Tendo City

... You know, by ignoring this thread I do not make my job of keeping my 'what I've gotten' records up to date any easier, it just makes it harder. And yet despite knowing that I keep doing this kind of thing, I know ignoring problems doesn't fix them and yet I keep doing just that. Oh well...

I know I have not been posting here, but I've been busy and quite a lot has been going on, most definitely including with my videogame collection. The big part I think I should make a new thread for, though -- after my old RP-CRT failed, I got a fairly nice 4K OLED TV. And then I started buying a bunch of stuff for it, because old games don't look any good at all on it by default so a significant rework of my setup, as far as connections are concerned, is required. So, I got a bunch of wires and a Retrotink 2X Pro. And then from there I decided to finally take the plunge into RGB with some HD Retrovision cables for four consoles, the Genesis, SNES, Saturn, and Master System. Genesis graphics without ANY of that shimmer and such are kind of amazing to see!

But I should talk about that in a dedicated thread. As far as games go I have been busy, though probably not as much as if I wasn't spending so, so much on all that other stuff...

The main thing I got other than all of that equipment is another thing from ebay, a S-Video modded Atari 7800 console for $160 from ebay, console only; I used my power cable from my old 7800 and my old controllers and games with this system. It was cheaper than other systems the seller was selling with the cords, so I "saved" a bit in comparison as I didn't need them. I had been thinking about getting a new 7800 for years, since the power switch on mine failed back in 2014, but I have never either fixed that one (this would require some serious soldering to replace that switch, I do not have that skill) or gotten another one, until now. I thought that sure, I could have gotten a regular 7800 for like $70, max, but while not cheap this modded one is definitely a better unit -- the video quality from this s-video plug is DRAMATICALLY better than I remember 7800 RF being on a base console, and that's all you will get out of the system without a mod! Now, the Atari 7800 is a disappointing system I'm definitely not a fan of and buying one again has not changed that opinion, but despite that I am glad to be able to play the game s again, and way sharper looking than they were before.

I already have 18 7800 games, including most of the common ones, so I only picked up a couple of new titles on ebay. I'll probably get more eventually, and some homebrews; the system has some interesting ones.

Physical Games

Under Fire! PC 7/16/2020 (old PC game, complete in box, got locally.) $10. A neat find, this is an old wargame.

Jinks Atari 7800, 7800 07/29/20 from ebay Complete (Arrived Sealed) $13.00. This game tries to be an interesting side-scrolling Breakout-style game, but only ends up being a visual mess and a pretty big disappointment. The weirdness makes it worth a look anyway for me, though.

Rampage Atari 7800, 7800 Activision 07/31/20 from ebay Cart Only $25.00 - Yes, this is Rampage. It's a fine port of the game, with all three characters unlike the NES, but... Rampage isn't exactly deep or complex, and goes on just about forever. Even as a kid I didn't have the patience to get anywhere near the end of this thing (on the NES, a version that ironically I do not own). It's amusing for a little while though.

Mogul Maniac Atari 2600, 2600 07/29/20 from ebay Cart Only $10.00 I got this game from the same person as one of those 7800 games. It's a decent racing game and seeing a 2600 game from the "Amiga Corporation" sure is weird... heh.

Countermeasure Atari 5200, 5200 08/06/20 from ebay, $18.55 - This is a rare 5200 exclusive from Atari. It's a topdown tank game with a 'learn the code' element.
Wizard of Wor Atari 5200, 5200 08/06/20 from ebay, $23 - A quality port of Midway's arcade hit. It's too bad there is no speech but oitherwise it's good.

Also I got two supposedly barely or not at all used Atari 5200 controllers for $50. They even have the protector sheets over the metal strip. These three 5200 lots are from someone selling a bunch of 5200 stuff, I bid on a lot but only won these three. It's too bad I missed out on Space Dungeon, but I will get that (with its controller holder) eventually.


For digital games, I got some more, mostly on the Nintendo platforms.
Capcom Arcade Cabinet w/ DLC Bundle Xbox 360, X360 - DD (XBLA) 07/15/20 On Sale $10.00
Sweet Memories: Blackjack Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) CIRCLE Entertainment 07/26/20 On Sale $1.00
Sisters Royale (DLC character - Ode) Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) - DLC 07/27/20 On Sale $1.50
Moto Rush GT Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/28/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)
Swap This! Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) Two Tribes BV 07/28/20 On Sale $0.10
Toki Tori Wii U - DD (eShop) Two Tribes BV 07/28/20 On Sale $0.20
Atomic Heist Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/29/20 On Sale $0.20
Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) Capcom 07/29/20 On Sale $10.00
Lapis x Labyrinth Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/29/20 On Sale $10.00
Orbitblazers Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/29/20 On Sale $6.00
RIVE: Ultimate Edition Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/29/20 On Sale $1.50
Sisters Royale: FIve Sisters Under Fire Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/29/20 On Sale $7.00
Super One More Jump Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/29/20 On Sale $0.70
Phil's Epic FIll-a-Pix Adventure Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) 07/30/20 On Sale $4.00
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) 07/30/20 On Sale $9.00
PICROSS e6 Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) 07/30/20 $6.00
V.O.I.D. Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 07/30/20 On Sale $1.00

Quote:... You know, by ignoring this thread I do not make my job of keeping my 'what I've gotten' records up to date any easier, it just makes it harder. And yet despite knowing that I keep doing this kind of thing, I know ignoring problems doesn't fix them and yet I keep doing just that. Oh well...

What about us, mister? We've been waiting for an update for better than a month for now.   ‌ Now get cracking on that RP-CRT failed, 4K OLED TV replacement, wire aquisition, Retrotink 2X Pro rig, RGB upgrade, HD Retrovision cable adornment, SNES/Saturn/Master System enhancement with the added bonus of a shimmer-free Genesis experience dedicated thread!

Hey, for that news you've only been waiting a month.


The rest of the several thousand dollars of old Japanese videogames I imported between November (of last year) and this February, though?

Well I mentioned a few of them at the time, namely the Wonderswan systems and most of the games I got for that thing, but the rest I did not, and still haven't. I need to. In retrospect the timing was pretty perfect, I had not done anything like that (in terms of how much I got in imports) in several years and it sure was a good time to do that again, given that right afterwards international shipping went all horribly wrong thanks to COVID...

I went to a few stores today and got some stuff, one of them pretty interesting.

Carnival - Mattel Intellivision, $3, complete. I have this game on the 2600 and Colecovision, but I finally decided to pick this version up too. Why not?
Galaxian - Atari 2600, $3, cart only. I love this game on the 5200, but while I'm sure this won't be as good I have wanted to get it for comparison, and because it's probably good.
Super Strike Eagle - Super NES, $4, cart only. This is nice tech showcase for what you can do with Mode 7.
Lufia & the Fortress of Doom - Super NES, $40, cart with plastic dust cover.
Conquests of Camelot - PC, complete, $55. Yes, I paid a lot for this, but it is a pretty cool thing to see so I couldn't resist. This is a big box adventure game from 1989 from Sierra.

Bought yesterday:

Renegade Racers PlayStation, PSX, PS1 Complete $16.00
Sport Superbike 2 PlayStation, PSX, PS1 Complete $5.00
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight NES Cart Only $8.00
L.A. Rush Xbox Complete $3.00

First, I found a couple of games I bought in March 2019 that I forgot to list either here or in my collection spreadsheet. These two games were delisted, but I was able to buy digital keys for them from Gamestop's website. I think you can't do this anymore, but the ability to buy delisted games' keys from Gamestop was still something you could do when I got these, so I got these two.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth - PlayStation Vita, PSV - DD - $40
PixelJunk SideScroller - PlayStation 3, PS3 - DD - $10

And today I got these.

Dinotopia - GBA, cart only, $3 - this may look like a licensed nothing at first glance, but it was made by the same team who made Lady Sia, a pretty good GBA platformer, and runs in that engine. After learning that I started looking for a copy and found one.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Complete Collection (1 & 2) - Nintendo Switch, NS - $20, complete. Was it worth it to pay twice this much for a Vita copy of one of the two games in this pack? Yeah, sure, why not; the Vita has a fantastic screen and all things being equal I'd probably rather play these games there. But the Vita version of the second game costs just as much or more (if you want the Asia-only English physical cart release) and I can't justify that for what you get (games with decent if somewhat cliche cyberworld stories but very simple RPG gameplay), so I got this. I don't regret buying that Vita version though.

Tower Toppler - Atari 7800 - $23, complete in box, from ebay. I know this game is ... extremely frustrating and not good; I have the Game Boy version, which is called Castelian. I got this anyway. It is nice looking for the 7800 at least, with the rotating tower.

So I decided, it is finally the time... yes, here it is, the list of import games I bought between November and March!

Now, I listed some imports in one post, here: https://www.tendocity.net/showthread.php...#pid137875 Specifically, I listed all of the Wonderswan systems and games I had gotten up to that point. I then also listed the few other games I got a few months later. Some of those games were purchased in these boxes I am listing here, and others were separate single purchases. After some thought I decided to list them again, since they were purchased with these and such, but note that these are not second copies of those games, they're the same one as before.

So I spent a lot here, and in additon to the Wonderswans I got one other import Japanese console as well, one I spent quite a bit more on than the Wonderswan. It's not a good system, but then again the Wonderswan isn't really either, unfortunately; Bandai was never a very good publisher. The other one... I got the somewhat infamous, and not very good, PC-FX. Yeah, really. I have not used it a lot since, but it does a few things well and the system looks pretty nice so I don't regret buying it. Plus, with COVID, it was the perfect time to import -- getting stuff from Japan now is very difficult, I'm glad I got stuff when I could!

I am sorting this by the date each box arrived, by platform within that. The PC-FX itself is at the very bottom, I started buying games for it several months before I finally bought a console.

12/11/19
Yuu Yuu Hakusho (J) 3DO Complete $8.50 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Boundary Gate: Daughter of Kingdom (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $15 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Joy Mech Fight (J) NES Complete $11 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Shinseki GPX Cyber Formula: Road to the Infinity 4 (J) PlayStation 2, PS2 Complete $3 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Groove On Fight: Gouketsuji Ichizoku (J) Saturn, SS Disc and Manual (no case) $41 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Saturn Bomberman (J) Saturn, SS Complete $9.50 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Sengoku Blade (J) Saturn, SS Complete $73.00
Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen: Kingdom Grandprix (J) Saturn, SS Complete $57.00
Strikers 1945 (J) Saturn, SS Complete $30.00
X-Men vs. Street Fighter (J) Saturn, SS Disc in Generic Case $8 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Super Bomberman 3 (J) Super NES, SNES Complete $5.50 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Zenki: Rettou Raiden (J) Super NES, SNES Cart Only $7.10 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Bomberman: Panic Bomber (J) TurboGrafx-CD, TCD Complete $2.25 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Moto Roader MC (J) TurboGrafx-CD, TCD Complete $10.55 + 1/12th of $51 shipping
Seirei Senki Spriggan (J) TurboGrafx-CD, TCD Complete $56.00

12/16/19
Takeru (J) 3DO Complete $4 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Fighting Vipers 2 (J) Dreamcast, DC Complete $16 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Can Can Bunny Extra DX (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $11.50 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Tingle no Balloon Fight DS (J) Nintendo DS, NDS Complete $8 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
XII Stag (J) [aka XIIZeal] PlayStation 2, PS2 Complete $15 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Robbit mon Dieu (J) [Jumping Flash 3] PlayStation, PSX, PS1 Complete $4.35 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Clockwork Knight: Peperouchou no Daibouken Gekkan (J) [Clockwork Knight 2] Saturn, SS Complete $5 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Mr. Heli no Daibouken (J) TurboGrafx-16, TG16 Complete $29.01 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Mamono Hunter Yohko 2: Tooki Yobigoe (J) TurboGrafx-CD, TCD Complete $10 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Virtual Fishing (J) Virtual Boy, VB Complete $46 + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
XI [sai] Little (J) WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only) Cart Only $11.50 for 3 game lot + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Gunpey (J) WonderSwan, WS Cart and Manual $11.50 for 3 game lot + 1/24th share of $105 shipping
Ochan no Oekaki Logic (J) WonderSwan, WS Cart Only $11.50 for 3 game lot + 1/24th share of $105 shipping

