Retro Megabit

On September 25th Nintendo Joe and myself went to the Waterloo Game Swap as we’ve done many times now. And just like all of our previous visits we had a lot of fun digging through piles of retro video games.

This time I was a little concerned about how much money I might spend considering the fact that I had already spent $205 CAD on games from this very convention before I had even arrived at it. A friend of mine who was planning on selling at the Game Swap showed me a list of games he would be bringing. I fired off a wish list and he fired right back with some nice Bro Deal discounts and right away most of my spending money was gone!

Below are the 9 games I purchased from my friend and Sega Master System King Flavio!

First up are six PC-Engine games. In my experience you wont find PC-Engine (or Turbo Grafx-16) games very often out in the real world. Online is the only reliable way to get your hands on them. The two main highlights for me among the six are Wonder Boy III Monster Lair and Bikkuri Man World; which is actually Wonder Boy in Monster Land. I’ve always loved the Wonder Boy series and it will be fun trying out the PC-Engine’s take on these classics. I’ve already played Monster Lair and it is really good. Classic running and jumping just like the original Wonder Boy mixed with flying shooter style levels worked really well. Both the games visuals and sound are also really great.

As for the other 6 PC-Engine games… well, at the moment I can’t play them. I have a TurboGrafx-16 with the CD add-on. Being region locked I’m not able to play Japanese HuCards and because I only have the base System 2.0 card and not the Super System Card (or Arcade Card) my TurboGrafx-16 doesn’t have enough RAM to load the region free Japanese Super CD’s. The Super System Card for the TurboGrafx-16 is very rare and wildly expensive. I won’t be able to get one. But I have a plan. I’m going to region mod my TurboGrafx-16 so that it can play Japanese HuCards; which will allow me to use a Japanese Super Card or Japanese Arcade Card. At the moment those are more affordable. That project will be a post all on it’s own when I get around to it. Here’s the break down of what each game cost me: Bikkuri Man World $20, Fatal Fury 2 $10, Cyber Core $20, Street Fighter II $35, Monster Lair $40 and the Baseball game was free.

Next up are three Sega Master System games. It’s been a long time since I picked-up some SMS games and it feels good because the Master System is where my retro video gaming collecting started.

Here’s Mortal Kombat complete and in Very Good condition. -$30

Followed by Crash Dummies which is also complete and in Excellent Condition. -$25

And last is The Simpson’s Bart vs. The Space Mutants. The case and cart are in excellent shape but the manual is pretty beat up. However, it is complete! – $25

Just because he’s a good guy Flavio gave me some manuals I needed for Free. Someone colored in the title for Space Invaders but it’s still in good shape and both Air Rescue and Secret Command are Excellent. Only 12 more manuals to go for my current Master System collection of about 220 games. Not bad at all. 🙂 It’s a great feeling digging through your collection and completing a few games!

And so ends Flavio’s reign of terror over my wallet! I’m joking of course. I’m very happy with these games. Thanks Buddy!

Under my own steam I spent a few hours cruising around the convention occasionally bumping into Nintendo Joe. Surprisingly I didn’t buy a whole lot more. At one vendor I found a very good condition NES Bubble Bobble loose cartridge for $25 CAD and at another vendor I found a very good condition manual for Bubble Bobble which cost me $10 CAD.

I’ve been aching real bad for manuals for my NES Zelda and Zelda II and the same guy who sold me the Bubble Bobble manual also sold me the manual for The Adventure of Link for $10. Yeah, I don’t have original boxes but I still really do love what I have. Check it out. That Link looks soooo goooood!! 😀 I’ve been playing it very recently and it’s still a great game. I would not change a thing.

Every Waterloo Game Swap I’ve been to has always had a lot of cool door prizes. As it turns today was my day! I won a loose Game Boy Advance and a few loose carts. Below is the advertised picture of this door prize. What you see is pretty much what I won except I got a GBA instead of a Game Boy Color handheld. I do have a pretty awesome GBA collection with a nice Game Boy Advance SP and even though I’m not really interested in the older Game Boy stuff it was still a very nice treat. Thanks VGCC.ca and 1UP Games!

I usually just browse to see what people are selling never really looking for any particular game. But this time I had been asking everyone if they had ActRaiser for the SNES. Everyone who didn’t have it said it should cost $20-30. Everyone who did have it was selling it for about $50 – $60. So I held off and did not buy it. After winning the cool door prize I went back to the cheapest vendor with ActRaiser selling for $50 and I offered a trade. He was willing to give me $35 for my door prize. So I handed it over and an extra $15 and now I have a very nice loose cart of ActRaiser for the SNES.

What’s extra special about this score is that it’s a game that Nintendo Joe does not have and would LOVE to have in his collection. But on this particular trip Nintendo Joe exclaimed that he will only be hunting for NES carts and nothing else. So I didn’t have to snake a friend and I have this very cool game to lord over him for a while. That’s a win-win in my books!

Nintendo Joe managed a very large trade during this Game Swap. Check out his liquidation here.