Share your stupid childhood video game misconceptions

General Discussion
#1

I used to think SNK was just a company that made shitty Street Fighter knock offs.

Back in the early 90’s, I read in some random game mag with a SF2 guide that Ryu and Ken were brothers, separated ay birth. I believed this for years.

Chun-Li was pronounced “Chun El Aye”.

Upon discovering the early Vs. games from Capcom, my friends older brother made us believe that Capcom had bought out Marvel.

Each console had it’s own manufacturer and company. I’d say shit like “Noooo! Genesis and Playstation wont release any Final Fantasy games ever!!!” I had no concept of developers/publishers/etc.

I used to think Art of Fighting 3 was the best fighting game I have ever played, despite playing titles like SF2 and RB2 and thinking they were lame because the sprites weren’t that cool.

I really thought I could buy a Neo*Geo AES for under $100 if I looked hard enough on the internet. Back in 1998. I have no idea what I thinking. Shortly after, I discovered emulation.

I used to get so angry at bosses that I would simply believe the developers were sadists and made the game difficult just to piss me off. This is why I still haven’t gotten past the 3rd level in Contra III.

#2

Mew under the truck.
My friend also told me that if you caught all unknown in Crystal that you would randomly find Celebi. I believed this and looked for it for months because I wanted to be the only kid with a Celebi at school.

#3

They’re not? shots fired

I guess for me the realization that Link was not Zelda…That’s really it i think.

#4

lol oh man, so many things from Pokemon, and I’d waste hours and hours trying to get them to work. And there was always that one kid in school that claimed everything was true and his dad worked at Nintendo, and everytime we would say ‘this shit don’t work’ he’d say ‘ur just doin it wrong mang’ and then come up with another lie.
Probably didn’t use those exact words, but you get the picture.

#5

I forgot which magazine it was in. It might’ve been Tips N Tricks or GamePro, but it had a picture of Yoshi in Pokemon Red and Blue as a pokedex entry, with a guide on how to get it. I don’t remember everything, but I know it had something to do with trying to evolve Dragonair or Dragonite into Yoshi near the cave where Mewtwo is at.

And I spent quite a few hours trying to get this to work. It was only many years later that I found out there isn’t a Yoshi in Red and Blue.

#6

You can use reptile in MK1 was probably the most popular game myth ever because after fighting reptile you could make scorpion and sub zero have green outfits.

#7

  • I remember going to my local arcade and 7-11 to play SF: Championship Edition and people kept calling M. Bison “Mr. Beeson”.

  • The infamous Sheng Long (sp?) in EGM or Gamepro, can’t remember which, and actually thought he was real.

  • I don’t remember exactly what this one was, but in Goldeneye for N64, the writers at EGM decided to play an April Fools prank and claim that if you could beat Egyptian with all the handicaps at a ridiculous level for the enemies you’d get something. My friend and I stayed up all night trying to beat it, and he actually did. Needless to say, we didn’t get shit.

  • I guess this kinda falls under this category. When CvS2 came out for the consoles, I didn’t know what Ex-grooves were and how chain combos worked. So a friend of mine came over and to fuck with me said he had a combo with Haohmaru that did like 22,000 points of damage or something crazy like that. So he did the chain combo with the big chooch at the end and I thought Haoh was the best character in the game after that.

#8

When kids lied about there being a Mario 10 in Japan.

I hate children, then and now.

Also, that throws were cheap.

Thank Dr. B Blizzard doesn’t make competitive fighters, lest infinites be called “exploits.”

#9

Oh here’s one:

That Nintendo is worth a damn.

Lack of a winky smiley is intentional.

#10

When I first played the Banjo games I was absolutely amazed that doing things in the world affected other parts of the world and you could travel between areas linked together. That was the first time I felt of a gaming environment as an actual world and was also probably the most definitive moment I decided I wanted to make games, before that I had always seen games as linear experiences with levels to beat to get to the final challenge, I even played Final Fantasy like that before I played Banjo.

