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!

 

A Little of This A Little of That…

This week has been great for mynintendodimension.  I’ve made many acquisitions for the display cases.  I purchased 36 NES games from a dude named Flavio… perhaps the coolest name I’ve heard in quite some time… I may even name my gold fish after him?!  The other two fish in the tank are Cory and Trevor of Trailer Park Boys fame.  Notable titles that I picked up are The Terminator, Bubble Bobble, Journey to Silus (which apparently was originally supposed to be a Terminator game of which the company lost the license for… the last boss looks exactly like a CSM-101), and Punch out… I already have Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, but not this variation of the same game… probably the best sports game made on the NES… I usually hate sports games.

I also made my way to Peterborough/Lakefield area last weekend and made a major score.  For $40 I got my hands on a great copy of Phantasy Star IV.  Obviously not a Nintendo game, but one of the greatest Sega Genesis games of all time… which was a relief because part III was bloody awful… I still want it though:(

Also purchased from the Lakefield flea market where a copy of Terminator 2, Castelian, Kickle Cubicle, Pinball Quest and Rock ‘n Ball for the NES… the last three of which were thrown in for free as I was buying several games.  Fred (the owner of the booth) is awesome like that and I love doing business with him and hope he stays around for a good long while! I also got a copy of Blazeon for the SNES from him. At $28 it is a lot of money, but not when you consider it is usually listed at $36.  While Fred had two other rare games (Metal Storm, and Mighty Final Fight), I just couldn’t justify spending what he wanted for them… close to $250.  My wife would kill me if I spent this much on two games… even if they are rare and great!

From a store in Peterborough called Chumleighs I managed to score a copy of the elusive Thunder Spirits (which is basically just Thunder Force III on the SNES with two additional levels) which I’m rather excited about.  And at the  Value Village I bought complete copies of Conduit I & II for the Wii… yay!

Yes I’ve been spending a lot of money lately… but I’ve also been selling some stuff for a profit… or loss depending on how you look at it as I reinvest it into my Nintendo display in my basement.  At Value Village my wife found a mini arcade version of Donkey Kong for $25.  I sold it on Kijiji to a guy for $75 which seems to be the going rate.  I’ve also gotten a few bites on an extra N64 I’m trying to get rid of.  It works great and comes with the memory expansion… and is priced at $65 which is far cheaper than any other ad on Kijiji for the same thing.  It isn’t moving though… perhaps people just aren’t interested in the 64… Not that I blame them as the system is my least favourite of all Nintendo consoles.

In other news, I’ve finished modifying all 200 cases and cut out all the covers for my NES games.  This puts me approximately half way finished with my collection to date.  It’s a ton of work, and while not expensive per case (approx. $2 including printing costs) does add up when you are doing so many.  I’ve been trying to do 5 cases a day for the last while, and it is amazing how fast time flies!  After I get some shelving to put all my games on I’ll make another post.

Sega Corner:  There has been a little bit of additions to the honorary Sega department.  The infamous Sega Dude gave me a really good copy of Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System.  Unfortunately I have to hook up my SMS in order to play it and I’m just to darn lazy.  I’ll wait until I get the Power Base Converter for my Retron 5… I’m told this will be expensive though so I may have to rethink my strategy.  I may end up wrapping Phantasy Star up and giving it to myself as a Christmas present from Santa… Somehow he always knows what to give me!  Also purchased from Flavio (the guy mentioned above) was a great copy of the SMS game Golvellius: Valley of Doom, and Fantazy Zone II… both games of which are awesome and I can’t wait to play.

Speaking of Fantasy Zone, I was watching a youtube video of a guy playing the arcade version… and remembered why I didn’t like it much as a kid.  The arcade is WAY more difficult than the Master System version!  You can check it out here at Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone II.  I must take my hat off to this guy as clearly he has some major talent!

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe