As I'm grinding out a season of Tecmo Super Bowl on my Famicom (which, ironically, plays host to a Japanese version of the game that is literally identical, text and all, to the U.S. release), I concretely decide on my literal future. I plan it out right there, as I blip video Phil Simms around on the screen. This is the power Tecmo Super Bowl has over me now, these ancient players, my perpetual heroes, and I find myself being mentally sucked away to 1991.

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As I hammer A to send that unmissable extra point through the uprights it all materializes before my eyes. I will grow up, enter the NFL and get drafted as a quarterback, then make sure my team somehow ends up with a player named Gary Reasons, who is identically named to the 1991 New York Giants offensive linebacker also named Gary Reasons, as depicted in Tecmo Super Bowl. If I have to I will pay someone to change his own name legally to Gary Reasons.

Over the course of the season I will electrify the National Football League with my unique brand of punishing, bladder-emptying offense, ensuring that in my wake NFL Commissioner Goodell will whimper and pout until rules preventing destructive yardage gains are instituted and named after me, like "the Brandon rule," which prohibits anyone from throwing a 99 yard pass at over 300 miles per hour. Mr. Reasons and I will become known as the "Gary Pairy," an unstoppable duo that somehow links up for dozens of staggering gains per game.

On the night before the Super Bowl, in a move that shocks the nation, I will release several of my teammates into free agency. As I deliver my final answers to the slobbering press, Gary Reasons at my side, one meek reporter will approach the locker room as the rest of the reporters peel away. He will ask me, reverently but with the slightest hint of fear, sweat forming on the arches of his small-for-his-age feet:

"Uh, mister Daiker, um," his voice cracking, "can't you let me know about the players you released this morning? What would cause you to take such action? Why would you do it, so close to the big game?"

I will turn back to face him, already angled slightly away, my five-o'-clock shadow blocking out the goddamned sun, and as I deliver a right-side-only grin, the light of his cameraman's gear will twinkle off the edge of my blazingly white incisor. I will say one thing, and one thing only, before closing the door with finality.

"I have my Reasons."
  1. Nintendo sometimes makes a big deal about milestones—Mario's 30th, Zelda's 25th, and the "Year of Luigi" are all recent examples that come to mind—but one thing you won't usually hear them mention is how long it's been since something went away. Luckily, my encyclopedic knowledge of pointless factoids stands at the ready! You see, today, February 19, 2019, marks the 25th anniversary of the very last games that Nintendo ever released for the Famicom, the system that enjoyed new releases for nearly 11 years and put them on the map as a home video game publisher.
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  2. There's always much to do when it's discovered that some game system or another isn't region-free. The recent "revelation" that Wii U will also be region-locked has drawn no small amount of ire from the perpetual justice-seekers of the world who seem to think that such a move is without precedent. Of course, what's more uncommon is indeed a system that happens to be region-free by default. And wouldn't ya know it, literally every single home console from Nintendo has been region-locked in one way or another.
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  3. I can imagine it now: on April 12, 1991, Hiroyuki Hashimoto is drunk after a long cherry blossom viewing party with his new coworkers, who he pretends to like. He wasn't a good student but he was chosen by this company, so he's stuck here for better or worse. He could have been something more, but couldn't we all have? His duty is clear. With his first paycheck he has deigns on purchasing a new Super Famicom with some of this month's earnings, and he aches for Actraiser, Final Fight, and the upcoming SimCity, all components of the system's strong launch lineup.
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