It was 15 years ago today that I attended the district competition of the Nintendo World Championships (which I understand was later rechristened PowerFest). I remember weeks of practice in Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer, and Tetris beforehand; the first Game Boy games being demonstrated in this pre-E3 event; finally ending up on stage with six other kids, and being whittled down to one of the two left standing. If we'd been playing Tengen Tetris, we would've been on evener ground. But though I didn't make it to the finals in Florida, I walked away with free copies of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Cybernoid (the former a then-impossible-to-find game; the latter a wretched piece of programming which I brought to Child World and exchanged for Dragon Warrior, which I'd previously rented for three weeks straight), and a mention in the next day's newspaper article (which is too embarrasingly detailed of my much-younger self for me to link to here). I wonder where the brat that beat me is today… and if he's up for a rematch?

Read this gentleman's recollection for a more detailed description of the competition process.

In the meantime, all I can do is hope for a DVD release of that wonderful SMB3 commercial known as The Wizard…