13 to go!!!

So it’s official… my NES collection is down to a mere 14 games.  Of course there are the big 5 very heavy hitters left to acquire:  Little Samson, Flintstones 2, Panic Restaurant, Bonk’s Adventure, and Power Blade 2.  My goal is to get all the other games besides these 5, and sit on my collection for a few years.  I have a strong feeling that the price of these rare retro NES games is trending downwards.  I see them all the time at game shows, but only once have I seen a sale at what I consider these ridiculous prices.  I did see three guys all pony up to buy a copy of Dinosaur Peak… but how does that work… who gets it when… and do any of these dudes truly have this game?!

Please don’t get upset, but I’ve never played the NES version of this Sega classic.  On the Master System I thought Fantasy Zone part 1 and 2 were fantastic games!  Such vibrant colours, interesting music, and surreal (clearly drug induced) graphics… I always thought it would be really cool to design a remake of this game, but with more realistic graphics as opposed to cartoonish.  You know, make Opa-Opa a really bad ass killing machine!  That would be awesome!  And YES I actually did beat this game in front of an audience for verification purposes… exactly the kind of difficulty I look for in a shooter… or any game for that matter… hard but not impossible.  That being said, have you every played the arcade version?  It’s damn near impossible!  The Turbo Grafx 16 version is slightly more forgiving, but also very very difficult!

Jimmy Connor’s Tennis… is thankfully the last of the sports games I needed on the NES.  I bought this game in great condition on Ebay for $55US; expensive as it is kind of rare because it came out near the end of the NES era.  I would definitely say that this game is in the top 10 sports games that only “mostly suck”… which is the best honors a sports game can get (besides Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out which is awesome!).  By no means am I saying this game isn’t a complete turd, but it is playable.  The graphics are very basic and lame, but the music is decent.  The sound FX are like Atari 2600 and there is no voice over which would have been a nice touch.  The controls are pretty good, and the fact that you just have to push a button to serve is nice.   Considering this game came out so late in the NES’s lifespan I think a lot more could have been done here… even for an 8-bit game.

SEGA Corner:  I talked about Fantasy Zone at the beginning of this post… what more do you want?!  Hail Opa-Opa!

Please follow me at #nintendojoe1985

and at #ultimate_megatron on Instagram… my G1 collection is now “complete” in that I have all the toys minus the pretenders, micromasters, and action masters… these were just abominations and were designed when Hasbro was out of ideas!

 

Almost Famous!

The title will make sense later.

Last weekend I traveled solo to the Barrie Game Exchange as this will likely be the last big convention before next fall.  That’s a huge drought, but it gives me time to save up some money to buy more games.

After being at so many of these shows, you start to recognize the same people (both dealers and customers) which is both good and bad.  You know the dealers who are willing to haggle, and those that expect to receive no less than top dollar Ebay sold listing prices for their wares.  The other customers is kind of fun as you get to catch up on how their personal collections are coming along.  Watching the people new to the hobby is kind of fun, but I have to bite my tongue and not tell them that this is almost the WORST time to get into collecting games… prices are crazy high!  I saw one guy trying to sell his good condition Little Sampson for $1700.  Good luck with the sale!  Another dude was selling a boxed copy of Phantasy Star IV on the Genesis for $150… it’s a great game, but not worth that much!  However who made me the expert; the price of games literally seems to fluctuate daily.  For example, you’ll remember I traded for the Snow Brothers for the NES a few weeks ago, and already the price guide is telling me it is going for an additional $70!  As I say, it is the wrong time to start collecting retro games, and pity those of us schmucks who are already in too deep!

Anyways, lets check out my loot from the Barrie Game Exchange:

That’s right… Greg Norman’s Golf Power is now mine… no big deal… no really it is no big deal!  Just another crappy sports game that I didn’t have.  In fact this is what I was looking for… any of the 30 remaining games that are not on my wish list.  The other 12 NES titles pretty much out of reach… for now.

These next two games are titles that I’ve passed over for the last six years, but have no idea why.  I’ve never played them before, but the price wasn’t usually too bad.  For whatever reason I decided that today was the day to pick them up.  Of course I didn’t pay sticker price, but I have to say that in order to keep my marriage intact.

