Classifieds: It’s Raining Atari

I’d have to say that my boyfriend and I have been pretty lucky when meeting up with people from online classifieds ads.  Sure, we’ve run into the occasional smooth-talking reseller, but we’ve always had our wits about us.  I’ve mentioned this before, but buying games as often as we do, we frequently run into the same people again and again.  Sometimes this can be pretty awkward if we’ve had a mediocre or negative experience with someone, but oftentimes we meet some interesting people.  Conveniently, one of these kind folks sold us some great Atari 2600 and Colecovision games a few weeks ago.  He was getting rid of them because he didn’t have any nostalgia for that generation of gaming and showed us his game room that was packed full of GameCube and Playstation games.  I’d peg him at about 22-25 years old.

There were 86 games in total here, and fortunately not too many were doubles of ones we already had.  After a thorough cleaning and de-gunking of everything, we tested all of the cartridges in our faithful composite-modded Atari 2600 light sixer.  Now, I normally don’t meet up with many cartridges that don’t work, but there was a small pile that built up during testing that we cleaned and cleaned and still didn’t work by the end of it all.  Oink! and Jungle Hunt were two of these games, and the third one was the Smurf game.  Smurf looked as if it had been opened up before (the screws were exposed from under the label), and when we looked inside of it, its PCB was snapped into pieces and part of it was missing!  I was pretty sad about that even though the game is supposed to be terrible.  One fun moment I had was testing out Journey Escape.  An 8-bit rendition of Don’t Stop Believing by Journey started to bleep-bloop out of my stereo, which then lead to me shattering all the glassware in my house while belting out the tune.  What an unexpected surprise!

This person that originally owned these games also seemed to have an incredible love for the game Venture.  There were three separate copies of the game: The Atari 2600 cartridge, the Coleco cartridge made for the Atari 2600, and a straight up Coleco-only cartridge.  Venture looks like a pretty cool game  based on what little I’ve seen of it.  I’m interested to see the differences between the various releases!

There was another person selling Atari games on the classifieds, and I was particularly intrigued by his ad because he had some rare ones in there!  The three rare ones were by Spectravideo, and they run at an 8 or 9 rarity rating on the Atari Age website.  The games are Master Builder, Bumper Bash, and Gas Hog.  All three looked to be in great condition and fired up on the first try.  As far as Atari games go these ones were a bit pricey, but I’m happy I got them!

There were other games to be had as well, and only two of them were doubles: Centipede and Mario Bros.  My other Mario Bros. cartridge is a bit of a dud.  It goes into my Atari and never, ever wants to come out again.  There’s something wrong with its insertion mechanism, so this new one is a nice upgrade.  Flash Gordon and Mr. Do! were also two games I was hoping to run into sooner than later, and here they are!  Mr. Do! has some especially good music and gameplay that I’ve always wanted to try out.  It reminds me of a weird Dig Dug, and Dig Dug is pretty amazing!

Another wonderful game in this bunch was Star Wars: The Arcade Game.  I already had at least two copies of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by this point, but I had always wanted to find the other.  Both games have the iconic Star Wars theme song at startup, but The Arcade Game’s ditty is a little more detailed.  I kept resetting the game to listen to it while testing its functionality, much to the chagrin of my partner who was cooking supper in the next room.  It’s amazing what they could smash into a little cartridge back in the 80s.

Lastly, there were some boxed games that the guy threw in for an extra $10 at the door, which I was happy to pay for.  I had often seen these M Network games boxless with no label art and wondered if their boxes and manuals were any more appealing than the weird, ugly cartridges.  I was quite pleased to see that that is the case!  Both Armor Ambush and Lock N’ Chase came with manuals and other inserts, but Air-Sea Battle came only with the cartridge.  Many of my Atari games are loose, so it’s definitely nice to get some more boxes for my shelf!

Because I didn’t grow up with Atari like many other people around my age, I’m always learning about new games that I might like to try out sometime.  Hopefully my search for these kinds of games continues to be fruitful!  In the meantime, I have lots to play!

Thank you very much for reading!

-GG

Buying a Large Collection: A Retrospective

Back in April, I spent a fairly large sum of money (in the thousands) buying up one of my old friend’s entire game collection.  Having had about six months to ponder the decision and to weigh the pros and cons of the entire ordeal in hindsight, I thought it might be good to share my thoughts and answer the question: would I do it again?

So many games in once place is tough to turn down.

Walking into my friend’s basement and seeing boxes and boxes of games there for the taking was a surreal experience.  For many gamers that love collecting and playing games, seeing literally hundreds of games in once place all at the same time can be like a dream come true, but also completely overwhelming.  I remember seeing some items in the mix like Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, a copy of Lunar: Silver Star Story, a boxed Secret of Mana among many other things and feeling like my hands were slowly being tied as questions busted into my brain: how could I leave this all behind?  Would I ever have an opportunity like this again?  These are the kinds of questions that would have kept me up at night for a long, long time.

The pressure of buying from friends and family can be daunting.

Especially when your friend is a salesman.  Upon entering the room with all the games, I immediately was given a tour of all the rare and wonderful things in the collection while many of the other aspects of it were glossed over.  I barely had a chance to peek through the boxes without being interrupted, or to get a private word in to talk things over with my partner before we were being asked if we were taking it all.  Given that my friend and I had been talking on and off for years about me buying his collection, he already knew where my heart was at and it was really hard to say no even if I wanted to.  He was also a tougher bargainer than me.  When I asked if I could pick and choose what I wanted, he insisted he’d have to increase the price of individual items since he wanted everything gone at once and it would be hard for him to sell the rest.  If he had been a stranger, I could’ve easily bought more time or walked away, but it was difficult to turn him down given everything that was there and our long history together as friends.

The cost vs. what we got was pretty good.

We got approximately 600 games, at least 50 manuals/game guides, and at least 20 boxed consoles/other items with lots of other rare and exclusive stuff (E3 documentation, press kits, demo discs, swag, a developer kit, a game dump of an unreleased game, etc.)  It was definitely a good deal from a monetary value perspective given how much good stuff was in the mix, but the issue I found myself scratching my head over was all the extra stuff that I didn’t really want.  Did I really want an entire box of GameCube sports games or generally terrible movie/television-based games that I’ll likely never play?  What am I supposed to do with much of the E3 stuff that I wasn’t there to gain any context about?  How about some of the accessories that I can’t imagine ever feeling compelled to try out (i.e. the GameCube racing wheel/pedal)?  These things are now mine to store and potentially sell some day if we decide to go that route.

