The story goes back to the year 1991 (I think) and I was 7 years old at the time. Easter came around again as it had before. I enjoyed coloring eggs, getting some candy and maybe some type of special treat, but as far as holidays went I don't think it was ever as important to me as Halloween or Christmas. As far as I'm concerned, the Easter I'm thinking of was by far the best and I owe it to my parents (or the Easter Bunny). That year my parents had some surprises for me in colored plastic eggs and then hid the eggs all over the house. Now it could have been candy in those eggs and even that would have been great, but by some amazing inspiration my parents decided to fill the eggs with little Monster in my Pocket toys.
You might need to have also been a boy around the same time to know what I'm talking about, but they were these little rubber toys of classic monsters. I think they changed and became more complex as the franchise continued, but the ones in the eggs were from the first series of toys. Small, approximately 1 inch tall, and one solid color (awesomely red, nearly lime, slightly lighter purple than I would prefer, and blatantly yellow is how I would now describe the original colors they came in). I loved them then and even now I still think they're pretty cool when it comes to toys. There was something very memorable about exploring the house I'd always lived in on my own scavenger hunt, like everything was transformed into something more special than its everyday form. Simply speaking, it was a magical experience for a dorky child.
I scoured every nook of the house I could think of to come up with what in my mind was a great collection of the tiny monsters (probably about 12 or maybe less, but I certainly would later get more at stores). What made all this even more memorable was my video game interest at the time happened to be Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. I've come again to a point where my memory is a bit hazy, because I can't recall if I also received the game as some type of Easter gift, received it sometime earlier or if I just was currently renting the game from Blockbuster while I had extra time off school. Regardless, I was into the game at the time and it worked very well to have a bunch of tiny monsters not unlike the mostly single color enemies in the game. The natural progression was to play with the Monster in my Pocket toys as if they were Dracula and his creatures, which I indeed remember doing. I used an old He-man play set of Castle Grayskull, acquired at a yard sale or flea market sometime previously, as Dracula's castle. Not sure what I used for a Belmont, but I'm sure I figured something out. Maybe monsters and such may not sound holiday appropriate, but to a 7-year-old boy it was the best Easter ever.Castlevania is indeed one of my favorite video game series. I'll admit even though I was psyched about Castlevania III back in 1991, it doesn't rank particularly high with me now compared to other entries. Yes, it was good, and every now and then I get the urge to go back and play it (an urge I've resisted the last several times it crept up). It doesn't have quite as much nostalgia for me as the first two entries and I enjoyed many of the ones that came after it more. For a series sometimes known for its difficult, the third may well be either the hardest or a close second (not counting two obscure remakes of the first game that never made it to the U.S.). When I'm in the mood for Castlevania again, I'd diffidently like to go into more detail on the series.
There was actually a Monster in my Pocket video game for the NES and it was made by Konami, the creator of the Castlevania series. I never owned it, though I did play it once upon a time, but I don't have any thoughts to share. Just wanted to mention it because it'd be remiss not to given the content of this post.
Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Monster in my Pocket is copyright of Matchbox. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is copyright of Konami.
No comments:
Post a Comment