The BovineDevine Box – Yes, I’m Late, I Know

I’ve been completely blessed in my journey with retro gaming. Over the many years I’ve been playing games on the internet and making videos about them, I’ve met a lot of really nice and wonderful people that are like-minded about this hobby. BovineDevine is one that is the most passionate, knowledgeable, and extremely giving in terms of sharing the hobby with others, and goes out of his way to help people in any way he can. Earlier this year, purely out of the desire to see some games get a new home and get some playtime, he sent me a truly enormous box with a ton of stuff inside that I’ll share here with you. I’m always so touched when someone feels that I would be a good new owner, and I’m really honoured that he sent me so many wonderful things. I can’t thank him enough for this gift! ( I know you’re reading this after a million months of waiting for this post, so seriously, THANK YOU!)

If you’d like to check out BovineDevine’s streams, you can find them over on Twitch. They’re a rare treat where he plays games in his collection, shows off recent pick-ups, or tours conventions. And he has adorable emotes. Definitely someone worth checking out if you love original hardware and game collecting!

The first thing here is an Atari 7800! This is a fantastic console that’s backwards compatible with the entirety of the 2600 library, with a little extra crispiness in terms of its video output quality. Some games were also included as well as a controller. I actually love the look of this system since it mirrors the Atari Jr. rainbow stripe on the front, though to be honest, I’m not sure if the Atari Jr. came out before the 7800. The games are a fantastic selection of high and low intensity experiences, with my personal favourite being Food Fight. I’ve always wanted to be able to give that game a try, and it was an absolute joy getting to play some of it. If you’ve been around my channel or streams for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me talk about playing Choplifter for the first time on the Commodore Vic 20 and falling in love with it, so I really enjoy taking in any other versions of the game I come across. The 7800 version’s quite good! The others are Dark Chambers, Karateka, and Winter Games. All excellent choices and titles I’m looking forward to diving into a little deeper!

A single Famicom game made its way into my collection, and it’s Dragon Fighter! The NES version’s heinously priced these days, and while the Famicom game’s not nearly as pricey, it’s still not exactly a screaming deal either. It’s a platformer that has some neat mechanics where you can transform into a dragon. It actually looks really fun to play and while I don’t know the ins and outs of how the game actually plays since I haven’t checked the manual out, I’m definitely looking forward to more NES/Famicom goodness. I finally got a new adapter to be able to play Famicom in my front loader NES, and this is high on my priority list to play.

There were also some Game Boy and Game Boy Color games in the box. Firstly, I had absolutely no idea that Perfect Dark was on the Game Boy. If you’d told me that before I’d seen it with my own eyes, I definitely wouldn’t have believed it! I’m really curious to see how it plays, though if I’m being completely honest, I haven’t tried the N64 game out for more than a few minutes, and it went exactly how you probably expected it did. I’m also really excited to play Pokemon Pinball! I really enjoy video pinball, and I don’t think it’s possible to go wrong with something like Pokemon in that form. I’m not familiar with the Sabrina or Harry Potter games, but I’ve read a bit about them, and they seem pretty cool. The Harry Potter game is a turn-based RPG, and you know how much I like my RPGs!

Sticking with the handheld theme for the moment, I now own seven new Game Boy Advance games. They are Warioland 4, Urban Yeti, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Iridion II, The Ant Bully, Medal of Honor: Infiltrator, and Turok Evolution. Of this bunch, I’m actually only familiar with Warioland 4 since I’ve played some of the others that come before it in the series, but I’ve always been curious about what the fourth game is like. I actually passed up on it a few years ago when it was at a thrift store for $8 and have had some serious regrets ever since! With respect to the rest of the titles here, I’ve been assured that Urban Yeti has lots of fun in store for me. I’m also extremely curious to see how a Medal of Honor game plays on a tiny screen. So much fun to come!

I was also the lucky recipient of a Game Boy Advance release of the Famicom version of Super Mario Bros. This was part of a set of games released for Mario’s 20th anniversary, and the first in a lineup of 30 total games that came out in this format. I actually had no idea that this set even existed, and it’ll be cool to play this on my Mario Anniversary Game Boy Advance Micro sometime, just for fun. I love the presentation of this packaging and I’d love to see if I can find some others to add to the collection in the future.

On the Nintendo DS, I welcomed Rhythm Heaven, as well as Trauma Center: Under the Knife. I had heard such amazing things about Rhythm Heaven in the past but had never been able to find a copy for myself. After playing a few levels and seeing what all the fuss is about, I can definitely agree that it’s very fun, but having been berated by the music judges so often, I’m not so sure I’ll ever be able to beat this. I’ll sure as heck keep trying though! The Trauma Center games are also highly praised, and prior to getting Under the Knife, I only had one game on the Wii in the collection. It’ll be interesting to see how the game incorporates touch controls, though I can already imagine all the slicing and dicing I’ll get to do. It’ll certainly beat the prospect of using motion controls!

Even though this got a little bit squished in transit, this is a really cool little collector box that I still haven’t opened! I love these sorts of things and that they can contain a mix of many different baubles to display or wear, but there’s also something fun about not yet knowing what’s held inside. Maybe I’ll open it up on a stream sometime and see what poster’s in there! I can always use more art for my game room!

Knowing my love of Master System games, BovineDevine sent over a pristine copy of Paperboy for the system. I’ve only ever gotten to try this one out on the NES, and for some reason, this game always cracks me right up. There’s something about beaning people with papers and smashing all of the windows in a neighbourhood that makes me feel like such a hooligan.

And what a crispy and clean copy of Black Belt for the Sega Master System! This is one of my very favourite box art images for the console right alongside Pro Wrestling, where there’s a man holding his own head. Something something remake of Fist of the North Star? I can’t remember the details despite how many times I’ve been reminded of them, but as a dual mode game where it’s a sort of “run and kick” that converts to a one on one fighter, it’s very fun. I hope with enough practice, I’ll be able to get through it someday.

And here is the holy mother load of Sega Genesis loose cartridges! Lots of these games have scuffs, tears and sticker residue on the labels, but to me, those kinds of things don’t really matter when it comes to playing physical games. As long as they work, that’s the important part! Since receiving this glorious game box, I’ve played through a couple of these including Hook, Quackshot and Animaniacs. Quackshot was definitely a favourite, but I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that Hook was exactly the same as the SNES version. Animaniacs was actually so difficult for me to wrap my head around. I think I was imagining the SNES version when I first saw this as part of Bovine’s pile of games, but it’s a completely different game. This one’s actually similar to The Lost Vikings where each of the three Warners have different abilities needed to get past certain obstacles. I recently tried to get through Chuck Rock II to no avail, and the baby character is very weird. There’s still an absolutely solid pile of stuff to enjoy here like Exile, Splatterhouse 3, Dragon’s Fury, Warsong, Arcus Odyssey, Jewel Master, Shadow Blasters, Death Duel, Pirates! Gold, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Growl, Sorcerer’s Kingdom, Beavis and Butthead, Target Earth, Gargoyles, Rolling Thunder 2, Skitchin’, and Theme Park. I’m looking forward to exploring many of these titles that I hadn’t really heard of prior to actually owning them here, especially the RPG/adventure games in particular.

There is also a plethora of new Game Gear games in my collection. Within the last year or so, my husband successfully modified a Game Gear for video out so that I could play some games on original hardware on my livestreams. I’ve been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to play more from that system, and this wonderful pile of games will make experiencing more Game Gear a reality. Sonic The Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, Ninja Gaiden, Tempo Jr. and Dynamite Headdy are some of the ones I’m looking most forward to playing eventually, but Arena Maze of Death also has an intriguing title. Bovine also sent along a modified Game Gear, and apparently he had this planned long before we modified ours. So, now I have two different mods to enjoy (the one he sent has the McWill mod). It’s amazing to have a backup in case one of them stops working, and as Bovine put it, I might be the first person to be able to compare different video out mods for the system. Either way, some great games here that were in great shape overall.

Staying in the Sega lane here, a single Sega CD game called Kids on Site was included. I have no idea how to feel about this one and I’m not sure how much of a game it actually is, but I do look forward to the shenanigans that will undoubtedly ensue some day when I get around to trying it.

I actually cried when I saw this in the box. I have very few Saturn games simply due to their extreme prices and typically less-than-nice condition when I’m out shopping for them. I absolutely adored Shining in the Darkness on the Sega Genesis and have been itching to play more in that style, and Shining the Holy Ark is apparently bigger and better than Shining in the Darkness in virtually every way. I nearly bought a copy of Holy Ark a few years ago that had a few pinholes in the foil, but after unsuccessfully trying to get the price down because of the gamble on whether or not the game would even work, I left it behind. I had been regretting that decision pretty hard ever since, and I can’t say how surreal it is to finally have a copy of this on the shelf. This was completely unexpected and shocking to find in with all the other goodies, and I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to not only play this game, but share it with others too.

