My story with the SNES is a passionate love story right out of a romance story. By then my love of videogames had been going on for nearly a decade, and the NES had been something out of a dream for someone used to first-generation 8-bit micros. Pictures of the incredible games of the SNES were common in magazines, both imported and local, for many years before the actual console was released in Spain, which was actually quite late, during 1992. Super Mario World seemed like an impossible game, the kind of which you dream of but can't exist in reality. For a while considered importing one, which back then was super expensive (and more so on my teenager allowance, of course; it would mean a couple years of saving), but thinking of importing the games also made me realize it would not be practical.
I started saving up my allowance for one even before an official date was set for Spain. The last few months leading up to its release were almost torture. I bought it the very day it was released, of course. But even then I could not possibly imagine the kind of heights it would lead me to. After all, I didn't even know of Final Fantasy of Squaresoft back then (no Square games were officially released in Spain until almost the PSX era, although I discovered Final Fantasy IV thanks to an import shop), my only RPG had been Phantasy Star II (also an import), and so on.
Truly a golden age of gaming in my opinion, and the one system and games I loved most in my entire life.
