Life's Funny Like That: Things I Wish I'd Kept #1: My Nintendo Power Magazines

This is just one of many things I kinda regret getting rid of, but it's a good fifteen years too late for that now.

There are a couple reasons I could say I regret ditching my collection of Nintendo Power magazines in one of a couple ways, either as they went out of date, or, as many of us geeks and nerds have had happen to such collections over the years, by way of my parents cleaning closets while I was in college. One is something I've already sort of eluded to in that lately, I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for the old Star Fox comics they ran back in 1992 and 1993. I think I'll wind up doing a Looking Back about it on That Guy in the near future, though I can't say when, exactly, that might be.

The other reason that comes immediately to mind right now is that back in the early days of the magazine, they'd alternate between issues that would highlight several upcoming games, offer hints, provide bits of upcoming news, and the like and issues that were in-depth reviews and strategy guides for popular games of the time. One of those games was the original Final Fantasy. At the time, and for years after, really, that was about as useless and irrelevant an issue as the others, because although I knew I wanted the game, I never really got around to actually playing it. So, away went the guide with what few other issues I had left when I was in college, because if my mom asked me if I wanted to keep those things, I probably said no, thinking that I would never need it for anything.

But here I am, fifteen years later, wishing I'd kept it so that I could use it as a guide for playing the Origins version of Final Fantasy. Granted, I'll probably be turning to AppleGodZMG's Let's Play of the game to get the hints I need, because he's got some good strategies that I could benefit from. Still, having had something like that and gotten rid of it because I thought I wouldn't need it only to find out that I eventually would is kind of a laugh.

Life's funny like that sometimes, though, and I'm sure I'll think of more things I'll wish I'd kept as time goes by. Chances are, more than a few will be gaming related.