12/21/19
Ah! My Goddess (J) [Aa! Megami-Sama!] NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $25 for a 5 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Anime Freak FX Vol. 4 (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $25 for a 5 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Fire Woman Matoi-Gumi (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $25 for a 5 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Megami Paradise II (J) [Megami Tengoku II] NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $25 for a 5 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari: Shuugaku Ryokou (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $25 for a 5 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Chaos Control Remix (J) Saturn, SS Complete $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Falcom Classics (J) Saturn, SS Complete $13 for an 8 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Falcom Classics II (J) Saturn, SS Complete $13 for an 8 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Koden Koureijutsu Hyaku Monogatari ~Hontoni Atta Kowai Hanashi~ (J) Saturn, SS Complete $5.00
Magical Drop III:"Toretate Zoukangou!" (J) Saturn, SS Complete $13 for an 8 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Making of Nightruth, The (J) Saturn, SS Complete (with spine card) $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Ochige Designer Tsukutte Pon! (J) Saturn, SS Complete (with spine card) $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Ragnagard (J) (aka Shin-Oh-Ken) Saturn, SS Complete $13 for an 8 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
SEGA Touring Car Championship (J) Saturn, SS Complete $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Space Invaders: The Original Game (J) Saturn, SS Complete $13 for an 8 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Suiku Enbu: Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty (J) (US: Dark Legend) Saturn, SS Complete (with spine card) $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Tactics Formula (J) Saturn, SS Complete $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Virtua Fighter Kids (J) Saturn, SS Complete (with spine card) $10 for a 7 game lot + 1/22nd share per game of $96 shipping
Marchen Maze (J) TurboGrafx-16, TG16 Complete $45 + 1/22nd share of $96 shipping
Densha de GO! (J) [Let's Go by Train!] WonderSwan, WS Complete $8 + 1/22nd share of $96 shipping
Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousen Sha (J) [Mega Man & Bass WS] WonderSwan, WS Complete $60 + 1/22nd share of $96 shipping

01/15/20
Cutey Honey FX (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $45 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
Power Dolls FX: Detachment of Limited Line Service (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $20 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
Team Innocent: The Point of No Return "G.C.P.O.SS" Saki/Lilis/Ariel (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $16 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Oki FX (J) (aka Tenchi Muyou! Ryououki FX) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $9 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
Championship Rally (J) TurboGrafx-CD, TCD Complete $30 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
One Piece Grand Battle: Swan Colosseum (J) WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only) Complete $10 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
Kakutou Ryouri Densetsu Bistro Recipe: Wonder Battle Hen (aka Bistro Recipe) (J) WonderSwan, WS Complete $8 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping
Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum (J) WonderSwan, WS Cart Only $20 + 1/8th share of $51 shipping

01/23/20
Battle Heat (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $18 + 1/7th share of $45 shipping
Arkanoid II (J) NES Cart Only $2 for a 4 game lot + 1/7th share of $45 shipping for the lot
Exed Exes (J) NES Cart Only $2 for a 4 game lot + 1/7th share of $45 shipping for the lot
Mappy (J) NES Cart Only $2 for a 4 game lot + 1/7th share of $45 shipping for the lot
Tetris (J) (aka Tetris (BPS)) NES Cart Only $2 for a 4 game lot + 1/7th share of $45 shipping for the lot
Last Legion UX (J) Nintendo 64, N64 Cart Only $20 + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Bokan to Ippatsu Doronboo (J) (aka Time Bokan Series: Bokan to Ippatso! Doronbo) PlayStation, PSX, PS1 Complete $10 + 1/7th share of $45 shipping
Tokyo Mew Mew (J) PlayStation, PSX, PS1 Complete $4.25 + 1/7th share of $45 shipping
Virtua Racing Deluxe (J) Sega 32X, 32X Complete $23.50 + 1/7th share of $45 shipping
Power Drift (J) TurboGrafx-16, TG16 Complete $25 + 1/7th share of $45 shipping
S.C.I.: Special Criminal Investigation (J) TurboGrafx-16, TG16 Complete $20 + 1/7th share of $45 shipping
Digimon Adventure 02: D1 Tamers (J) WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color, WSC (Dual Mode) Cart Only $20 for a 4 game lot + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Digimon Tamers: Battle Spirit (J) WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only) Cart Only $20 for a 4 game lot + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Digimon Tamers: Digimon Medley (J) WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only) Cart Only $20 for a 4 game lot + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Digital Monsters: D Project (J) [aka Digimon: DProject) WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only) Cart Only $20 for a 4 game lot + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Inuyasha: Kagome no Yume Nikki (J) WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only) Complete $8 + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Chaos Gear: Michibi Kareshi Mono (J) WonderSwan, WS Complete $8 + 1/5th share of $33 shipping
Sennou Millenium (J) WonderSwan, WS Complete $11 + 1/5th share of $33 shipping

01/30/20
Curse (J) Genesis, Gen Cart Only $8.99 + 1/3rd share of $27 shipping
Kishin Doujin Zenki FX (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $587.89 + 1/3rd share of $27 shipping
Goemon Shin Sedai Shuumei! (J) [Goemon New Age] PlayStation, PSX, PS1 Complete $35 + 1/3rd share of $27 shipping

02/08/20
Dennou Hyouryuu: Multimedia Cruising (J) 3DO Complete (with spine card) $22 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Furai no Shiren Gaiden: Onna Kenshi Asuka Kenzan! (J) [Shiren the Wanderer Sidestory: Female Warrior Asuka Arrives!] Dreamcast, DC Complete (with spine card) $12.50 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
After Burst (J) Game Boy, GB Cart Only $5.70 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Anime Freak FX Vol. 2 (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $20 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Anime Freak FX Vol. 3 (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $15 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Blue Breaker: Ken Yorimo Hohoemi o (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete (with spine card) $10 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Voice Paradise (J) NEC PC-FX, PCFX Complete $8 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Airboarder 64 (J) Nintendo 64, N64 Complete $23 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Densha de GO! 64 (J) [Let's Go by Train! 64] Nintendo 64, N64 Complete $0.01 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Garou Densetsu Special (J) [Fatal Fury Special] TurboGrafx-CD, TCD Complete $11 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
Ganso Jajamaru-Kun (J) [The Original Jajamaru] WonderSwan, WS Cart and Protector Case Only $15 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
PC-FX Console PC-FX with box, manual, controller, system, av cables. $130 + 1/12th share of $150 shipping [including a console]
PC-FX Controller PC-FX came with system

After this, I definitely had spent too much on this stuff so I stopped spending as much for a while. Additionally COVID was getting worse, and I started worrying about shipping, particularly for things from Japan. And indeed, the last two games I bought, a couple of Wonderswan games I bought in mid March, took two months to arrive, as I said in this thread when the finally got here in May (it was Final Lap 2000 and a couple other games). By that point I was just glad they showed up at all! I will buy more PC-FX games eventually, but it looks like it'll be a while. That's okay. A lot of those games aren't teh kinds of games I'd enjoy that much... though there are other PCFX games I would like that I don't have, so there are some to look forward to.

So of all these games, how many have I actually played in the months since? Uh... some. And not lots of others. For instance, of the PC-FX stuff I have only played a handful of the games, beyond Zenki of course which I played through, you don't spend that kind of money and then just put it on the shelf. I know that was a very expensive game, but it's something I had wanted for a long time, ever since I first heard of it in the '00s, and it's a really awesome one to finally have in my collection. Sure, the game is short and easy and thus is TERRIBLE value for the money, but at least it's pretty fun while it lasts, it is a quality game. And if you look online at prices, I got a pretty good price for this game, it's selling for at least $840 now. COVID has caused a lot of classic game prices to go up after all so that's not surprising, but it is true.

As for the PC-FX, it is a system that is very good at animated FMV and not very good at anything else, so someone like me with limited Japanese knowledge and also limited interest in the kinds of games it is best at, such as adventure games and FMV fighters? It's not a good fit to say the least. I like anime, sure, but not visual novels or FMV games, particularly ones that mostly in a language I don't know much of. But of course I knew all of this going in, so I'm not complaining, just saying 'yes I know, this was a questionable purchase but I got it anyway'. I really like the TurboGrafx/PC Engine, so looking at its successor, even if it was a disastrous failure of one that bet heavily on FMV as the industry went polygonal, is quite interesting. NEC and Hudson sure messed up badly with their thinking behind this one.

So I have another more expensive purchases to talk about, or should I say admit to, and I actually fixed a certain broken, expensive other thing from last year.

Let's go in chronological order in terms of purchases, I guess.

So, in June 2019, I got an Atari Jaguar. I mentioned it in a post last December. I said then that the laser broke fairly quickly, and that was true. I didn't mention that I actually bought a replacement laser for it some time later in 2019, but with my somewhat irrational fear of soldering (even though I do have a soldering iron kit now...) I never finished installing it, as I thought soldering was required.

But the laser was dead, so I decided to look up repair. Fortunately, there is a site online leading you through exactly how to replace a Jag CD laser, with pictures. I bought a replacement laser, it's the Phillips VAM1202 and is very easy to find new on ebay. Howver, the VAM1202, while mostly identical to the one in the Jaguar CD, has one difference -- the connector on its six-wire cable is a different width from the one on the Jag CD. You need to attach your original wire from the laser on your Jag CD to the six points on the new laser, then put it in this plastic/rubber housing and attach it to the system board. But that requires soldering which I still can't quite get myself to do, so I didn't do it. I did install the new laser into that plastic housing, though. Getting the old laser out was QUITE tricky to do without damaging the housing, so that was no easy feat! -- and... put the board back in the Jag CD, put the Jag CD next to my computer, and left it there for a year.

Occasionally I would have those thoughts, like, 'seriously, you spent over $400 on that thing, fix it!' And recently I finally decided to try. And then I had a revelation that I feel kind of dumb for not thinking of a year ago, because I should have -- I don't even need to solder! I mean, it'd be better if I did, but I don't need to. Actually all I need to do is just cut off the new laser's connector, tie the old wires to the new ones, and plug the old connector into the board. I have wire-strippers and electrical tape, so it should be fairly straightforward, and indeed it was. I just set the wire-stripper to the thickness of that wire, cut the wire midway, remove some of the sheathing from the wires on both the old and new lasers, take careful note of which color attaches to which (they are not the same), sort of wrap each wire together by twisting them together and such, and then wrap each connection with electrical tape.

So, I did that a few days ago. I wasn't expecting much; things I leave sitting around for that long usually end up dead, after all, like how my Turbo CD drive ended up needing a new board inside when it got repaired, probably because of me leaving it around. It was in the case, but I hadn't put any of the screws back in until the repair. Somehow I managed not to lose any of the screws, though; amazing, that! And I didn't know if the replacement laser worked, either. So I finished wrapping up all of the wires after binding them, put everything back together, put it in the Jaguar, plugged in its power supply and set it up, put in Blue Lightning as a good test game, plugged in my Memory Track save cart, and...

