Ah, early childhood. Not all of us gamers began the long road down this hobby so soon, but many did, including myself. My uncle ditched the household when I was four, but he was kind enough to leave behind his Sega Genesis. At the time, I actually wanted his board game about the Roman Empire more, but, unsurprisingly, I logged more hours with my new Sega than I ever would have as a plastic Caesar.
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I would have been even worse at Conquest of the Empire than I was at video games, I bet. Still, I was pretty bad at video games. I’m running on decades-distant memories here, but as best I can recall, this is a full documentation (and sorrowful admission) of just how terrible I truly was.
5 Jurassic Park
I honestly wasn’t that bad at Jurassic Park. I didn’t know there were versions of this game other than the Sega Genesis one, though later in life, I kept hearing about the SNES version being superior. I finally tried it out in 2020. It’s a’ight.
Then again, the Sega Jurassic Park is, similarly, a’ight. It’s not a fantastic video game. You’re either Dr. Alan Grant – in which case, you’re running around with guns, as any good paleontologist might – or you’re a velociraptor. Needless to say, it’s cooler to be a velociraptor, so I was almost always that.
Jurassic Park, at least in this case, is a 2D sidescroller. The music is the best part, I’d say. Real thump-thump stuff, you know? Sega Genesis/Mega Drive’s sound chip was capable of deeper bass than its Super Famicom rival. That’s not to say it was a better sound chip overall, but it had its pluses.
I managed to beat this game over and over again, even if getting to that point took months, so yeah, single-digits Quinton O’Connor was an ace of games by kid standards whenever he booted up Jurassic Park. Go me.
4 Super Mario World
We’re going to briefly change tack, because I jammed on my cousin’s Super Nintendo several times. Whenever I’d visit my aunt’s house, all I’d want to do is hop in the pool or play Super Mario World, and after I nearly drowned in the pool on one particularly unfortunate summer day, I tactfully decided that the SNES was the only real choice I had.
Uh, sorry. Anyway, Super Mario World. I wasn’t bad at it. In case it isn’t clear by now, we’re going to be ranking “up” toward my most dire performances, because that’s funnier to me. Why celebrate my modest capabilities? Who cares that I wasn’t bad at Jurassic Park? We’re building toward total failure, here.
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I kept getting to, like, the fifth world before I had to go home. Forest of Illusion. It was my bane. I wouldn’t be able to visit again for months, and by then, my cousin would inevitably have deleted my file. I think it was his not-so-subtle way of telling me to leave his games alone. I didn’t.
I also decided Yoshi’s real name was Worf. Why? I couldn’t tell you. I like Star Trek. That’s the best answer I’ve got.
3 Eternal Champions
I never knew there was a sequel to Eternal Champions. At least, not until a few years ago. Nor, of course, that there had almost been a third one, for Sega Saturn, before it was canceled in early development. All I knew was Eternal Champions, the OG, the only fighting game I owned. I haven’t played it since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, but I remember… kind of liking it. I also remember it helping me to realize that fighting games aren’t really for me.
I played as R.A.X., because he came from the furthest in the timeline. Eternal Champions (and its sequel), you see, brings together characters from throughout history. Distant past, nearish past, contemperanous present, nearish future, distant future, you name it. I already told you I like Star Trek. Of course I went for the futurest dude that ever did future. Plus, R.A.X. is a kickboxer. Kickboxers are cool.
Kickboxed my way to the championship, I did, and on several occasions. I’m looking at Eternal Champiosns: Challengers from the Dark Side now, though, and I wish I had a Sega CD. This looks dope. You could play as a chicken named Crispy from 1967 Vietnam. What the heck?
2 Sonic The Hedgehog
Impatience. That was my nemesis with Sonic the Hedgehog. I’m sticking with my earliest gaming memories here, and I didn’t get Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (nor its sequels) until around 1996. But I did have the original game in this legendary series from almost the moment of its launch. And I wasn’t very good at it, no, I was not.
Things were easy-peasy in Green Hill Zone. I could practically beat it blindfolded. Marble Garden Zone got trickier; the lava got me half the times I tried. But it was Spring Yard Zone, that mechanical hellscape with the robot crabs and the rolling nightmare monsters, that did me in at least three-quarters of my attempts to beat this game.
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Eventually, I could get past all the hubbub. The boss fight, however, was a separate story. I seldom escaped with my life. There’s a special and terribly vivid memory lodged in my brain forevermore regarding Robotnik’s slow but steady elimination of the blocks that Sonic can stand on. If the fight drags on overlong, there’s nowhere left to go, and Sonic falls to his death. You’ve got to be quick on your toes. I wasn’t.
Weirdly? Labyrinth Zone didn’t give me much grief. Everybody makes a great fuss over the underwater timer segments. I didn’t have much trouble. And then, I’d reach Star Light Zone, and I’d be rewarded with such a dope music theme that it was like I had beaten the game right then and there.
Which is just as well, because how often did I make it through Scrap Brain Zone after that? Three. Maybe four. Yeah, best to relish Star Light.
1 Sword Of Vermilion
Sword of Vermilion is the first video game I ever played. Just an hour or so before I booted up Sonic the Hedgehog, I tried this Sega Genesis RPG on for size. Many years later, I’d realize that my first game had been directed by the legendary Yu Suzuki, who would go on to make games like the Shenmue series. More importantly than that, it was a JRPG; I was fated to be glued to role-playing games from the Land of the Rising Sun for the remainder of my natural existence.
This is a hard game. It’s not just that I was bad at it; it’s that it was bad at letting anybody be good at it. Dungeon exploration occurs in ways not dissimilar to the first Phantasy Star game, with a first-person view and a fast-scrolling screen. You explore the overworld between dungeons in a more traditional manner, and villages are shown in a more traditional overhead view.
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The fights are tough, and I had no idea what I was doing. I’d just slash and slash and then slash some more. Why use magic when I can slash? Why evade when I can strike? Why is my HP dropping like flies? Why heal? Why not simply cry? It was a classic example of how many very young children respond to RPGs, and thank goodness for Final Fantasy 7 several years later, or else I may never have realized what I was missing.
To be honest, though, it doesn’t help that I always played Sword of Vermilion in the morning, before school, whilst eating my oatmeal. My grandmother did not seem to care that pausing for breakfast busted up my rhythm, nor did she, in fact, believe my excuse. “You just suck at this,” she once told me. She was right.
I never did return to Sword of Vermilion. Maybe I should do that sometime. You know, see if it really is that hard, or if I was just that young and foolish. Either way, it’s a bit of a nightmare memory of mine, and not one that I can typically share with others. I’ve seldom met anybody who played this game, let alone beat it.
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