And as if Shining the Holy Ark wasn’t enough of a surprise, there was an entire Panasonic 3DO in the box. A whole console with a controller just tucked into the bottom that was completely unexpected. I’ve never even really considered looking into this library much at all since I never thought I’d find a system to buy in good working order, but it turns out that there’s actually quite a lot of interesting titles to try out. This is the front-loading model and it’s in virtually perfect condition. I actually love how it has a faux marble top layer. We recently picked up a CRT that has a similar pattern on it, and I’ve been wanting to take a photo of them both together. It also has a noisiness that reminds me of the Sega Dreamcast, though it’s not nearly as obnoxious or loud.

Along with the 3DO came seven games in total, some of them with their boxes and inserts with a few of them loose. I love how every single 3DO box is different somehow, whether it’s a cardboard box with a lid, one with a side-snap to seal it up, or a box with flaps on either end a la Nintendo. The games here were The Need for Speed, Jurassic Park Interactive, Star Control II, Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, Phoenix 3, AD&D Slayer, and Killing Time. These are all so vastly different, and I didn’t even recognize Mark Hamill on the front of Wing Commander. I did get to try each of these out on a variety stream, with Slayer and Killing Time leaving some very strong first impressions. Wing Commander also looks really interesting to me, though I’m tempted to play more of The Need for Speed just to get all the naysayers out in full force about how it’s such an inferior version. I had fun, and that’s what matters! I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing what else exists for this system since it’s really not something I’ve looked into very much prior to actually having one in my possession.

And these were only the games. There were also some great snacks included, some stickers, among other very thoughtful things that bring me great joy every time I see them in the game room. Words can’t really express my gratitude for this gift, nor does it really feel possible to convey the correct amount of emotion in writing here. I just feel incredibly lucky and blessed to know great people who love retro gaming as much as I do, and who enjoy sharing the hobby. Not only do I get to play these games on the streams and share them with other people through my lived experience, but I also get to rehome some ugly cartridges that others may not have really given much of a chance for their shelves.

Seriously Bovine, thank you so much.

And to all of you reading, thanks as well!

-GG

Thoughtful Gifts and Sweet Deals

Once in a while, I have the pleasure of acquiring some great games that were owned and cared for by internet friends I’ve met along my journey here. The games in this post are a series of such additions to the collection, and I’ll start up with some from my long-time pal Burst Error, whose Twitch streams are one of my favourite places to hang out. He recently parted ways with much of his physical collection, and I can’t recommend his recently started blog series enough. He’s creating some very thoughtful posts about collecting video games, selling them off, and some very philosophical and existential discussion around some of these topics. It’s been a fascinating read so far and he’s just getting started. Here’s the absolutely awesome bunch of games I bought from him.

I have been pretty enthralled with expanding my NES collection for many months now, and the benefit of buying from someone who also loves NES means that they collected some quality titles over the years. I got a copy of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, a game I’ve always been very curious to play. Wizardry games are said to be ruthless at their core, but I’ve been privy to hearing a lot of great things about the speedrun in particular. Though that’s not my intention with it, I do love a good tough time in a dungeon adventure. I also picked up Metal Storm, GI Joe: A Real American Hero, and GI Joe: The Atlantis Factor, three titles I’ve been looking for for a couple years. Metal Storm was something I never thought I’d be able to find for anything less than a bajillion dollars since it’s quite hard to come by, but Burst Error’s always willing to dole out the Burst Dealz! The GI Joe games are solid platformers, but I hesitated to buy them because I could never keep the two titles straight. I’d heard that one of them was way better than the other, but I recently watched this great review by Quwebs that discusses both and decided to go for the two of them after all. Funny how that works. The Batman Returns cart came with the manual and I thought it might be fun to play sometime. I really enjoyed a Master System Batman game recently, and this felt like a good addition. And last but not least from this photo is Wizards & Warriors III. I’ve lost count of the number of people that have recommended it to me over the years, simply due to my undying love of side scrolling action adventure games. Other than a couple of stickers on GI Joe: A Real American Hero, the rest of the cartridges were in pristine shape, just as you might expect from someone who had curated such a wonderful collection.

I’m usually not too keen on picking up boxed NES games unless they’re something I really loved playing through, but in this case, I couldn’t pass up such a neat and tidy copy of Monster in my Pocket. It’s another neat platformer that I’ve always wanted to play, and of course it’s now a part of the collection. I’m just about out of space on my boxed NES game shelf so hopefully this’ll be the last game I buy like this for a while!

I also picked up Psycho Dream for the Super Famicom. I love watching SNESDrunk’s videos that reveal so many neat games from Japan that we never got here, and Psycho Dream was one that really caught my attention. I’d been searching for a copy for about a year and was overjoyed to see it available to buy from Burst Error’s collection. I’m very excited to take this one out for a spin sometime.

If there is one game that was a surprisingly fun time for me on the SNES, it was Drakkhen. Burst Error’s continuous hype about the English version of the game was what drove me to play it to begin with, and I absolutely adored it along with all its weird mechanics. He was kind enough to pack the Super Famicom version in with my package, a completely unexpected surprise. I have it displayed proudly on a pedestal in my game room right where it belongs.

Once upon a time, I thought I was only one game away from completing my Metroid collection, with only Metroid: Zero Mission left to track down. After buying this, I realized I still had not one, but two more games left to find (both in the DS/3DS library, I believe), so for the moment, that completion aspect is still a work in progress. On the bright side, I now own Zero Mission in what is probably one of the crispiest, mintiest video game boxes on my shelf. I’m definitely looking forward to playing this one someday since I loved the original NES game.

And the final part of the Burst Error purchase came in the form of two Sega Genesis titles, both with no manual! Ranger X is a pretty neat game that I’ve been excited to pick up after seeing a few people play it a while back. It’s a great platformer with some interesting mechanics, and totally seems up my alley. Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun was a total surprise included in the package. After asking folks on the internet about which other Sega Genesis RPGs I needed in my collection, they overwhelmingly insisted upon this particular game. I hadn’t even heard of it before then, but after looking into it a bit, it got onto my list of games to find. Thankfully, it ended up falling into my lap, and I’m very grateful to have it! Thanks, Burst!

This post is just full of things I never thought I’d ever hold in my hands, never mind have in my house to call my own. Check out this big box Earthbound, with its guide/manual!!! There’s only one of the scratch and sniffs missing from the back of the book, and aside from that, the book and box are both in amazing condition. This extremely generous gift came about following a discussion about my very ugly/bad label copy of the game that I picked up a few years back. A pal of mine, FriskyGato, mentioned wanting to send his pristine copy of Earthbound to a new permanent home, and I am so, so lucky to be that home! It’s surreal having this in my house. I can’t tell you the number of times I rummaged through the board game section of second hand stores, or dreamed about that one fantasy yard sale where I’d stumble upon a copy of this for $1. To have this in my possession after so many years of scouring is still unbelievable, even though I get to look at it every single day. I’m so grateful and so proud to have this as a part of my collection. Thank you so much, Frisky!

There are also a couple of straggler games that I’ve bought online or have found at second hand stores over the past little while. The first is Bill & Ted’s Excellent Game Boy Adventure, which I picked up to see if it was at least as fun as the NES game. It turns out that it’s just a wonky little single-screen puzzle game that isn’t anything like my beloved childhood Bill & Ted experience, but it’s still cool to have it on the shelf. I also found Hammerin’ Harry Daiku no Gen-San: Ghost Building Company, which was recommended to me as an excellent platforming experience. Even though it gets really tough pretty quick, I had a great time trying it out when I first picked it up. I also tracked down a copy of Bionic Commando, which is just a re-skin/slightly different version of the NES game. They’ve pulled out the original war story and launched the plot into a space adventure instead. I’ve yet to play very much of this one, but I loved the original and am curious to see what else they changed in this iteration of the game. The Hello Kitty cartridge called Fairy Kitty no Kaiunjiten I bought on a whim after seeing some of its adorable pixel art, but I have absolutely no idea how to play it. It was only a few dollars and I was already getting a bunch of other Famicom games (see below) from the same vendor, so I went for it! I also picked up a copy of After Burner on NES. I only have a couple of Tengen games, and though I don’t really know much about this one in particular, I took a gamble and bought it since it was just there at the store and calling out to me. I hope it’s fun!

