I WAS JUST IN THIS DUNGEON... WASN'T I?

We've recently picked up a new roommate at Casa Del Star Worz and one of the many benefits she has brought into our lives, on top of reduced rent and a legitimate reason to hang up our unicorn/rainbow poster, was an old school Nintendo and a veritable cornucopia of old school games. Games so old school they're spelled "Olde Fchoole". Blades of Steel, Metriod, Paperboy, Castlevania, MotherLovin' ExciteBike, they're all there. And then, on top of it all; Dragon Warrior. I nearly broke my neck, as well as the sound barrier, racing to the secondary video game room to play. (Yes, that's how many systems my roommates have. They take up TWO rooms. Weep with either envy or pity, your pick.)

Now, as anyone who currently still owns a classic Nintendo knows, you can't just put a cartridge in and start playing. No, no. Back in the day, before discs and memory cards and wireless remote hoolimajiggery, you had to earn the right to play a video game. And the way you earned it was by false starting time and time again trying to get the system to recognize the game. It consists of four stages, though they are not always in this order.

Stage 1: Big gray screen. This is the grandfather of the "Blue Screen of Death". Solution- Remove cartridge and blow on it.
Stage 2: Semi-coherent screen. It Looks like the game, if you were on acid and had just been punched in one eye. Solution- Remove cartridge and blow on it, push harder into the machine.
Stage 3: Black and White screen. Also know as "Good Enough, I guess". This works for some games, Super Mario Brothers, for example. It does not work for other games, such as Dr. Mario. Solution- Remove cartridge and blow on it, blow inside machine, shake game in an up and down manner, push harder into the machine.
Stage 4: Color. Sweet Lord Above, glorious 8-bit color.

I spent most of the day playing Dragon Warrior in Stage 3, until I stumbled upon Stage 4 late in the afternoon. It must have been what Dorothy felt like when she woke up in Oz. Red bricks, blue water, green forests, green grass, green... mountains... okay, maybe I wasn't missing out on THAT much.

Dragon Warrior, for those of you who don't know, is a role playing adventure where you take a would-be knight around the kingdom looking to rescue the missing princess and destroy the evil Dragonlord, hence the title. I hear in Japan it's called Missing Princess Finder Action Dragon Fight Man Pow.

It's a pretty straight forward game, as all old Nintendo games were. You had two buttons, what complications could they throw at you? Walk around, find monster, attack monster, kill monster, get gold, get experience, level up, get better weapons, so on and so forth. 10 year-olds played this game, I know, because I played it when I was 10.

And yet... I suck at Dragon Warrior. I absolutely suck. I'm charging into dungeons I have no right entering, I'm forgetting to bring herbs with me, I'm casting sleep on townspeople, I'm getting murdered by Slimes. I'm having to be resurrected more than Lazarus. I keep thinking the King's just going to say "Screw it, you can stay dead, someone get me a new hero." I get lost IN THE OPEN. I pause the game, go to grab a soda, come back and then sit there for five minutes thinking "Okay... was I heading east? Or West?" Two minutes later I remember it was north.

Just wait though, wait till I level up and get my hands on the soul caliber, then I'm going to start turning things around.

...what? Wrong game? Wrong genre? Wrong system? Son of a b-