We nearly doubled our collection in one day, but…

…we also ran into the issue of getting a lot of duplicates and extras of things.  There were not only duplicates of things we already had, but there were duplicates of certain items within the collection itself!  It takes a lot of work and time to organize and sell things, and a part of me wants nothing to do with selling on eBay because of some of the horror stories I’ve heard from friends throughout the years around bad buyers and scammers.  Selling locally is an option, but it’s a lot of time I just don’t have for the moment.  What smart person spends money to have to do more work afterward?

Things weren’t always what they seemed.

I think the thing that’s been bothering me the most is that I don’t know that my friend had my best interest in mind at all throughout the transaction.  He continually bragged about selling off lots of the “heavy hitters” of his collection a few years ago like his copies of Snatcher and Popful Mail for Sega CD as well as a bunch of other things along the way that I would’ve loved to have.  Though in my mind the entire interaction and transaction was a gesture of friendship and trust, it became pretty apparent to me that he wasn’t doing me any favours by selling me his collection – he seemed to be in it for the cash, and not for any reconnection or friendship after the fact.  It’s not as if my friend owed me anything after all these years, but it left me feeling a little… used?  I’m not sure that I can even quite put my finger directly on what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it, but it certainly hasn’t left me feeling completely positive and excited.

—

Looking back on everything, even though I don’t have tender feelings and butterflies in my stomach every time I think about this experience, I think I would do it again if presented with the opportunity but with a little more control from my end.  I would’ve taken more time to think things over and maybe put aside my personal expectations as well.  I might have insisted on my friend pricing out the items that I really wanted to see if it’d be worth it to buy up everything, even if it meant taking a few more several hour trips out his way.

I know that we got a ton of really great things in this game lot that I’ll be able to enjoy for years to come, but I can’t help feeling a little sour about some aspects of the transaction.  In an ideal world my friend would’ve cut me a deal, we could’ve laughed about old times and become good friends again while bonding over it all.  That’s not what happened, and it kinda sucks.  At least my partner and I came out richer in two ways: we obviously obtained a ton of fantastic items and games, but we also gained a lot of important experience as a couple and in the form of life lessons.  For example, it’s unlikely I’ll do business with friends or family again at this level of investment.  I always treat game collecting as a fun and positive hobby experience rather than a rigid business transaction, so I need to get something emotional out of it at the end of the day.  As well-intentioned as friends and family may be, it’s hard to expect that others will be able to meet my expectations.

Hopefully this post gives you all something to consider if you’re ever thinking about a large purchase like this, or end up dealing with people you know rather than strangers.

Let me know what you think: would you have bought everything under these circumstances?  What would be your dream game lot to purchase?  Would you ever buy from family and friends?

Thanks for reading!

-GG

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

There once was a girl who drove a lot to find games.

In my last post, I mentioned that I had made it to a couple of swaps in the last little while, and boy oh boy were they a lot of fun!  Despite some less than pleasant hotel stays (why are polyester sheets even allowed to be a thing that’s used, ever?), the last two swaps of the season were bountiful, and I’m excited to share what I found!

The first event I went to was back in September, and I know a vendor personally that regularly attends.  He told me that someone had recently sold him an absolutely enormous PS1 collection with near-perfect condition games, and I was intensely thrilled at the possibility of finally rounding out my Playstation RPGs.  Unfortunately he also mentioned that he couldn’t sell to me early or even put anything aside since everything was boxed up to  bring to the event.  He urged me to get there early so I could have first pick, but first pick at these things usually means picking through leftovers after all the vendors have had their way with the best of the best before the show opens.

We made it in only 10 minutes after the event opened and I made a bee-line for that particular table.  It was absolutely swarming with people and there was no room to squeeze in, so I had taken a look elsewhere to see what was lying around.  If you’ve been following here for even a little while you’ll probably know that I’ve become mildly obsessed with Game Boy games.  And Natsume games.  And also Hamtaro.  The games I found here catered to many of those desires!

The Hamtaro game was something I completely took a gamble on.  I loved the show growing up but was a little older when it came out.  I didn’t catch it nearly enough, but the idea of adorable hamsters having their own society makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside just like the best hamsters are on the outside.  I digress.  Hamtaro Ham-Hams Unite! looks to be a strange puzzle game where you get to learn hamster slang and help people solve their problems.  Not only is this a really interesting premise, but the game is freaking adorable!  I’m so excited to try it out!  Spanky’s Quest was a game I hadn’t heard of, but I saw the Natsume logo on there and decided to dive in.  If it was at least as good as Harvest Moon, I was golden, right?  Well, it’s not quite HM, but it’s definitely something I think I will find a fun challenge.  It’s hard to explain, but I strongly think I’ll prefer this release over the version released for the SNES.  Lastly, Castlevania Adventure, though widely booed and hissed at by many, is something I’d like to try.  I’m slowly amassing many games from the series but have yet to actually complete any of them.

My friend’s vendor table was still jam-packed with folks that were shoulder to shoulder, so I kept perusing the event floor looking for the next big discovery.  I did have a few trades with me and I wasn’t afraid to use them when I finally ran across a decently priced copy of Breath of Fire II for SNES.  This is one of the last SNES RPGs I needed to find, and I was okay buying it for $50 with a bit of a ripped label.  Who needs that guy’s beefy arm and part of the Super Nintendo logo thing anyway?  I’ve been looking for this game forever.  There has been a local copy at a hock shop for $69.99 + tax with a glued on printed paper label.  Yep.  You’re reading that right: a shitty, awful fake-label game that might not have even been authenticated for probably close to $85 with taxes in.  I’d much rather have taken my chances on this mildly torn label than give my money to those jerks.  Even if it’s badly translated, I look forward to endeavouring on this adventure sometime!

By now, the table with many of the Playstation goodies I had been dreaming about were not being blocked by a wall of eager gamers.  Thankfully my friend had not been picked clean, and there were an absolute ton of PS1 games for the buying.  I had a huge box of trades hanging out in my back seat, so I asked the vendor to put aside a few things while I went and rummaged to find some trade bait.  After presenting my wares and haggling a fabulous deal, the games I got were Wild Arms, Legend of Mana, and Breath of Fire IV!

I can’t quite say exactly how long I’ve been looking for Legend of Mana, but it has been at least two years or so.  The thing that really set my collecting into motion before starting this blog was the desire to find and play Secret of Mana, a game a friend had lent me after I moved to a new city but never had the opportunity to start.  She took her game back and we stopped talking a short time later, and the more I watched/read about the game, the more I wanted to play it.  That need soon extended to other Mana games, and Legend of Mana was launched up to the top of my must-find list.  Wild Arms and Breath of Fire IV were also on my radar since I had several of the other games in both series, but there was something about finding Legend of Mana and not having to pay a cent for it that was a really pleasant experience for me.  I think I traded only five or six other pretty common games for all three games.  It was a smokin’ deal.

