Last Summer Game Swap/Exchange

Somehow several weeks have managed to fly by since I went to a game swap event.  I think I mentioned previously how hard it has been to find things locally over the last many months save for a few exceptions, but game swaps are normally a different story.  You know that there are going to be some good games there, and it’s just a question of whether or not the price is right.  I found some really great games and spent more than I was thinking I would, but after such a slow summer, I didn’t mind spending money I had already put aside for collecting anyway.

The first thing that I picked up was Oracle of Ages for Game Boy Colour.  You might be remembering somewhere deep inside the corners of your brains that I had fixed up a non-working copy in a post in the distant past.  Well, although we fixed it at the time, I tried starting it up again and discovered that it was completely dead again despite not having touched it since.  How it died or what it means for a cartridge like that to die completely is puzzling, but it is truly dead despite having no physical signs of damage. No amount of reflowing solder or other fixes revived it. Rest in peace, little cartridge.

Either way, I was lucky enough to find a new copy complete in box and with a much nicer label than my old copy.  The box is in nice condition, and given that I have Oracle of Seasons in near mint condition in box as well, it’s great to have both games at a similar level of completeness.  You may or may not know that my favourite Zelda game is Link’s Awakening, and Ages and Seasons were made in the same engine.  I really, really want to play these ones.  I also have another game hanging around called For Whom the Frog Tolls also made in Awakening’s engine, and it’s a translation of a Japan-only game with RPG flavours.  I digress! There is more to talk about!

The second thing I picked up was a copy of a game I’ve been looking for for ages on the Game Boy: Gargoyle’s Quest.  I remember seeing gameplay of this one a long time ago and wanted to know more about the series.  I also only recently discovered that there was a Gargoyle’s Quest II on NES between this game and Demon’s Crest for SNES.  I love games that are a mixture of platforming with RPG elements (Faxanadu, anyone?) so something like this is right up my alley. I have no idea if I’ll ever own the other games in this series since they’re less common and more expensive, but this is a great place to start in the meantime.

I’ve been catching a lot of streams lately from friends on both Twitch and YouTube, and one of my friends streamed Gun.Smoke for NES.  Though that kind of game is not my usual fare, I saw it at the swap for a decent price and scooped it up.  It turns out that it was one of the first games my boyfriend ever played on NES as a youngster and was thrilled that I had brought it home.  It was a happy coincidence!  I think I heard somewhere that there are several label variants for this game.  If any of you own this game do you have this one or the other label?  I don’t know what the difference is in terms of timing of release or anything, but I’m just curious to know.

Someone that watches my Twitch streams recommended that I pick up the game Shadowrun on SNES.  For a little while I kept thinking that I already had it, but I was thinking about Shadowgate for NES instead.  Apparently the SNES version has more action to it compared to the Genesis version which sticks to more of the tedious RPG elements, and on good advice I snatched this version up instead.  I had taken several walks around the convention hall looking for other copies of the game, and I’m pretty sure this was the only one. Lucky me!

Now I think we all know by now just how much I love the Sega Master System.  I was tickled pink when a nice man sold me two games, Psycho Fox and Montezuma’s Revenge.  You could tell immediately that this person took great care of these games over the course of the time he owned them.  The boxes were in custom plastic cases to accommodate the case tabs, and the manual and game cartridges inside the cases were also wrapped up in plastic bags.  He had some pretty high prices on the games but after talking for a while and him seeing that I wasn’t just going to flip and resell his stuff, he came down to almost half of what he had been asking for both.  I think Montezuma’s revenge was originally a C64 game while Psycho Fox was an SMS exclusive (I could be wrong though.)  They were both games I had been wanting to find for a while, and buying them up means that my Master System collection is even closer to being complete.  I don’t know that there are too many more Master System games out there that I’m desperate to get my hands on.  But take a look at how beautiful these games are! They honestly look like they’ve never been played.

Psycho Fox also came with a neat poster that I had never seen before.  In many of the other Master System games I own the included poster is the same generic one with all of the new releases on the back.  This one is special and is conveniently in absolutely pristine condition. I might have to stick this one in a frame or something.  There are a lot of great box art clips on it, including Psychic World.  It’s one of my favourite games for the system.

The last game I got was a highly sought after RPG for the Sega Saturn for me: Albert Odyssey.  I never dreamed that I would actually get to own this game because of how expensive it is, but then suddenly there it was with a person that was willing to negotiate quite a bit on price.  Working Designs can really do no wrong, and I’ve heard that Albert Odyssey is an absolute gem to play.  I now have two good Saturn games, and that’s this one along with Shining Wisdom.  Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up a few other games in the future, but collecting for the Saturn is a financial nightmare.  If I never find another Saturn game, I could be happy with the two of these.

So that brings us to the end of another swap post.  There is supposed to be another event coming up at the end of this month, and weather permitting, I might just have to go to it and see if I can finally find Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom for NES.  That game is still evading me and I’d really like to add it to my collection sometime!  This swap was highly successful at least, and as usual, here’s a little family photo of all the games I picked up here.

I hope your collecting endeavours (if you collect) have been productive.  In many ways, I’m looking forward to the quiet of winter when I’ll finally be able to stop thinking so much about collecting and start enjoying my games.

Thanks so much for reading!

-GG