This might be one of the last orders from Japan that I make for a long time. Not only was shipping astronomically expensive, but I also had to pay duties and import taxes as well. The games themselves are cheap, but it’s not much of a deal anymore after all those other fees are considered. Either way, I got some great Famicom titles here. I came across a list of English-friendly games and started looking into each of them a little while back. I got all of these from a single seller and I think it goes without saying that Famicom cartridge colour and artwork is pretty awesome! In order from top to bottom, going from left to right, are Esper Boukentai, Layla, Bird Week, Don Doko Don 2, Miracle Ropit’s Adventure in 2100, Donald Land, and Tetsuwan Atom. Of the bunch, Donald Land looks like a pretty solid time. The others look great too, but I haven’t been able to spend too much time with them yet.

And here we have another wonderful gift from an online pal, Biooutbreak. Many months ago, he was kind enough to lend me his copy of King’s Field to enjoy on stream and on a whim, he decided to gift me a few games to add to my collection. For the Playstation 1 here, we have Parasite Eve II, Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. I don’t know much about the latter two, but I did enjoy the first Parasite Eve adventure many years ago. I’ve been wanting to see what the sequel was all about ever since, and it looks like I’ll finally have the chance to do so! Thank you again, Biooutbreak!

There’s one more thing I should mention here that I don’t believe will be staying in my personal collection, but it’s cool that we found one nonetheless. While looking around at an antique store that focuses mostly on old toys, we found a Coleco Gemini! It’s actually a Canadian Atari 2600 clone that doesn’t play any Colecovision games despite its name implying it might, but my husband took it all apart and fixed it all up to potentially gift to a family member that had one when they were kids. It also came with a couple of games that were absolutely filthy, as was the console. It was just hanging out in a very dusty and dirty box on the floor of the shop for who knows how long! It also needed a bit of repair since the power port was messed up, but it’s now in good working order. I think the gift will be a hit!

And there’s another post come and gone. This is the better part of a year’s worth of collecting for me these days, but I hope you enjoyed the updates. I’ll finally be putting together a post about the Vectrex we got a long while back by this point soon, but first, please stay tuned for an amazing post about a big box of games that came to me by way of a good friend.

I hope you’re all enjoying some good weather out there. It’s finally feeling a little summery here, and I’ve been enjoying the sun and warm weather. Now back to cataloguing…

Thank you for reading, as always.

-GG

Bits and Pieces

What better time than the literal year end to wrap up a year of collecting! I have been slowly scooping up some choice games here and there, but only as I’ve managed to come across them. With a couple of small exceptions, the majority of my shopping has happened online. There’s so few opportunities these days to find games out and about, and after my last convention experience back in the spring, I’m still a bit sour on the idea of travelling to those events only to find so little quality for so much cash. We’ll see how I’m feeling next year of course, but for the moment, I’ve been happy to window shop from the warmth of my couch. Here are the remaining games I’ve bought since the last update!

First up are a bunch of NES cartridges. I’ve been noticing that this console in particular, along with other 8-bit generation ones like the Master System and Game Boy, seem to be where I have the most fun in gaming. I’ve been trying to track down more adventure games, and The Lone Ranger came highly recommended to me. It has a few different game modes but importantly has the staples of what I like in adventures: towns with NPCs for hints, interesting combat, and a bit of a story to keep things rolling along. Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston was a completely random purchase after I saw it pop up in someone’s collection post in a discord server I’m a part of. I bought both of them from a Canadian website that had some good sales on at the time, though they were still a bit pricier than I usually like to pay for my games. While perusing a flea market one day, I also ran into Wrath of the Black Manta and Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars. A lot of folks also recommended Wrath of the Black Manta to me as another game that I might enjoy based on my interests in side scrolling adventure games, and I managed to find that one for only a couple of dollars. Cyber Stadium Series – Base Wars was something I’d heard a ton about since I know someone who speedruns it. I’m not usually the biggest sports game fan, but this one was a no-brainer to pick up since it’s not just the usual fare. All in all, these four cartridges are in relatively decent shape with a little bit of label peeling and some glue I need to remove. Otherwise though, I’m happy to have some lesser-discussed titles to dive into in the new year.

I rarely splurge on games and try to wait for good deals, but considering how little I spent on collecting this year overall, I treated myself to two very nice games for the NES: Shadow of the Ninja, and Shatter Hand. Both of them are action platformers with some fairly unique elements to them. I especially love the little robot partners you can conjure up in Shatter Hand, though I only played it for about an hour to test it out. They’re both quite difficult and I do enjoy the challenge they bring. They’re virtually perfect in terms of their condition as well, and I was happy to spend a little more on these two.

In more four-cartridge photo display action, here are more NES games! I’d been searching for Predator and The Adventure of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends for a long time and it’s great to finally own them. I really wanted Rocky & Bullwinkle for its stellar soundtrack (heh) and Predator just because I enjoyed the movie so much. Demon Sword and Sky Shark were spur of the moment buys. They were purchased from the same seller on an auction site, and back then, they had a flat rate shipping for the first item and a small fee for every additional one you bought afterward. It made sense to throw a couple of interesting-looking games into the mix, and all said, everything was quite cheap. Unfortunately the site did away with its good shipping policies so I haven’t been buying much from them anymore. Anyway, all of the cartridges here were in relatively good condition with no label tears or scuffs, with Demon Sword being a bit discoloured. It also turned out that I already had a copy of Sky Shark in my collection and mistook it for something else! I don’t miss the pressure of auctions!

For the last of the NES stuff I’ve picked up lately, I finally got my hands on a copy of Nightmare on Elm Street. I loved the movie franchise growing up and have always wanted an opportunity to play this, but the last convention I went to had it priced for an exorbitant amount. I’m glad I waited because I bought this one at my favourite game store and felt good supporting them since they’ve been struggling since the pandemic. It’s not in the greatest shape with lots of scuffs on the cartridge shell, but I have way uglier games than this one.

Moving on to some Game Boy now, I came across these two in very different ways. The Star Trek 25th Anniversary cartridge was purchased on an online bidding website for a few bucks, and it was mostly a curiosity since my husband’s a big fan of the PC version of the game. He needed to know how it translates to the Game Boy hardware. The second game here, Yogi Bear’s Gold Rush, was a completely unexpected find. A few months ago, I had purchased a random lot of gaming-related stuff from a fellow on our local classifieds site, and while he had a couple of photos of some of the things he was selling, there was an awful lot he hadn’t photographed. I found this game in the bottom of a shoebox with a bunch of manuals (I’ll talk about those below) and while it’s not in the greatest shape, it’s an… interesting addition to the collection. I played it for a little while and was quite taken aback with how unforgiving it is.

If you thought Nightmare on Elm Street was the ugliest game in this post, behold! Operation C was on sale on a website I was shopping on, and while the listing said the game was in “acceptable” condition, I didn’t expect the entire label to be missing. I suppose the price reflected that, but when it arrived, I was actually a little miffed that they hadn’t bothered to indicate that in the details section. At least I got it for a steal, but this will go into my collection as one of the label-less cartridges I have along with the Game Boy Colour Lufia game.

I also picked up two SNES games from my favourite game store: The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and Super Valis IV. I actually thought I already owned Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and when some folks from the streams were drumming up some excitement about it, I realized I’d had it confused with Super Ninja Boy the entire time. Oops! There are far too many ninja games to get mixed up in my mind, but I digress. Super Valis IV was a total surprise to stumble upon. It was one of the games I’d had on my list to look for at the convention earlier this year, but there was only one very expensive copy of it that I passed up. I now own the three Genesis games as well as the one SNES installment, so it’s great to be able to finally take those off my collecting list and play them.

Over a large part of the year, my husband and I watched the entirety of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was my first viewing of the series and quite frankly, I think about that show a lot since we finished viewing it. One day I saw a copy of this SNES game of the same name and decided to pick it up without even looking into what kind of gameplay it might have. I still haven’t really researched it much, but hopefully it’ll be a nice way to revisit the series again in a different form someday down the line.

Back when I was perusing auction sites a little more regularly, I couldn’t help but get totally sucked into some gaming books. This is my second copy of the orange Nintendo Fun one, but the Winning at Nintendo was what I was especially interested in getting. While everyone else had Nintendo Power growing up, all I had was this one little book with a couple of NES games listed inside. I’ve been curious to see what other books existed in this lineup for a long time, and even though there are a couple of doubles, it was a treat looking through this one!

Earlier in this post, I talked about a lot that we bought containing relatively random gaming-related items, and these were the manual spoils. There were a couple for games I don’t even own but also a few I’d been looking for for a little while, like the Game Boy ones in the bottom right corner. Flashback was another I wanted to find, but I actually own the Genesis version (box and game). It’s now as complete as it’s getting with the SNES manual! There were a couple of game cases for titles I don’t own, mostly from PS3/XBox360 titles that I haven’t shown here. There was nothing particularly notable from my perspective.

