The Sleepiest Swap of All

The last swap of the year for me is always bittersweet.  There’s something so lonely about the prospect of a winter without game hunting in far away places, but the quiescence of the snowy months ahead are a welcome peaceful time without the hustle and bustle of travelling every other weekend.

As I mentioned previously, the last two swaps we went to this year were plagued with less-than-good overnight accommodations, consisting mostly of sweaty polyester hotel sheets and loud, noisy hotel neighbours that made sleeping impossible.  I like to get a good night’s sleep before a game exchange to make sure I’m alert for good bargaining, but I was mostly left feeling sluggish and unprepared.  Despite the miserable sleep, the swaps was still successful, and I got to add a few long-coveted items to my collection.

For NES, I picked up two games: Monster Party, and Dragon Warrior IV.  I highly regret not picking up Monster Party the last time I saw it for $12, but I paid a little more at $20 for this copy.  It was in truly beautiful shape, and I really wanted to be able to fight some giant breaded shrimp inside a house in my spare time.  The cartridge was a bit finicky to get going and required ample cleaning, but it works!  Of the two games, Dragon Warrior IV was by far the most exciting for me.  This game has been at the very top of my list since I got serious about collecting a few years ago, and it has always been an elusive entity in my life.  I have been trying to buy a local copy of the game for almost a year now but gave up recently: the store owner tried to make a case as to why he was including shipping in his game prices, and after a long argument with him about how I shouldn’t have to pay shipping if I’m shopping local and driving to his store on my own dime, I gave up on it.  I haven’t returned since then and have no plans to.  They’re practically holding the game captive at a price of $110 with no box or manual.  Anywayyyy… I was quite pleased to nab this copy of the game for $70, which was about $40 less than what this stupid store had the game priced at without tax included (and in Ontario, tax is 13%!)  Either way, I’m glad I finally found this one.  I tested out the game and did a little dance to the improved title screen music.  Who doesn’t love that prominent baseline where there was no baseline before?

Having recently finished SpellCaster for the Sega Master System lately, I was on the lookout for its Sega Genesis sequel Mystic Defender.  It seems that a Kain-like fellow has donned a lovely purple jumpsuit and some kickass elbow-gloves for this game.  From what I know of it, it departs from much of the point-and-click style of the first game and moves exclusively to action sequences.  I was tipped off to the game’s existence by someone that watches my Twitch streams.  I’m getting great info from everywhere these days!

My obsession for buying up Game Boy games has continued!  I took a gamble on The Rescue of Princess Blobette, and I’m not sure if I came out ahead on that one or not.  I only paid a few dollars for it, so at the end of the day, it’s a game I get to try out!  Rolan’s Curse 2 was a really good game hidden in plain sight.  Finding the original Rolan’s Curse for Game Boy is what set my GB love ablaze to begin with, so its sequel was an easy addition to my game collection.  The game is supposed to build upon what the first one had, and the first game is really fun from the few hours I dabbled with it.  It was clearly well-loved considering that it’s got some light-wear from being stuffed into someone’s GB for a long while.  I also picked up Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games.  I am a little too excited about Hamtaro games after finding Ham-Hams Unite! at the last event.  I rummaged through literally hundreds of GBA games that were in a variety of dirty, dusty sacks to see if both GBA Hamtaro games were available, but this was the only one I found.

Lastly, I picked up the manual for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.  This game is one of the only DS games I own loose.  Given that I love the Zelda series so much, it was only natural for me to take this little guy home with me as well.  My handheld collection is just bursting these days.  There’s so many great games on handheld systems!  I just wish streaming and recording DS games was easier and feasible with my current setup.

Though we came away with just a small bunch of games this time, it was a lot of fun going to yet another wonderful event!  I don’t know if I’ll ever grow weary of these things.  Here’s a nice group photo of all the games we picked up this time around.

One thing I haven’t mentioned here and might keep for a separate post in the future is a small arcade cocktail cabinet that my boyfriend and I picked up on this last adventure.  It’s all apart right now and in the process of having about 30 years of grime scrubbed/ground away from its surface, so it’s not very photogenic for the moment.  It does have four games on it though, including some of my favourite arcade games like Burger Time, Dig Dug and Ms. Pac-Man.  I will update as soon as I have something to update with!

Thank you very much for reading.

-GG