My dad had an Amiga which he used for office work and our family's bookkeeping in the early 90's and I had some games for it already, like Lemmings and so on. One of my parents' friends was a programmer and he was even crazier about computer games than I was, even though I was like 5 or something like that at that time.
The programmer guy lived in a different city and since we didn't have any internet connection and long-distance phone calls were still super expensive, my parents and their friend would sometimes write letters back and forth. One time he sent an Amiga game for me in one of his letters to my parents. My parents said, their friend had sent something for me in the letter. It was a grey floppy disc and it said "Super Hang-On" in handwriting on it. Yes, I confess, my first Yu Suzuki game ever was pirated.
Now at that point in time, I had no Idea whatsoever who Yu Suzuki is or what kind of game Hang-On is. But I knew Sega. I had played a Mega Drive and the original Sonic at a friend's place before. I had since been begging my parents for a Mega Drive but they wouldn't buy me one. So Sonic was the coolest game I knew at that time, which in turn meant that Sega had to be the coolest gaming company. Then, when I first popped the floppy disc into the Amiga I saw the blue logo and thought "Yeah! It's from the same people who made Sonic! This game must be awesome!" And what can I say? I was not disappointed. It instantly became one of my favorite Amiga games, probably even the favorite one.
I played it and played it and played it. Unlike the loser in the video above I didn't use any codes or anything. In the end the game became way too easy for me and I played it with my left hand until I could do perfect runs with the left hand too (using the classic red and black Amiga joystick). I was always kinda bummed when you beat the final stage and the driver takes off his helmet and you see it's an old geezer who smokes a pipe but still I loved super Hang-On so much. I knew every turn by heart and could also hum all of the 4 BGM songs by heart.
I especially loved and still love Outride a Crisis and Hard Road. The funny thing is the first time I ever consciously noticed Yu's name was when I saw it on the manual of Shenmue 1 just before I started my first ever playthrough. Even though I had bought some more of his games in the meantime like VF, G-Loc, Outrun. But then, when I first entered the Yu Arcade and found Hang On in there, the game I had loved so much as a little child, it suddenly occured to me that the very same guy who made Hang On could be the guy who made Shenmue! I looked it up and it was true!
I finally realized what a legend Yu is.
What was your first ever Yu Suzuki game and what's the story behind it?