And last but certainly not least, I found an item I’d been hoping to take home for a long time: Barcode Battler! You may recall that I already own some iterations of this device from way back in this blog, specifically one for the Game Boy and another for the Super Famicom. This one is a different beast altogether and a standalone, completely in English, and it came with its box, many of the cards, and even some homemade ones from the previous owner. If you’re not up to speed on what this is, it’s an RPG-style game where you can scan bar codes of all kinds and it’ll generate monsters or fighters for you, and then you can choose your moves and engage in one on one combat with another person or a CPU character. It’s very rudimentary, but it’s definitely something I’d like to spend some time with for a stream or even just for fun on my own sometime. I’d like to know what kind of monster a box of cookies or cereal might conjure up…

And that just about does it with one final post before we welcome in 2023. I still need to write about the Vectrex(es) that we picked up a couple of months ago, but that will have to wait until the new year.

Thank you all so much for all of your support over the many months and years, and for being patient with updates. I wish that collecting was still as frequent as it used to be for me, but it’s nice to be able to pop in here and chat with folks about the hobby once in a while.

Have a safe and happy new year, everyone! And as always, thanks for reading!

-GG

The First Game Swap in Ages

Back in April, I finally got out to a fairly sizeable game swap event. I will admit that the idea of going into a large venue packed with people felt a bit daunting considering how isolated we’ve been during the entirety of the pandemic, but we planned well and ended up having an enjoyable day… for the most part.

You see, I had two main hunches coming into a convention post-pandemic. The first was that people selling would be relatively eager to move product that hasn’t had the chance to move for a long time. I hoped they might price things a little less than the going rate to accommodate with the mindset that selling more at slightly less is better than selling nothing at all. The second was that people selling would jack up their prices to compensate for lost time and the lack of product moving. Unfortunately, the latter was the case and that’s why, as you’ll see here, I didn’t end up buying very much. The fun was in the event itself and the idea that I could once again go out game collecting, but the hard-hitting truth about being priced out of game collecting is starting to weigh heavily in my mind.

If I can be blunt here: sellers at this particular swap were unwavering with their prices. Asking for combo deals or even $5 off a sticker price was a total hassle, and if someone wasn’t willing to meet me on price, I wasn’t willing to part with my money. Some of the prices were almost as bad as eBay + shipping, and shipping in Canada is pretty atrocious. Even within Canada sometimes, a Game Boy game ships at around $15, and anything bigger is usually $20 or more. Seeing those prices in person was a big eye-opener, and quite frankly I am not motivated to get out to these events in the future if I can pay the same amount to have things appear at my door, especially with the cost of fuel at the moment.

Compared to previous events, the variety in stock was also…weird for lack of a better word? Lots of sellers had several copies of the same undesirable games, and one in particular that stood out was one table with around 10 copies of Jack Nicklaus Golf for NES all priced at $10 a piece. To me, table real estate is precious so why fill it with things that won’t sell? And sure enough, at the end of the day, not one of them had gone. Anyway, the games I’m looking for these days are a little more on the uncommon side and if I did happen to find one, they were always completely out of my price range. I ended up buy a few things I wasn’t super pressed to find and brought those home instead. So with all this rambling out of the way, here’s what I ended up with.

The first game here is Monkeyshines for the Odyssey2. A few years ago, I picked up the console complete in the box with a bunch of games, and since then I’ve added a few to the collection as I’ve come across them. When possible, I really enjoy having the box and manual with these because while they’re simple, they sometimes have special explanations about the 1 and 2 player modes, or additional artwork. Unfortunately this was a lone cartridge on a table for a few bucks, so I took it home to add to my collection.

You might also recall that I was recently gifted an entire Commodore VIC-20 and some games, and I managed to find two more very cheap game cartridges hanging around on a table deep within the convention. I added Cosmic Cruncher and Avenger to the collection, and with so many cartridges now, I had to move them to a separate box! I was hoping to find some of the cartridges I had in childhood like Radar Rat Race or Gorf, but unfortunately those were nowhere to be found. There were also no tapes for the datasette, which was also a bummer.

I had a couple of NES games on my list to find, but the only one that was reasonably priced was A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia. I have been looking for this game for a long while, and even though I have the Wii remake version, the NES game looks like a lot of fun and has a fantastic soundtrack. This was in gorgeous condition with only a little peeling at some of the label corners as you can see, but otherwise it’s a really clean copy to stuff on the shelf.

I’ve looked through a lot of games over the years, and it’s always exciting when I discover a label I’ve never seen before. Heiankyo Alien is a case of this phenomenon, and it was available for $5. I bought it not knowing what to expect, and while in hindsight it doesn’t look like the most exciting gameplay, it was still a neat experience jumping in with no expectations. Way in the back of a box of Game Boy games at a different table, I dug out a copy of Beetlejuice. I’ve never, ever seen this game at a convention and even though it was a little pricey, I bought it. It’s a different game entirely from the NES version and has been praised well in reviews I’ve seen online. Not my proudest thrifting moment, but given that I was up against what felt like an immovable salesperson, I was content with the slight discount I was able to snag.

UN Squadron for the SNES is a game I wouldn’t normally be after since it’s a shooter, but it came highly recommended to me by a dear friend and I can’t say no to recommendations from good people! It was surprisingly a great price too, and even though it has that weird bubbling at the bottom of the label in this photo, it’s barely noticeable in real life.

I desperately looked for new Master System stuff to take home, but there wasn’t a lot of variety to choose from. I went in looking for Aladdin to no avail, but I did manage to track down a copy of Fantasy Zone (finally!) that was in very nice condition. It didn’t come with a cool poster inside or anything, but it’s nice to have this. I’ve owned a copy of Fantasy Zone II for as long as I’ve had a Master System and this addition was a long time coming!

And last but not least, I got a few games for the Sega Genesis. To date I’ve only played Syd of Valis and recently bought Valis III, but I’d been hoping to find the first installment for a while now. It looks a little slower-paced and clunky compared to the later games in the series, but I’m glad to have the three Genesis titles. I actually went in looking for Super Valis IV, but this will do! Beyond Oasis is something I’ve had recommended to me over and over again, and now I finally own it! This was the other game that was not so cheap to pick up, but I went for it since I’ve rarely seen it in the flesh at conventions. I can’t wait to play it! It’s an action RPG, and you know how I love my action RPGs.

Even though the first time back to a game swap in over two years was mainly underwhelming, it was great to have some semblance of normalcy back. I’m not sure if I’ll move any mountains to get out to more of these this year, but I did at least find a few things I’d been hoping to for a long while. I do have some packages coming in the mail, so I should have at least one more post up shortly when everything arrives. And if I feel like pulling myself out of bed at the crack of dawn, I might just try some yard sales on weekends to come. Maybe. Me and mornings don’t really mix.

Thanks for reading!

-GG

The Patience

With a lack of an update for so long here, you may have come to the conclusion that my collecting habits died hard long ago. The truth is that while they haven’t succumbed completely, they’ve certainly slowed down to a very small trickle, and this post is going to encompass games I’ve either been graciously given or picked up over the past six months or so. There’s a mishmash of things here, but still a lot of really meaningful and personal additions to my collection. Some things I never dreamed of ever holding in my hands again, and yet now I own them. Let’s get started!

Starting out with one of the most modern purchases I’ve made in a while, it was a total no-brainer to pick up the Game & Watch for The Legend of Zelda that came out last fall. As a lover of the first Zelda game for NES, I was thrilled to see something so neat get released, though the tiny screen is the furthest thing from friendly for my old lady eyes. I don’t know that I will take this out very often, but it looks great beside my Super Mario Bros. one on the shelf.

After I had a blast with NES Rygar, a very nice person was kind enough to send me the PS2 game called Rygar: The Legendary Adventure. I can’t say that 3D games fall within what I could call my forte, but adoring the NES game as much as I do, I look forward to trying this one out and destroying things with the diskarmour!

My Virtual Boy collecting is nearly complete with the additions of Nester’s Funky Bowling and Virtual League Baseball. Nester’s Funky Bowling has eluded me for a long time, and I finally got it for a price I was willing to pay. Baseball was also available for a not-so-terrible price, and even with a bit of label damage, it was a worthy addition. All that’s left for me to collect are a few of the more expensive Japanese-only games and Waterworld, and since I currently have no plans to shell out a ton of cash for those, I’ll settle on calling things done for the moment.

This VIC-20 in the box came to me as a total and complete surprise. A very nice person reached out to me about having one collecting dust in his family’s home and offered to ship it to me, and I am an extremely happy owner of a working, wonderful computer. Having this back in hand after so many years feels great. My family had one when I was growing up and I played it all the time. I had eventually parted with it since a friend of mine at the time was heavy into collecting, and we didn’t have a way to hook it up anymore since we’d gotten rid of the CRT in the basement. I gave it away with all the games and many years later, I learned that he’d sold it to someone without asking if I wanted any of it back. It’s one of my biggest regrets, so getting another VIC-20 at this point and being able to re-experience some of my childhood again has been an absolute blessing. I need to pick up a copy of Radar Rat Race and Gorf!

