The NES
Ah, the NES, where to begin? It is the system by which I grew up. My childhood days were filled with NES lore, from Zelda's maps and dungeons to Mega Man 2's enemy stages. I generally divide my exposure to the NES in three different eras: The first is the "early childhood" era, before I knew anything about cheat codes or Japanese games, or reviews. These were the days spent playing through Super Mario Bros. and Wizards and Warriors, figuring out secrets in Zelda, and doing battles with my brother in Balloon Fight. The second era I call "awakening", during which time I'd discover game magazines, reviews of bad games, and especially Japanese games! This last thing happened when I bought EGM issue 14 back in Fall 1990. The special on the Tokyo Toy show opened my eyes to hundreds of games which I knew I'd never see, or see only after major modifications. It was then that I wished I could go and live in Japan. This period lasted until about 1992, when I sold my NES collection for an SNES. Then came the Turbo, and I completely abandoned the NES until 1994, the third era. The final era is the "modern" one. In 1994, I bought a used NES from a pawn shop for $30, and began rebuilding my collection of Capcom, Konami, and other classic NES games. That year, I discovered a Famicom (which I had never even seen before) and Disk System in a pawn shop. I was completely enthralled!
From then on, I have been slowly collecting NES and Famicom games. I have primarily been on the lookout for Classic and semi-rare NES and FC games. I won't buy an awful game just because it is rare. The expansion of the Internet has provided me with a glimpse of games which I probably would never have known about. I've seen many games which I'll probably never get to play in their proper form -- Quite a tragedy. So, why do I have such an attachment to the NES? Simply because I grew up playing games which were more compelling and of higher quality than games on any system before or since.