The N64 is 30 years old! This week, we’re running a series of articles celebrating the 64-bit machine, its industry-shaping software, and its effect on a generation of gamers.
Today, Jim tackles a tough couple of interviewees…
What sounds come to mind when you think back to 1998? Ocarina of Time‘s iconic piano opening? The Friends theme song? Celine Dion? For my parents, it’s the sound of a wailing child.
I was born in September, and by the sounds of it, I was what medical professionals would call ‘an arsehole’. I screamed all the time. Bedtime? Screamed. Lunchtime? Screamed.
“You cried non-stop every evening,” my mum remembers, “from about half past four, until about eight o’clock.”
By October, it had become too much. On the way back from a planned family meet-up that my parents never made it to on account of my backseat antics, my dad made a split-second decision, pulled off the motorway and turned into the nearest Toys ‘R Us. “Right,” he recalls saying, as he reminisced last week, “I need a treat.”
The treat in question was a Nintendo 64, a console that had been on the market for a good 18 months by this point, but one that had never jumped to the top of my parents’ must-buy list due to boring things like a wedding, a house, and a newborn baby.
“I’m not quite sure why we chose a Nintendo 64,” Dad says. “I think I was probably more excited about it because I worked in software, so I knew what the ’64’ meant. 64-bit was a big deal!” The intent, however, was set: this would provide evening entertainment for one parent, while the other dealt with me downstairs.
A strong idea, but it wasn’t smooth sailing from the jump. You see, the console my parents had chosen came bundled with GoldenEye 007, and Dad (a man who could never even be in the same room as any first-person games I played as a kid, let alone play them himself), couldn’t stick it.
“I couldn’t play it,” he recalls. “I remember putting it on, trying it, and thinking it was really good, but I felt ill.”
After two days, he went back to Toys ‘R Us with the intention of returning the console, but decided to take a punt on “Just one more game” instead. That game was a little-known curio called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
“I don’t really know why Zelda,” he confesses. “I don’t know if I had even heard of Zelda, but I brought it back, put it in, and *mimics Epona’s clopping and the title screen ocarina riff*.”
(I’ll note at this point that a lot of the ensuing chat with my parents was interjected by them both recreating OoT sounds from memory — the house interior, “do do do do do do do-do-do“, big chest “da da da DAAAH“, game over “duh nuh nuh nuuhhhh“. I haven’t included them all here, but you get the picture.)
What remained consistent, however, was how much both of them lit up when the Ocarina memories started flowing. “We loved it,” Mum says. “We loved the game so much that we even bought the Nintendo 64 Magazine to get tips on how to defeat the Skulltulas.”
I had never seen anything like Zelda. I was absolutely hooked.
Dad has shown a passing interest in video games in the 27 years since, but Mum has rarely gotten involved outside of the rare Wii or DS game, so hearing words like ‘Skulltulla’ and the Castle Town theme music come from her mouth should be the most glowing illustration of the game’s impact. “I had never seen anything like Zelda. I was absolutely hooked.”
With a save file each, Ocarina became an evening tradition for both of them. “We took it in turns to play it,” Mum remembers, “one of us would play for half an hour while the other jiggled the baby. Half an hour later, the one with the baby would come upstairs and say, ‘Your turn.'”
By the sounds of it, neither Mum nor Dad made it all that far through the game (funny how the promise of a screaming child being forced on you in 30 minutes will do that), though each of them recalled the first few bosses — “the spider you have to shoot in the eye” and “a big monster where you have to throw a bomb into its mouth”. But completing it was never the end goal.
Dad describes the whole set-up as “a bit of a lifesaver,” while Mum put things slightly more candidly: “We didn’t play it for recreation. We played it for therapy.”
And that’s exactly what Ocarina provided. Dad recalled going to the library to rent a handful of other games on the system. I distinctly remember Shadows of the Empire being in the house when I got older, but on the whole, Zelda was enough.
It’s fitting, then, that the N64 and Ocarina provided my first gaming memory around five years later, with Dad guiding me through the Deku Tree and reminding me to take note of its puzzles to use down the line (he still remembers the “2-3 is number 1!” Deku Shrub order today). A few years after, I remember finally defeating Phantom Ganon in the Forest Temple and running to tell Mum that I had managed to do it, because I knew she’d be impressed.
13 years later, they took me to Birmingham Game Fest and waited in line with me so I could play the Ocarina of Time 3D demo. 15 years after that, we all sat around chatting about the Switch 2 remake, and how that single shot of Link has infiltrated every suggested video on Dad’s YouTube feed since its reveal.
What started as a piece of much-needed respite for them has developed into a lifetime passion for me. So thank you for sticking with it (both the N64 and my first months), Mum and Dad. It was a pretty good decision in the end.
Oh, and sorry about the screaming.