What’s great is that the box is in relatively good shape and came with all its manuals. It also came with the Datasette unit which takes cassette tape games. I wish so much that I still had the tapes from my childhood to play again, but they’re long gone. I did adventure into making some new ones with moderate success, so maybe I’ll talk about that here or on YouTube someday.

Things have been pretty dry on the NES front, but one game I’ve been wanting for a long time is 3-D World Runner. I learned about it a long while back when I recorded a voiceover for a Nefarious Wes’ video review on the game. It looked like such a fun one and I rarely ever saw it at conventions in the past, but I picked this up at a game store I get out to once in a while. It’s in extremely good condition and looks as if it’s barely ever been played. I’m lucky!

These next two SNES games, Skyblazer and Pocky & Rocky are two I’ve been hunting for for what feels like an eternity. I will admit that I did not get a very good deal on either of these, but in an effort to support one of my favourite stores during the pandemic a few months ago, I didn’t want to haggle or push on price very much. It’s not as if I’d been spending a lot on games anyway, so I had a little extra money saved up. I’d rather support a business that deals in games so I’ll be able to keep buying from them long into the future rather than nickel and dime them and see them struggle even more. Either way, both of these were in great condition, and I’ve since completed Skyblazer. Pocky & Rocky is something I’m going to have to work pretty hard to get through since shooters are not a prominent part of my skillset as a gamer, but it’s really nice to have them both on the shelf.

Well, you’re looking at a photo I never thought I’d be able to take and include in a blog post. I can’t recall how many times in entries past that I’ve lamented over wanting to find Harvest Moon for the SNES. I searched high and low at conventions and out and about at game stores, and the few times I came across it, it was astronomically priced. Over time, the cost just kept climbing, but somehow, fate lined up where a wonderful human being had a copy they didn’t plan to play again and kindly put it in the mail for me. I was completely floored at his kindness and generosity, and I cried a whole bunch when I finally held it in my hands. It sounds silly to put it down in writing here, but after having such a stagnancy this collecting hobby that means so much to me, being able to finally own something that I’ve been searching for as long as I’ve known about this series was overwhelmingly… nice. And nice feelings are few and far between these days. This was one of the last games I’d really, desperately wanted to find for the SNES, and I can’t describe how much peace I have every time I see it up on the shelf in my game room. I am so, so grateful.

Ninja Taro for the Game Boy is yet another very awesome game I had been wanting to find for a long while. I found out about it years ago when I was looking into Game Boy RPGs, but it was another example of a game that never came into view at a price I was willing to pay. On eBay a few months ago, it finally popped up far below what it normally goes for, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I jumped on it, and if you’re wondering how it plays, it’s a top-down action RPG that’s made in the same graphics style (maybe even the same engine?) as Rolan’s Curse. Except unlike that game, it actually has some exploration to do, and I am really looking forward to experiencing this one.

These last two purchases also came from the video game store I mentioned above: The Pirates of Dark Water and Shadowrun for the Sega Genesis are both very nice additions to the collection. The Pirates of Dark Water caught my eye a few years ago at a local hock shop, but it was priced at over $100 in the box with no manual, just like this copy. That store owner was notoriously difficult to negotiate with, so I never bought it and kept looking. I didn’t pay nearly that much for this copy but it’s nice to cross it off the list. With respect to Shadowrun, a few years ago, a friend had recommended I try out the series and said that the SNES game would be better to start with. The Genesis game apparently leans a little harder into the tabletop game’s mechanics etc. so I picked up the SNES game first and only found the Genesis now, years later. I love the MA-13 rating on there. I’m curious to see what would make that happen on a Sega Genesis game where blood spewing out of someone’s severed limbs is just a normal General Audiences rating!

There it is. Many months of collecting all in one place, with some extremely important personal additions to the collection. I will have another update coming soon since I actually got out to a game swap for the first time in over two years.

Thank you again to everyone of you that sent something my way, and of course to those of you that continue to support my endeavours here, on Twitch, and on YouTube. You’re all what make this hobby worthwhile.

And as always, thanks for reading.

-GG

Finally!

Things have been quiet here since the opportunities to go thrifting or buy things in person have been rather limited. A few weeks ago, we finally got out to a shop that has been closed for a long time because of the pandemic, and it just so happened that they had gotten a lot of games in from another store that recently closed. I have quite a few new things to share with you from that, along with a few things I found for a good price online!

First up are some NES games, the first being The Legend of Kage. I’ve seen quite a few videos online showcasing this one, and while it certainly hasn’t swept me off my feet in any way, I do love an action-packed side-scroller once in a while. It was neat to see some decently-priced NES games out and about on a shelf that I could pick up and look at without having to talk to someone to open up a glass box instead.

Power Blade for NES is something I’ve been after for a very long while. It’s one of the games that has kept going up and up and up in price with no signs of stopping, but I was surprised to find a semi-beat up copy available for what I’d consider to be a decent price online. That section of the grip has that letter K melted into the plastic, and the writing further down on the label’s tear is a bit unsightly. All said and done though, aesthetics aren’t something that will make or break a purchase for me, and this was the cheapest I’ve seen this one available in many years. I’m very glad to have it.

I also picked up a North American copy of The Battle of Olympus and a copy of Rygar! It’s Rygtober after all, a fun casual speedrunning event that exists simply to bring attention to the game and encourage people to better their times or attempt a brand new speedrun game. For me, I’ll be trying it out casually on Friday afternoons starting on October 15th, so join me if you want to see a first-time playthrough of a game with one really great song!

I picked up all three of these SNES games at the thrift store I mentioned above, and while I’d heard of Gradius III and Drakkhen, Firepower 2000 was not on my radar at all. Most of my SNES collection consists of RPGs or bright and fun platformers, but it’s sparse in the top-down shooter department. Firepower 2000 is quite different from the usual space setting complete with ships and a million upgrades to work between (I see you there, Graduis III), and while shooters are far from my forte, I’m excited to take it out for a spin sometime. Drakkhen is one of the last SNES RPGs I’ve been meaning to track down, and it’s finally mine. I played through Dragon View (the spiritual successor of sorts) a while back and enjoyed it a lot, and while I hear Drakkhen’s a lot rougher around the edges than that experience, I’m hopeful there’s some fun to be had there as well.

It’s rare to find DS games in good condition or with their cases these days, but I somehow lucked into a copy of Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon with its box. No manual was in sight, but the rest of the game was in great condition. I have the sequel on the DS that I haven’t gotten around to yet, as well as another Rune Factory game on the Wii. I absolutely adore Harvest Moon and RPGs, and I understand that these games are a marriage of those two things. I hope I fall madly in love with the series when I finally get around to playing these games.

Bomberman Land for the Wii showed up at a different thrift store than the one I alluded to earlier on in the post, and it was in pretty excellent condition other than a few light scratches on the disc’s surface. I loved Super Bomberman as a kid and used to bug one of my best friends in elementary school to play it every time I went to her house, but I haven’t played many of the games beyond that one. I am looking forward to playing the adventure mode for some of the later games in the series, this one included.

It’s incredibly rare to encounter Sega Master System games in the flesh where I live, and while there were a few other sports games around like Pro Wrestling in the box for the taking (I still love that box art the most just because of how silly it is!), we only ended up taking Great Baseball home. Funny enough, we already had a loose copy that I’d forgotten about completely, so now I have a second one! I try not to discount the fun factor in sports games since I was surprisingly taken aback at how fun World Soccer was. There’s fun to be had in all games if you can find it, so hopefully Great Baseball’s also in that realm of possibility.

Sega was hot and happening at this particular store, and I found quite a few games I didn’t have yet. Taz in Escape to Mars is rumoured to be considerably better than Taz-mania, one of my most-hated games for the Genesis. I was also excited to track down Shadow of the Beast in its 16-bit form since the Master System version that I own is not nearly as refined. Mystical Fighter was something I’d never even heard of but bought because of the slightly higher price tag in hopes I’d chanced upon a gem. Sure enough, it looks like a relatively solid beat-em-up. Socket and Phelios have both been on my list for a long while, and we had a friend looking for Forgotten Worlds to pass that one along to. All in all, this was a wonderful find! All the games in this bunch were certainly well-loved, but in relatively decent shape overall.

There were two games in their boxes I wanted: Jeopardy Deluxe Edition and Warrior of Rome. Neither came with their manuals and Warrior of Rome had a bunch of stickers on the label that seemed impossible to peel up, but as a fan of DOS Jeopardy, I hope to have some fun with this version of the game sometime. Warrior of Rome appears to be a strategy game that is just screaming for manual consultation, so hopefully that’s online somewhere when the time comes to finally play that one!