As I continued wandering, I chanced upon another table that had some PS1 RPGs.  These were unfortunately ones bought from my friend before the event started as I had feared, and the prices had been jacked up a bit.  I took a hard, long look at the inventory.  There was a really poor condition Tales of Destiny 2 (the foil on both discs was raised so who knows if that would’ve played), but there were two copies of Tactics Ogre.  I had often seen the game mentioned in many top PS1 RPG lists, but it was never my focus in my initial delve into the Ogre Battle series.  Much of the research I first pieced together was around Ogre Battle 64 and March of the Black Queen (both of which are nearly identical to titles of Queen songs… weird, generally awful Queen songs…).  Despite not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into, I had faith that Tactics Ogre was going to be pretty good.  With a few things to trade still left over, I ended up paying $70 cash and got rid of a few extra PSP games I had.

I was also very appreciative of some of the creativity of the game art.  It was lovely to see a link between Tactics Ogre’s case and manual art.  There are probably many examples of this in other games, but this is the first time I noticed it.  It’s so beautifully done.

Before leaving for the day, one last perusal around the place left me staring at a beautiful deal: Caveman Games!  Another miserable hock shop employee refused to move on their price of $20 for the longest time, and I snagged this beauty for a grand total of $5.  Oh yeah.  I’m very glad I waited!  Now I can do the Wife Toss event all day long without wondering if I paid too much for a game where Wife Toss is a thing.

You might be wondering what a classy girl like me is doing with a train wreck like Crazy Castle.  You can put the blame squarely on the lovely shoulders of my boyfriend, who mistook it for a different Bugs Bunny game.  We are stuck with it now, so one of these days I suppose I’ll try to enjoy it.  Just know that I will do it with a frown that cannot be turned upside down.

That just about wraps up that first swap event.  I wish I had more time to combine both swaps into one seamless post, but I’m desperately trying to catch up on work and also find the time to complete my next video masterpiece: 30-45 minutes of me taking care of Harvest Moon cows that smile constantly and melt my cold, Canadian heart.  If you ever needed a heartwarming video, keep your eyes open for that one.  It’ll be coming down the pipe as soon as I can find a moment to finish editing the beast.

(A message from a future version of myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl-iN2-YOJ4)

Hopefully you all had a wonderful Halloween and are keeping warm with all this cool weather that suddenly won’t dissipate.  It feels like every day from now until March should be a blanket and tea day!

Thanks for reading, as always!

-GG

Sega and Playstation walk into a bar…

After many prayers and fist-shakes, the gods of the classifieds ads have finally given me their blessing again.  Along with scouring the poorly-worded posts of people parting with their beloved games, I’ve also had some luck with finding a few decently priced games on eBay, making the items in this post exciting from a number of different ways.  I have mostly bumped into some games for the Sega Genesis and various Playstation consoles, so those are what I will focus on here.

I’m not entirely sure and perhaps someone else might help me to clarify, but it seems that prices of retro games seem to be on the decline.  This isn’t ubiquitous across the board, but in many cases, games I have wanted to buy seem to have come down in price by $20-$30 over the last few months.  I’m not sure why or how long it’ll last for, but I’m certainly not complaining!

Since I ended with one last time, I suppose it makes sense to start with one here: I found a boxed Game Genie for the Sega Genesis.  Unlike its SNES brother from the last post, the code book on this particular cheat device is enormous and covers a lot of really excellent games rather than an elite few.  I would almost be tempted to look for codes for games like The Lion King that I’m normally pretty decent at and see how much they mess with my usual style.  I had an NES Game Genie growing up, but with the Genesis, I was forced to get good at games by playing often and improving from my many, many mistakes.  This tool might be a blessing, or it might be a curse!

I also found a bunch of really great games for the Genesis.  The first is Decap Attack, a game I hadn’t heard much about until it was staring me straight in the face.  This one seems to have come to me just in time for Halloween, and I can’t stop thinking that the mummified monster on the box art looks strangely like Gossamer from Bugs Bunny with his eyes in the wrong spot.  If I end up doing a Halloween stream, this game might make the list!

In the same vein as many of my other purchases, there had to be some RPG-like games.  I ordered a copy of Sword of Vermilion from eBay, though it was missing its hint book.  The game had mixed reviews from what I could find online, but nonetheless, it’s a game I think I might take a liking to.  Alisia Dragoon is also hiding in the bottom right of the photo below as well, and that’s a game my better half had been wanting for a long while.  After I watched some gameplay online and read up on it, it certainly seemed like something I might be interested in playing as well, though it does seem like the difficulty spike toward the end of the game gets to be a little monotonous unless you start memorizing levels.  I think I can swing it though!

I bought a few more Genesis games from a local classifieds seller last week, and some of the games were a bit of a surprise to me.  I had no idea at all that a Bomberman game existed on the Genesis at all, so my interest was definitely piqued when I saw a weird 80s/90s version of Bomberman looking fierce on the game label, clearly sporting a top with the bones of his enemies glued on as a reminder of his lethal capabilities.  The game actually looks like standard Bomberman fare.  The second game below, Sub Terrania, looks like it’ll be a lot of fun as well.  I had the pleasure of receiving Solar Jetman as a gift this past summer (thanks again to Rob from I Played the Game!), and though I’m generally still horrible at it, Sub Terrania seems to pick up where that game left off.  It somehow seems more manageable, though I’m sure that’s just my hope shining through.  I’ll probably also be horrible at this one!

Another Genesis game I found lately was Fantasia.  Now, all I’ve managed to track down online are miserable reviews of this game.  I haven’t played it at all (not even to test it), nor do I recall anything at all about the Disney movie from my childhood except that there were angry brooms (I much prefer the angry brooms of Matoya from FFI, but I digress.)  I’m interested to see just how “bad” the game is for myself, because I generally feel like most people are way too hard on some games.  This may be one of them, or it might truly be a horrible atrocity.  Only time will tell.

I almost didn’t ask further about Tinhead because for some reason I had it confused with Tinstar for SNES.  I’m glad I gave my head a shake and looked into it a little more because this game definitely looks like it has some potential.  On the surface it certainly looks like any other generic Genesis platformer, but something drew me in with this one.  This game came complete with its manual and box, so it’ll be a nice addition to the rest of my boxed games.

