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