoriable. I remember the story events unfolding being really cool. The gameplay was right on and the fact that you gain experience and levels topped it off. Now that you mention it, it did have an Ys feel - like int the later Ys series with Romun empire. The gameboy color port would have been great, had they not botch and replace musics of the original game.


Magic of Scheherazade - I totally forgot about that game! Brings back memories. Clash at Demonhead - that game was sooooo cool. I picked up that game again as soon as I saw about 7 years ago in a local pawn shop, when nes game were selling for $1-2. Matter of fact I bought about 50 more nes games from that pawn shop in the following couple of days.

[SkyeWelse]

I was so fast-paced those days. I'd rent a NES game for nearly every weekend and try to beat it before it was due back. I beat about 170 NES carts that way (I used to keep a list, heh). Same for TG-16 and SNES for a time. But ~170 will go down as my greatest record of games beats for a particular system. (Nowadays, I'm lucky if I complete one game for the whole year. I spend my excess time on hacking projects, or other projects of interest to me. I grew out of playing, in favor of differing hobbies and work of course.)

Funny, reading this sounds exactly how it was for me growing up. I would rent about three games a week and try to speed through them in that week... or weekend, whichever came first and I also kept a list of all the games I had ever finished for any systems. I think I stopped counting after 200 for the NES alone. lol

As for other NES games... other than Crystalis if I had to pick a top 10 they would most likely be:

* Crystalis
1. Zelda
2. Megaman 2
3. Castlevania 2 - Simon's Quest
4. Wizards and Warriors III
5. Metroid
6. Guardian Legend
7. Battle of Olympus
8. Astyanax
9. Blaster Master
10. River City Ransom

I noticed we have some of the same titles there. heh.

-SkyeWelse

[NightWolve]

Yeah, the Wizards and Warriors series was good as well. I went and actually found my list and that let me remember which ones I liked. The last game counted for NES was Megaman VI. Heh. First was Super Mario Bros. of course and the second incidentally was... Wizards and Warriors. The poster for that game was always pretty cool.

I should type this list into the PC somewhere for the hell of it. I actually used to keep it stored in my Dad's typewriter. It had a LCD panel and some computer function with limited memory, so you could type documents into that, and then have it autotype on command what was in memory.

[Seldane]

I remember playing (and loving) Crystalis a long time ago. I don't remember much of the actual game for some reason, but was delighted when I saw they were going to release a GBC version -- I wanted to experience the game again. I never got around to buying it though.

I still haven't played the game since back then and I guess it is really about time.

170 games? That's unbelievable!  I haven't even played that many NES games! (Or maybe I have?) Anyway -- that was a lot. I had about 20 NES games (and borrowed about 20 others from friends) back then. I might have finished 8-10 games. Tops. 

My NES games were too hard. I was unable to play through them. My SNES and Mega Drive games were much easier, hehe.

[SkyeWelse]

I remember playing (and loving) Crystalis a long time ago. I don't remember much of the actual game for some reason, but was delighted when I saw they were going to release a GBC version -- I wanted to experience the game again. I never got around to buying it though.

I still haven't played the game since back then and I guess it is really about time.

Just my advice, but stay clear from the GBC version. I remember being so excited that it was getting a rerelease on a handheld only to be sorely dissapointed with the fact that they scraped the old story for a worse one, with worse character artwork and scraped the old music for a newer, horrible sounding track that just so happens to be the main theme played throughout the game at various intervals. lol It was honestly so bad it was laughable. Playing that one will surely ruin your experience of Crystalis. : )

-SkyeWelse

[malducci]

I still have the manual from when I rented the game

 170 is definitely a grip of a NES games on your completed list. I have over 200+ games on my list, but only about 100 are NES games 

[Gamemusicfreak]

Wonderful game, I had memorized many pieces of music from it for many years. I liked the field music a lot, it's really a classic game. Now I really want to play it again.       

[X-Calibar]

October 31 1997...

Crystalis, now here's a game I had to go back and buy; many years after first renting/playing.
Without a doubt I'm a Crystalis fan; whether it's music, story, action; it was just great fun in those days...  Let's see if I can't scrape together some extras...

http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/nes/crystalis/music.shtml
This site has the music, pictures, information and more

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00731/
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00734/
Here are links to fan made remixes of 2 songs from Crystalis [not bad~!]

