Board 8 > What are some misconceptions you had about games or other media, as a kid?

(+) Yeah! (+)

A few to start off with

I thought Yamcha and Goku were family in DBZ

I thought Scorpion and Raiden were bad guys in Mortal Kombat. Sub-Zero being a good guy.

I thought Marill was named Pikablue

Mega Man Volnutt was the main Mega Man

Every comic book character came from the same comics.

Ill post more as I think of em.

Raider

Zero was a girl

(How the fuck)

Before seeing Men in Black I assumed the Worm Guys were villains.

I thought the level select screen in Mega Man was a character select and even though I was confused that my character seemed to always be the same I convinced myself that they did have slight differences based on the character I chose

I thought muggsy bogues was one of the top 5 basketball players of his era

I used to think Luigi was older than Mario (probably just because he's taller, which is even more insane looking back on it since my younger brother is much taller than me) and that Wario was also their brother.

Underleveled posted...

and that Wario was also their brother.

...Wario isn't their brother?!

I fell for ALL the Gen1 Pokemon rumors and hoaxes. All of them. Mew under the truck, designing your own Gym, Pikablu, Hydrattata, fourth stage starters, Yoshi, probably some other stuff I forgot.....

I thought you'd only see commercials for products you didn't already own.

When you thought Console Bit Wars actually mattered...

16 Bit vs. 32 Bit vs. 64 Bit...

Well, I guess not, with the silly marketing campaigns of the day.

Also:

Sega Genesis has blast processing!

Not really from when I was a kid but the first time I saw Talladega Nights I misheard them introducing Amy Adams character as his sister not assistant, so when they end up together I thought it was a dig at some of the Nascar fanbase tropes.

Dark_Silvergun posted...

When you thought Console Bit Wars actually mattered...

16 Bit vs. 32 Bit vs. 64 Bit...

Well, I guess not, with the silly marketing campaigns of the day.

Also:

Sega Genesis has blast processing!

Blast processing is real and the Genesis was capable of it, but it was never used in a shipping game.

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2019-blast-processing-retro-analysis

Anyway, my most embarrassing one is after The Phantom Menace came out I believed that Palpatine and Darth Sidious were two different people.

Reading the OP I know there were several things along those lines I mixed up but it's hard to remember exactly what without someone pointing them out. Like this one.

Nanis23 posted...

Zero was a girl

(How the fuck)

the ps1 doesn't blow the n64 out of the water in terms of technical capabilities
like i thought it was maybe pretty close ish or like the n64 kind of does some things a little better or whatever
uh, no. no absolutely not. ps1 games are 700mb and n64 games are at most 64mb and i think most of them are 8-16. and looking back with the benefit of hindsight it is so obvious. god i was so dumb.

I thought that in The Contest episode of Seinfeld they were talking about having sex. I knew what masturbation was (or at least, I had started doing it myself) but I didn't think that it was something that adults did.

Also
For years I thought that Pokemon stats are determined by when they evolve
Like, if a Magikarp that evolves into Gyarados at level 20 will have much much better stats than a Magikarp that evolves at level 100 when both of them reach it
It was only like Gen 4 that someone explained to me that it's not the case lol

Though Wario and Waluigi were Mario's cousins.
Also thought Electric types were weak to fire.

Wow I had no idea that Mario and Wario aren't cousins. It makes it all so much more deranged.

Wario is just some random dude who hates Mario from childhood. Also Waluigi and Wario are just friends too, where did they meet?

I'd love to explore the weird relationship between Wario and Waluigi one day.

The one that immediately springs to mind is that I thought Gremio was a woman on my first playthrough of Suikoden as like a 10 year old.

I'm sure there's other but that was what I first thought of.

I only had JP VHS tapes of DBZ

So I thought Future Trunks was Trunks' older brother.

NeatoAnAccount posted...

the ps1 doesn't blow the n64 out of the water in terms of technical capabilities
like i thought it was maybe pretty close ish or like the n64 kind of does some things a little better or whatever
uh, no. no absolutely not. ps1 games are 700mb and n64 games are at most 64mb and i think most of them are 8-16. and looking back with the benefit of hindsight it is so obvious. god i was so dumb.

Im assuming this is bait lol

I misheard an announcer talking about the Sonic cartoon describing Tails as Sonic's 'sidekick', and for a while thought that Tails was psychic.

My cousin thought that if he replayed an old level in Goldeneye 64 and died in it, all the subsequent levels would be locked again until he played back to that point.

AriaOfBolo posted...

I fell for ALL the Gen1 Pokemon rumors and hoaxes. All of them. Mew under the truck, designing your own Gym, Pikablu, Hydrattata, fourth stage starters, Yoshi, probably some other stuff I forgot.....

I remember Mew under the truck, Mewthree, and Luigi.

I didn't believe the Luigi one though, just the other two.