Black screen. I wasn't too worried though, I thought that maybe a cable had come out. And indeed it had, the s-video cable and one of the audio cables from the Jag had fallen out of the switch. With that problem solved, I turned it on again, turned it on, and...

The game booted up and worked perfectly. What. I actyually FIXED it? That's crazy! My Jaguar CD works now! I'm still kind of stunned... and yes, annoyed at myself for not doing this a year ago, but oh well, that's not too bad; it's not a system I was going to be using a lot anyway, certainly. The system even plays CD-Rs now, which it would not do last year as that laser was failing. There are some interesting freeware Jaguar homebrews, and I'm trying out some of them.

There is one problem, though -- I only have those three games, and the homebrews that are freeware are mostly fairly limited stuff. The other Jag CD games, both modern releases and classic, are mostly pretty expensive, and this issue has only gotten worse thanks to the great 2020 classic game price hike on ebay. Jag CD games always were expensive, but checking now? There are only two on ebay for less than $60! So wanting SOMETHING new but not wanting to spend that kind of money right now on top of everything else I've gotten recently, I got the cheap one even though it's a game I dislike. It arrived today, so now I have a new, still-sealed copy of Space Ace for Jaguar CD. It was $15. I will get more of the more expensive stuff later, including some of the post-discontinuation releases and homebrew games, and Battlemorph for certain.

What I like the most about the Jag CD, though, isn't the games, is Jeff Minter's VLM light synthesizer that is built in to the Jag CD. Now, of course, I'm on record as not liking music much. And light synthesizers? Some have neat effects, but they've never been something I care about too much. I rarely turn on visualizer windows in Winamp and such for example. But this one? This is the best visualizer ever! It's really, really cool, and is the Jag CD's main selling point for sure. All you do is put a music CD in and grab your Jag controller, and you're good! The keypad on the controller is actually really useful here -- you can directly switch to any of the 81 effects the VLM has directly, with a simple two-button entry. Most are just a visual effect, but nine are interactive. Being able to directly switch between 81 effects with quick button presses is fantastic and shows one of the few really good uses of the Jaguar's keypad; any other controller would have a much harder time matching this. Of course I have very few audio CDs to use this with since I don't care much about music, but I will definitely be using the VLM, no question. It's amazing.

But yeah, I'm still kind of stunned that the repair actually worked. I imagine this is not this Jag CD's final laser, with the known design issues it's likely this laser will eventually fail too, but at least replacements are plentiful and not too hard to install.



Meanwhile, in August 2020, I saw something interesting in a local shop one of the few times I've been in them this year. I saw a Commodore 64, complete in box, for $175. There was also a complete in box (with manual and everything) Commodore 1541 disk drive for $99, with a box of 24 ... backup ... disks from the collection of the person who had had the drive, full of lots of games. He also had four legit C64 games in their original boxes there, three in the EA record-style cases and one a similar foldout thing, for $25 to $48 each. I was interested, but didn't buy right away; that was a lot of money and I have spent a lot recently on games.

A few weeks later, though, on my birthday, I decided to go back and see if they were still there, and maybe buy. I brought a bag with me (it's about a half hour walk downtown), but not one big enough for both the system and disk drive. I was leaning towards getting all of it despite the cost, but still wasn't sure; for one thing, the original C64 is not the best model. Its power supply is infamously failure-prone, for example, and they can kill chips in the computer itself when they fail. The power supply in the disk drive also can fail, so using that as your main disk drive can be trouble. Also, there are good disk replacement options available now, to use USB or SD card disk images instead of the highly unreliable real 5.25" disks, namely the cheaper SD-based SD2IEC and the more expensive and more full-featured Ultimate II+ cart.

When I got there, I didn't see the system, but saw all the other stuff. The regular guy wasn't at the store either, the other person who works there who knows little about games was. After looking around for a while, I almost didn't buy anything, but then decided to buy the disk drive and the two $25 games, Russia: The Great War in the East 1941-1945 and EA's interesting-looking Gauntlet knockoff Demon Stalkers. Indeed, Demon Stalkers is what primarily sold me on the system; I love Gauntlet, and I'd never heard of this pretty interesting-looking clone! There is apparently also a PC version, but it's 4-color CGA, which would be an unpleasant thing to look at. (It turned out that the system had been moved into the store window, but neither of us noticed. It was for the best, and I'm still not sure if I would have bought the computer too or just do what I did and just get the drive... I thought it was unlikely that it had sold, since all the other stuff was still there, but didn't see it and was kind of relieved to not spend all that money straight out; online purchases through ebay can be paid over time with no interest with PayPal Credit, an offer I definitely take advantage of, but no such option exists for purchases in a store...) Regardless, I decided to wait on buying the other two games until later, after I decided what to do about a computer -- go back and ask the owner whether he still had that system somewhere, as seemed likely, or buy something better online.

Of course I couldn't use the games without a system, so after getting home I looked up options. To start, that day, I started out by ordering a XU1541, a homebrew PC USB adapter which you plug a Commodore disk drive in to on one end, and connects to your computer on the other. It's a bit tricky to install, as you need to manually install some software through the command line to get it to work, this is no plug-and-play USB device with automatic drivers, but I followed the instructions and figured it out. I found that the drive seems to work, to my relief. The XU1541 cost me $43 shipped, which is not cheap. Getting a SD2IEC would be a lot cheaper than a 1541 + XU1541, and wouldn't be reliant on real floppy disks either. A Ultimate II+ would probably be about the same price, but again you'd get the near-infinite space of USB there, not tiny double-density floppies. So yeah from a price standpoint, my choice to buy a 'this thing that lets me write real disks is my way of getting software from the internet to the Commodore I will buy' adapter is not a great one. I can't say I regret it though, because as much as I dislike floppy disks, they are part of the experience with a computer like this and I want to be able to use real hardware; otherwise, why not just emulate everything, after all? I will probably get an SD2IEC and/or Ultimate II+ (or the Rasperry Pi-based drive emulator solution, or several since they each do slightly different things; I'm not sure) later, but for now, real disks is fine.

As for a system, after looking at my options I ended up picking... the very most expensive one, for some reason. Yes, I did not get that C64 at the store, or another one like it. Instead, even though it has almost no software worth mentioning that wouldn't run just fine on a C64, I got a Commodore 128D (the US DCR model). It was $410 shipped, which is a resonable price for one, for the computer with a power cord and keyboard. Yeah. The Commodore 128 was the C64's failed successor, and it is fully backwards compatible but has some additional hardware that very few games use, and an added higher resolution graphics mode that mostly only productivity software and some text adventures made use of. The high-res mode also requires a separate video output cable that uses RGB, so you can't just hook it up to a TV without conversion like you can the regular low-res output from the system. Yeah, this thing is kind of a mess.

The 128D has an internal disk drive instead of the previous requirements for an external one, and an internal power supply too, much more modern so it's not going to destroy the system unlike the original C64. As for that external keyboard, it is quite nice that it has a cable so you don't need to sit right in front of the machine like you do with, say, my TI99/4A, but the cord is EXTREMELY short -- it's two feet long at most, and being a 25-pin serial cable (with no screws on the ends to hold on a regular serial cable), it's not exactly easy to just grab an extender. Still, being able to put the keyboard in my lap instead of reaching up to built-in keys is a nice feature I quite like, it's the main advantage of the 128D, no other C64s have external keyboards. The keyboard was not reported as tested, but it mostly works. Unfortunately the D key is very sticky and often sticks down when you press it in. I tried taking it off and cleaning it, but that didn't help. Fortunately everything else seems to work; the spacebar was also pretty bad at first, but removing the key and cleaning under it helped a lot with that one. I got a key puller ($6.73) to help me get those keys out, they are harder to remove than PC keyboard keys without one. It's a nice thing to have regardless. Otherwise the computer is in good working order and seems to run perfectly, its internal 1571 disk drive included. That is very nice.

Additionally, I got a few more accessories from ebay -- for $22, I got a Commodore 64/128 S-Video cable; I have a compatible composite cable, which looks impressively sharp, but s-video looks even better. For $27 from ebay, I got two Commodore 64 controller adapters that let you use a Sega Genesis controller on your C64. The port shape is the same, but while the C64 natively will work with C64, Amiga, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, and Sega Master System controllers (the latter two with one button only, since the C64 only supports one button), the Genesis pad's additional buttons use additional hardware and you do NOT want to plug them into a C64, it may damage the system apparently. With an adapter like this you fix those issues, and the Genesis controller is one of the best ever, very dramatically better than Atari 2600 or 7800 or SMS controllers in my book. Plus, with this adapter you can use a mode where Up is mapped to ab utton, making the C64's platformers much, MUCH more playable! Up to Jump is standard in (mostly European) games on these one-button computers like the C64, Atari ST, and Amiga, but with this you can fix that problem and map up to a button. Awesome option. And for $42, I got a box of 50 DSDD floppy disks, the format that the C64/128 requires -- you need smaller-capacity double density disks, not the high density disks a PC 5.25" drive uses. This box also came with a second box with 8 DSHD disks in it, if I ever want some homemade PC 5.25" floppy disks. I did not have any blank 5.25" disks of either density, since back in the '90s we had only bought 3.5" disks for our use and not the older 5.25" disks, so I could not do much with this computeru ntil this box arrived, and it took a while -- shipping got held up and it took over a week, which was kind of frustrating since everything else was here and working, but I was still waiting for the disks that would let me use most of it. Oh well, they showed up eventually.

I also went back to the local place a few weeks later, and was pointed out the system in the window. I was glad I had missed it before, since I got a better system instead. I did buy the other two games while I was there, getting me The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown, Volume I complete for $31.50, and Legacy of the Ancients complete for $44. Both are 5.25" disk games. Additionally, at another local place I bought their one C64-related thing, a loose cart C64 cartridge copy of Congo Bongo for $3. The games and stuff all seem to work, impressively. Some of the disks don't work first try, so they may be failing, but they do read.

Unfortunately, due to poor design on Commodore's part, a C64/128 does not easily support multiple disk drives. The internal drive in the 128D is mapped to drive 8, and this cannot be permanently changed unless you hard-mod the system. You can, through some code, temporarily change the number or disable it, but that only lasts until power off. The 1541 disk drive I have also is hard-mapped to device 8, with no way to change it apart from taking the drive apart and cutting a certain wire. A deveice 8/9 switch was apparently a popular mod to C64 disk drives, and I get why. But even if you do that, apparently many games only run correctly from device 8. So, for things like the SD2IEC or Ultimate II+, that internal drive is a big problem; you need to either disable it through software each time or hard-mod the system to get lots of software to run right through the flash or SD card-based drive options, with this model. What a pain! You would never have problems like this with an Apple or PC from that same era, they all were designed with multiple disk drives in mind. Commodore was cheap and aimed this at people without enough money for an Apple Ii or a PC, and it shows with hassles like this. You can't even copy a disk from one drive to another on a C64 through the system's internal built-in Basic commands! Yes, the only kind of disk copy option available is for you to do it with ONE drive, swapping disks back and forth over and over and over as you wait the tediously long time for it to finally copy everything over. It's pretty bad design. I am sure there is a software solution that allows disk copying, but it should be there in the OS, particularly in this later, more powerful successor! The 128D adds a few nice new Basic commands, I have learned, such as an easy Directory listing, but not disk copying. Anyway, for now I will just leave it as it is since with my current real-disk based setup everything works perfectly, but I'm not sure what I'll do longer-term, once I decide to upgrade to the flash options someday; if I want them to work I'll need to see if I can figure out a mod or something. I do not regret getting this model though, the external keyboard is great and this also is a lot easier to power. See, C64 disk drives require their own power supply, so I'd need two power outlets for the two systems if I had a regular C64 or C128 with external drive. I am quite low on outlets at the moment, so having something that has both in one, with only one outlet, is fantastic. Having the drive internal is also nice, it looks better and saves space. The 128D's more modern computer look is great, the classic all-in-one look the C64 has also works but I do think I prefer the more "modern computer" look of the 128D. I know that paying twice as much money for mostly the same result (playing C64 games), with an added hassle this device number problem adds, and without many of the 128's added features over the C64 since they were mostly aimed at business users in a failed attempt to slow down IBM PC adoption at home and not gaming, but I think the benefits of this model outweigh the drawbacks. Seriously, the 'I can move the keyboard around" advantage is huge.