Plot Summary
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145730/plotsummary


Now if only they would have remade Crystalis, and as well as Ys 1 and 2 Complete remakes were mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Nightwolve might be preparing it for translation right now

I wouldn't mind visiting this world once again someday...
Here's to Mesia and the world of Crystalis~!

EDIT:

SkyeWelse!!!!!!!!!!!
You're signature ... has a link to a game called... "Cave Story"
I just wanted to say; wow lol I passed this game up a lot but downloaded it and am playing it right now...
Wow! lol  It's fun lol

*goes back to playing=*

[SkyeWelse]

October 31 1997...

I wouldn't mind visiting this world once again someday...
Here's to Mesia and the world of Crystalis~!

EDIT:

SkyeWelse!!!!!!!!!!!
You're signature ... has a link to a game called... "Cave Story"
I just wanted to say; wow lol I passed this game up a lot but downloaded it and am playing it right now...
Wow! lol  It's fun lol

*goes back to playing=*

Mesia was very cool, even if you didn't get to see her story fleshed out as much as the main character's story (That would have been an interesting rom hack). Needless to say I've named many a female character with that name. lol

Ah yes Cave Story. It's a really fun game and the guy who created it, Pixel, spent 5 years making it all by himself. After playing it and seeing how cool a game it was it made me want to design a tribute site for the game. What's even better is that a great deal of the Cave Story fan community has been making their own levels designs and mods. It really is an exciting scene I must say. : ) Thanks for checking it out.

Oh and this is a great site to check out if you are/were a fan of Crystalis:
http://tpb68.tripod.com/tom.html

-SkyeWelse

[NightWolve]

170 games? That's unbelievable! 

And voila, here it is:

** My NES Victory List **

001. SUPER MARIO BROS. I
002. WIZARDS AND WARRIORS
003. MIKE TYSON'S PUNCHOUT
004. 1942
005. COBRA COMMAND
006. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
007. ZELDA II
008. TRACK AND FIELD
009. TRACK AND FIELD II
010. CASTLEVANIA
011. CASTLEVANIA II
012. CONTRA
013. JACKAL
014. DOUBLE DRAGON
015. LIFEFORCE
016. GRADIUS
017. DRAGON WARRIOR
018. DONKEY KONG JR.
019. GYROMITE
020. POPEYE
021. SUPER MARIO BROS. II
022. GHOSTS AND GOBLINS
023. TOPGUN
024. GOTCHA
025. DUCK HUNT
026. CLAY SHOOTING
027. FIST OF THE NORTH STAR
028. DUCK TALES
029. P.O.W.
030. GOONIES II
031. BLASTER MASTER
032. FESTER'S QUEST
033. KID NIKI
034. BAD DUDES
035. METAL GEAR
036. RADRACER
037. METROID
038. APLHA MISSION
039. PAPERBOY
040. GODZILLA
041. KUNG FU
042. MEGAMAN
043. MEGAMAN II
044. MUSCLE
OA5. DEADLY TOWERS
046. COMMANDO
047. BIONIC COMMANDO
048. RENEGADE
049. GOLGO 13
050. XENEPHOBE

051. MAGMAX
052. MICKEY MOUSCAPADE
053. FRIDAY THE 13TH
054. SKATE OR DIE
055. RAMPAGE
056. FAXANADU
057. WHEEL OF FORTUNE
058. BLADES OF STEEL
059. ICE HOCKEY
060. DOUBLE DRAGON
061. TROJAN
062. THE KARATE KID
063. ZANAC
064. PINBALL
065. LEGENDARY WINGS
066. ARKANOID
067. GUN SMOKE
068. JAWS
069. KARATE CHAMP
070. RYGAR
071. STRIDER
072. T AND C SURF DESIGN
073. BUMP AND JUMP
074. MONSTER PARTY
075. GYRUSS
076. GUERRILA WAR
077. PRO WRESTLING
078. GUARDIAN LEGEND
079. IKARI WARRIORS
080. IKARI WARRIORS II
081. KARNOV
082. TIGER HELI
083. SECTION Z
084. BRFAKTHRU
085. RING KING
086. SKY SHARK
087. BACK T0 THE FUTURE
088. SUPER MARIO LAND (GAMEBOY)
089. ROLLING THUNDER
090. CLASH AT DEMONHEAD
091. DEMON SWORD
092. SHINOBI
093. WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT
094. EXCITEBIKE
095. SUPER MARIO BROS. 3
096. BATMAN
097. ROBOCOP
098. GOLF
099. ABADOX
100. METAL FIGHTER

