[KOTM-related] My faith restored in humanity

This summer I'm teaching a public speaking class to 4 to 6 year olds. This past Monday morning I had a pair of 4-year-old twins who were very shy initially. After we played a little game, I found out they loved video games.

"What's your favorite video game?" I asked one of the twins.

"King of the Monsters!"

I almost fell out of my chair.

Then I thought either he meant War of the Monsters, or that I was *SO* out of touch with games today that a new KOTM emerged, title infringement aside...

"Yeah, we love King Monsters!"

"No, it's King OF THE Monsters," his brother reaffirmed.

Remember, these boys are FOUR!

"For PlayStation? XBox?"

"Nintendo!" they shouted.

If they said Neo Geo, I would have fainted, lol.

The only way to test for sure it was the same game I grew up loving, I asked them, "Who is your favorite monster?"


"I like the Godzilla one!"


"OH you mean Geon!" I said out of excitement.

The other kids in the class blinked at me innocently

"Yeah! Geon," he butchered, in an attempt to repeat me.

"Do you know the human guy's name?" his twin asked me, obviously aware of the fact now that I was a KOTM expert


"Astro Guy," I stated


"We call him Ultraman!" they both laughed.

"HA, SO DID I!" I exclaimed, lost in a moment of truly bizarre-o OMGWTFBBQ

"What's the name of the robot monkey?" they probed

"CYBER WOO!"

The twins laughed. I quickly told them how it was my favorite game growing up (for a brief period it was, anyhow, certainly among my childhood faves).

That Monday, July 7, I came home and searched for KOTM on Virtual Console. To my surprise it was released earlier that day! Random coincidence, or was it how the twins played the game? But wait, something didn't add up....

A. My class is super early in the morning. I doubt they could have downloaded and played the game before class

B. They mentioned robot monkey: Cyber Woo was NOT a robot in the original, he was simply "Woo"

C. KOTM 2 has yet to receive a VC release

D. They cited it as a Nintendo game

That means... it had to be SNES KOTM2... but what were the odds of ALL this, including the fact that KOTM was VC-released THAT SAME MORNING? That's some serious Twilight Zone shit!

Tuesday the students had to go find something valuable at home to bring in Wednesday to share about. The twins told me, "Mr. Steve guess what we'll be bringing!"

I laughed. "King of the Monsters?"

They nodded their little heads furiously.

NO FREAKING WAY. I know VC downloads aren't physical, so it HAD to be the SNES KOTM2 port, no? I'd find out Wednesday....








I snapped this photo as they signed up on the board when to present


And today they came in hauling their KOTM2 SNES game along with two SNES control pads. I couldn't believe it. What are the odds huh? The game was a home run with the kids today, everyone was asking questions about it and admiring the glossy label. The twins told me they can't get pass the sea level.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"We can't get over the hole in the ocean."

"Just press B real fast"

"I guess we don't do it fast enough"

During break they pretended to play the game. All the other kids came over and joined in. It was the most adorable AND the weirdest shit I'd seen in a LONG time, lol. I laughed my ass off when the twins were going over the monster enemies. "We gotta beat the ugly monster first, then we got to beat up his brain too!"

SNES KOTM2 favorite game of two four-year-olds in the year 2008. My faith in humanity has officially been restored.

Haha, that is one awesome story. I've always had a soft spot for King of the Monsters. I used to play it with a friend all the time.

Great story and a pretty difficult game!! I'm shocked that they didn't toss the cart aside or smash it up against the wall as I've gotten frustrated with it time and time again, this with me pretty much knowing how to play it properly.
They also have about what ? Two to three thousand other carts to choose from? Crazy.
BB

KOTM[highlight]2[/highlight]? Ewww...

Still great that they play it, though.

Really nice story...faith restored indeed.

This story brought me back to those days I used to nickname pretty much any little critter in numerous video games. Here's one; Quitavitality "quita" in this case means steal and "vitality" is self explanatory, but for those who don't know it means life bar in this case.

Ahh...those were the days!

Steve, that's honestly one of the best stories I've heard in a long time. Thanks for sharing.

That was most definitely a heart-warming story. Why can't all little kids be that cool?!

haha awesome. i loved the game. of course it was "new" when i was
young, but this story was cool. its actually THE game that made me ditch the neo cd for a cart system. i never understood why 2 was released and not 1. has anyone "beat" the first one? is there an end? i can get really far, but i fight the same guys in different colors.

Stories like that give me a little hope too in todays youth. Maybe not for their work ethic, or how theyll treat their wives someday, but just class. That is a cool story. Something like that with a complete stranger is always a warming experience.

funny thing. i had some friends of the family over and i was stuck with the kids.
so my folks were like. does your arcade machine work.
nope, i was only borrowing the one slotter mvs that i had, and i doubt they want to play
heavy barrel without a rotary joystick.
fuck.
i don't.
so i bring them upstairs and go through just about all my n64 games.
(didn't feel like letting them get into my dc collection)
they didn't get into anything on the 64.
but you know. i had my snes there.
and man. they totally went for turtles in time.
i mean they spent about 3 hours playing it and trying to pry them off of it
when it was time to go was like pulling teeth.
i think nintendo did something right with snes.