As I mentioned before, LadiesGamers started out as a personal blog in 2014, evolving to the site with a small team behind it after a few years. Over the years I met a lot bloggers in that virtual world, but somehow, most stopped writing over time. There are a few people who have kept going all these years. Whose personal circumstances changed, often finding that having a steady job and more money to buy games also means no time to actually play them. But they love the writing itself and keep going anyway!
Time to reach out and make a few virtual connections in this Memory Museum/ Introduction article. I present Matheus to you, who has maintained Nintendobound since 2006 and is still going strong!
Gaming aka Nintendo
Hello, everyone! My name is Matheus (or Matt, if you want to go with easier-to-remember English version of my name that I tend to use around the Internet) and I am from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have maintained a Nintendo-centered blog for well over a decade and after many years following the wonderful work of Yvonne here at Ladies Gamers, she invited me for a collaboration. Soon, we will be posting some of the reviews I have written during all this time over here, but before doing so Yvonne thought it would be a good idea for me to share a little bit of my personal gaming experience. And since, to me, gaming is basically a synonym with Nintendo, I will relate a little of my story with their games.
The Beginning – The NES Days
I was born in 1990, which means that by the time I could develop any interest in gaming, the Super Nintendo was the company’s latest console. For some reason (probably financial), though, the first system my parents gave me was the NES. Truthfully, saying it was the NES can be a bit deceiving, because that console never really arrived on Brazilian shores. Instead, a local company called Gradiente released an NES clone called Phantom System (which in hindsight is a pretty awesome name) that was compatible with the console’s cartridges, and that was the system my parents bought to me.
My memories of those days are foggy at best, so I cannot say much about the first time I played a videogame, about the first Nintendo game I went through, or about other NES titles I tried. My earliest gaming memory, however, is related to Super Mario Bros. 3, which was by far my favorite game at the time. Given it is a pretty hard quest, I probably could never get very far, but I guess my love for that game was what got me started as a Nintendo fan and what made my parents realize that if they were ever to give me another system, it would have to be one made by Nintendo.
Childhood – The SNES Days
I was still much too young to decide what games I wanted to play, especially because in the early 90s information about new titles was not exactly easy to come by, especially when you are a five-year-old in Brazil. So during most of my time with the SNES, which I got alongside a copy of Super Mario World, I still had to rely on my parents to choose the games I would play. Coupled with a tight financial situation, that meant my collection of SNES games was not exactly big, but I have got to say my parents chose what they gave me pretty well, since I would go on to own titles like Super Mario Kart, Street Fighter II, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and Stunt Race.
Thanks to childhood friendships and rental shops, though, the Super Nintendo days also gave me the chance to go beyond that small selection and get to know a few other classics. Even if they were too hard for me to figure out by then, I had my first contact with Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger during that period, and I remember playing Star Fox, Kirby Superstar, F-Zero, Yoshi’s Island, and Super Mario All-Stars as a kid. To me, however, nothing topped a good multiplayer session of Super Mario Kart, a game with which I must have spent more than one hundred hours.
Growing Up – The Nintendo 64
Since it came out right after I turned six, the Nintendo 64 was also the first system that had me in full control of what I wanted to play. I got the system on Christmas 1997 alongside Diddy Kong Racing, and I still remember my joy when played it for the first time. Soon afterwards I was also going through Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, and Banjo-Kazooie, the last of which would be the first of many Rare efforts of the era that would solidify the British studio as my favorite game developers (beside Nintendo itself, of course).
Back then, I would get information concerning new releases from the local official Nintendo magazine, which I would buy monthly from a nearby newsstand. Given I was aware of so many interesting releases, my parents could not financially keep up with everything I wanted to buy. To solve that problem, rather than asking relatives for actual gifts on my birthday and Christmas, I told them to give me some money instead so I could save it all to buy the titles I wanted (simply asking them for the games would not work because these have always been very pricey around these parts, so that would be too much to ask). By using that strategy, I was able to build a pretty solid collection that included all Mario Party titles, almost all major releases by Rare, Super Smash Bros., Rayman 2, and others.