101. HYDLIDE
102. DOUBLE DRAGON II
103. ROCK'N'BALL
104. CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLING
105. XEXYZ
106. TETRIS
107. MAGIC OF SCHEHERAZADE
108. SHADOWGATE
109. SNK BASEBALL STARS
110. PINBOT
111. CHIP AND DALES
112. METAL GEAR II
113. NINJA GAIDEN II
114. ASTYANAX
115. THE BATTLE OF OLYMPUS
116. R.C. PRO-AM
117. NINJA GAIDEN
118. SUPER CONTRA
119. DRAGON SPIRIT
120. WIZARD'S AND WARRIORS II
121. BURAI FIGHTER
122. TAG TEAM WRESTLING
123. WILLOW
124. AMAGON
125. SUPER PITFALL
126. STREET FIGHTER
127. KID ICARUS
128. GHOST BUSTERS
129. URBAN CHAMPION
130. DYNOWARZ
131. CASTLEVANIA III
132. CODE NAME VIPER
133. GAUNTLET
134. SPOT
135. SPY HUNTER (82,050)
136. TEENAGE MUTANT NINCA TURTLES
137. MEGAMAN III
138. SEICROSS
139. GREMLINS II (THE NEW BATCH)
140. STINGER
141. DOUBLE DARE
142. DR. MARIO
143. PUNCHOUT (THE LEGENDARY MR. DREAM)
144. SWORDS AND SERPENTS
145. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II
146. DRAGON WARRIOR II
147. WIZARDRY
148. POWER BLADE
149. RODE RUNNER
150. 1943

151. HEROES OF THE LANCE
152. MANIAC MANSION
153. BATMAN (THE RETURN OF JOKER)
154. NINJA GAIDEN III (ANCIENT SHIP OF DOOM)
155. MEGAMAN IV
156. WIZARD'S AND WARRIORS III
157. BUGS BUNNY'S BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT
158. TERMINATOR 2
159. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III
160. TOTAL RECALL
161. WEREWOLF
162. DRAGON WARRIOR III
163. WIZARDRY II
164. HOOK
165. ULTIMA
166. DRAGON WARRIOR IV
167. ROBINHOOD
168. ULTIMA QUEST OF AVATAR
169. MEGAMAN V
170. MEGAMAN VI

I wonder how old I was when I started this. I bought an NES like a year within learning about it, I think. Anyway, thank God for OCR scanner software. I was able to scan 3 printed pages of this list from an old typewriter, and most of the scanned images were succuessfully converted to text. I had to fix some spellings here and there, and the handwritten stuff for the last 20 games I had to type up manually. No biggie.

Anyway, so yep, that's my NES list. On the original I dorkily referred to it as "GAMES WHICH WERE CONQUERED." Heh. I did a few for SNES and TG16, but eventually, I grew out of any serious effort in maintaining such lists for other systems. Just like I grew out of reading all the gaming mags like GamePro, GameFan, EGM1/2, etc.

[Seldane]

So you used some kind of OCR software? I've never tried that, myself -- but it looks like it worked pretty well.

061. TROGAN - Trojan
101. HYLIDE - Hydlide (Special)

There are quite a few tough titles in that list -- you must've been a really good NES player. I remember Werewolf, for example... One of the hardest games I've ever played.