I inexplicably grew up with a tv a lot older than me that emitted only red and black colours, so when i got a console for the first time (a ps2) i legitimately thought that games were just made like that

i didn't even learn about the virtual boy till several years later

Playing Mario Kart 64, I beat one of the record times mentioned in the Nintendo Power magazine while doing time trial on one of the courses. (Actually, a few of them) I thought I was one of the best players in the world as a result--in fact, I thought I might have THE world record on some of those courses. (I was pretty good, but nowhere near the level of some players)

Nanis23 posted...

Zero was a girl

(How the fuck)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/2/1/AAOGRhAAE0KN.jpg

I thought the bald one was Captain Kirk because I never saw the original on TV but Captain Kirk was the name I heard more often, so I just assumed the one I saw on TV all the time was the more famous one (I never really watched the show just saw bits and pieces while flipping channels)

The first time I played Star Fox 64 an older kid told me that you should shoot down the "ships with flags over them" to get powerups

those ships are of course your teammates but at the time I didn't make the connection between "I am shooting this ship" and "Slippy is screaming at me to stop shooting him" because I was a very stupid child

Oh! I thought Tweety Bird was a girl until I was like 6 and my Mom told me otherwise.

Nanis23 posted...

Also
For years I thought that Pokemon stats are determined by when they evolve
Like, if a Magikarp that evolves into Gyarados at level 20 will have much much better stats than a Magikarp that evolves at level 100 when both of them reach it
It was only like Gen 4 that someone explained to me that it's not the case lol

They dont? I always thought that Pokemon that evolved with stones would become stronger the sooner you evolved them. Back in the day I evolved a Pikachu to Raichu after I caught it and wasted TMs on it.

in FF6 I thought Cyan's name was Sebastian because that's what I named him (after my bestie at the time)

before you say wait but the character limit, this was before I reached spelling age

In Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition on GBA, sometimes Rare Hunters can appear at random when you challenge other characters and duel you instead. So when Arkana appeared after I challenged Mai, I thought he was her dad.

I was told Pokemon like Slowking who evolve by trading them while they're holding items had to be at level 100 or they wouldn't evolve. I also didn't find out Exeggcute evolved with a Leaf Stone until I had grinded one all the way up to level 52 by battling on the route south of Blackthorn City over and over.

I used to think game discs had every prior version of its development on the disc and you can access them with enough know-how.

For a while I thought that Slippy from Star Fox 64 was female.

I remember one time I was visiting my dad for the weekend, and I brought my PS1 so I could play FFVII. My dad's very drunk friend thought Cloud was a woman (this was not during the cross dressing part) and kept loudly proclaiming he wanted to see Cloud naked.

Oh wait, this is about me? I used to think Michael Jordan literally never missed a shot.

I used to pronounce Blanka as Blinka.

My dog Blanka wasn't confused. Unsure if anybody else was confused or just patient enough to let me as a kid slide with that.

I thought it was dangerous to go in the tall grass in pokemon blue

so much so that I spent the first hour stuck in pallet town because there was no safe way to leave

in fairness it was my first video game and I was 6 but still

catesdb posted...

I thought it was dangerous to go in the tall grass in pokemon blue

It's only dangerous to go alone.

When I was in first grade there was a poster at school with the "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" quote from Wayne Gretzky. For at least a year or two of seeing that poster every day I thought it meant immunization shots

my entire childhood It was bashed into my head that "SONIC IS SO COOL AND SO FAST, BLUE STREAK SPEEDS BY TOO FAST FOR THE NAKED EYE, GOTTA GO FAST FASTER FASTER FASTER"

etc

and then when I played the game for the first time in 2007

I ran for 10 seconds until I started hitting spikes repeatedly and died

that...sucked

so the games AREN"T about speed

AriaOfBolo posted...

I fell for ALL the Gen1 Pokemon rumors and hoaxes. All of them. Mew under the truck, designing your own Gym, Pikablu, Hydrattata, fourth stage starters, Yoshi, probably some other stuff I forgot.....

TO BE FAIR, for SOME weird ass reason, there IS a truck tho. Its just weird its not used for anything

Shattered posted...

The one that immediately springs to mind is that I thought Gremio was a woman on my first playthrough of Suikoden as like a 10 year old.

I'm sure there's other but that was what I first thought of.

Speaking of which I thought Tuta was a girl and was absolutely flabbergasted seeing him return in S3.

UltimaterializerX posted...

We all fell for those.

I was a bit older so I didn't. Wait weren't you like 20 when Pokemon came out? How the heck did you fall for it?

Underleveled posted...

Oh! I thought Tweety Bird was a girl until I was like 6 and my Mom told me otherwise.

HOLD UP

Until just a few years ago, I thought the guy who got caught cheating in "It Wasn't Me" was Shaggy and the guy who sings in a reggae style was a guest vocalist.

Just reminded of this in a chat with @NioraptH

Kid me used to think Rick (Harvest Moon Back to Nature) was a girl.

I thought DC Comics were horrible and stupid thanks to Justice League Task Force.

I wondered when Yamcha got such a massive power-up as an incredible fighter in DBZ: Hyper Dimension (not realizing it was Gohan since we were only getting Cell Saga at the time I played).

Kirby was white not pink because of Dream Land & Link's Awakening.