As for future purchases, there is one more that I absoltuely must get, as soon as I can -- a fast loader. See, the C64 is infamous for having insanely, absurdly, unacceptably slow disk load speeds. For various reasons they messed things up bad, and the C64 has the slowest disk drive probably ever. However, fast-load cartridges exist which can dramatically speed up loading, and I need to get one. The SD/USB drive options all have limited to full fast-load support, but for now I'd rather go with a cheaper and more original choice and just get an Epyx Fast Load cartridge. It speeds up loading times up to 5x faster than stock and they're cheap, sub-$30 things. Farther off, there are lots of upgrades you can do for this -- the three SD/USB loader options I have mentioned, replacement chips to go in the system to add more functionality (JiffyDOS is one that sounds useful, and the one that makes the Ultimate II+ work better with a C128, since it has serious issues otherwise outside of C64 mode), and such. But that is for probably much later (likely not this year), this is more than enough for now. I also may get a disk notcher, to be able to use the other sides of disks I write on the 1541 more easily than "try to punch out the right part with a hole punch". (The other can of worms to consider getting into sometime is a digital RGB monitor or adapter so I can use the 80 column mode, for the few games that use that. Not now, that setup is expensive!)

So let's sum up all of the C64 purchases.

1541 disk drive, complete in box with manual, and 24 C64-format disks, in a 5.25" disk case, full of ... backup ... games - $100
Four CIB 5.25" disk games - Demon Stalkers, $25; Russia: The Great War in the East, 1941-1945, $25; The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown, Volume I, $31.50; Legacy of the Ancients, $44.
One cartridge C64 game, Congo Bongo, $3, cart only.
C64/128 s-video cable, $22.
Box of 50 DSDD disks for the C64/128, plus 8 DSHD disks for a PC - $43
Commodore 128DCR (US model) computer with keyboard, $410
XU1541 C64/128 drive to PC adapter, $43
Two 64JPX adapters, $26.50 (Purple model, but with no SNES adapter so they're only for Genesis controllers, which is fine with me, that's what I wanted to use with it.)

So yeah that adds up to quite a bit, but it's a pretty interesing thing so I don't mind it, particularly when the big expense, the C128D itself, is on one of those 'you have a year to pay it off with no interest' PayPal payment plans. The C64 has a vast game library that I have very little experience with, it's definitely a piece of gaming history I know little about but should get to know a lot better.


And finally and at a lot less cost, last month I also bought a few other games from ebay for another system I got last year, the CD-i. These all arrived in late August.

CD-i, games from ebay
--
Mega Maze - $12, complete (jewelcase and slipcover) - This is a tricky puzzle game. Some good ideas here, too bad there's no ingame music and saving is password only.
TR-I: No World Order - $12, jewelcase (complete I think). This is a mostly-electronic music album with graphics that you can customize as it plays with the controller. Unique early interactive-music thing.
International Tennis Open, Two Player Edition - $15, complete jewelcase with slipcover. I have the one player version of this game already, but this two player edition, as the name suggests, added a two-player mode. This is the rarer green-background version of the box, most have a blue backdrop.
The Wacky World of Miniature Golf starring Steven Levy - $24, complete (jewelcase and slipcover). This game is a FMV minigolf game with voice from comedian Steven Levy, perhaps most famous as the dad in American Pie (some years after this).
Mystic Midway: Phantom Express - $13, complete (jewelcase and slipcover). This second Mystic Midway game is a lot more ambitious than the first, it is a FMV rail shooting/navigating game, somewhat in the style of Loadstar or Sewer Shark. (I do not have the first Mystic Midway game, the carnival target-shooting game Rest in Pieces. I'll get it someday.)
Kether - $9, complete jewelcase with slipcover. Kether is an interesting early FMV game. It's one part FMV dodging game, basically a FMV rail shooter but without a gun so you just need to avoid stuff coming at you, and one part tricky and frustrating weird puzzle game with a series of tough logic puzzles to figure out. This kind of game only could have been made in the early '90s, it's classic stuff for the era.

These six titles are all pretty interesting stuff, though I still don't have the CD-i game I most want, The Apprentice, which is probably the system's best platformer. It costs more... I'll get it eventually though.

So what have i been doing since my last post in this thread? Saving up for next-gen stuff?

HAH! No, of course not. I've been buying quite a bit of stuff, of course. So here's the list. Note that this starts with a couple of digital purchases from late August because I forgot to mention them in my last few posts.

First, some super cheap on sale digital Switch games that I got for pennies with Gold points.

Pocket Mini Golf Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 08/23/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)
Funny Bunny Adventures Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 08/24/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)
Earthworms Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/10/20 On Sale $0.01
Overlanders Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/10/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)
Swamps and Traps Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/10/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)

Next... this is from ebay. So I know I've bought a lot of things recent-ish, but when I saw this go up on ebay I couldn't refuse... and it was a great choice! Someone who either had no idea what they had or didn't care and just wanted to get rid of it for well under value put an Odyssey 2 up on ebay for $119 including shipping. Untested. Why is that crazy? I mean, I have an O2 already; it has issues and rarely turns on now since its power connection port came loose inside, but I'm sure that's fixable without too much effort.

But this one? Well, it was in its original box, with The Voice unit which sells for quite a bit now on ebay, two power supplies (the original one and the one with a slightly higher output, better for The Voice), and six complete-in-box games: three I have - Sid the Spellbinder, Quest for the Rings (in slightly better condition than my old copy), and Speedway/Spinout/Cryptologic, and three games I didn't have - Dynasty (they call it "based on Go", but it's actually Reversi/Othello), Smithereens, and Computer Intro, a fairly unique if mostly useless "learn to program a basic form of O2 Assembly" program.

And did it work? Well, as I expected, mostly yes. The Voice seems to work great; occasionally voice lines cut off oddly early, but it's clearly working. The system and its keyboard work great as well, and look good, better than my old O2. It does have one issue, though -- the right controller, which is mostly the player two controller to be clear (the left controller is controller one), has two broken directions -- left and down don't work at all. That's unfortunate. I'll have to take the system apart and swap one of the controllers from my old system into this one, I hope that fixes the issue (presuming it's an issue in the controller, we'll see). Regardless, for an untested system it's great Phillips Magnavox made their stuff well! Very good build quality from them, O2 stuff mostly still works.

I have not disassembled the systems yet as this one is mostly working since most games use the working controller. The Voice is so cool... Type & Tell is one of the most impressive console releases of its generation, seriously. You type on the keyboard and it speaks the things you type out loud on The Voice. Anything you type, it says. It is a true speech synthesizer. The Voice doesn't send audio output to your tv, if you don't know. it has a speaker on the voice unit. with a volume slider. it's pretty loud so I have it up only halfway, how loud do you need when this system is going to be just a few feet away from you given the system's short controller cord lengths? Additionally, the full color flow charts in the Computer Intro book showing how registers connect to the various other computer parts are nice and easy to follow. Of course there is no way to save your programs, which is why I called it fairly useless, but it's pretty interesting to see the level of effort they went into the documentation. This is an assembly programmer too, not just Basic. What you can do is apparently limited though.

Computer Intro! Odyssey2/Videopac, O2 09/21/20 from ebay Complete bundle with system, 3 games, and The Voice unit for $120
Dynasty! Odyssey2/Videopac, O2 09/21/20 from ebay Complete bundle with system, 3 games, and The Voice unit for $120
Smithereens! Odyssey2/Videopac, O2 09/21/20 from ebay Complete bundle with system, 3 games, and The Voice unit for $120
Also of course I got the system, with its original box. The system is the same model as my other one. It has the box, but no hardware manuals, and no styrofoam or whatever was in the box, it's just a loose box. Still it's incredibly cool looking, Magnavox had the best artists! It, of course, also came with The Voice add-on, and both power supplies, both the original one and the slightly power-increased one designed for The Voice. The VOice doesn't come with its box or manual though, ones being sold with those go for much more.


After that, I got a bunch of digital 3DS and Switch games on 9/25 and 9/26. Here they are.

Bit Dungeon Plus Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) 09/25/20 On Sale $1.27
Blaster Master Zero 2 Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/25/20 On Sale $6.00
Blaster Master Zero 2 - DLC Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) - DLC 09/25/20 On Sale $2.00
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/25/20 On Sale $10.97
Project Nimbus: Complete Edition Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/25/20 On Sale $6.00
Super Bit Blaster XL Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/25/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)
Windmill Kings Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 09/25/20 On Sale Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been >$1)
Silver Falls - 3 Down Stars Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) 09/26/20 On Sale $19.19
WordHerd Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) 09/26/20 On Sale $0.71

I got one digital X1 game too; well, I got DLC for it really. I already had Forza Horizon 3, but before it got delisted (for car rights licensing reasons) they reduced the price, and I decided to get it in order to get a lot more cars for the game. It's a good game, so why not? Can't get these anymore after all, not for this game...

Forza Horizon 3 Ultimate Edition Xbox One, XONE - DD 09/27/20 On Sale $21.00

These I got at a local place a few days ago. Golden Axe: The Duel's a very interesting find, sure the game isn't the best but this price is actually very good -- this game is over $80 now on ebay! And as someone who is definitely a Golden Axe fan, at least of the beat 'em ups, this GOlden Axe fighting game was a must have at some point. I'm happy to have it.

Golden Axe: The Duel Saturn, SS 09/27/20 Complete $57.00
Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Myth - Infinite Combate Nintendo Switch, NS Complete $30.00
Jagged Alliance (DS) Nintendo DS, NDS 09/27/20 Cart Only $4.00
Revolution X Saturn, SS 09/27/20 Complete $10.00

For som reason, I decided that my yearly Master System purchase wouldn't be some cheap American game, but instead some pricier European ones. So, I got these four games (three of which I have on Game Gear already, and one digitally too, on Wii VC), plus one Genesis (Megadrive) import game while I was at it because that's a game I very much have wanted for a long time. I am definitely excited to have that Genesis game.

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse (8-bit) (E) Master System, SMS 09/30/20 from ebay, European import Complete $35.00
Micro Machines Turbo Tournament '96 (E) Genesis, Gen 09/30/20 from ebay, European import Complete $40.00
Scramble Spirits (E) Master System, SMS 09/30/20 from ebay, European import Complete $30.00
Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit) (E) Master System, SMS 09/30/20 from ebay, European import Complete $34.00
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit) (E) Master System, SMS 09/30/20 from ebay, European import Complete $28.00

This one I bought digitally today, great price for this interesting game.

Killer Queen Black Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 10/02/20 On Sale $2.00

These games I bought locally today. The Virtual Boy game was a pretty cool find! They had a few other games too, but they were games I had already.

Elder Scrolls IV, The: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition PC 10/02/20 Complete $2.00
NBA Jam: Tournament Edition Genesis, Gen 10/02/20 Cart Only $5.00
Spider-Man Atari 2600, 2600 10/02/20 Cart Only $6.00
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 3D Nintendo 3DS, 3DS 10/02/20 Complete $5.00
Virtual League Baseball Virtual Boy, VB 10/02/20 Complete $23.00

I saw some somewhat interesting NES games a couple of days ago and got these five. Also, another PS1 light gun and light gun game...