[NightWolve]

It messed up on the J's too. I had "NINGA" everywhere. This does the trick and is free:

http://www.simpleocr.com/

Yeah, I guess I was pretty good. Trying to finish them within the rental period made you fast. Later though, I always lamented that in all that quantity, I lost quality cause I would have very little retention going through games like that afterwards, so when I was able, I preferred to start buying games so I could do everything. I wanted to savor them more. Funny thing is I wound up slowly but surely turning myself into a game collector as opposed to a game player. Then you had things like college which made me drop any videogame related hobbies completely and totally devote myself to my studies. Now I'm too old and don't have that kind of desire to devote the energy there, so those days are forever gone. Really though, it was just beating one game every weekend. So if you can do that, you can get ~50 in a year. The list is the result of a 3-4 year period.

You know what the hardest game was?? I remember it alright. Oh yeah! It was Battletoads! Goddammit, I think I did two rentals on that. I'd get to the last level, and what was it... the continues were limited and you needed Godly motor skills and timing... I just couldn't make it. I was sooo close; just needed a little more practice, but I never got around to it again. So many times I came close but was denied victory time and time again... I hated it for that. Hah, they made a WIKI article for it. Check the comments in the Difficulty sections.

--

Final note, I should mention there was permanent consequences to that NES habit. Due to the NES controllers and my hard pressing of the directional pad and buttons, I damaged my thumb joints. They've basically been arthritic but don't really act up unless I am using a controller. They called it Nintendoitis then, but nowadays they apparently call it Blackberry Thumb. Problem always was I never could train myself to just not press a button as hard as was necessary. It seems to be a hard thing to do for me. Oh well. Let that serve as a deterrent to others. It wasn't worth it...

[JoeQuaker]

Yeah you told me of that injury befoer NW, that's wild. I remember seeing on the news about that side-effect to NES addiction back in the late 80s heh.  I wore my thumbs out real good, but tried to get out on the skateboard as often as possible to keep mom from bitching heh. Also she stayed on my about "Don't press the buttons too hard, you'll ruin the controllers (an electronics student at the time)" So I tried to make an effot to hold loosely... kinda like go-kart racing and my dad getting on to me about not keeping a "death grip" on the steering wheel for faster reactions. My wrists are really the only thing that worry me these days, from games and falling... they pop like hell heh. I'm sure a lot of other gaming nerds here feel the pain LOL.

Man I loved Crystalis. Never owned it so never beat it.. But I was already an SNK fan and went bezerk of that game. Music was great, that garble while scrolling kinda sucked but you got used to it as a NES player. I really would like to beat it on UltraFCE one day. I remember getting so stuck without at guide! Nintendo Power didn't have a lot of info on the game.

[SkyeWelse]

Wow that is some list Nightwolve. I notice a lot of games I finished as well on there. Kind of neat seeing someone have a similar interest as I did growing up. I'll have to see if I can find my "Games that I conquered" list. I remember I stored it in a huge bible-binder that had each game indexed with cut-out Nintendo Power Classified Codes and Game Pro Codes as well as personal strategies that I found while playing the games.

I remember playing Duck Tales as a kid. I got to the final boss of that game, the vampire duck. I couldn't beat the vampire duck because I couldn't logically figure it out in my head of how to beat the damn boss. What erked me was this incredible realization in that I remembered seeing an exact strategy of how to beat this one and only boss listed in one of the Nintendo Power issues that I owned... But I did not have with me on hand when I was at that point in the game. I had to return that rental without finishing it because I did not have the knowledge in that book. Needless to say, I was very set back by this, the fact that I actually owned a useful guide but couldn't use it because I couldn't take all of the issues of Nintendo Power with me... So, I took a pair of sissors and from that moment forward, I started cutting and pasting everything ever useful to any NES game I might ever think about playing and placing it by section in this huge binder the size of probably about 1000+ pages. That way I would always have my precious video game secret codes and tips and tricks. Hell, I created the  "NES GameFaqs" way back in the day. It was called "Thomas' Ultimate NES Bible" and I put everthing in there, Games defeated, favorite games and boss strategies, even the stupid liitle rewards that Nintendo Power would sent out to all of us little video game monster-rugrats to make us feel special... Ah... those were the days.