The games I’ve been finding lately for PS1 are just freakin’ fantastic.  I can’t even begin to say how pleased I’ve been to grab some of these!

I’ll start with the game that was least exciting for me: Kartia.  Though it’s an Atlus game, it doesn’t seem to be particularly sought after or praised like many of the others from that particular company.  I hadn’t even heard of it at all until the person working at the thrift store happened to mention that the art on the cover looks very similar to that of early Japanese Final Fantasy cartridge art.  I’m still not sure what to make of it after doing a bit of reading and research about it.  Has anyone played this one before?

Another game ready to be endeavoured for the Halloween season is Koudelka.  I had heard about this game from a lovely Twitter friend (@esperdreams), and it took me forever to find a copy.  I once had the opportunity to buy this game for $60 and passed, and ended up paying almost double at a local shop that I try to support.  Though this price is much more in line with what you might find on hiked up eBay prices, unfortunately I can’t win them all.  I’d love to say I get all deals all the time, but this isn’t always the case.  Either way, the game has been hyped up to me for a long while now, and who wouldn’t like a game where you apparently fight a possessed wedding dress?

This second-last game I was elated to find for a good price online.  I’ve been a little obsessed with playing Harvest Moon 64 lately, and someone in my stream chat mentioned that Back to Nature was very similar to the gameplay/aesthetic of the 64 game.  Being me, lover of Harvest Moon cows and this particular iteration of the universe, I pounced upon a $30 copy from the internet and giggled with delight when I pulled it out of its shipping envelope.  I absolutely love love love everything about Harvest Moon 64, so anything that keeps me there a little longer will make me quite happy.  (For anyone interested, in HM64, I married Elli and we are having a baby soon!)

Last but not least, I finally, finally found a copy of Valkyrie Profile.  You may recall some moaning and groaning from me a few billion posts back about how I could never get Vanguard Bandits, Vandal hearts and Valkyrie Profile straight in my head, but now that I own all three, I won’t have that problem anymore.  There’s a small story to this: my friend that works at the thrift store saw a copy of the game at the store and decided not to tell me because she wanted it for herself.  Unfortunately since there’s a time constraint on employee purchases of merchandise, it came and went before she could purchase it.  She only told me it was there after it was already sold, and I was quite sad to see that it had come and gone without even knowing.  That was the first time that game had ever popped up in town, and oddly enough, a few days later the game popped up on the local classifieds site.  I was a little shocked and thought for sure that this person had to have been the one who bought it and was reselling, but the game was lumped in with Kartia and a bunch of Final Fantasy PS1 titles for $150, so it was an absolute screamin’ deal.  I didn’t even care if he was a reseller at that point because I was excited to finally have that game in my hands!

I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Valkyrie Profile.  I recently posted a tweet asking if I’d missed any particularly important PS1 RPGs, and this title was one that came up much of the time as a be all end all, along with others like Suikoden II and Final Fantasy VII (and literally every other RPG for the console.)  You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but the only PS1 games I’ve actually played are some of the Final Fantasy games, and a lot of Parappa the Rapper.  It’s quite sad considering how many beautiful, wonderful games I’ve finally found and would like to play.  Valkyrie Profile is definitely high up on my list.

And there it is… a bunch of really wonderful games that now live with a really wonderful me! It has been so nice to round out the PS1 RPG collection this year and continue to push deeper into Genesis stuff too.  I’ve also been to a few swaps last month and this month, so I have a few swap-related posts on the horizon.  Hopefully you will continue to be shocked and amazed at the things I pull out of my sleeves and hats!

Happy Monday, and happy almost-Halloween.  Are you folks playing any Halloween-themed/related games this holiday?  I will probably selfishly continue to play Harvest Moon 64 and brush my happy cows rather than plunging into anything scary.  Decap Attack does look pretty promising though!

Thanks for reading.

-GG

Ninfundo (I have a feeling I’ve used this title before…)

Older games from Nintendo are definitely some of my favourites, and it seems that whenever I think I’ve found all that I could ever want to play for those systems, I find out about something new and exciting.  That’s what I love about collecting – there’s always something to look for and new games to explore.

Much of what we have found lately has been for various Nintendo consoles.  There were a few NES games for sale locally that I jumped on – Arkista’s Ring, Zoda’s Revenge: Star Tropics II, as well as The Guardian Legend.  Though all vastly different in gameplay style, I was happy to find them all from the same seller.  They’re all in relatively good condition, though I do wish I had the manuals for all three.  Arkista’s Ring is especially fun, but those stupid Ninjas at the end of the game make me want to throw my controller through the window!  I’ve been holding off trying out The Guardian Legend because I have a feeling I’ll get sucked in pretty quickly.  I don’t have time for getting sucked in right now!

Thanks to my lovely friend TheDeviot over at Comma Eight Comma One, I was able to get a bit of reading done on these titles using the Ultimate Nintendo Guide to the NES Library by Pat Contri.  TheDeviot graciously picked up and mailed me a copy of the book after listening to me complain about the outlandish cost of shipping to Canada through the official ordering mechanism, and I’m so grateful to have it in my possession!  When the book was first revealed, I was completely enamoured by the prospect of a book that would detail much of the information I was always scratching my head over (rarity, rating, etc.), and have reviews for each game on top of it all.  I honestly can’t see myself using the internet to look up anything NES-related going forward since everything I need is right here in this enormous book.  There were lots of really great contributors to the book as well, so if you’ve been thinking about buying it and haven’t yet, take it from someone who loves retro games too much for her own good: do it!

I had to go back and check through previous entries to make sure that I hadn’t already posted about these next four games, but I finally, finally got the last of my reproduction cartridges in the mail after almost a year.  I got three of them within a few months of placing an order, but the third one never shipped and after going through quite a long process with the guy who makes the cartridges, he finally sent another one out to me. After playing Earthbound for the first time last year, I decided I wanted to try out the first game in the series and opted for the Anniversary Edition, which is slightly less difficult than other iterations of the game.  Ys II was another game I wanted because at the time, I didn’t have the PSP version that included the two first games of the series, and this was as close as I was going to get to playing the original on a Famicom.  Adventure Island IV is a game that never saw an English release, and you may have forgotten just how much I love Adventure Island games.  I have the first three and desperately wanted the fourth after I tried it out on an emulator to see what it was all about.  Though it mostly departs from previous games in the series, it does present an interesting story.  Lastly, Final Fantasy III was the only game from that franchise that I didn’t own physically.  I have a digital copy of the game, but to me, there’s nothing quite like popping the game into the console and playing it through.  I’m interested in streaming the game sometime, so the version released for handhelds wasn’t going to cut it.  I’m not usually a huge fan of buying reproductions, but for these specific games, I couldn’t quite help myself.