American Gladiators NES 10/03/20 Cart Only $7.00
Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum NES 10/03/20 Cart in Sleeve $2.00
Caveman Games NES 10/03/20 Cart Only $8.00
Mafat Conspiracy, The NES 10/03/20 Cart Only $6.00
Pirates! (Sid Meier's) NES 10/03/20 Cart Only $7.50

Last Rebellion PlayStation 3, PS3 10/03/20 Complete $24.00

Point Blank 2 PlayStation, PSX, PS1 10/03/20 Complete $34.00 (this is a Guncon light gun game)

And for $5 I got a real Namco Guncon (1), the original PS1 one, in PS1 grey. I probably don't need this because I have a Guncon 2 (though you cannot use that for PS1 games, it's PS2 only) and a couple of third-party PS1 light guns (one which is pretty much junk, and one which is better and supports both the Namco Guncon 1 and the Konami Justifier modes. And the PS1's light gun game selection is not exactly the greatest, the Saturn's light gun games are a lot better. Still, it was cheap and is an interesting thing, and probably will work better than those third-party ones do.

So, I got several things from ebay recent-ish, two I forgot to mention previously and one new one.

First, arriving on Sept. 20, I got an Epyx Fast Load cartridge for Commodore 64, with an Epyx game demo preview disk.  Some kind of fast loader is absolutely essential with the C64, and with this my 'run real games on real disks' system is pretty much complete.  The Fastload cart does boot the system straight into 64 mode, so I can't use 128 mode on this 128D with it, but 128 mode has faster disk speeds than 64 mode anyway, so I'd just remove the cart for any 128 software I may get in the future.  The speed difference is dramatic.  (It's probably a bit like going from an Xbox One to an Xbox Series system... heh.)


Second, for $15 and arriving on Sept. 28, I got a TI Silver Link USB cable, a PC-to-TI graphing calculator cable for my TI 83+ calculator I have from back in highschool and college.  I never did use the thing a lot; I mostly just used it for a few math classes in highschool and my first year of college and that's it.  I only had two games on it, Snake and some other thing I never played, and never got the (then serial port-based) PC cable to load other stuff onto the thing; I rightly thought of it as being pretty seriously inferior to my Game Boy Color.  And now that I can load anything TI83+ compatible onto it... well, this feels like kind of a waste of money, because so far almost nothing functions. I've tried a bunch of stuff, some for alternate loaders and some you should be able to boot from the system, but almost nothing works.  I managed to get one iffy version of Flappy Bird to load and that's it.  Yeah.  I've given up for the moment, maybe I'll try some more another time but there's got to be something I am missing that explains why nothign else works... whatever though, it's a neat novelty but certainly not a great games platform.  Good calculator, yes.  But as a games machine?  With no audio and a super-slow-to-update screen, not so much.  Also, I'd think things would actually load when you boot them, but... nope.  Oh well, at least the cable didn't cost too much.

And third, and last for now from ebay, for $50 I got a transparent green edition Xbox One Duke controller, the remake of the original Xbox controller for the X1.  These, the green ones in particular, seem to be going up in price so I decided to get one while it's still easy enough to find in good condition.  So far I definitely like the controller, it is a very faithful recreation of the original Xbox controller that I quite like, but working on a modern PC or Xbox One natively and with added second shoulder buttons that duplicate the Black and White buttons.  It's good stuff.


And last, this one goes back a few months.  I mentioned I got a new Atari 7800 a few months ago.  Soon after getting it, I bought a copy of the system's most impressive and probably best homebrew game, Ricki & Vicki.   It was $60 ($almost $55 after shipping) and I bought it in mid August. The game is available here, he's down to only 25 copies remaining and will not be printing more because demand was low, so get a copy now if you have a 7800!  It's worth it.  (There is also a much cheaper version on Steam which is the same game, but with one improvement over the much more expensive cart release, it has saving.  The 7800 version doesn't save, not even passwords; that's the one bad thing I will say about it.  I think getting the cart is very worth it anyway, though.)  http://www.penguinet.com 

I didn't mention this purchase at the time because it had a problem -- the game didn't work at all.  When I turned on the system, all I saw was a black screen.  So, I contacted the guy behind the game about it on email and in the AtariAge thread about the game, and being interested in the issue he asked me to mail him my 7800 console and copy of the game, for testing and possible repair, as a warranty service for just the sot of shipping.  I said yes and sent it out last month.  After investigation, he found that this system I got only a couple of months ago had a LONG list of issues!  The mod was not installed well at all, and solder blobs had shorted things and were killing the power regulator.  This was why Ricki & Vicki wouldn't load, it uses more power than other games due to its added audio chip and mapper inside the cart.  Additionally, on top of fixing the regulator and the solder shorts, he replaced two capacitors, replaced the socket that the TIA chip was in since the one the modder used was cheap and the chip was apparently coming out of the board sometimes after the system was on for a few hours (!), and re-hooked up audio on the RF line, with some resistors as are needed, so the RF port works again.  I will get back to this.  All just for about $20 in shipping the system both ways.  Yeah, it was somewhat crazy generous, that kind of repair as a warranty service for a totally working cart (the problem was my console, not the game, after all)'s kind of nuts!  Really nice, though.  And on top of that, he actually gave me some free stuff when he sent it back -- he sent me some things he doesn't even sell, he only has the hardware design and electronic schematic plans for on his website -- two adapters to use Master System or Genesis controllers on a 7800, with both buttons working.  They are amazing and if someone was selling these I would highly recommend them, the 7800 controller is usable but being able to use a Genesis controller is very dramatically better!  He said they were extra ones but still, yeah, that was very nice.  One is hooked up to my 7800 right now.

The system still has one issue, however -- it may be mechanically fixed now, but the mod used has a faulty design in one respect, audio on the cartridge input (that is, for games that use added audio chips in the carts, as R&V does, or Ballblazer to mention an original 7800 game with added audio that I have) has an extremely low volume when output through the AV jack.  This problem is particularl ybad on my system; on my Philips CRT TV, with any game other than Ballblazer or R&V, about 35% gets good audio levels.  This is a bit louder than ideal for consoles other than the 7800, but it's not too bad, a volume I can mostly leave the TV at (which is good, the thing has a round dial on it for volume and channel and it's hard to change the volume without also changing the channel.  And the remote's no help because the volume buttons on it are broken.).  However, with R&V or Ballblazer?  I need to about DOUBLE the TV volume to 60% before I can hear anything beyond the faintest whisper!  And that's way too loud, the sound on the TV does not sound right turned up that high, I don't think.  Apparently cartridge-enhanced-audio volumes here vary signifiicantly from one system to another, based on the way the mod was installed and the particulars of the system, but on this one it's incredibly quiet. Apparently this is how all of the 7800 AV mods now work, and this is really something the mod creators should work on.

However, if you connect the system via that now-reattached RF connector?  The video image quality is absurdly horrible beyond even my worst expectations, I could never use this system looking like that, but audio is nice and loud from both console and cart with no issues; the mod's problem is only in the mod, and not in the system's primary output itself.  So, my solution to this problem is with yet more hardware -- I ordered (for $15) a Phillips RFU which is powered and has extra audio output jacks on it.  I should be able to get sound from that and graphics from the S-Video port on the console.  I will update again once that arrives but I hope that fiixes the problem.

As for the game, Ricki & Vicki is a very nice looking puzzle-platformer. Each stage is a single screen, with warping around the edges of the screen, and you need to figure out how to get all the items to advance to the next screen.  It's a fun challenge and the stages are different in one player and two player modes, adding to the replay value.  It's definitely good and better than your average homebrew game by a longshot.  The high-res graphics show off that rarely seen 7800 graphics mode, too, and they did a good job of disguising how few colors that mode allows you.

So what gaming-related have I gotten in the past few weeks?

Well, not a huge amount, but... wait no, I kind of did get a bunch.  Forget that.

Starting with physical stuff.

Dark Arena - GBA - $6, cart only.  This is an okay FPS.  I actually got this back on October 8th, before my previous post, but forgot to mention it.

El Shadai: Acension to the Metatron - Xbox 360 - $7, complete
Fairytale Fights - Xbox 360 - $7, complete - These two I got recently, nice finds for cheap.  It's hard to find good 360 games I don't own yet but these were two of those! I got these two last Friday so they are the most recent game purchases on this list.


Additionally, I just received a few new surge protectors and HDMI switches that I ordered from Amazon for a little upgrade/replacement to add some more outlets and replace a failing HDMI switch.

And finally, for only $57, a couple of weeks ago (it actually arrived on the 16th, the day after my last post) I got... a region-modded, non-TMSS, Sega Genesis model 1!  This system has a hard mod with a switch, so it isn't the modern switchless mod, but I am quite fine with that.  What I wanted was a modded non-TMSS Genesis, and I now have one and it's awesome.  This system has a three-way switch on it, for NTSC US, NTSC Japan, and PAL modes.  The switch was put where the modem port usually is, so if I ever got a nearly useless Meganet Modem I wouldn't be able to plug it in since this system doesn't have taht port anymore.  This made me consider not getting this but... seriously, I have absolutely NO use for that modem and nor does next ot anyone else so oh well.  Addtionally, the modder did something else pretty cool -- the RF port has been replaced with a copy of the headphone jack.  So, you don't need to snake a cable around from the front of the console to hook up the Genesis 1's audio output to a Sega CD, you can just use this port on the back.  The headphone jack on the front also still works as well.

This added audio jack is important because as most people know, the Genesis 1's rear AV port only supports mono sound, not stereo; stereo sound only comes out of the headphone jack.  Additonally, and I had forgotten this, while the Genesis 2 will output sound from the console through the side Sega CD port so that you can use the Sega CD's audio output jacks without any issue, unfortunatley the Genesis 1 does not do this. Instead, even though it could, it only takes in the audio and video from the Sega CD, it doesn't also send audio back.  So, you need to use a male to male headphone mixing cable going from your headphone jack to your Sega CD's mixing input port, then you will atually get Genesis audio out of the SCD.  This is pretty stupid and a dumb omission of Sega's when they designed the model 1, they should have realized that audio output on the side would be important, but oh well.  It's worth it to get the better sound quality and full compatibility this console has -- this will play all gGenesis and Megadrive games with no issue.  Of course it won't play other-region Sega CD games or PAL 32X games, I wuold need to get those systems modded to play THOSE, but oh well; the SCD has workarounds (use backups that you change to your region) and there are only a couple of PAL-exclusive 32X games, though they would be neat to play sometime... oh well.  Of course sicne it's a non-TMSS model it will also run those early EA games that don't work on any other system.  I don't own any currently but definitely want Zany Golf now.

Oh, the reason this was so cheap-ish is probably that there is some cosmetic damage on the system.  There are some noticeable scratches on the top, and the end of the 6 from "16-BIT" is gone in the worst of them.  But since I have a 32X covering the top anyway this is a pretty minor issue as far as I'm concerned, how it works is more important and so far it has worked perfectly.

