Day 27 - Music from a handheld game
I got deep into emulation towards the tail end of the Game Boy Color's life. It started in that strange time between the Japanese launch of Pokémon Gold/Silver and the American launch. I was in an AOL chat room about Pokémon and one of the fellow chatters dropped a bombshell on me: I could be playing Pokémon Gold right now! This very instant! On my computer at home! FOR FREE!
As skeptical as I was, I went ahead an followed the instructions, and presto-- Pokémon on the computer! I didn't know a lick of Japanese, but who cares, there it was!
Eventually the language barrier led to me getting stuck, but at this point the toothpaste was out of the tube. I could play any Game Boy or Game Boy Color game I wanted, and play them I did. I got pretty far into Link's Awakening. I finished Survival Kids several times in a row trying to get all the endings. And I played my very first RTS ever: Warlocked.
Warlocked is basically a easier, slightly clunkier, Warcraft. But as a kid who had zero frame of reference, it was an amazingly cool and original game. And that soundtrack! It's got that C64 bloopy keygen-esque style that I've mentioned before. I eat that stuff up with a dang spoon!