A nice surprise was seeing a lot of SNES games on the local classifieds site a few weeks ago.  Though a few games here were doubles for me, they will make for good trades down the line at swaps and other such events.  The ones I was probably the most excited for were Super Ninja Boy and Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow.  Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow has some of the grooviest music I’ve heard come out of an SNES console (save Super Adventure Island or Sim City).  I tried out Clue for about 2 minutes before I lost.  I wrongly accused someone and immediately game overed, so I’ve learned an important lesson: never play Clue again.  Just kidding.  It honestly looks like it would be a fun time.

I alluded to finding some things for some handheld consoles in my last few posts, and I wasn’t kidding!  I managed to find a 3DS at a really great price and picked up a bunch of games for free from Shoppers Drug Mart using their points program.  All of these are still sealed for the time being until I’m ready to play them, but I heard such amazing things about Kirby: Planet Robobot that I had to get it when I saw it there.  I’ve got a huge love for Kirby and robots, so some weird fusion of both things seems like a no-brainer for me.

Also for the 3DS, I ordered two games from the internet: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon.  I’ve yet to play the original Luigi’s Mansion, but I have played A Link to the Past in… well, the past.  Though it’s far from being my favourite Zelda game, I’ve heard a lot of praise for the 3DS game.  This means that along with Tri Force Heroes and my recent acquisition of Link’s Crossbow training, I now have every major canon installment in the Zelda franchise.  Does anyone know if A Link Between Worlds was supposed to come with a proper manual?  Just wondering!

For the regular old DS, I found a copy of Super Princess Peach.  There was something that really drew me to this game, and I think it was the Yoshi’s Island-like graphics.  I think the gameplay being called easy by many different folks is a bit of a stretch.  Like many games, it’s easy if you don’t go the completionist route like I do for these kinds of adventures.  It was taking up quite a bit of my time before I put it down for a while, but I’m looking forward to finishing it up.

Speaking of games that started eating my time for breakfast, I also found a copy of Pokemon Soul Silver for DS. I had found a copy of Heart Gold last year, but it didn’t come with the Pokewalker.  This Soul Silver did, and I was really excited until I realized that a Pokewalker is really hard to de-sync from a game file.  I deleted the game file from the previous owner and started playing the game with a new save before realizing this, and even with a brand new battery, the Pokewalker doesn’t want to connect to the DS to be synced to my new file.  I’m pretty sad about that because I do a fair bit of walking at work.  What better way to hatch eggs or potentially raise affection with certain pokemon?  Oh well.  I fought with it for two evenings for about 15 minutes each time and I’m okay with giving up for a little while.  Maybe I’ll have a brainstorm and get it working some day.

In addition to these lovely handheld games, I was sent a wonderful gift by mail from Brad at Cheap Boss Attack!  The games are Bomberman and Ice Climber from the Classic NES Series for Game Boy Advance, and I couldn’t have been happier to receive them.  Oddly enough, I didn’t previously own either of those games for NES unless you count my multicarts, so it’s nice to finally have an official version of both of these classics.  The games are in nearly perfect condition!  I’m pretty excited to try them out.

Some other games I picked up just yesterday were Operation Wolf for NES, and Gauntlet Legends for N64.  I feel like at some point I had watched a really, really negative review for Gauntlet Legends, but it just doesn’t seem to want to be recalled in my head.  This purchase was a situation where there were lots of games for sale but I had most of them, and despite my attempts to get a package deal, the seller was pretty adamant on her price of $10/game.  My boyfriend is especially excited about Operation Wolf since he loves light gun games, and this one has an optional integration for it.

Yet another bunch of games from this same seller were for the Game Boy.  She amazingly had a Game Boy pocket in her pile of stuff that I ended up buying.  Along with that, I got a bunch of really great common games for the system including both Mario Lands, some Pokemon games, Kirby’s Dreamland, Warioland, and Donkey Kong III.  What was most surprising to me in the lot was a game I had never seen before, and that was Avenging Spirit.  I found out that the game was a port of an arcade release called Phantasm where you play as the ghost of a gunned-down man trying to save his kidnapped girlfriend from a rival gang.  You get to possess enemies in the game and use their properties to attack and kill other enemies.  It’s a really interesting premise for a game that I haven’t really heard much of outside of this release.  It oddly sounds like the plot of Ghost, and any game where I get to play as a figurative Patrick Swayze is fine by me (I think we need a Dirty Dancing game too)!  It turns out the game is pretty uncommon, so I ended up bargaining at $40 with the woman for that particular game.  It was kept in a protective case and is pretty flawless.  Considering that there are barely any copies online and that it actually looks fun to play unlike other uncommon or rare Game Boy games (coughAmazingTatercough), I think it was a pretty good deal.

Lastly, I found a SNES Game Genie!  I’ve had one for the NES since my youth and it brought my family and I lots of hilarious moments while gaming.  I was pretty shocked and mostly appalled to see just how small the code book is.  I haven’t really shown it in the photo below, but it can’t be more than 50 pages and only covers a very small number of games.  It’s not that I’m a huge Game Genie user these days (ask my childhood self for an entirely different answer), but when you look at the Game Genies for NES or Sega Genesis, you could use the giant code books to fend off an intruder!  The box and its contents also both smell (un?)pleasantly of laundry detergent or fabric softener.  It was a little jarring when I first opened the box.

Though it’s taken a few weeks to put together a sizeable post, I hope you enjoyed seeing all these lovely games.  I am so thankful to have finally started having some luck locally again, and I am especially grateful to TheDeviot and Brad for sending the book and games along to me.  I appreciate it more than you know, so thank you both again for your generosity and for thinking of me!

And as always, thank you to everyone else for reading.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

-GG

Hungry Goriya Used Acquire: Art Books, Game Guides, and Posters

This is the nineteenth post in a series called “Hungry Goriya Used Acquire” that serves to highlight the contents of a large game collection I procured from an old high school friend of mine, Joe.  Read here for the backstory.

Along with the bounty of games we received from my friend back in April, I think one of my very favourite parts of the collection were the books and posters that came along with everything.  As a bit of a completionist, there was always a part of my younger self that wanted to 100% every game I played, and I always found myself attracted to game guides as a result of this. Unfortunately the guides were always too pricey, and I bought games instead of guides.  Since those times I’ve managed to collect quite a few used guides, but nothing I had up until this point can quite compare to the huge pile of paper I got in this collection acquisition.  It would have been completely overwhelming to sit down and itemize every single one of them with photographs, so instead I’ve highlighted some of my favourites and the ones that mean the most to me or my boyfriend.