But other than better sound -- and yes I can tell the difference, the Genesis 2 sounds fine but this is better -- what does this get?  Well, it gets me able to play one game I own but could not previsouly use, my Japanese copy of Virtua Racing Deluxe for 32X.   Remember, it has a save chip in the cart so it saves your high scores, a HUGE deal in this game!  V.R. Deluxe is an absurdly hard game and in those rare cases you actually finish a race and don't run out of time, you want that time to actually stick.  WIth this, it will.  And second, I mentioned that European copy of Micro Machiens '96: Turbo Tournament a few posts ago.  This game runs in NTSC, but it runs fast.  And in a game as absurdly fast as this game is, that is a big problem.  The game is playable in NTSC... but only barely, you go so fast that the already insane amount of memorization this game requires is amped up significantly to near-impossible levels.  Micro Machines 2, and this MD-exclusive '96 version that is an enahnced sequel/expansion to it, is one of the fastest racing games around, and the MD version was designed for PAL.  When you play this game in both 50hz and 60, you can tell the difference; the controls feel better in 50hz, and the slightly slower scrolling gives you a shred of a chance in this game, once you spend hours memorizing everything and finishing in last three thousand times of course. ... Yeah, I got Micro Machines 2 for the PC back in the '90s, and had very mixed feelings for it, and this game is identical in that respect -- it's got fantastic graphics, great design, and an impressive feature set; it has a save chip in the cart for times and for its built-in track editor; and more.  But it's just SO FAST!  Every track requires crazy memorization to not finish last in, and it gets frustrating.  Micro Machines 1 is also a fast game, and you need to memorize a lot to finish it, but they incrased the speed significantly in the seuqel and I've always thought that it might have been too much.  Still, as a longtime fan of the franchise it is awesome to ahve this game and I'm thrllled to have this modded system that lets me play it right.  Oh, and my 4K TV can display PAL no problem.  My CRT is very unhappy with that signal and I won't be running anything in PAL on that screen!


Everything else I got are digital purchases.

So, since Sony is limiting access to the PS3 store and may be shutting down the web store entirely (it is currently hidden but actually still accessible with the right URL, but I don't know how lng that will last), I got a whole bunch of digital PS3/Vita games... or rather, mostly PS1 classics releases of previously Japan-only import titles, since that is most of what I bought.

PS3/PSP/Vita DD - PSone Classics - all games $6 each
--
Cho Aniki (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
The Firemen 2: Pete and Danny (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
GaiaSeed (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Lucifer Ring (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Mahjong Uranai Fortuna-Tsuki no Megami Tachi (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Oz no Mahoutsukai ~ANother World~ RUngRung (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Rapid Angel (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Wolf Fang (Japanese language but sold in the US store)

PS3 DD only - PSone Classics - all games $6 each
--
Makeruna Makendo 2 (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Zanac x Zanac (Japanese language but sold in the US store)
Lup Salad (Japanese language but sold in the US store)

Many of these games are totally unavailable on ebay thiese days or cost WAY more than this and many are pretty interesting, so this purchase was well worth it I think in most cases.

Additionally, I got some PS3/PSP/Vita games.

PS3 DD
--
Novastrike - $5
Nucleus - $10
PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap - $7
Hamsterball - $10
Anarchy: Rush Hour - $5
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars- $3

PSP DD (Vita compatible)
--
Sweet Fuse: at Your Side - $10

PS3/Vita DD (cross-buy)
--
MotorStorm RC "Complete Edition" - $10.  This is a pretty good RC car racing game with an overhead perspective.  With good, acccurate controls and good tracks and graphics it's one of the better RC car games I have played, I'd say.  Progress seems to eseamlessly carry over between the two versions too, which is neat.  There is only one negative, and that's that buying this game adds about SEVENTY FIVE things to your download list!  The game has 30-something pieces of car DLC plus a couple of expansion DLCs, and the game as you buy it now includes it all... but it won't auto-download it all since this is Sony.  Oh no.  You need to manually download all of this stuff, one file at a time.  What a pain!  Sony's OS is so bad... and worse once the old web store totally goes away and people have to scroll down their downlioad list 75 times to slooowly download all of the files, since after adding each file to your queue it dumps you back to the top of the list!  The actual game IS good and well worth playing, though.


I also got a couple other digital games on other platforms.

Endless Legend - Emperor Edition PC / Mac - DD 10/18/20 Steam Sale $7.50
RAD Xbox One, XONE - DD 10/18/20 On Sale $6.00
SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics PC / Mac / Linux - DD 10/18/20 Steam Sale $7.20
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III PC / Mac / Linux - DD 10/18/20 Steam Sale $4.00

While I was at it I also added all four of Sega's available-for-one-day-only cancelled game prototypes they listed on Steam on the 18th. I haven't played any of them yet but I will.

So what have I gotten in the last almost two weeks?  Well, for most of that, nothing.  I was waiting for the XWSX before I bought more stuff.

I did go out two days ago and get a few games at one local place, though.  I was lucky, three of these games cost more than this on ebay even loose as they were!  And one's a great game too.

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS         Cart Only    $7.00
Sonic Generations    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS        Cart Only    $7.00
Cubic Ninja    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS         Cart Only    $7.00
Puzzler World    Nintendo DS, NDS   Cart Only    $4.00
Apex    Xbox                            11/09/20        Complete    $5.00

Also, yesterday I got that XSX in the mail, as I detailed in another thread.  Read there for that.

So, I got two (digital) XSX games this week, and a few others that are enhanced.  Also I got a bunch of digital Nintendo stuff because I like to do that sometimes.

Xbox One / Xbox Series X (come with both,) - DD
--
The Falconeer - $30 - Visually this game looks amazing (it's all flat shaded polygons!), and I love the soundtrack too.  As for the gameplay, it's a flight combat game and seems fun.
Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate - $50 (on sale) - I have heard this is one of the best looking XSX games and the series is good, even if the controls are a bit more simmish than I'd really like, so I got it. Note that Forza Horizon 4 also comes with the PC Windows Store version of the game, as well as both Xbox versions.

(Again, the other XSX-enhanced game I have is Sea of Thieves.  Fortnite and Apex Legends are also enhanced, though I won't be playing those much.)

Xbox One - DD - Two X1X-enhanced games I have some interest in, even if I've never been a big series fan. (Yes, I have Rise on PC. I got this too.)
--
Rise of the Tomb Raider - $7.50 (on sale)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider - $15 (on sale)

This Nintendo stuff below I got monday but didn't fully list out until now.

Nintendo 3DS - DD
--
Puzzle Labyrinth - $2.50 (on sale)  This game is interesting and worth a look.

Nintendo Switch - DD
--
Adventures of Elena Temple, The: Definitive Edition    On Sale        $2.00
Breakpoint    On Sale      $3.50
Croc's World      On Sale        $2.00
Ghost Blade HD     On Sale        $6.00
Ghoulboy       On Sale        $1.00
Goblin Sword     On Sale        $2.00
Hole New World, A    On Sale        $1.00
Pankapu       On Sale        $3.00
Ultimate Racing 2D      On Sale        $3.00
Wulverblade       On Sale        $2.00

... So what have I been doing?  Buying way too many videogame things, of course.

Basically, my theme for my purchases has been "some stuff I actually want, some I don't know that I do and knowingly overpay for".  Because yeah, there were a lot of sales during Thanksgivingtime, and I... kind of got some stuff on sale but mostly not for anywhere near the best prices.  And I kind of bought a LOT.

So, let's start with the most expensive thing.  The week before Thanks giving, homebrew publisher Songbird had a little sale; $5 to $10 off some of their pretty expensive Lynx and Jaguar games.  Songbird's Jag library, and the Telegames Jag releases that they are the main US distributor for now, are things that have interested me a lot for quite some time, and I used this excuse to finally buy a bunch of stuff from them.

I made the order on the 18th and it was shipped immediately (nice!) and it arrived on the 21st.  The shipping was $8 total, which I added into the prices below.

Atari Jaguar (cart games say Jaguar, CD games Jaguar CD)
--
Protector SE    Atari Jaguar, JAG       comes with two Jag CD bonus discs - Jag-Ads and Duranik prototype demo    New    $92.00
Protector: Resurgence    Atari Jaguar CD, JCD      On Sale - $10 off; comes with overlays for four of Songbird's Jag games    New    $31.00 [This is an expansion disc for the cart-based main Protector game, with added levels and music and such.]
Skyhammer    Atari Jaguar, JAG      On Sale - $10 off    New    $81.00
Robinson's Requiem    Atari Jaguar CD, JCD    On Sale - $10 off    New    $51.00
World Tour Racing    Atari Jaguar CD, JCD       New    $71.00
Phase Zero Demo [Beta]    Atari Jaguar, JAG    On Sale - $5 off    New    $56.00
Hyper Force    Atari Jaguar, JAG   On Sale - $10 off    New    $71.00

Of these, Protector: Resurgence and its expansion disc are (Defender-inspired) homebrew titles released within the past decade, while the other games are titles from the Jaguar's original run that werem in most cases, functionally complete when cancelled because of the failure of the system.   The one unfinished game is Phase Zero, which is sold as a "demo" since only several levels of the game were actually finished, but the rest are done.  Skyhammer and World Tour Racing have been two of my most-wanted Jag games from long before I bought the cosnole, so I'm excited to have them.  And they are just as interesting as I thought; both are definitely good examples of what the hardware can, and can't, do well in terms of 3d graphics.  Skyhammer is one of the most visually impressive Jaguar games for sure.  The draw distance is short, but the fully textured 3d environment looks good for the time anyway.  As for World Tour Racing, its framerate is poor, the gameplay and handling model simple, and the total absence of any saving other than passwords for championship progress is really lame, but the core of a decent arcade-style racing game is here, so it's worth playing anyway.

Next, I did something pretty foolish by almost any standard.  I was in a store on Sunday the 22rd (I haven't done much of THAT this year, going into stores looking at games...), and after thinking about it for a while, bought something expensive that I could have gotten for a lot less on ebay.  Now, on ebay I'd have far less of a gaurantee that it's actually work, wouldn't have a good return policy like this did, probably wouldn't have the box with it, etc. , and these things were a definite factor in why I bought it.  And those ARE decent reasons, though I probably shouldn't have considering.  Oh well, I did and can't say I regret it from a functional perspective, it works great and I don't need to worry about it breaking in shipping or something.

Yes, I bought... a PlayStation 4 Pro, used and complete in box for $280.  It came with a black controller, and I bought a used gold PS4 controller for $40 a few days later which is the one I'm using.  Actually, I started planning to buy a PS4 at the beginning of the year, and when I bought this thing I already had nine PS4 games I'd bought earlier on this year.  I didn't list them because i didn't have the system yet.

The PS4 games I already had were (all purchased between like January and July of 2020)

Disc games
--
InFamous: Second Son - disc only, $2
Knack - $5, complete - I honestly want to play it, jokes aside.
Knack 2  - free in a B2G1, would have been $15, disc in generic case
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness - $15, disc in generic case
Wipeout: Omega Collection - free in a B2G1, would have been $15, complete - This may be a compilation but it's certainly the system's top must have game for me.

Downloads (DD)
--
Touhou Gensou Rondo: Bullet Ballet - $5, on sale (this is basically a take on Senko no Ronde.)
Arc of Alchemist - $10
Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood - on sale, $8
Brain in Retro Space with VS Mode - $6

And when I bought the system I also got a $2 disc only copy of MLB The Show 17.


Then next, I made a web order from Gamestop.  This was defiitely NOT their best sale of the Thanksgiving/Black Friday period, so pricewise I overpaid by quite a bit as the sale was 'buy 3 get 1 free' and not the 'buy 2 get 2 free' and '50% off if you buy 5+ games' things they'd do later (and indeed are still running), but on the other hand the results were amazing -- all but one of the eight games I ordered used came complete with their original cases!  That's incredibly rare from an online Gamestop order, so I don't regret buying this when I did at all, it turned out well with all those real cases.

