Thumbs up x2
by nin10mode » July 13th, 2015, 2:07 am
The tears came a bit late, but suddenly I looked at my username, and then my avatar, and realized just how much of an impact he and his company had.
My first videogame was Super Mario Bros: Deluxe, for the GBC. I was born in 1996, so most of my early childhood was spent with what Yamauchi was president for. Heck, most of the early games that Mr. Iwata's had a hand in I've only experienced through friends because of how quiet I was about wanting more as a kid. The most fun I had in grade school were nights when my sisters would bring me to their friend's house to play Mario Power Tennis or Pokemon Stadium on his N64. More importantly, we played Melee on GCN, where I met Kirby, where of course, I spammed his Rock move. I'm not even sure why I picked him up out of all of the characters... Maybe it's because Kirby was so plush and simple. Maybe its because he had such diverse animations and moves. Maybe it was because he could be anything he wanted to be with that Inhale move. I'm most definitely over-analyzing childhood right now, but I can't help wondering why my younger self loved him so much.
When I was first exposed to the internet, all I would look for were things related to Nintendo. My sister lent me her laptop on long trips and in her apartment (she was a college student at the time) and that's how I found Newgrounds. Before I found Super Mario 63 and this amazing website, I watched parodies of all the names I recognized from Smash Bros. SMBZ for my fighting fix, crossovers and fanwork with more serious tones like Resident Mario, or Mario Brothers (another about Luigi going on a gory quest to revive his brother whose name escapes me), and of course N!N10Doh!, SMB Bloopers and the like for my comedy fix. On youtube I would watch Brawl machinimations (Melee ones edited in WMM before Brawl was released) before Machinima became a major network. Guys like GuitarmasterX7, Shippidge, MALRWiiStation360, all of VirtualSmash... Other people that Nintendo touched on a personal level.
I also remember in 6th grade, I did two projects.
The first gave me the task of making an analogy for a US legislative process, and my simple middle school mind told me to compare it to beating the worlds of SMB. Amazingly silly right? All it is beating one level and going to the next.
The second one gave me the task of making a poster about someone important in my life. In a class of people copping out and choosing a parent, I decided I wanted to make mine on Shigeru Miyamoto. Of course, everyone laughed, both at my decision and at the picture of him holding the sword and shield from his LoZ:TP reveal. But I took that project seriously and realized how big Nintendo was in my life. And that summer, I discovered Super Mario 63 and the first and greatest website I've ever been a part of. The first thing I did was think of a username (that surprisingly doesn't seem silly to most people that see it) and find an image of my favorite character to use as an avatar. Back then, I had a lot of fleeting dreams; I wanted to learn how to hack my wii so I could make machinimations too and make my own character with my own moveset, I wanted to write stories starring my favorite childhood heroes, I brainstormed sequels and spinoffs to games with too many sequels. Before this phase of my life, I figured I was smart, but it was at this point that I felt I could be creative. I started thinking instead of just memorizing and I feel like I owe this to both Nintendo, and this community.
A few years later, Mr. Iwata started doing Directs, and though I've only seen a few (I've never been great with keeping up with news), they showed me enough of him to tell me he was more than just a programmer and businessman; simply the last name shown in every staff roll. When he said he would cut his own pay for the sake of Nintendo, I only thought "Wow. That's a true leader." Not once did I think he wouldn't follow through. The latest E3 presentation only reinforced that fun, charming, and caring image I have. I feel guilty with this username, knowing so little about the president of its inspiration until only recently, but he, along with Mr. Miyamoto, Masahiro Sakurai, Reggie, and so many other names that I now know and appreciate immensely, was an integral part of the Nintendo that I've literally grown up on.
It's hard to imagine the next Nintendo title having a different name at the end of the credits. It's even harder to imagine the next Nintendo Direct without Mr. Iwata delivering news directly to us.
Somehow I turned this largely into an essay about myself, but I think Nintendo, more specifically Iwata's Nintendo, makes up a large chunk of who I am. Probably more than the five ninths (one half?) that it makes of my username.

i use mal now but this sigbar is pretty