One little odd detail about my days with the Nintendo 64 is related to what might be the system’s biggest game: Ocarina of Time. As a Nintendo fan, you would expect me to have enjoyed it greatly, but I actually did not. I rented it once not too long after it came out, but because I did not know English, I couldn’t really figure out what I was supposed to do. Needless to say, it was not exactly a lot of fun, even if I was mesmerized by the world and atmosphere; so I would not get into it until a little bit later.
Going Portable – The Game Boy
It was right in the middle of the Nintendo 64 days that the Pokemon fad hit for the first time, and by September of 1998 I was absolutely dying to get my hands on a Game Boy and on Pokemon Red (I guess that, ever since I was a child, I was always a Charmander guy). I still remember when my mother gave me two options: I could either get a standard Game Boy with the game close to the release date or I could wait until Christmas so she could save up for a Game Boy Color. Naturally, I could not possibly wait two months to start catching them all, so my first Nintendo handheld was a neat little Game Boy Pocket. I would eventually get a Game Boy Color a few years down the line, and it was with it that I played Pokemon Gold as well as Pokemon Crystal to death. And as a true Nintendo aficionado, my handheld journey with Nintendo obviously did not end there, as I would go on to own all of their portable systems.
Teenage Years – The GameCube
Having mastered the art of saving the money given to me by relatives in order to buy games, I planned for the arrival of the GameCube quite early. So, for the first time ever, as soon as the new Nintendo system had hit Brazilian stores, I was there with a wad of bills to get it. Personally, the GameCube was a notable system for a bunch of reasons. For starters, since by those days I was starting to learn English, I could finally get into The Legend of Zelda franchise and other games that heavily relied on text. Due to that, The Wind Waker was the first game of the series I could finish, and once I did that, I began purchasing and finishing all previous entries of the saga I had missed.
Secondly, due to how the GameCube saw the return of the Metroid franchise (with the Prime trilogy) after a long lull, it also marked the first time I beat a Metroid game; and as it was the case with Zelda, that was all I needed to be hooked enough to track down and clear previous episodes of the series.
Finally, it is often forgotten, but the GameCube had one impressive lineup of third-party games, with franchises like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, and Soul Calibur having great releases for the console. As somebody who had always been very Nintendo-centered through my gaming life, the GameCube’s vast library got me in touch with a lot of great properties that had not appeared on the Nintendo 64, having favored the more popular and cost-effective PlayStation instead.
Maturity – From the Wii to Eternity
Of course, my love for Nintendo did not stop with the GameCube: it would continue through the casual  explosion of the Wii years; through the unpopular Wii U days, a system that would have the quality of its library overshadowed by poor design and marketing choices; and, now, through the re-establishment of Nintendo as a major force in the home console market with the Switch. After so many consoles and so many years, it is not far-fetched to say my love for Nintendo will continue for as long as I live, and playing what is available for their systems – be their own games or those made by various other talented developers – will always be my favorite hobby.
I never really owned a system by any other company. Not because I am a rabid fanboy to whom Nintendo can do no wrong, but because – to me – gaming would lose a big slice of its charm without Super Mario, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and many of the other franchises Nintendo has created over the years. Early in my life, I did not have the money to support more than one system per generation; and now that I do, what is lacking is time to dedicate for multiple platforms. As such, going with the Nintendo system with every new generation has been an automatic decision, and that will continue for as long as possible.
Nintendobound All the Way
Due to my love for Nintendo and also as a way to practice English, I started a blog back in 2006 – when I was 15 – to share my thoughts on the games I played. Seven years later, in 2013, I opted to end that blog and start a new one on WordPress, where I am writing until this day. I used to write both articles and reviews, but as time passed and my reviews became more elaborate (essentially including some characteristics usually found in articles) I started focusing solely on the latter.
With this collaboration, I hope to share some of my thoughts on games released for Nintendo platforms with the audience over here at Ladies Gamers. And, with any luck, I can help a few readers either discover new titles that they should give a try or simply look at games they have already played in a different way.
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