I’ll start with the art books.  There were plenty of these, many of which are for games that I haven’t gotten around to playing myself by this point.  There were art books for some pretty solid games like Mass Effect and Half Life 2, both of which my boyfriend was very happy to take a look through.  He is also a tremendous fan of Doom, so reading “The Making of” was a pretty fun venture.

Some other art books that were more up my alley were for RPGs on various consoles.  I haven’t played any of these games yet, but when I do get around to trying them out, these will definitely be something I’ll come back to.  Much of the art work in games from this era is strikingly beautiful, and I’m proud to have a way to enjoy it in a different way outside of the games themselves.

There were at least 50 game guides in total.  I added a few new Zelda guides to my collection (yay for The Wind Waker!), as well as many of the other Final Fantasy ones I was missing.  I’ll have to double check, but I think I’m pretty close to having a complete guide set for Final Fantasy games.  I’m especially excited about the one for Dawn of Souls.  Though I don’t own that particular iteration of the game, I’m sure that it’s similar enough to the PS1 version (Origins) that I can see if I’ve missed anything when I finally do decide to go back through FFII again.  I also won’t complain about owning a guide for Super Smash Bros. Melee since in the few times I’ve indulged in Smash, I could never quite seem to figure out how the finer points of the game worked.  What are the percentages about?  Why can you go well over 100% before you get blasted into the atmosphere?  So many unanswered questions that I might now have the power to answer!

There were so, so many full-size posters to be had here as well.  Some were from store-front displays, and others were probably just packed in with games when they got shipped out to stores (Joe used to work in a game store back in the day, which is where many of these things came from.)  Again, with the number of posters there are in the bunch, I only picked and chose a few that I personally liked or thought might be interesting for people to take a look at!  Many of them I picked are for Working Designs games, and as far as I’m concerned, Working Designs can do no wrong in the world.  These are a real treat to personally own, but I need about a million more walls in my house to fit all of these beautiful works of art!

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this visual treat!  I’m not sure if this will be the last entry in this series because there is some more stuff left, but I’m not entirely sure how to categorize it or chronicle it in a meaningful way.  For example, there are press kits from E3 2005/2006, lots of merchandise from those events, as well as demo games and other miscellaneous things of that sort.  A lot of it I don’t have any personal context for since I wasn’t at the events myself, so I’ve been struggling trying to think of a way to present that here.  For the time being I will leave it be unless there’s a huge stir of interest here to see some of it.

I will likely do a wrap-up post in the near future about what this entire experience was like for me, so stay tuned for that!  In the meantime, I truly hope you’ve enjoyed this trip through a venture that essentially doubled my game collection in a day.  There are some real great things here that I’m so blessed to be able to eventually experience, and I’m greatly looking forward to the challenge of working through my now ridiculously backlogged game collection.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I will be celebrating with various turkey dinners over the weekend, followed by The Soup-ening, 2017.  Thanks for reading, as always!

-GG

Moving Sale

Once in a while, great shops come and go.  One of my favourite local shops was at risk of picking up and skipping town, but I was very grateful to hear that they found a new home for their storefront within city limits.  As a result of the move, the store is being forced to massively downsize, which meant for a huge liquidation of much of their stock, video games included.  All of the games/gaming accessories were half price, and we definitely made out pretty well on a few games I’ve been wanting to buy, but never wanted to pay his prices for.  The store-owner’s son bought up all his NES and Sega games, but I had picked over most of those in the recent past anyway.  Here are some of the games I got for screamin’ deals!  I love discounts!

The first were some Sega CD games.  Unfortunately the discs for all three games are pretty beaten up, but for a few dollars, I didn’t see a risk in buying them and trying to get them resurfaced at some point.  We already have a copy of Sewer Shark, but the Sega Classics and the Ecco game are both new to us.  Hopefully the resurfacing will restore them to a useable condition.  You can never go wrong with Sega CD games, though some of the ones I acquired recently just don’t work.  Deterioration of disc media is something I’m really nervous about when collecting disc games, but thankfully many of the disc-based systems I own are modded to play burnt discs, or do so without requiring a mod (Sega CD, Dreamcast, etc.)

This copy of Dragon Age II is something I had been eyeballing at the store for months.  I’ve never seen it anywhere for less than $10, and this copy had been no different until the sale.  It was half price at $5, so I snagged it.  Unlike the Sega CD games above, this one is in nearly perfect condition and game with all its goodies inside.  I’ve played through the first game and liked it quite a bit (thinking of you, LightningEllen), so I am pretty excited to finally add the second game to the collection.  I’ve heard it’s not as good as the first, but heck – I can bring my Grey Warden into this next world now if I want to!

It was apparently LightningEllen day at the store because I also got my hands on Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns.  These, along with the Star Ocean game were also only $5 each.  I almost passed on XIII-2 because it didn’t have its manual, but for the price, I couldn’t say no.  These discs were also in excellent condition.

Another PS3 game I stumbled upon was Tales of Xillia in its Limited Edition form.  I’ve always been interested in collecting this series and have a reproduction of Tales of Phantasia for SNES as well as the GBA version, and Tales of Symphonia for GameCube.  The Limited Edition of Xillia was $10 after the discount was applied, so I figured I’d bite the bullet and go for it.  My tiny PS3 collection is slowly expanding.

This copy of Final Fantasy II for PSP was calling my name!  It’s one of the loathed games of the series, but I have a soft spot for the underdog in this case.  It’s good!  It’s a fresh take on the typical for turn-based RPGs, and if I can love something as punishing as Miracle Warriors, FFII is like an angel descending from the clouds.  I’ve never gotten around to finishing this one, but it’s something I’d like to play through again from the  beginning one of these days.  I’ve got the Final Fantasy Origins compilation for PS1, but I’d like to see what changes were made for the PSP.  I was thinking of CheapBossAttack when I found the Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions game just sitting there in one of the huge game stacks.  It’s apparently quite good from what I’ve heard, and though I’ve only ever dabbled in one tactical RPG (Warlocked for Game Boy), I think this game will be really good.  These were also $5 each.

Taito Legends 2 with its adorable Bub (or Bob?) on the front was like a siren in the rocks.  This collection has lots of great arcade games of old, many of which I do not have for another system at this point in time.  I love compilations like this – the Sega Genesis collections are some others I would like to own for various consoles.  Though there are three different Space Invaders games on this disc, the rest of the games look pretty great (Rastan 2, anyone?)

