When people normally think of Nintendo, they think of Mario jumping through the worlds to save Princess Peach from the evil Bowser and bouncing on top of Goombas. But, Nintendo is so much more than that to a huge fan like me.

I did like Mario a lot when I was about six years old and got my first Game Boy Advance SP. My parents then got me a Playstation 2 when I was five. I'll be honest, I never really played any games on that besides Ribbit King. When I got my Game Boy Advance SP, I was always playing the Mario game I had and the Disney Princess game because they were really entertaining to me. Of course, I do not play that game anymore, but still, it was what I enjoyed at the time.

When I got a little older and my brother was born, I got a DS Lite and the Wii. Those were the true start of my gaming days being a witness to games like Animal Crossing: City Folk and Super Mario Galaxy which are the first two games my parents bought my brother and I for the system. Of course, my brother was very young at the time, so I mostly got to play the games.

Let me tell you one thing though...I was in love!

Animal Crossing was so charming and Super Mario Galaxy was just an ingenious concept and a gorgeous game in general.

As I got deeper into Nintendo, the 3DS was about to come out in 2012. I wanted one super bad, but they were pretty expensive. I waited for the prices to go down before purchasing one.

Once the prices had gone down it was right before my birthday. I ended up getting a red 3DS for my birthday, so of course, I bought The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was exciting! I was very happy about this, it was the first experience I had with a Zelda game and I fell in love with the series.

Then, I proceeded to get games like Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Fates, and Kid Icarus Uprising. These became some of my favorite games of all time and they still are my favorites today. They were all Nintendo first party titles that had helped me through thick and thin. They had offered me some very good times that I will truly never forget, but I have already wrote an entire article about how much I love one of those games. The beautiful voice, acting, and adventure of both game series is just something beautiful, including the more intense strategy of the Fire Emblem series.

Honestly though, I think I realized more my love of Nintendo when I found out Satoru Iwata, the fourth president of Nintendo, passed away on July 11th, 2015. It was a very sad moment within the gaming community and I was extremely saddened as well. I found out this news on the way back from summer basketball and I remember sitting in shock for a while, thinking that the man who had started a lot of my favorite games was now gone. This was the moment I realized I loved Nintendo as a game company and not just for their games. It shows my true emotional attachment to these games goes indirectly with the creators that made the games.

Nintendo has brought me good times in my life. I have so many friends because of the games I love. I had a group of friends junior year, mainly because of Nintendo games. I miss that group, it was a really good time, a time that I will never forget in my life. Nintendo has brought me with friends, brought me smiles, brought me inspiration in my life, and most importantly, it brings me true happiness to this day and something to be truly emotionally attached to.

Thank you Nintendo for everything! Please continue to do what you do!