I know there are a lot of exciting things in this post to gush about, but my favourite new thing is a Commodore Vic20. I had one as a kid with the tape player, a bunch of cartridges and tapes etc. but gave it all away to a friend who was collecting a lot at the time. It turns out he sold it all without asking me if I wanted it back first. I have always really regretted that decision, but he happened to have my childhood Pole Position cartridge, which he returned to me. In the case of this new system, I found it in a heap in the back of the thrift store, and it had no price on it. The store owner said he’d let it go for $5 so we took it home. It was filthy with no hookups, but we took it all apart, cleaned up and sourced a new power cord online. My husband did up a makeshift AV cable just to see if it worked, and sure enough, it does! Here’s a photo of it playing my Pole Position cartridge. I’m so glad to have one again!

And there’s another post come and gone. It’s been a while between posts lately, but I appreciate anyone that still drops by to have a look at what I’ve been finding out there. I’m sure conventions will be back again soon enough, but in the meantime, the slower-paced collecting is just fine by me.

Thanks so much for reading, as always!

-GG

Crossing Things Off the List…

I’ve always been the type of collector that has endless patience when it comes to buying games. I’m never really in a rush since I have a lot to play already, so if the price isn’t right or the game isn’t in the condition I want it in, waiting for another opportunity has generally paid off.

I was lucky enough to catch wind of a friend downsizing his absolutely gorgeous video game collection. He had some really interesting and hard to come by games that I’ve been looking for, and I finally pulled the trigger since I knew they were coming from a good home. This post will feature those games as well as a few stragglers from other online purchases I’ve made over the past few weeks.

To start out, this Trophy Figure from the Legend of Zelda was a gift from my friend that he included with my purchase. It’s the Link Fights the Head of Gleeok edition, one of six possible ones to collect from the time. If you know me even a little, you’ll know how meaningful the first Legend of Zelda game for NES is to me. It’s amazing to have this to add to the shelf.

I also picked up three NES games from him, and the first is Felix the Cat. This is a fun platformer with a medium amount of challenge that I have never, ever seen available for a good price at conventions back when they were happening. Sellers always told me that someone would pay the price they wanted if I wouldn’t, but I’m finally a proud owner of this delightful game! It’s in excellent condition as well (all of these are!) Next is Day Dreamin’ Davey, a game I only know from its corresponding Angry Video Game Nerd review, but something I’ve always been interested to try out. I grew up loving Nightmare on Elm street and the idea of media that takes you into dreams has always felt intriguing to me. This one might turn out to be great after all, and I’m ready to find out for myself. Lastly, I got Gremlins 2: The New Batch. I’ve seen a few people play through this over the years and have always thought it looked great, so here we are. Three more NES games to add to the shelves. I was out of room for NES a long time ago…

There aren’t a ton of games I’m still looking for when it comes to Virtual Boy, but Jack Bros. was one I was thrilled to procure. The English version of this one is astronomically priced, and while the Japanese release isn’t too far behind, my friend’s price for this was definitely reasonable compared to what I’ve seen over the years. The box has a few scuffs along the edges as you might expect from long-lived cardboard media, but the game and the other materials are pristine. I am so excited to finally be able to play this after searching for so long!

For the Sega CD, I picked up a game called Dark Wizard. It’s apparently a tactical strategy RPG, and even though I still haven’t played a single game in that genre to date, I’m happy to have it to look forward to. I’ve checked around a bit and it’s supposed to be a pretty good game, albeit not very well known or talked about very often. It has an incredibly thick manual and I’m curious to see how it’ll compare to other well-loved games like it.

Linkle Liver Story is a Sega Saturn action RPG with a translation patch available for it online. While I might not play this actual disc when the time comes, it’s nice to have this and the reading materials… and no, they’re not in English. It’s a rare opportunity to play a 2D game on a console that was filled with 3D ones, and I can never say no to that.

Pier Solar and the Great Architects is something that’s always been on my radar, but I had initially heard about it for the Genesis. It was released for that console sometime in the 2000s and finally saw a Dreamcast release a couple of years ago. The graphics are stunning and from what I’ve read, it’s been very well-received around the internet as far as I can tell. It’s a traditional turn-based RPG and I think this version offers the ability to play in higher quality graphics or the traditional 16-bit ones from the original release for the Genesis. I hope it meets my expectations when the time comes. It’s also nice to have another RPG for the Dreamcast to look forward to since there were so few initially released for the console.

The allure of the Sega Master System called me like a siren among the rocks… I ended up picking up Alf! The only time I’ve seen this game played was by someone who adores Master System games, and he spent his entire stream swinging at bats in a cave with a salami. I can’t wait to have that experience myself some day, and yes, I mean that. Rocky is also a fun addition to the collection. Deep down I secretly wish every boxing game ever made was like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, but there are always new gaming skills to hone and develop. I also think it’s funny seeing Sylvester Stallone on the front of this game when lots of other Master System Box art was far less… realistic?

The last thing I picked up from my friend was a copy of Zaxxon 3-D, a game that requires the use of the 3D glasses peripheral for the system. Well guess what? He also sent me a pair of 3D glasses! I am so excited to jump into the small 3D games library for the console. The glasses have one missing arm at the moment so I am looking for a replacement, but they still function beautifully from some brief testing I did the other day. Zaxxon 3-D is pretty fun. There’s a lot more depth than I was expecting from 8-bit 3D so connecting bullets with enemies is tricky, but they always seem to find me without too much trouble. I call shenanigans.

The rest of the items here were bought online from various places, and the first one is Space Gun for the Sega Master System. This has one of the most compelling backstories I’ve ever read for a first person shooter game, and as can be said for many PAL Master System releases, the box art is spot on. I always need more reasons to take the light phaser out for a spin, and this and the next game coming up will help to scratch that itch. I originally thought I’d been scammed since the manual’s ink is black rather than the usual purple you’d see for Master System games, but it feels legitimate? The paper’s definitely not out of someone’s printer. There’s also a smidgen of cartridge label peeling but nothing major. It’s otherwise in excellent shape.

Assault City is another light phaser-requiring title that came to me in worn condition. The manual’s obviously torn and the case art is fraying/damaged along some of its edges, but it’ll be fun to rain down some bullets on otherworldly invading jerks. I think I might now own all of the light phaser games for the system, but I can’t say that definitively yet… it’d be a cool milestone to hit though!

Randomly, I bought a game called Salmon King: The Big Catch for the Sega Genesis. This was completely an impulse buy since I was purchasing a bunch of Nintendo Game Pack card packs from the same site and decided to get this too. On the topic of the cards, I made a video showcasing opening and reviewing 49 packs of them if anyone is interested, but as for the game, I’ve heard it has some RPG elements! Fishing RPGs are a pretty random twist on that old formula so I’m curious to see what this one’s all about.

Last up is a first-person dungeon crawler called Towers: Lord Baniff’s Deceit for the Game Boy Color. I can’t recall where I first heard about it, but after completing Shining in the Darkness for the Sega Genesis over the past couple of months, I’ve been hungry for more of this kind of action in my life. From what I’ve been able to see of the gameplay online, it has some exceptional introductory sequence graphics and all the elements of a good game in principle. Now it’s just a matter of giving it a try sometime down the line. I’ll add it to my very long list.

I think that’s all I might have here for a little while. I don’t have anything else coming in the mail at the moment, and I’ve spent quite a bit on the contents of the last few updates. I’ll get back to scouring for more interesting things to buy in the coming weeks and hopefully have more for you here soon.

May your collecting endeavours be fruitful in the meantime!

Thanks for reading!

-GG

Packages, Packages and More Packages

With the heat of spring and summer starting to settle in now and no game swaps/meets in sight for the foreseeable future, I’ve been back to hunting for games online. Between a brief moment or two of normalcy between lockdowns and finding a new website to peruse for games, I’ve picked up quite a few new things over the last couple of weeks.

The first bunch here are some Intellivision games. I usually try to find these complete in box or at least with their controller overlays, but I couldn’t resist taking these home loose. Pitfall, Beauty & the Beast and Atlantis are all new to me, and I blanked at the store and couldn’t remember if I had Space Spartans or not. Turns out I did already, but that’s just fine. I was particularly intrigued by Beauty & the Beast just for the ridiculousness of the label art and the fact that it has nothing to do with the beloved movie of my youth. Other than these being extremely dusty and smelling like someone’s basement, they were all in pretty good shape overall.

At the same store, I also picked up two other games: The Official Turbo for Colecovision, and Galaga for the Atari 7800. I don’t even own a Colecovision at the moment, but many months ago I purchased the steering wheel for the system from a local shop. It came with an extremely beat up box and the instructions, but the game was missing. I’m glad to be able to complete the package now. Galaga is something I have in various shapes and forms, but I appreciated that this copy was for the 7800. I only have a couple of games for that console kicking around and although it’s obviously not an exclusive or in very good shape, it’s nice to expand that collection however slightly.

