Full disclosure; back then I was part of the Sega crowd. My first console was a Gear Game and my brother had a Mega Drive (Genesis for my US readers), although I tended to play that a lot more than he did. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy a good bit of Mario, He and Sonic simply were simply not allowed to co-exist in the same house back then.
It wasn't until the release of the N64 that I defected to Nintendo. Not by buying an N64 though. I actually bought my friend's old SNES of him when it was surplus to requirements after he did get an N64. Although they weren't quite into their death throes as a console manufacturer by that point, Sega were certainly on a sharp decline, so I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about switching sides.
And, let me tell you, I then played the shit of Super Mario All-Stars. All of the games in the bundle got plenty of game time but it would be between Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World for my most played of them. I sometimes still wake up in a cold sweat as I have nightmares of Butter Bridge in Super Mario World; probably the the most rage-inducing level in the series, at least to that point anyway.
All of that is a very long way of saying that the Nintendo Party advert that I saw on Twitter (not gonna call it X), seemed like a no-brainer to be the event that marked my official return to active participation in this community.
A lack of spare time prevented me from immediately posting about it but I promised that I would get to it sooner or later so here we go...
First of all, you might asking what sort of location would be suitable to host a Nintendo party? There answer, in this case anyway, was a giant koopa shell guarded by a couple of giant piranha plants under the watchful gaze of Lakitu's cloud.
You may already detect a string Mario Bros hint already and that will continue through, although you will get to see some representation of a couple of other Nintendo franchises, which I will get to in a bit.
Between displays and the guests, I feel like most of the cast of Mario characters were covered. Starting with the displays, we had a giant Mario holding the the DJ booth. Naturally, you cannot have Mario without also having a Luigi, although, to put a little twist on things, Luigi was for once the smaller of the two plumbing brothers.
Prowling around and generally being a bit menacing, we could also find a Boo, a Shy Guy, a Chain Chomp and a Bullet Bill, who I was quite eager to ride on top of. Don't judge me!
On to the guests; Mario, Luigi, Peach and even Waluigi were well represented. No Wario or Daisy to complete the set though.
Bowser and his most iconic minions; the Koopa Troopers and Goombas, were surprising absent from, the displays as well. It's a bit much to expect a King Boo as well, but I would have been very excited if her was there too.
The biggest surprise was the lack of any Toad or Yoshi. Both would be difficult cosplay options so I wasn't expecting to see any guests dressed up as them. It was a really big surprise not to see displays made for either of them though, especially something along the lines of a Yoshi that you could sit on.
There was a random Pikachu cosplay by one of the guests though, so that was another Nintendo franchise represented. Likewise, a Kirby painting to tick off that franchise as well.
Most importantly for me though, was couple of Legend of Zelda items. For, maybe two decades, I had proclaimed Ocarina of Time to be the best game ever made. I have such amazing memories of playing that all summer long round at my friend's house. Well, amazing memories except for those of the Water Temple. Everyone hates the fucking Water Temple.
More recently though, I have found myself conflicted. Breath of the Wild was a truly incredible game and arguably even better than Ocarina of Time. But would I ever claim that Breath of the Wild is the best game ever? No, I wouldn't. So I'm a bit lost on how to settle that conundrum.
All I know is that my love for the Zelda franchise as a whole is only surpassed by my love of Resident Evil, so I was super excited to not only see a pixel Link on the wall, but also a Master Sword in the middle of the dancefloor. Although, in truth, I'm slightly embarrassed about how long it took me to notice the Master Sword. It wasn't until the dancefloor started to clear a little towards the end of the evening that I managed to spot it from the castle.
Oh, and the castle that was being guarded by Shy Guy wasn't just any old castle. No, it wasn't the much sought after castle that was actually holding the Princess. It was actually something much better! It was a motherfucking bouncy castle, yo!
Putting aside that you could make a strong argument for it being thematically appropriate given the nature of gameplay in Mario games; i.e. jumping between platforms and on top of enemies, I just love bouncy castles in general. Hence, once I discovered the truth of the castle, that is where I spent most of my evening.
There and sat in front of the TV playing on the SNES that someone had kindly setup. I mean, I could have happily stayed on the bouncy castle until closing but Amanda, in all her infinite wisdom, decided to take her beer on. No prizes for guessing how that ended...
Anyway, it goes without saying that I was much better at Mario than Amanda and all those hours spent on Mario All-Stars came in handy. While ,she couldn't even clear World 1-1 of the OG Super Mario Brothers, you know I obviously headed straight for the warp zone hidden at the end and zoomed ahead of her. My crushing humiliation of her was her punishment for soaking the bouncy castle with her beer.
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