Another PS2 game I actually had to go back for on another day was Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits.  I don’t own any of the earlier Arc the Lad games, though I’m hoping to get my hands on them eventually.  Two summers ago someone was selling the PS1 collector’s edition but wanted something heinous like $200, so I passed.  I know the series to be interesting and held in generally positive ranks, so I couldn’t stop thinking about this later installment when I had passed on it the first time.  I’m glad I went back for it since the disc and book were nearly perfect.

I never like to pass up on boxed Atari or Intellivision games, especially in this condition.  I already had a copy of Frog Bog loose, but this game box and its contents look practically untouched.  The controller overlays are immaculate, and the game looks as if it’s never been inserted into a system at all.  It was refreshing to see this since many of the boxed games I own for these older systems are quite beat up.  Also, I love the cover art of this game.  Someone really put a lot of effort into making it realistic!

There were a fewMagnavox Odyssey 2 games on the shelves as well, without manuals, and I grabbed them before another person looking at that shelf did.  Since I was trying to move quickly to maximize my purchase potential (the store was flooded with people!) I didn’t take too much time to look at the titles.  Unfortunately these are two of the same five games we already own for the Odyssey 2, but maybe I can pass them on to someone that wants them!

It was strange to find an Atari Lynx game tucked away in the shop.  It was high up on a shelf behind the cash, and even though I’d scanned those shelves hundreds of times, it’s a game I never seemed to see before now.  We don’t own a Lynx, but given the condition of the box/game/instructions, it was another thing I wanted to pick up for the future, or to maybe pass along to someone that really wants it.  This is the first example of a game that I’ve personally seen with a poster for an instruction manual.  I love the art style of the panels.

Lastly, we got a Game Gear Game Genie!  This was right after I watched the AVGN’s Game Boy Accessories video and was surprised to see the GG version sitting around in the emptied Nintendo cabinet.  It had the super tiny codebook in a super tiny compartment in the back of the unit, so it was a no-brainer to pick it up.  By the time I found this, I had a huge stack of games and I kept almost dropping the Mickey Mouse game, so I put it into the Game Genie for safe keeping.  I think we accidentally got the game for free since I forgot I had stuck it in there until after we got home.  I figure when the owners have moved, I just won’t haggle with them sometime and pay an extra few dollars to make up for it.  If I am remembering correctly, this contraption only cost us $10.

Sometimes you just happen to stumble upon these kinds of deals, and boy do I ever appreciate a discount when it comes around!  I’m sorry for the slow posting rate these days, but there’s just not much out there.  I scour the classifieds several times a day, and people just aren’t posting as much anymore!  Do not fear.  My collecting quest is far from over 🙂

Hope you’re off to a great weekend!  Thanks for reading!

-GG

 

Game Boy Games

The Game Boy was my childhood companion console alongside the NES and Sega Genesis, though I only had a handful of games for the system.  I had Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2, Tetris, and my most favourite game of all: Link’s Awakening.  I spent many an hour tethered to various power outlets in my parents’ house trying to wake the Windfish (I didn’t actually succeed until I was well into my 20s), but nothing else on the console ever felt like a must-have in those days.  I’ve picked up the occasional Game Boy game here and there when I’ve come across them for a good price in my adult life, but it wasn’t until I got a bunch of games from my friend back in April that I got super interested in anything outside of the mainstream, popular games for the system (Pokemon, for example.)  What began what can only be described as an obsession with Game Boy games was Bomberman Tournament.  At first glance, I wrote it off as another Bomberman installment, but much to my surprise, it is an RPG-style game that actually looks adorable and fun to get into.  Wondering what else I had misjudged or missed altogether, I took a long, long tumble down the rabbit hole that is the Game Boy library, and I’ve been incredibly pleased with what I’ve discovered.  There are so many notable games that I hadn’t even heard of.  I’ve been on a bit of a buying spree to find a lot of them, and I wanted to share them with you.  Here we go!

Because I’ve been buying up game lots online most of the time, I’ve been acquiring some random games along with the ones I’ve truly been after.  One pleasant surprise in the photo below is Wario Blast where you are essentially Wario fighting against Bomberman in bombing matches to the death!  The music is probably some of the catchiest I’ve heard on the system so far.  Despite being generally horrible at the moment, I hope to improve and play it through to the end one of these days.  Obviously it was nice to find extra copies of Super Mario Land and Link’s Awakening in the mix, but some of the other games are leaning far on the side of meh.  Toy Story 2 and Monster’s Inc. felt horrible while I was testing them, but the Construction Zone and Genie Barbie games looks like they have some potential.

Snoopy’s Magic Show was lumped in with this photo even though I found it locally.  It was at a hock shop for ages and I finally remembered to do some price comparing to see if the pricing was reasonable.  I got a no-tax deal on it and a bit of a discount because of its crappy label.  It’s a puzzle game that I can play all day long for its cuteness and pleasant distraction from everyday life.

Now for some RPGs!  I found a bunch of titles on a really old forum post for must-have Game Boy RPGs and started watching some gameplay videos of the chosen ones soon after.  Though some games on the list were a bit too expensive for my tastes, there were a bunch that I got for what I felt was a reasonable price.  Rolan’s Curse was the first one I found, and I ended up playing it for about two hours while testing it because I was intrigued by the gameplay and its cuteness.

With Link’s Awakening being one of my favourite games ever, For Whom the Frog Tolls (blue reproduction cartridge in the bottom row) was a no-brainer to pick up.  It’s a translated Japanese-exclusive action RPG made in the same engine as Link’s Awakening, but before Link’s Awakening was released!  In the same vein, James Bond 007 was a great recommendation to me from TheDeviot. It’s another game I ended up “testing” for an hour before putting it down to do other things, and its gameplay style is also reminiscent of Link’s Awakening.

I had been looking for Dragon Warrior I&II for a very long while, and though I have the NES version of the first game, I’ve never been able to track down the second one for a reasonable price.  I have a beautiful complete in box copy of Dragon Warrior III for GBC, so now all I have left to find is Dragon Warrior IV.  Another game here I’m looking forward to a lot is Magi-Nation whose graphics remind me of Earthbound for some reason.  Warlocked is honestly really good too.  It’s a real-time strategy game and is my first kick at that particular genre.  I liked it so much that I streamed it recently for several hours and was not even remotely tired of it.  I’m hoping to do a full playthrough at some point.