For NES, I picked up Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus (a subtitle I never knew existed until this very moment) and was gifted a copy of Krusty’s Fun House by my best friend from childhood. Dynowarz is something I watched a friend stream a long while ago and it looked interesting to me, with different modes of play… I think I recall seeing some parts as a super tiny vulnerable human character, and then other times you get to be a dinosaur? It’s a faint memory at this point, but the game was dirt cheap and I absolutely love the label art! You don’t see lasers going through dinosaur heads very often. Krusty’s Fun House is a game I played with my best friend all the time when we were younger. She recently sent me a care package and decided to include her cartridge as a surprise for me, which I was really appreciative of. I will treasure it always!

This next photo is something I’ve been wanting to reacquire for many years: a complete in box copy of Faxanadu. If this is your first time to this blog, you might not be aware that Faxanadu is one of my very favourite games. I still have my own childhood cartridge with its manual, but the box is long gone. At one point in my life I had a second copy in its box, pristine and beautiful, that I let a friend borrow so he could have all the materials and the full experience while trying out the adventure, but it never came back to me. I’ve spent many years without this on my shelf in boxed form, and while I usually don’t make a point to chase cardboard down, it’s really wonderful to have this. Granted, it’s not the Canadian version with the bilingual box text/manual, but it’ll do. The box itself is in reasonably good shape, but one of the edges is sun-bleached a little. The manual also has a few small tears along its edges but I thought it was in good enough condition to purchase. I love it and am proud to own it again.

My Game Boy and Game Boy Color collections grow ever-stronger with these two new additions. Microsoft: The Best of Entertainment Pack was a bit of a random thing I decided to buy when I found out it had SkiFree on it. If you were an early-ish Windows user, you may remember the skiing game where you were inevitably consumed by a snow yeti, with your bones used as a toothpick after the meal. I played that game relentlessly in my youth, trying to figure out how to avoid being devoured, but to no avail. It also has Free Cell on it, and I love that one. When I upgraded to Windows 10 and Free Cell was stuffed full of ads and became extremely loud compared to everything else on my system, I didn’t play it anymore. The music in the GBC game is so good. I can’t get enough of that jazzy little tune that plays while I try to figure out what move to try next. Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters was an impulse buy from that new website I mentioned, and it’s something I’ve wanted for a few years. I played through the NES Kid Icarus game a while back and enjoyed it after I got out of the first few levels, and I’m excited to finally try the sequel.

Limited Run Games just recently released the Game Boy Color version of Shantae. The original game is extremely sought after and runs for many hundreds of dollars at this point, so I had no hope of ever being able to find one for myself. They’re quite rare, and this is one of the few circumstances where I’d consider purchasing a reproduction of a game that already has a physical incarnation on a system. I usually only buy games that don’t have any other options for physical cartridges from these companies, but I am happy to have this one.

Captain Commando is a beat ’em up for the SNES that I’ve had my eye on for a long while. I was actually really disappointed to see the condition that this game arrived in. On the website I purchased from, it was listed as “like new” condition, and it arrived with a huge sticker across the label that I haven’t tried to remove yet as well as a ripped end-label that took most of the title off. It’s disappointing and I’m considering reaching out to see if I can get a partial refund. I had ordered a few other things from them before and they came in the condition as described, so I didn’t think twice before biting the bullet on this one. Either way, even though I am horrible at staying alive in these kinds of titles, it’s a cool game that I’ve heard is excellent and I look forward to taking it for a spin.

Smart Ball is a cartoony, generic platformer for SNES that I was encouraged to pick up by several people. You play as a prince that has been transformed into a blob and you’re trying to get your human body back. It’s adorable and very bright (think Fantasy Zone), and it was relatively inexpensive. I also bought a copy of Captain Tsubasa III for the Super Famicom, a soccer RPG that recently got a fan translation. I don’t know much about it or even the series that it’s based on, but I thought I’d pick it up anyway. A good sports RPG is hard to come by and this one is rumoured to be great.

Boom Blox for the Wii was a pleasant surprise I stumbled upon while watching Twitch one night. It’s a complex multiplayer-optional Jenga-like puzzle game of sorts where you have different goals like knocking all blocks down or not letting blocks fall as you manipulate various blocky structures. It looked like a fun party game to play sometime, either alone (yes, I can have parties by myself) or with my husband. It was a great price too and looked practically unplayed from the disc’s minty condition.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker for the Wii U became available for purchase recently, and I finally bit the bullet. While I can’t stand Toad in Super Mario Bros. 2 for his inability to jump or any iteration of his voice that exists in this universe, I can always play this one on mute and still enjoy the puzzles. The end.

And back to Sega! For the Master System, I found a few different games and the first is Missile Defense 3-D. I don’t yet have a pair of 3D glasses in my possession, but I have some coming my way in the mail. There’s a bit of “stuff” underneath the plastic on the box which thankfully isn’t on the paper label, and I was super excited to find a Game Catalog inside of the box along with the game and manual. I have a few of the fold-out advertisements for the Master System showing off the game’s library at the time, but I’ve never seen this little catalog booklet. It features some very early games too.

Wanted for the Master System is a pretty action-packed light gun game. Of the gameplay I’ve seen, you ride on horseback and pick off your enemies one by one with gunfire, but there might be more variety in store for me as well. This copy also came with a fold-out “new releases” poster, which showcases other titles for the system. I love this stuff, especially when it comes to me unexpectedly.

Shooting gallery for the Master System is also a light gun game, but this particular copy wasn’t in the greatest shape. You can’t really tell from the photo, but the plastic that usually holds the paper box art in place is broken completely along the spine (there’s a little piece on the floor there… it’s crumbling away for some reason), meaning that any time I pick up the game, I’m contending with two pieces of floppy plastic and a piece of paper trying to escape. The box was also crushed a bit so it tends to snap shut incorrectly, and the manual’s also stained and crumpled. It’s certainly not the most beautiful game, but let’s hope it works when I get around to testing it out.

I love Garfield with every fibre of my being, so I finally got a copy of Garfield: Caught in the Act for the Sega Genesis. I think it’s just a fun mascot platformer, and I can’t quite remember if it’s something I rented when I was a kid. I can’t imagine I wouldn’t have brought it home for the weekend if I saw it at the rental store, but we usually missed out on many of the good titles and had to pick through the leftovers. Psychic World for the Game Gear is another title I’ve been searching for. I adore the Master System version and it was only a matter of time before I took the Game Gear game out for a spin. I hate the label art though… it’s some man’s chin and his soul patch mostly covered up by the title… if I didn’t know what I was in for and was buying on label art alone, this one would have never been discovered.

Light Crusader for the Sega Genesis is another disappointing pickup for me in terms of condition not being accurately disclosed. The box is obviously sun bleached like crazy despite the game being listed in “like new” condition. It was clearly a rental that sat on a shelf for a very, very long time. That said, I’m really into Genesis RPGs and this game looks promising. I hope it’s good!

Last but not least, I bought Sega Marine Fishing for the Sega Dreamcast, and this photo features my arm! It came with the product registration card for the system that I have personally never seen before, so that was a cool surprise to find when I opened it up. I have Sega Bass Fishing already and found it very engaging and funny, and I just had to buy this sequel title. Now, I didn’t really look into this game before buying and I think, based on what I read in the materials, that you can catch dolphins and sting rays while fishing the oceans. That feels mean and wrong to me… hopefully I can pick and choose some missions and avoid catching those sweethearts.

And there’s another post in the bag! I have a few more things coming in the mail just in time for my birthday, so hopefully I’ll be able to update you all soon on what’s trekking north from the US for me. In the meantime, I hope you’re all catching some of this wonderful summer weather and enjoying some sun.

Thank you for reading!

-GG

The Generosity of Friends

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been lucky to get to know quite a few people online that have similar interests in retro video games, and collecting especially. Once in a while, some folks have offered to send me things they had doubles of or have been amenable to selling to me when downsizing their collections. This post is going to highlight some of those pickups that have trickled in over the last while.

First up are a couple of NES games, Puzznic and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I have never played either of these much, though I have emulated some of the latter in the past. I think once I sit down and figure out how to play it with the instructions, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is going to be a fun time as much as anything else I’ve tried out for NES. Another thing included here was a dogbone controller, my very first! I’ve always played NES with the usual pack-in rectangular controller, but I’ve been told this one’s a lot more comfortable. Time will tell of course, but I’m not sold on the angle of the buttons… I might have to dig out an NES extension cable since the cord on this thing is so short!

