Swap Pickings

The birds are singing and the grass is finally growing here, so naturally it’s swap season!  I found out about an impromptu swap event a week or so ago and scuttled on over there to check out the wares.  Because I had just picked up an enormous lot of games at the last one, I went in a little more conservatively this time around but still feel I made out with some great finds!

The first seller I stumbled upon had an enormous table of Famicom and Super Famicom games, some boxed and some loose.  I’ve been casually picking up lots of Super Famicom RPGs that I hope to feature in a future post, but I’ve been getting those mostly loose.  This guy had a bunch of what I’ve bought recently from eBay, but his prices were more than what I’d paid shipped in most cases.  One thing that caught my eye was a boxed copy of Final Fantasy V.  The only other version I own is on Final Fantasy Anthology for PS1 and if the loading times on Anthology are anything like they were on Chronicles when I played Chrono Trigger, I want nothing to do with that and will gladly settle for the original played with a translation patch.  I do appreciate that it came with a fold-out manual with lots of stats, map info and I’m sure what are a lot of other awesome things.  I enjoy the art inside, but not knowing Japanese even a little bit obviously makes the rest of the pretty information quite useless to me.

A second Super Famicom game that was glinting at me among the many was Kirby’s Dreamland 3.  I had actually tried to order this game from eBay ages ago for a screamin’ deal, and it never came.  One small dispute later and I was refunded my money, but I went on yearning for a copy of the only early Kirby game I didn’t own.  The North American version of Dreamland 3 is very expensive, so I was happy to go for the Japanese version since I don’t think much language is required to play.  This game was in absolute perfect condition other than the sticker on the box, which I don’t mind so much.  I especially love the lithographic cartridge label and the overall adorable cuteness of this thing!  Soon the humping hamster will have his way with Kirby again… if you don’t know what I’m talking about, the in-game hamster has a horrible animation with Kirby when they’re paired… you’ll see.

Last from this seller was a copy of one of my most nostalgic games from childhood, Antarctic Adventure for Famicom.  I’ve only ever seen this game on bootleg multicarts, and as a kid I had no idea that most of these games were just pirated Famicom games piled into one place.  Antarctic Adventure and its rendition of Skater’s Waltz has always held a special place in my heart, and now I finally own my own physical copy of the game.  The label’s peeling in a few spots, but for a couple of dollars, I couldn’t pass it up.  The penguin looks much cuter and much less sweaty in-game, though.

The rest of the games came from one of my favourite sellers that I always make a point to buy from when I see them at these shows.  They always give us a great deal, and this time was no different.  First up are two NES games: McKids and Beetlejuice.  McKids always intrigued me after seeing it covered in various places on the internet, but Beetlejuice is something a little nearer to me.  I know some folks on Twitch that speedrun it, and watching them love this game has made me want to love it too.  That first level music pops into my head often and I just really need an opportunity to try it out for myself.  Despite both of my speedrunner friends being great at explaining why they’re doing what they’re doing when they run it, I still actually have no idea how to play this game.  It should be an adventure, and thankfully it came with the manual.

A Game Boy game reared its ugly head at me: Bart Simpson’s Escape from Camp Deadly.  I don’t know if I’m a sucker for punishment or what, but I own pretty much every other Simpsons game from this generation and couldn’t say no for $2.  I’ll stuff it into my box of Game Boy games and try to forget about it for a while.  It’ll be a nice surprise when I discover it again!

Last but not least, there were two Sega Master System games that I wanted to add to my collection.  The first was Spy vs. Spy.  Up until the moment I laid eyes on it, I had no idea that this game had even been released for the Master System.  Also of interest is that it’s a card game, and it was in impeccable shape apart from a broken box hanger, which I couldn’t care less about.  The seller only wanted $10 so I took it home with me.

And finally, I found a copy of King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown!  At the last swap, I hummed and hawed about a complete copy that was more than I wanted to spend.  When I finally decided to go for it, by the time I got back to the table, it was gone.  For $90, it was a mixed sense of grumpiness and relief.  I was hesitant to spend so much in one place, but I love King’s Quest and the Master System version is a rarer variant I would’ve loved to have in my collection.  Fast forward to this swap, and my favourite seller had it for $60!  It ended up being less than that all said and done since we bought everything together with quite a big discount.  The only bummer is that the manual is missing its front cover, but that’s just the crappy purple-and-white King’s Quest logo.  Nothing too exciting there except that and maybe some warranty info on the back end. I can’t wait to play this game again on a system I’ve fallen head over heels for.  Hooray!

And that was swap #2 of the summer so far.  I’m not sure what else will pop up for big swap meets over the next while, but I’ve been scouring yard and garage sales without too much luck so far.  Hopefully I’ll have more to report back on soon enough!

Thank you for reading, as always!

-GG