Xbox One/ Xbox Series X
--
Gears 5 - New, $10 - I do not like this series gameplay-wise, but got this anyway because of everything I've heard about how this has some of the XSX's best graphics.  Well, on the positive side it DOES look incredible, but on the negative side it still plays like Gears.  Oh well.
The Surge 2 - free in a B3G1, would be $8, complete

PS4
--
Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition - $9, complete.  There is a PC port of this game but it sounds pretty shoddy technically.
Bloodborne - $9, complete
MediEvil (2019) - $9, complete
Gran Turismo Sport - free in a B3G1, would be $9, complete
Sakura Wars (2020) - $30, new
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - $30, new - I have heard a lot of good things about this game, it's a PS4 exclusive that made me want the console.
Nioh 2 - $9, complete.  This game will be coming to other platforms next year, but this is cheaper now than that will be.

Wii U
--
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! - disc in generic case, free in B3G1 (would have been $5)

Then on the 27th, I bought some digital stuff from Nintendo's stores.

3DS DD
--
Picross e - $3
Picross e2 - $3
Picross e3 - $3
Picross e4 - $3
Picross e5 - $3
Sanrio characters Picross - $4

All of these were 50% off, and I bought them to almost complete my 3DS Picross collection -- the only one I don't have now is the Pokemon one, which was not on sale.  This is a purchase I very much will be using, and am -- I'm working on Picross e(1) now, I'll never get tired of Picross but post-3DS probably will play it a lot less since the Switch games control so much worse -- a reactive stylus is perfect for these games, way better than stupid awful finger touch is!  Idon't own any of the Switch ones and don't want them so long as a better alternative exists.

Also that day, an order arrived from Best Buy; I also did a digital order there for a few games.  Well, two of the games arrived that day and the other two two days later, but close enough.  All four are new.

PS4
--
Final Fantasy 7 Remake - $29
Persona 5 Royal - $20

Switch
--
Trials of Mana - $20

Xbox One/XSX
--
Borderlands 3 - $10 - Gotten in part because it is XSX enhanced and I have found these games amusing in the past.

Then on the 30th, I bought a bunch more digital Switch games.

Switch DD
--
Johnny Turbo's Arcade: Two Crude [Dudes] - $4
Next Penelope, The - free promotion
ACA NeoGeo: Ghost Pilots - $4
Coffee Crisis - free promotion
Doom 64 - $2
Doom II Classic Complete - $2
Doom Classic Complete - Ultimate Doom, The - $2
ACA NeoGeo: Aero Fighters 3 - $4
Caligula Effect, The: Overload - $20
Panzer Dragoon (Remake) - $13

I was also thinking about getting some stuff on Steam, but ended up not doing so.  I'll buy there next sale.

So in this episode of "what dumb stuff did ABF buy now" we have... a variety of stuff, some of which is interesting and some of which is very much not but I got anyway for completion's sake and such.

First though, some digital games I bought back in mid November but forgot to list in my last post for some reason.  I got a few Nintendo DD games and a bunch for the Xbox (One / Series).

Wii U DD - eshop.  I got these on November 19th.
--
Shadow Archery -  $1 - This 2018 release is basically a remake of the game below, but from a behind-the-character viewpoint now and with Gamepad-based touch shooting controls.  So yeah, instead of playing NES-style like their other games, you use the stylus to kill the monsters.  It's simple but fun enough for the price.  And it makes use of the Wii U gamepad reasonably well too.
Shadow Archer - $3 - I find Ultra Dolphin Revolution's Wii U games fun.  They all are Wii U exclusives with NES-style graphics and decently fun simple gameplay.  This one is an overhead shooter in a single area, you're an elf and kill monsters.  It's from 2016.  It's not their best game but is alright.
Jones on Fire - $2, on sale
Cubemen 2 - $2, on sale

Nintendo 3DS eshop - DD - got Nov. 29, the  day before all those digital Switch games I listed in my previous post.  Yeah, I left a bunch of stuff out there.
--
The Queen TV-Game 2 - $0.02.  Yes, this game costs two cents, and it's not on sale, that's regular price.  Oh, and it's a new release. I was intrigued and it turns out that it is a pretty simple 'avoid the objects' game with some weird story and presentation stuff going on.  The controls aren't the best and the game is insanely hard, but for the price I am certainly not complaining.

Xbox One - DD. I got these on November 24th.
--
Hotshot Racing - $13.39, on sale.  This racing game is from Sumo Digital, who have done a lot of work on racing games for Sega but went off on their own for this one.  It is a very Sega-inspired game, but is original.  The game is VERY Virtua Racing-inspired visually, but original.  The game looks great on the XSX -- this game is Xbox One X enhanced and runs at 4k60 very nicely.  A 120fps patch would be awesome for the XSX, but as is it looks good.  As for the gameplay, well this game does not match up to the Sega classics it emulates, but it is a fun, simple arcade-style racer, something normal back in the '90s but rare today.  Definitely get it if you like that kind of game but want one with nice new graphics.

Rare Replay - $7.50, on sale.  I have this on disc but wanted a digital copy because having to put the disc in just to boot the digital-copy of games like the X1 ports of the X360 versions of the Banjo and Perfect Dark was really annoying.

Battletoads (2020) - $10.  I've heard mixed things about this game, but decided to get it anyway.

Additionally, the DOA6 season passes were on sale at a whole 15% off, so I... spent a whole bunch of money buying two of them.  Uh, at least it's money spent on a game I do actually play... and I do, DOA6 is probably my second most played game this year after Mario Maker 2.

Xbox One / Xbox Series X (XSX enhanced) - Also from Nov. 24th.
--
Halo: The Master Chief Collection - $26  I thought about buying this physical, but I believe that only the digital copy comes with Halo Reach and Halo ODST... and I am not a Halo fan of course, but that they added 120fps multiplayer modes to the games is pretty interesting, I want to see that -- this TV has 120fps support.


Now for stuff from this month, I made a second order from Gamestop during their '50% off if you buy at least 5 games' sale, and this is what I got.  Uh, some of these... yeah.  Not exactly games I'm going to play anytime soon.  Others I will.

As you will see I got crazy lucky yet again with these, they're almost all complete with the original cases!  I definitely wasn't expecting that, nice.

Xbox One
--
ReCore - $2.50, complete.  This is a good game and I wanted to have the disc.
Halo 5: Guardians - $7.50, complete
Dishonored 2 - $7.50, disc in generic case.  The only not original case.  Oh well...
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider -$7.50, complete
Mass Effect: Andromeda - $2.50, complete (and sealed!)  (The rest of this order arrived days ago, but this game only arrived today so I waited until it was all here before posting it here.)

Playstation 4
--
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - $7.50, complete

Wii U
--
Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed - $7.50, complete - Yes, I have this on multiple other platforms (PC, X360, 3DS), but I got this one also anyway because I wanted to have the Nintendo console version. It's nice to see it with the real case.  This is a very good kart racer, one of the better ones around.


And lastly, I was in a store today looking for games and some gifts, and ended up spending more on myself, though I did get a few gifts as well.   I got these games.

Pipe Dream - NES - $5, cart only
Pac-in-Time - $13 - SNES - cart only
Ratchet & Clank (2016) - $14 - PS4 - complete
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin - Divine Edition - $57, new.  This was a nice find because this game is a hit and has quickly become hard to find online, it's sold out almost everywhere.  I know eventually they will print more copies and the value will likely drop, but right now this sells for well over this price.  The game looks good and I'm quite interested in playing it, too.  (There is also a much easier to find PS4 version, but I'd rather have it for Switch.  They did have both.)

So I didn't buy many games in the week after my last post in this thread, but I did in the week after that, I just never quite got around to updating this thread about it.  I'm finally making up for that here.

First is a game I bought a few months ago.  It's a new release, a homebrew Game Boy/GB Color game that isn't actually new but is new on this physical-box form.  This game is a homebrew Game Boy take on Rare's classic Jetpak, and it's pretty good.  This wasn't cheap but is a good game with a nice box and was well worth getting; I like Jetpak a lot.

Super Jetpak DX [PD Homebrew]    Game Boy/GB Color Dual Mode                            12/23/20    online order from the developer's site    Complete    $60.00

Next, these three were a bundle on ebay.  They're all pretty cool games to have that I was definitely considering getting on their own.

Cannon Fodder    Atari Jaguar, JAG                            12/28/20        Complete    $107.99 for a 3-game lot
Flip Out    Atari Jaguar, JAG                            12/28/20        Complete    $107.99 for a 3-game lot
Impulse X & Double Feature [PD Homebrew]    Atari Jaguar, JAG                            12/28/20        Complete    $107.99 for a 3-game lot

Then I bought a bunch of digital Switch games that were on sale around the holidays.

Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $9.00
Dustoff Heli Rescue 2    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $2.00
Farabel    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $0.20
Food Truck Tycoon - Asian Cuisine    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            Free (limited time offer)
Girabox    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $1.00
Klondike Solitaire    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            Free (limited time offer)
OTTTD: Over The Top Tower Defense    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $0.50
Skull Rogue    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $0.20
Windjammers    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/30/20            $6.00

I got one digital 3DS game here as well.

Snow Moto Racing 3D    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            12/31/20    On Sale        $2.00

Then I got more digital PC games from the Steam sale.

Assault Suit Leynos    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $3.99
Cliff Hanger    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $0.99
Little Witch Nobeta    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $8.99
M„rchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $2.29
MELTY BLOOD Actress Again Current Code    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $3.74
Mugen Souls    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $3.99
Steep - X-Games Pass    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $2.99
Thumper    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $3.99
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus [in Wolfenstein Alt History Collection]    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $17.97 for three games
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood [in Wolfenstein Alt History Collection]    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $17.97 for three games
Wolfenstein: Youngblood [in Wolfenstein Alt History Collection]    PC - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $17.97 for three games
Cold Vengeance    PC / Mac - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $1.99
Ninja Outbreak    PC / Mac - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $1.99
Rising Dusk    PC / Mac - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $5.24
Besiege    PC / Mac / Linux - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $5.99
Cosmic Express    PC / Mac / Linux - DD                            12/31/20    Steam Sale        $1.49

Then I got a couple more games from ebay, for the... Master System, yes.  I am really happy to have R-Type for the SMS; sure, I have better versions of the game, but this is a great version of this all-time classic and it's a lot of fun to play through.  And yes I have been playing it.  It's running right now in fact.

Lord of the Sword    Master System, SMS                            01/02/21        Complete
R-Type    Master System, SMS                            01/02/21        Complete

I got a couple of on sale Wii U digital titles as well.

Bridge Constructor Playground    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            01/03/21    On Sale        $5.00
Lovely Planet    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            01/03/21    On Sale        $2.50

I was thinking about whether to get more on sale digital Steam PC games, just before the holiday sale ended... and did.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition    PC - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
Death Crown Complete Edition    PC - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
Fall Guys    PC - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
Pacer    PC - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
Heroes of Hammerwatch    PC / Linux - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
Hexologic    PC / Linux - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
Hatoful Boyfriend    PC / Mac / Linux - DD                            01/05/21    Steam Sale
BallisticNG  (DLC)    PC / Mac / Linux - DD (DLC)                            01/05/21    Steam Sale

And lastly, I got some stuff that is kind of dumb but I bought anyway.

Myst    Atari Jaguar CD, JCD                            01/07/21        Sealed    $40.00
Earth Defense [Unlicensed]    Genesis, Gen                            01/07/21        Sealed    $20.00
New unfolded box for Iron Soldier - $15
New unfolded box for Cybermorph - $20

... Yes, I bought boxes for my cart-only Jaguar games.  I don't collect 'with the box' for any other system, why am I doing that for the Jag... but they look nice (I did fold them and added them to my Jag box pile) so I don't regret it...

Have I got much this month?  Not really, but there are a few things I should mention.