Yes, I'll admit, I'm a little nuts when it comes to video games. I'm the guy who devised a way to create a long sheet of paper colored with black crayon and tape so that I could strategically place it over the crack of the door at night so that no light from the television would shine out from underneith it obviously alerting my parents that I was not in fact in my room asleep, but instead up playing the Legend of Zelda and <Insert NEW Title> until dawn. I was a crafty little bugger, or so I thought so at least. : )

For Crystalis in particular I found two very helpful secrets: The first being that if a NPC was blocking the access to a door, perhaps due to the fact that you haven't met the right requirements or trigger to get them to move out of the way, there was a special trick you could use to by-pass them completely and enter the room, making your play experience all the more interesting. lol Basically, I found that when you talk to this NPC or "Blocker" as I referred to them as, they not only told you "NO!", but they pushed you back. But... if you managed to sneak up to them from the side and push the D-pad Down Arrow so that you were walking away from the door, but continuing to move inward sideways toward the door, the Blocker would eventually push you more and more until he literally pushed you through the door he/she was supposed to be guarding. It was hillarious.

The other secret involved a stage select or warp that you could perform at any time in the game simply by holding down a series of buttons on the second NES controller. This proved useful in that you could save up enough money to by the best possible armour in the game and nothing, I mean nothing could touch you. Bosses would bounce off you and do no damage. lol There was some kind of trick to where you could sell certain items from later points in the game over and over again to profit and buy stuff in the earlier part of the game with little to no effort at all.

The best part was that after completing the Crystalis, the ultimate weapon of the game, you could use the warp trick and go back to the regular world locations in the game and use the thing on regular enemies. Ordinarily, you were only able to use the Crystalis on the final boss. This sucker one shot killed everything it touched. It was pretty sweet.

And yeah, I'd have to say that either BattleToads or Gremlins 2 were the most difficult NES games that I can remember off hand, and I incurred injuries as well playing these games in that I started "accidentally" breaking my controllers... on "accident"... with my fists. ^_^;;

I still remember Act Raiser II for the SNES and Alundra for the Playstation. I think I created a new controller smashing technique for those two games in particular. The "Belmont Morning Star Move" was a rather impressive way to end the life of a controller. Rest in piece(s) my beloved cheap third-party controllers that never worked.

I still remember a quote that I often used: "I SAID JUMP DAMMIT! I HIT THE JUMP BUTTON!" <HULK SMASH>

Annnyway, its nice to see such other fans out there that enjoyed Crystalis as I did.

-SkyeWelse

[Seldane]

Hehe, I had a similiar book full of game passwords and strategies. Not as "complete" as yours though. I still have it, too. I just checked my own "conquered games" list. It wasn't very long -- but also very outdated.

I also had lists of all the games I owned back then.. I really gotta track down some of those titles just for nostalgic reasons.

[esteban666]

I had a nice, long post and I lost it, godammit! When will I learn to use notepad first? Of course, having to use a text editor is not convenient. Goddam!

EDIT: OK, now that I have cooled-off somewhat, I just wanted to mention that

1) Crystalis was (is) a great game

1.5) NES is my golden age... from the sheer volume of games I played to the huge number I beat, no other console commanded as much attention from me.

2) I didn't keep a list of the games I beat, but I did videotape the endings. Later, I recorded short segments from the games as well (i.e. bosses) because it was much more interesting to watch.

3) By the time I sold my NES for a TG-16, I stopped taping games. I think I feared that I was too nerdy.

4) But, I was deceiving myself! I stopped videotaping, yes, but I starting compiling cassette tape recordings of VG soundtracks. The hardest part was getting music from games that lacked a "sound test" mode. I would devise ways of playing that minimized the number of sound effects that were heard on the recording.

[Seldane]

I stopped videotaping, yes, but I starting compiling cassette tape recordings of VG soundtracks. The hardest part was getting music from games that lacked a "sound test" mode. I would devise ways of playing that minimized the number of sound effects that were heard on the recording.

Never heard of anyone videotaping before, but I certainly recorded video game music on tape too!

I remember me and a friend used to do it. He held the cassette recorder to the TV and I played (avoiding enemies and such, in order to get the music "noise free." It was mostly Sega Master System music I/we recorded (sometimes I did it myself). Since it was hard to get a good "ending" of the songs, I always turned the volume down, in order to get a good "fade out" -- however, my TV turned  the volume down so fast it always turned out like crap.