The two games I’m probably the most excited about from this bunch are Metal Walker and Knight Quest.  Metal walker is Pokemon-esque where you have robot fighters that you pit against enemies in a battle arena.  It’s turn-based, but there are a few unique aspects that use the physics of the arena to change up the combat from a traditional menu-based turn-based RPG.  Knight Quest is one of the rarer games in the bunch and looks to be so, so lovely.  It’s a traditional turn-based RPG with cool battle sequences where you see animations of your hero attacking the enemies rather than just implied damage infliction with sound effects.  It looks like a great little game!

There were a few other games I wanted to find.  I got a copy of Legend of the River King 2 from my friend Joe and I wanted to find the first game as well.  It reminds me of Harvest Moon games, and that’s always a plus in my books.  It didn’t take me long to get a copy of that one pretty cheap, but did it ever take me a while to find Survival Kids!  I checked every single table at the last swap I went to and tried to win a few eBay auctions, but no luck.  I finally gave up and ordered a copy of the PAL version called Stranded Kids, and guess what?  Two days after I ordered Stranded Kids, Survival Kids showed up locally, and for $10!  I jumped on that, so now I have a copy of both versions of the game.  Woohoo!  I like the PAL cartridge art much better.  It reminds me of Secret of Mana for some reason.

Along with the Survival Kids game, I also got my hands on a bunch of Game Boy Advance titles.  There’s nothing in particular in the bunch that calls to me, but according to the woman selling, the Spiderman game was particularly good.  Either way, I have a bunch more games to try out, none of which are doubles for me!

The Game Boy Advance SP in the photo below is one of the AGS-101 models with the back-lit screens.  These are rumoured to be significantly better in image quality than the AGS-001 version, which is front-lit. I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison myself, but at least I’ve got one to try out sometime.  Maybe on our next roadtrip, which might be a little sooner than I thought!

I’ve been on a handheld roll lately, so expect a few more posts with that theme to tumble out in the next little while.  Between things being a little slow on the collecting front and work becoming a whirlwind out of nowhere, I’ve been slow to post.  I’m still here, just idly waiting for more games to descend upon me!

Happy almost-weekend!  Thanks for reading!

-GG

Tradeshow Triumphs

I found myself at another swap a few weekends ago, and what a sight it was to behold!  After not getting out to any since May-ish, it was a welcome change of pace from the slow-as-molasses-going-uphill-in-January pace of game hunting locally.  Some scheduling conflicts have made it quite difficult to get out and about to all the events that I would’ve liked to this summer, but what can you do?

Instead of splurging on early access as we usually do, we chose to be super casual and show up about 30 minutes after the show had started to avoid the lines, and have a more relaxed travel morning.  I can’t express how much nicer the trip was.  Because we sometimes have to travel quite far for these swap events, it takes a bit of the stress off when we’re not held to a strict deadline for early entry.  I’m sure we will do this again in the future, without question.

Between a few great swaps and from buying up my friend’s video game collection, I’ve checked a lot of big ticket items off my “to-get” list.  Don’t get me wrong – this particular event yielded some fun stuff, but it was the first time ever that I felt a little… bored?  I walked by bins and bins of games for all the consoles I collect for and didn’t find too much that I still needed to find.  It makes me wonder how much more I truly want to collect, and what the hell I’ll do with myself when that final day finally does come.  Hopefully that’s not for a little while.  I have a blog to write after all!

I only picked up a handful of games this time around, and the first one I’ll show here is Zillion for the Sega Master System.  I’ve really rounded out a lot of what I want to own and play for that particular system, but Zillion caught my attention when it was brought to my attention several times by people asking if it was part of my SMS RPG Quest I’ve been working through at a snail’s pace.  I almost bought the game at a game store a few months ago, but they wanted $35, and the salespeople pissed me off after they tried to persuade me to buy Sailor Moon reproduction cartridges.  I was insulted on several levels, but I digress.  Zillion was in excellent shape, came complete, and I snagged it for $20.  What… uh… wonderful boxart this game has.  It looks like a fancy microwave.

The last few games I picked up were for the NES: Battletoads, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project, and Legacy of the Wizard.  As a huge fan of Faxanadu, Legacy of the Wizard is another game in the Dragon Slayer series I’ll likely enjoy despite its apparent high difficulty level and obscureness at times.  The TMNT game was more for my other half than myself, but it completes our collection of those games for the NES.  I’ve never even seen gameplay of Manhattan Project, but I’ve heard it likened to the second game which I’m horrible at.  Beat ’em ups are not at all my forte.  Finding Battletoads felt like a personal victory for me.  My cousin had given me a complete in box copy of the game when I was younger and then later decided he wanted it back.  I foolishly gave it back to him without a fight and had been missing it ever since until now.  I’ve been looking for this game for at least five years and have had no luck finding a deal.  Vendors have tried to sell me loose copies at around $60 a few years ago, but for some reason the price has come down quite a bit in the last year.  I managed to get my copy of Battletoads for $20, Legacy of the Wizard for $10, and Manhattan Project for $30.  Not too shabby!

As a lover of art and manuals, I couldn’t help but pick a few of them up for myself.  I actually forgot to include a few in this photo, and those would be for Golden Sun (GBA) and another for Warlocked (GBC).   I was really happy to find a copy of the Oracle of Ages booklet.  I have an absolutely beautiful copy of Oracle of Seasons complete in box, and I only had the cartridge for Ages until getting the manual here.  The manual for Kirby’s Adventure was a great purchase too since it’s the only part I was missing for my copy of the game – I’ve got a box and cartridge awaiting the final piece!  I don’t own Castlevania II Belmont’s Revenge for Game Boy, but I thought it would be a good idea to pick up the manual.  It’s about five pages long in total, but if I ever find the (fairly expensive!) game, it’ll be nice to have the book to go along with it.

In a pile of manuals, I started sifting through some Atari booklets.  Among them I was really excited to find two of the Swordquest comic books that came with the Swordquest games back when they had their infamous game contest.  They were in absolutely pristine condition, and I’m really looking forward to reading them sometime soon.  I regret not getting some other Atari comics that were there, but maybe there’ll be some at the next one.

So yes!  Nothing at all groundbreaking here, but I am certainly happy with the bunch of things I brought home.  As usual, here’s a group photo (minus the two manuals I mentioned above and with my boyfriend’s copy of Samurai Shodown for Neo Geo MVS I forgot to take an individual photo of.)

I’ve been pouring over eBay for a few games I couldn’t find at the swap, especially Game Boy RPGs.  I’m a bit obsessed with those and have added a few to my shelves over the last month or so.  I’ll have another post for that once the last of them show up in the mail!

Hope you’re all off to an excellent start to the week.  Thanks for reading!

-GG