The Nintendo Entertainment System holds a special place in video game history. In spite of the fact the video game industry had all but died, Nintendo introduced the system to the United States in 1985 and its popularity exploded.

The Legend of Zelda Nearly Had an Assassin's Creed-like Twist

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Castlevania's Classic Hollywood Connection

No doubt a huge part of the system's success was due to its legendary library of games. Plenty of long-running franchises we're still playing today got their start on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The idea of keeping track of the historical significance of these games wasn't something that occurred to people at the time, which is why there are still a ton of really cool things to learn about your favorite NES games.Some of these facts you may already know if you're a true Power Player, but some will no doubt come as a surprise.The overland music for the original Legend of Zelda game is one of the most recognizable and iconic in gaming. The series itself is one of gaming's most well-known and important. Everyone knows the basic story: a young elf boy awakens and goes on to save the fantasy realm of Hyrule. But creator Shigeru Miyamoto's original vision saw Hyrule as a place bound to both the past and the future.In an early vision for the Legend of Zelda, the Triforce shards were microchips. In an interview, Miyamoto said the game was going to take place in both the past and the future. In fact, Link's name comes from this original idea, as the hero was to act as a "link" between the time periods.Time would eventually become a central part of the series, but we never did get those microchip Triforce shards.

When you think of Castlevania, you probably think of mythological beasts and religious iconography, but the original game was more of an homage to Hollywood monster movies of the past.The opening screens for all three NES Castlevania games have perforated borders resembling film stock. The "cinema scene" at the start of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse animates the borders to look like a movie scrolling by.

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Why Mario Eats Mushrooms to Get Bigger

But it's not just the openings that pay homage to the old monster movies. The ending credits feature riffs on names associated with classic horror. For example, the "screenplay" is credited to Vran Stoker, a take-off on Bram Stoker, who penned the original novel in 1897. Dracula is played by Christopher Bee, which is an homage to actor Christopher Lee who played Dracula in the 1958 movie Horror of Dracula. There's also "Belo Lugosi" (Bela Lugosi) as Death, Boris Karloffice (Boris Karloff) as Frankenstein, and more.

Mario starts out small. Mario finds a mushroom in a block; Mario is now big. It's the first power-up in the series and makes absolutely no sense at all. Putting aside the fact a mushroom is hiding inside of a floating block, eating a mysterious fungus is never recommended. So why does it make Mario grow?

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Mega Man Almost Had a Cigarette-Based Robot Boss

According to creator Shigeru Miyamoto, it's because of magic, of course.Miyamoto said in an interview since the game is set in a magical kingdom, he made the main power-up a mushroom because "you see people in folk tales wandering into forests and eating mushrooms all the time." People wanted to see more of the world on screen, so they built the game around the smaller Mario and added in the power-up to make him larger. Small Mario is the default size, and the world is scaled to him.Bonus fact: Miyamoto also said the infinite 1-up koopa shell trick in the first Super Mario Bros. was intentional."We did code the game so that a trick like that would be possible," he said, adding his team tested it extensively but ultimately players were much better at it than they thought possible.By the way, according to a calendar in Nintendo Power volume 2, Mario's birthday is October 11.

Mega Man 2 is one of the NES' all-time greatest games. In fact, it's probably one of the all-time greatest games for any system. It took the modified rock-paper-scissors boss-power gameplay of the original and expanded upon it to incredible effect.

Early Mega Man 2 boss sketches.

Coming up with 8 robot bosses and their associated stages only got harder with each iteration of the main series, but even in Mega Man 2, there were some weird ideas floating around. For instance, Smoke Man, the cigarette-smoking boss robot who didn't make the final cut.In the pages of the Mega Man & Mega Man X Official Complete Works book, rough sketches for boss ideas are included. Right there, sandwiched between "Shout Man" and what would later become Heat Man is our carcinogenic boss, Smoke Man.It's pretty obvious why Smoke Man didn't make the cut, but Heat Man is still basically a giant Zippo lighter. The lighter reference is probably lost on kids today, but a robot boss exhaling a cool cloud of cancer-causing smoke is something that time wouldn't have forgotten.