Then another friend gave us a tape -- he had recorded video game music too! And he made it more like a "radio show" with comments between the songs, etc. He had stolen our idea!! We were pissed.

[malducci]

2) I didn't keep a list of the games I beat, but I did videotape the endings. Later, I recorded short segments from the games as well (i.e. bosses) because it was much more interesting to watch.

My friends and I video taped NES games as well. We would tape the game from start to finish - editing out the deaths, continues, and mess ups.

 The most popular video was the "Ninja Gaiden I, Ninja Gaiden II, and Astynax" tape.

 I only did a few TG16 and Genesis tapes... Bloody Wolf and Splatter house come to mind.

I starting compiling cassette tape recordings of VG soundtracks.

We taped videogame music as well. Oooooohh... megaman 2 bubble man stage music BTW, OCremix has some cool NES remixes. Later, when I was old enough to drive we'd cruise to tapes of DraculaX, Rayxanber III, Robo Aleste, LOT, GOT,etc.

[SkyeWelse]

*reads*

Wow, you guys are hillarious in that you never cease to amaze me.

Taping Videogame Music on Cassette Tapes!?!111! WTF?

And here I thought I was the only one who ever did that sort of thing growing up. I think it started with Contra for me. I loved the music of Contra so much that I simply had to tape the stage musics for it. Then Super C, Crystalis, Asytanax, P.O.W. and whatever else I could think of.

You all are so similar to how I was and still am in terms of passion for videogaming it almost scares me. lol Next you all will say that you spent your time during elementary school classes drawing Mega Man/Zelda characters, stage layouts and storyline continuation ideas.

Edit: Oh yeah I never did much with taping video games since I didn't have my own personal VCR until later. I do remember taping two games though, one was various scenes from Xenogears Disc II (The Story disc that everyone hated that I loved) and my very first The Legend of Zelda - No Sword run that I ever did.

-SkyeWelse

[esteban666]

ha! I love the kid who had commentary between tracks on his VGM tapes -- brilliant!

skyewelse, malducci and seldane: what's funny is that I thought tons of folks videotaped stuff (since many folks had their NES, SMS, etc. consoles routed through their VCR's, all they had to do was pop a VHS tape in and hit record). Now, none of my friends ever videotaped stuff, but I just thought a lot of folks must be doing it, especially to re-watch the endings / later levels of really tough games.

BUT, back in the day, I never thought anyone actually listened to the music on its own! All my friends would ask, "Does anyone ever use those stupid debug menus and sound tests?" And I would faintly replay, "Well, I kind of like them..."

I was stoked whenever I encountered a game with a music debug mode; in fact, I thought that this should be a "mandatory" / standard feature for all games.

As far as sound quality was concerned: I recorded directly from VCR audio out --> my boombox RCA input, so I got great sound... BUT, I had no way of "fading" songs in/out, as Seldane was able to do -- so my songs had abrupt endings. If a game lacked a sound test, I would first tape the music onto a VHS tape, then I would dub the songs I wanted onto an audio cassette. This introduced some degradation to the recording, but it was the best method I could come up with. Well, for Gameboy, I used the headphone out jack and plugged that into my tape deck.

What's funny is that I've only recently re-kindled my love of VGM (in the last 2 years). This is directly related to my decision to stop spending so much money on "real music": as my music collection stagnated, I became more and more desperate to find new stuff to listen to. Thank goodness!

EDIT: SkyeWelse -- I suck at drawing, so I never drew any video game characters. But damn, I would have if drawing wasn't so frustrating for me .

[Seldane]

Next you all will say that you spent your time during elementary school classes drawing Mega Man/Zelda characters, stage layouts and storyline continuation ideas.

Uhh.... I did this. Not only did I draw Zelda comics, but I also drew level designs and even designed actual "games" on paper (often in school -- during classes).

Heck, I STILL DO that!  At least sometimes (draw level designs on paper, that is).

Oh, and I made a speaker (wooden box) for my Game Boy, so that I could enjoy the music more.