I’ve always had a very anaytical way of playing games, so past that one about linearity I can’t think of anything specifically that I didn’t piece together from what I already knew.

#11

Way back then, I foolishly believed the hype that TMNT: The Arcade Game would indeed be “arcade perfect”…probably due to Nintendo Power hyping it up at the time, along with the title of the game specifically telling you that yes, this is “THE ARCADE GAME”. I had even seen the pictures of it, but I was probably in denial and/or just assumed “wellllll, the game just isn’t quite finished yet…I’m sure they’ll fine-tune those graphics a bit before it is released.” Once I got it, it would go on to be the first major disappointment I had experienced with a game. Despite all evidence to the contrary (+ common sense), I was actually expecting that this would be exactly on par with the one you could play at the arcade, in terms of graphics, sound and everything.

I guess it doesn’t take much sometimes… kids will buy into anything, basically… heh, like when Nintendo claimed the DS was “only a third pillar…” and not really the successor to the Gameboy. People actually believed that shit, man…it’s still hilarious to me today.

#12

Fuck man, those rumors on Pokemon and FF7 were properly the only things I’ve ever fell for.
Wasted so much time trying to see if that shit was all true.

WHY WOULD THE INTERNET LIE TO ME LIKE THIS?!!??

#13

when i was younger and played smash people told me you could unlock sonic or ryu ect. by beating endless melee.
and that if you made pikachu hit the screen x number of times he would evolve into raichu

also some asshole of a kid told me that if you caught all the poes heart tanks blah blah blah and put the master sword in its pedestal and played some song then pull it out all your equipment would be upgraded

some other asshole kid told me that if you collect all the stars in super mario 64 and got to yoshi the ending would be different that yoshi would drink all the water from the fountain where the ghost level is and that peach would get angry and mario would blame yoshi

#14

That Ryu was pronounced Rhi-u

That Sonic would always be better than Mario

That cartridges would never die (Nintendo still keeping them alive)

That MMA games would be cool and not so gay

I wouldn’t buy another Call of Duty

#15

When I was younger cousin used to tell me that Asians were godlike in fighting games and they would push all these buttons in a row and you’d be dead. Like they were unbeatable and it was just an asian thing. Obviously now I know that it’s just because people know how to play the game, and have execution to do combos (myself included).

Mew under the truck too. Why the hell did they put the truck there anyway? That’s a gamefreak troll…

#16
  • Goombas in SMB were little owl-like creatures with a white beak and no torso.
  • The buzzy beetle in SMB were a moving decapitated Darth Vadar head.
  • Lakitu was a floating cow head that threw magical jelly cookies that turned into deadly cookie animals. (8-bit can really change your perspective).
  • Those little blue fishes in Super Mario World wore lipstick and tried to kiss you if you woke them up. (they were puckering and shit).
  • That Skate was the best character in Streets of Rage 2 cause he was the only one who could dash. (Never played on Normal)
  • Sonic was a cat (Didn’t know what a hedgehog was).
  • Tails was a female (looked kind of girly on the title screen)
  • Goten was kid Goku in Super Budoten 3 (had not seen the Cell or Buu Saga yet on Toonami).
  • Didn’t learn that Samus was a female until after I played Smash Bros. 64.
  • Didn’t know Kirby was pink until after I played Kirby Superstar. (always thought he was white).
#17

Me pronouncing Ayane from Dead or Alive, “A-yay-nee”, “A-yan-nee” or “A-yane”.

#18

I say A-yan :rofl:

Sad thing about the Rhi-u pronunciation is I called out Seth Killian over it…
Thank god I didn’t call him out over it here on SRK

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRHI1tazsXJ3sUZZGaB27jwS9S1LErgaAN5OJpzNk_zfpkCbbrXNJqfIFxh2Q

#19

That Call of Duty would never blow up

#20

Nintendo only really failed with Wii and 3DS (though one could debate if the Wii was a failure).

Every other Nintendo console sans those two Virtual Boy was a good console.