Okay...this is going to sound stupid, so please bear with me: bubble bobble on the (original) gameboy.
First of: the age. I got it when it was new, so I was five or six at that time.
Second: the tone. As you probably know, bubble bobble features this cute bubble-shooting dinosaurs. The tone is mild, cheerful and enthusiastic. It wasn't easy, but because all video games were hard at that time, that was okay (this was before games were about holding your hand). It had 99 levels and a boss every 25 levels. These were one of the known enemy types but about four times the size, and instead of blowing bubbles at it you had to get this bottle somewhere in the level that changed your bubbles to fireballs. Like most video game bosses at that time, it was sort of blind and just had you learning to dodge correctly and not blindly leaping into where you weren't supposed to be (again: a kid's game).
...and then I got to the final level/boss. The first thing to notice was the music: no cheerful jingle of most levels or the deep 'impending danger' beats of previous bosses, but more the music a police siren would make if it decided to shifted tones every so often (
thank God for youtube ). There were also almost no walls or things to jump on to. Not that enemies were ever hindered by walls in the game, but it was instantly clear that you were totally exposed to this boss.
Then there were the boss's hitpoints. I can't really remember how many the previous ones had (about 20 or so), but there was this enemy that had OVER A HUNDRED!!!
But of course: I knew this was the end boss, because it was level 100 (kids logic that proved 100% accurate
). This is what I was hoping and expecting. All I had to do was find that fireball bottle, and it'd be a FIGHT!
First thing I learned was that the boss didn't mess around. It threw bottles in all directions, and being the kid that I was, I didn't anticipate or timed much (these were things I was busy learning). It's possible it took two or three continues just to climb on top of the level and grab that bottle.
It didn't contain fireballs.
It did contain the one power-up I always avoided (the shoe), because that increased speed meant I couldn't properly jump over projectiles. It also featured electricity bubbles...but THESE DID NOT WORK!!!! I fired at the boss, but he just kept going. No glowing "you hit me" sign. No growl. No lowering of amount of lives. Nothing.
In more than one way, this devastated me. I WANTED to win, but it just...couldn't be done.
Looking back, it probably only took me a couple days to figure out (you had to jump toward the wall and blow bubbles at it...it would send the electricity out of your back, which you should aim for the boss), but these were hard days. With the blaring music and the open field (and nobody around me who I even bothered to tell anything because video games were my world), I just felt scared. I had learned to anticipate the enemies in other levels a fair bit, but because I was scared I started to fail to follow his (normally predicting) movement patterns. That got me killed, which increased the scaredness...and so on.
Come to think of it: finally beating him probably was one of my best achievements in video gaming. But while I can remember that moment, I can't remember it feeling like overcoming that fear.