Nestalgia

 Forgive me if I've done this one before but after 800 odd posts I've got the right to repeat myself. It seems the clowns at the Metro have done a piece on the NES. Some of it is accurate others are less so, you'll want to drop down to the comments for the true experience of what it was like being a NES owner back then. 

First of all pricing. 

Your average NES game was £30-40 here, only two games stick out as being priced at £50, this would be Star Wars and Maniac Mansion. The black box line of games and Donkey Kong Classics (in its orange box) were priced at £20. Oh and for the equivalence on 8bit home micros. £2.99 for budget stuff and £10 for full price stuff.  As games cost big bucks back then, it was essential to read reviews in Total and NMS (Mean machines originally) before purchase. Couple this with the rise of the Boot sale and you'd get games cheap, from stalls from like 1993 onwards. 

The NES was distributed by Mattel who also did Barbie as well as Nintendo themselves later on. It  was mostly sold through Argos and Index aka Littlewoods. The games were pretty much sold everywhere and while moderately popular weren't quite ZX Speccy or C64 popular, which were genuinely sold in the 80s. One final fact is that I may have misremembered from back then was that they had a HQ in Fleet, Hampshire. At least that's what was printed on the cards for Club Nintendo back then. 

Secondly popularity.

 It was never an 80's console here, it really hit around 1990, and twinned with the Ninja Turtle craze did well enough but was a distant second to the Master System which was a very distant second to the Home Micro's we had. Best I can say was it was locally popular and coupled with an extensive swapping system in place meant that you could play a lot of games and not get any you leant out back. I lost Donkey Kong Classics and Gradius which genuinely was a shame. 

Thanks to the half life of it all it remained a cheaper alternative to the SNES for a long time as was the Master System, can remember seeing games for both long after both systems were coughing up blood and the PS1 era came out. 

Thirdly. Games

Never owned the original of either Zelda, Megaman or Castlevania, did own the sequels and went down like this. Zelda 2 from a bootsale, Megaman 3 first ever import when I got my NES converted in Terry's games in Sidcup and Castlevania 2 I think was a full pricer. 

You skipped out on Bubble Bobble (Never a duff port) and Kid Icarus, which was tough but fair. Beat this when  Bryan Adams was Number one here for a decade or so back in 1991. Metroid I got from a swap with no instructions. It's also quite poignant as we had our family cat, Whisky put down on the day I managed to work out how to open the missile doors.

Oh and one final thing before posting. If I was to sell this pile of trash at CEX, I would get my money back. Rock hard and slow, and yeah, because you had no choice you persevered with it. One of those games I wish had been traded out then 

Back home round up.

 Now we are fully back home and don't have to rely on me tapping out posts on my phone, I can explain a bit more of how it went. Stayed in Palmanova in Mallorca, not far from the beach and near the supermarket. Which if you've seen my previous post, contains a chicken.

Sadly had to spend most of my time with the French, which seem to be prevalent in this part of the island. Some are hot, but mostly they are a drag and are the most miserable race on the planet.

We have three beaches, our main beach, the Playa de Palmanova, Platja Son Maties to the left and Punta Marroig which is our local dog beach and leads around the bay to another strand of sand. Saw a big Rotley there swimming in the sea with its owners and a lady with a Greg Mitchell on another occasion.   

 

Punta Marroig

 A few good places for drinks and such, the fish restaurant / bar Il Chiringo  and Diana's beach bar which is also nice but more expensive. 

We were served quite well for travel links and while expensive, you can get to Palma for under 5 euros via the local bus services.

We saw a few nice things out there. A few cats, an octopus, and a massive crab which means I've got sod all chance of finding this online. Also the usual fish plus a massive mullet.  Not so many plants this time, but what I did find wasn't bad, a few cacti and stuff to keep me entertained. 

TV. Never really had it on but, can confirm that, they were showing Doraemon still on Spanish TV, whenever I did. Oh and this channel (and link) turned out to be both German and folk music.

Hotel is good, and if you are into food, well worth a stay. Be warned the lifts are small and slow and you won't get a pool view (no one does) but the views we do have are great. 

Is this love?

Eroski carpark chicken.

 We're come to realize that our local supermarket here, has a big white cock living in the carpark.

It's  a big chicken with it's own bowl for food and I for one would love to know how it got there.

Is it someone's pet? (unlikely) Part of a farm? (there seems to be none local) Or something else entirely.

It's not there all the time, but when it is it seems to rule the roost.