Next is MagMax, a sidescrolling shooter from what I can tell from some video from the internet. I know next to nothing about this one, but I also enjoy a surprise once in a blue moon. The back of the box has a pretty significant tear that removed almost all of the story information, but the front and the cartridge itself is in decent condition. No manual unfortunately, but that’s okay. I don’t have a lot of boxed NES so this is a nice addition to that pile.

Ninja-Kun: Adventure of Devil Castle for the Famicom is an arcade port with levels focused on murdering a bunch of enemies as you ascend buildings and other structures. I think it looks pretty cute from a pixel art perspective! I am always interested in expanding my Famicom collection, especially given how great some of the cartridge colours are and how bright and fun the label art can be. I have a Famicom converter for my NES so I’ll be trying this one out soon enough.

Last year I played through the original Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! for NES for the first time, and shortly after I picked up a loose cartridge of the sequel on the SNES. My friend sent a copy of the Super Punch Out!! manual along for me, which is really cool! I’m a big fan of these resources in general and this book will come in handy when I’m inevitably trying to pick apart the idiosyncrasies of this one. It looks like all my favourite people to punch are here too… especially Macho Man. Unless that’s Macho Man’s brother or something. I’ll punch him as well.

I am always happy to add more Master System to my collection, and here we have Predator 2 and Mono… Poly? I don’t know why they decided to spell Monopoly like that on the cartridge label when they clearly knew what it was supposed to be since they got it right on the box, but here we are. Now, I don’t know if I’ve seen Predator 2. I’ve definitely experienced the first movie because it had Dutch’s jungle war cry that I knew from an Arnold Schwarzenegger soundboard I had on an old phone, but I digress. The game appears to be a top-down run-and-gun action game where you’re also saving hostages. Time will tell if it’s a fun one or not, but it looks like the gameplay is nice and varied to say the least. Monopoly is pretty much just video Monopoly, which I like better than the board game. Long ago I had Monopoly for DOS, so this will be a new upgrade to try out sometime.

I once made a statement about Taz-Mania on the Sega Genesis being one of the worst games I’d ever played. I rented it a few times as a kid and it never grew on me, but thankfully there have been a few other games starring the same character that are much better and worth spending time with. Taz for the Atari 2600 is a single-screen game where you’re trying to avoid picking up dynamite while trying to eat all the food items you can get your hands on. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a game about a perpetually hungry Tasmanian devil and I think it’ll be great to play on a variety night for stream sometime. The label is in wonderful condition as well.

I don’t believe that the GameCube broadband adapter can still be used for anything up and running today, but at one point it was used to give GameCube consoles online capabilities for games like Phantasy Star Online. It’s still a neat piece of hardware to have nonetheless, and it’ll be interesting to see if there are any communities hosting online stuff for GameCube these days. Who knows what’s out there? It’s not something I’ve spent much time thinking about. At the very least, if I ever find a bunch of friends that also have these and get them together, I think there is also LAN capability as well.

When this Game & Watch came out a while back I wasn’t sure if I was going to pick one up or not. I have no nostalgia for ones from the 80s and 90s but I was happy to see this surprise in the bottom of the package! It’s very cute and a lot smaller than I was thinking it would be too, but I’m still looking for a permanent home for it to be on display in the game room. It’s very cool to finally own one of these.

I was also lucky enough to receive an exclusive preview guide from when the Sega Dreamcast was first launched. I recently dove into Skies of Arcadia for the system and was featured in a Kotaku article after setting up a mic to capture my Dreamcast noises during the livestreams, and it prompted someone to send this along to me to dive deeper into the library and lore of the system. This was an excellent read and as someone who apparently lived under a rock with respect to gaming when the Dreamcast was brand new, it was awesome to look back at such an exciting time for Sega. It also has an article on the Castlevania Resurrection game that was never actually released but had a demo that was dumped online about a month or two ago.

I picked up a few games from a friend, and the first is Castlevania: Dracula X for SNES. Last summer I played through many of the 8- and 16-bit Castlevania games, and Dracula X is one I was hoping to eventually try my hand at if I could find a copy for a reasonable price. This person was downsizing their collection, so I was able to purchase this and the next two games coming up from him. I’m very happy to finally have a copy of this in great condition, and am looking forward to playing it. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood was a blast and I understand this one is supposed to be a port of that game with some changes that people generally dislike for some reason. I’ll be the judge of that!

Another thing that now belongs to me is the Phantasy Star Collection for the Game Boy Advance. This has Phantasy Star 1-3 but is sorely lacking the fourth game! I don’t know that there were a lot of changes made to the installments that are here except to get them sized properly to run on the GBA, but this copy is currently sealed. I might open this sometime and see what it’s all about. I didn’t realize it was still sealed when I initially struck the deal with my friend, but I am not the type to leave things in plastic wrap forever. I’ve never owned a brand new GBA game either, so it’ll be special to be able to open something like this when the time comes.

Finally, I bought a copy of Castlevania Chronicles for the Playstation. This wasn’t something that I knew much about before seeing the list of games for sale, but I have spent a bit of time with it and it’s got some really interesting music! It’s like regular Castlevania tunes but hyped up for a techno bar somewhere. The visuals remind me of what I experienced in Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood, so I don’t have to say much more than that they’re beautiful. I’m coming ever-closer to having a complete collection of Castlevania games. I’m still missing a few including the ones for the N64, but it’s great to keep making progress on these very loose collecting goals.

That, as they say, is that! Other than a few other things I’ve brought in from the internet over the past few months that I’m saving for another post, what I’ve shown here is all I’ve been able to get my hands on. I can’t wait for the day when I can actually go out and purchase games locally again, or even get out to some bigger swap events down the line. These purchases have been a lifeline of sorts to collecting in pandemic times, and I’m extremely grateful for the people that chosen to give or sell these things to me. Much obliged!

I hope you’re all enjoying the (hopefully!) nicer weather and are staying safe out there.

As always, thanks for reading.

-GG

The Quiet of Winter

Most of winter has come and gone without too much action on the collecting front. In-person meetups are still not safe given the state of the world at the moment, and store availability has been touch and go over the past many months. As a result, about 85% of what I’ve purchased has come from the Great Internet. While I’m hopeful for some kind of game swap in the near future, I doubt it’s going to happen.

The first game I bought was Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu for the Famicom (which I think was just shortened to Jackie Chan in Japan). I first discovered this game on a multicart ages ago and was immediately smitten with the graphics. Your sprite is enormous and also very expressive, and even though some of the gameplay is a bit janky, I’m excited to finally be able to play it since no English is really required. The North American version of this cartridge is quite expensive so the Famicom version was the way to go.

I was tricked into buying Legendary Wings for NES after I finished up The Guardian Legend this past fall. I did a tag-team playthrough with a wonderful friend, TheRenesance, who insisted I should try out Legendary Wings if I enjoyed the shooter parts of TGL. Well, while I could certainly manage some of those sections, Legendary Wings completely destroyed me within about 5 seconds of playing. I haven’t tried again since just because of how difficult it felt, but maybe I’ll come back to it sometime and get in a bit more practice.

Ultima The False Prophet (also known as Ultima VI) had an SNES release that I was told would be good to try. There are so many Ultima console ports out there, some with worse reputations than others, but after falling in love with Ultima IV on the Master System, I hope to have a similar experience here some day. The game was in really great condition too, which is always a plus when things arrive as described.

I’m always looking out for new and exciting Game Boy games, and Zen Intergalactic Ninja looked promising. The NES title is totally out of reach in terms of price for me, so the Game Boy game was a nice fallback plan. I found out about this Who Framed Roger Rabbit game from a YouTube video by NES Friend and bought it right away after seeing what it’s all about. I still have yet to play the NES game, but I adored the movie growing up. The more ways to experience this world, the merrier!

The Jungle Book for Sega Genesis was an occasional rental for me when I was young, and unfortunately I had forgotten just how terrible I am at it until testing out this cartridge! It has all of the high points of other Disney games of the time like great graphics and music, but it’s far from my favourite of the bunch. I’d love to find a copy of Pocahontas one of these days… for now, this will have to do!

At one of the brief points when some local thrift stores were open, we checked in to see about any potential games and stumbled upon a few titles for the Playstation. For a few dollars each and with their nearly pristine condition calling to us, it wasn’t a hard choice to take these three home. I think the winner of the bunch from what I’ve been able to find out is Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire. I’m admittedly very curious about Super Star Dance Club #1 Hits though…

I finally added another Sega Saturn game to my collection: Panzer Dragoon. Prices for the original came down quite a bit with the release of the recent remake, and that was just the break I’d been waiting for. This is just like a much prettier version of Star Fox… maybe I’ll finally sit down and play more Saturn!

That just about does it here. While it’s much less exciting buying things online than finding them in the flesh in some form, it’s still nice to have added a few things to the shelves. Hopefully things will get back to normal in the coming months. I hope you’re all keeping safe.

Thanks for reading!

-GG