These three games were not purchased at the show, but were picked up in the early years when I was still trying to define what exactly it was I going to start collecting.  Back then I bought everything that was cheap, but as my goal is to have a complete North American NES collection (minus Stadium Events) these games don’t really count.  They are unofficial and therefore have no business in my stash of games.  None of them are particularly valuable.  In fact I think the Adventures of Dizzy goes for a mere $19 in good condition (which my copy is not).  I’ll be lucky to get $10 for it.  Captain Comic is what I’ll probably get the most for listing it at $18 and taking $14.  Quattro Sports is pretty useless and isn’t worth really anything.  The only other games I have for sale are most of my PS2 and XBOX 360 games.  I’m keeping a few for the memories, but most of them have got to go immediately!

Okay, onto the big news.  I’m kind of a big deal now thanks to the Retro Game Bros..  They saw a slightly below average looking dude and decided to include a few seconds of me in one of their awesome YouTube videos.  It took place a few weeks ago at the Durham Video Game Swap, and I think this makes me a star!  They have about five or six videos that they’ve made and they are actually really well done.  I met their video editor/videographer a few times and he seems to be a really friendly guy… more importantly he does a fantastic job creating their videos!  Also, you know how some people just have it on camera… Matt and Evan are quite the personality and I recommend checking them out at retrogamebros.com

That’s all for now, so until next time….

Nintendo Joe

SEGA Corner:  There hasn’t been a lot of news on this recently because honestly there isn’t much I need for my small SEGA collection.  The few remaining games I need are the first Mickey Mouse game, Quack Shot, Gaires, and Air Diver on the Genesis.  As far as the Sega Master System is concerned I only need Fantasy Zone and Psycho Fox.  Thanks to the Sega Dude and a few lucky pickups I have managed to score the rest of the games that I have nostalgia for.

At Long Last… It’s Mine!!!

Mega Man 5 is finally in my collection!  I paid a pretty penny for it ($80 including tax) but considering that I would be paying over $120 on ebay after shipping (and the B.S. import charges… this by the way is why I don’t order anything from ebay anymore) it didn’t seem to high a price… especially from a dealer.  This is the most I’ve ever paid for a game and… of the 6 Mega Man games released on the NES, this one is by far the worst, but even the worst Mega Man is still a darn good game to play!  I’m not going to bore you with all the games mechanics as it pretty much is the same idea as all the other titles of the same name… defeat a robot master, acquire his weapon, and use that weapon against another robot master.  What makes this game bad is just that it has already been done several times before.  Keep in mind that while I have Mega Man 6, I’ve not yet played it (trying to complete the series in order), but I’m certainly not expecting anything innovating out of this title.  Perhaps the most interesting stage in Mega Man 5 is that of Gravity Man as it has you flipping upside down from time to time that you gets you confused as to what’s up and what’s down…including the boss fight.  This was pretty cool, though the rest of the game is fairly straight forward.  While I like the rock, paper, scissors aspect of the Mega Man games, it didn’t really make much sense after the first two chapters.  For example Ice Man’s weapon was good against Fire Man, or the metal blade weapon worked against Wood Man.  Granted the leaf shield against Air Man didn‘t make much sense, but it was all downhill from this point forward.  How on Earth is anyone supposed to figure out to use the charge kick against Wave Man?!?  I guess that is part of the fun but can be really frustrating at times.  Especially since Stone Man’s weapon is utterly useless in general, and doesn’t work against any other robot master.

On a side issue, while I haven’t yet beaten the game, I have a sneaky suspicion that Proto Man isn’t the main antagonist of this chapter… but rather it is that no good Dr. Wily!  Call it a hunch as he somehow appeared in the forth chapter when he was clearly killed in the third?!?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t understand how that damn Wily can keep reappearing without having to face any responsibility for his evil deeds.  Is there no justice in Monsteropolis? And how can he keep being so cocky (raising his eyebrows) after he’s been beat again and again.  It was cool the first few times, but by the forth game in the series it became rather pathetic…. actually I had a hard time beating the fourth game, and this fifth game is proving to be even more difficult.  Wrongly (or perhaps rightly) placed enemies that cause you to fall backwards into a pit of death are driving me crazy, but the NES was famous for this as in Ninja Gaiden, and Caslevania.  If I remember correctly there was a part in Castlevania 2 that I was never able to get past for this very reason.

Being the worst in the series, Mega Man V is still a lot of fun to play.  While it isn’t as new or innovative as the other games in the series, the controls work great, the music is generally good for an 8-bit cartridge, and the graphics are what you would expect from a Mega Man game.  Still, $80 is a hefty price tag!