Wii U - DD
--
Seasonal Assistant - $4.  This is a new release from Ultra Dolphin Revolution, a team which has made a bunch of mostlyh good NES-style digital Wii U games.  It's too bad they aren't also on Switch, but this third game in the Assistant series is about as good as the first two.  It's a fun, though simple, topdown action game.

Additionaly, I ordered a few things for delivery.  Two are here so far.

So to save myself from the horrible first world problem of having to switch from one set of cables in my retrotink to another to go between my s-video or below systems to my component video systems, I... got another retrotink.  I got the cheaper one this time though, the composite/s-video-only one for "only" $89 shipped.  So, s-video or below on that one, component on the one I got last year.  (As I have for a while I was thinking of getting an OSSC, but even with the much higher price, at this point waiting for the OSSC Pro probably makes more sense in that respect.).  This arrived today and I set it up and it works so that's great.  Finally, once again I can play everything on my HDTV without having to switch cables, like it used to be before I started the 'let's upgrade some systems to RGB' thing!

Also, I ordered an adapter for the Jaguar that allows you to use SNES A/V cables on it and it arrived a few days ago.  These are a fairly recent release and are welcome to see. I got it to be able to use RGB on the Jag -- it has RGB, but natively only via SCART and I don't have a scart setup.  So, this adapter plus my snes HD Retrovision cable gets me there.  For now I'll probably just switch cords between the two systems depending on which one I'm using, they are next to eachother now (I moved a few systems around late last year and did that).  It's awesome that Jag to SNES adapters are finally cheap ($31 shipped) and easy to buy (from a site called Helder Game Tech), I've been wanting an RGB solution for this thing for a while but the only other adapters were some a guy made in VERY limited quantities, and otherwise it's "use RGB or SCART" and getting THAT setup would not be worth it for my current setup.
Tempest 2000 looks absolutely incredible in rgb. For other games though, it looks insanely sharp but many show off the issues of using rgb for games developed on rf or composite -- every pixel standing out so sharply sometimes looks like a mess sometimes in games with 2d pixel art and such.

T2K though... wow. The sharpness makes that game look even more amazing.[dir=ltr] [/dir]

I want to see what the OSSC Pro has to offer first.

If the OSSC Pro doesn't have S-Video and composite, instead of a Retrotink I may get this:
https://videogameperfection.com/products...ranscoder/

Both the OSSC Pro and a higher resolution output Retrotink should be relasing later this year.  I will be interested in seeing how they end up for sure.  The OSSC Pro by reports may be twice the price of the original OSSC, which costs more tahan a Retrotink 2X Pro, so it'll be expensive, but if it's fully featured and has built in composite and s-video support it could be great.  I know I have two retrotinks already, but I could see also getting an OSSC Pro if it does things i can't currently; I don't have a TV VGA solution if I wanted to get that out of something, for instance.

If they still require a converter like the Koryuu despite the price hike, well that would be unfortunate.


Anyway, I have three packages on order, but they're all taking a while.  And that brings me to the worst thing about Biden's presidency so far, that he hasn't gotten rid of USPS head DeJoy.  I know he can't directly fire him, but he can appoint new people to the postal board of governrors who could replace DeJoy, and he badly needs to because the guy continues slowing down the mail to unacceptable degrees.  I'm sure Biden will get to this eventually, but it is a bit annoying.  Mail is slower now, within the US, than it was a year ago!   Come on.  Like, I'm not really annoyued that one of these packages is late now; whatever, things happen.  It'll get here. But when you consider that DeJoy also tried to sabotage mailed ballots in November?  Yeah, he's got to go, now.

Anyway, I do have one more package that did arrive to discuss, and that's a homebrew game from Europe for the NES.  This is my first physical-cart NES homebrew.

NES
--
Micro Mages - complete, $68 inlcuding shipping.  This was expensive because you have to buy it from a web tore in France, and the Euro conversion and shipping combined add up.  The game's pretty good though, so I'm satisfied! Micro Mages is something I first noticed when it had a kicksterter, and while I didn't backiit then it turned out well by all accounts, so I decided to finally get around to buying a copy.  The developer's goal was to make a new NES game in only 40KB, the size of SUper Mario Bros., but using all the modern tricks.  And they succeeded; they made a sizable, fun, very good controlling NES action-platformer with four player co-op multiplayer, in only 40KB!  This game has tiny little sprites, as per the title, buit good animation, great controls, and good gameplay.  This is a somewhat intense vertically-scrolling platformer.  Levels autoscroll and if you touch the bottom of the screen you die, so you've got to keep moving, fight the enemies, and make your way up.  This is a NES game, but the controls feel really good, much better than many games on the system.  You've got a bunch of moves too, including a wall jump.  So yeah, this game's very good as far as I've gotten, which is through the first two levels, and I certainly recommend it.  Oh -- the game has three levels in each world, and it has limited lives and a password system.  Passwords only start you from the beginning of the world though, so if you get game over at a boss you're going back to the first level of that world.  It's a good system that works, for a classic feel but not the degree of "NES Hard" of a lot of games on the system; password save was rare in NES games like this, unfortunately.  (Yes, a flash save chip setup would have bnen nice, but that'd cost a lot more so oh well, the passwords are short and easy enough to enter.)

Also I got a couple of games locally a few days ago.

PlayStation 4
--
Dreams - new, $19 - I do not like the way Media Molecule games control at all, but I've wanted to try this despite that.
Dragon's Crown Pro - $14, used.  This is the steelbook Battle Hardened Edition, but is missing the cards it originally came with.  The case and voer are intact and nice though.  I have this game on PS3 but decided to get this port anyway.

Atari 2600
--
Brain Games - $2, cart only - an edutainment game thjat requires the Keyboard Controller (which is actually a keypad, but anyway.).

So what have I gotten since my last post in this thread?  Quite a lot.

Most importantly, those other orders I mentioned finally arrived.  They arrived within days of eachother, but I did NOT buy all of this expensive stuff in the same month -- the Goat Store order (below) I ordered back in January, it just took a while to arrive.

The other order is from February.  I finally went for it and, for $470, bought a 4TB SSD (a Samsung 870 Evo) and case for it (Startech.com case, $30) to add a fast external SSD to my Xbox Series X.  It's ... yes, it was just as expensive as the console, but the speed improvement for BC games and Xbox S|X games that run on external drives is massive.  If you can afford it it's worth it, I think.

And now on to the games.

First, some digital Nintendo platform games, mostly from Switch eshop sales.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle Special Edition [game + all DLC bundle] Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 02/18/21 On Sale $26.00
Double Dragon 4 Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 02/18/21 On Sale $3.50
Micro Pico Racers Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 02/18/21 On Sale $2.25
Moero Chronicle Hyper Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 02/18/21 On Sale $8.00
Reknum Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) 02/18/21 $2.00

Pocky & Rocky with Becky [Virtual Console - GBA] Wii U - DD (eShop) Natsume Action (Topdown) 02/18/21 $7.00

Next, this is that Goat Store order I mentioned.  The Goat Store is a webstore that sells games.  The order took a while to arrive, and they kind of couldn't find three of the games (so I got a refund for those purchase prices), but otherwise I was quite satisfied, I'll buy there again.  The condition listings on their website are quite conservative, things all came in good condition I would say!  This stuff all finally arrived on 2/24, almost a month after the order.

Baldies Atari Jaguar CD, JCD New $40.00Battlemorph Atari Jaguar CD, JCD New $50.00
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom Colecovision, CVIS Cart Only $10.00
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom Atari 5200, 5200 Cart Only $12.00
Escape from Monster Manor 3DO Electronic Arts Complete $25.00
Invaders from Hyperspace! Odyssey2 - Cart Only, Free (seller couldn't find box and manual so ... they sent me the cart free? huh!)
Rush Rush Rally Reloaded Dreamcast, DC$32.00
Super F1 Circus Limited Super NES Cart Only $3.00Vanguard Atari 5200, 5200 Complete, $15.00
Volleyball! Odyssey2 Cart Only Free (seller couldn't find box and manual so ... they sent me the cart free? huh!)
White Men Can't Jump (Bundle With Team Tap) Atari Jaguar New, $30.00


Next there are a couple of digital Xbox games I've gotten in the last month or two I should list.

Blizzard Classic Arcade Collection - Xbox One - DD - 02/24/21, $20.00.  I got this new because it's a quite impressive collection, sure the three games we've all seen before - it's Blizzard's three games they always re-release with none of the less common ones - but it contains multiple versions!  You get the SNES and Genesis/32X versions of all three titles, plus also new redone versions that have new features.  Really cool stuff.  Plus there's a bunch of historical documentation stuff as well.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light Ultimate Edition Xbox Series X|S / Xbox One - DD  - got this back in January for $53, on sale.  I probably shouldn't have but decided to anyway.


And last, the physical games I've gotten over the past few weeks.  The first is from ebay but the rest I got locally.

Invaders from Hyperspace! - Odyssey 2 02/24/21, from ebay, Complete, for like $8.  I got this in addition to the goat store one because I really prefer to have the cases for the O2, they have some of the best boxart ever.  This game's cheap and well worth also getting.

Canyon Bomber Atari 2600 02/25/21 Cart Only $2.00
ChuChu Rocket Game Boy Advance 02/25/21 Cart Only $6.00
Fire Blade GameCube 02/25/21 Complete $10.00
Garfield: Lasagna World Tour PlayStation 2 02/25/21 Complete $10.00
Krazy Ivan PlayStation 02/25/21 Complete $20.00
Shanghai True Valor PlayStation 02/25/21 Complete $5.00
Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! Game Boy 02/25/21 Complete $40.00
Worms Armageddon Dreamcast 02/25/21 Complete $15.00
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete PlayStation 03/04/21 Jewelcase and Discs Only $65.00
The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadians GameCube 03/04/21 Complete $3

Gah, I got lazy again and stopped posting in this thread.

... I did not, however, stop buying gaming stuff.  Not in the least.  I spent a pretty crazy amount last month in fact.  Probably like $800 at least.  I got a few games for consoles, most notably some Switch stuff, but the bulk of it was a whole bunch of software and hardware for three old 8-bit computers, the TI 99/4A, Commodore 64, and Commodore VIC-20. 

First though, the console games I recieved back on March 11th.  This was a web order from Gamestop; they were having a sale and I wanted to get a certain Switch game we have talked about...

Nintendo Switch
--
Super Mario 3D Allstars - $60, new
Luigi's Mansion 3 - $18.50, complete
Super Mario 3D World Plus Boswer's Fury - $60, new

Xbox One / Series X
--
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order - $25, complete
Immortal Fenyx Rising - $25, complete (XSX enhanced)
Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning - $15, complete


After that my 8-bit computer buying spree began.  I started by getting a VIC-20.  Now, I already have one with one game, but it doesn't work and never  did so I haven't mentioned it before.  The one I got was pricey but came with some pretty nice rare games so I hoped it actually worked and bought it.  It was $180 for a working VIC-20, untested (ie probably broken) VIC/C64 tape drive clone, a broken Commodore printer, and four games on tape, all complete.  Two of those games are pretty uncommon; one isn't available on ebay at all right now, and the other costs $150 in buy it nows.  I'm sure it'd sell for less in an auction but those two are rare.  And those are why I don't really regret this purchase.

Because, the computer worked... for half an hour.  Then, a while after I plugged that printer and tape drive in the screen when black and it hasn't worked again.  I don't think I will try that printer again, maybe something's wrong with it. I t's pretty much useless anyway even if it DID work.

Despite this I buought a whole bunch of VIC-20 software, knowing that I would have to soon solve the problem of not having a working computer.  And I did.  First though, games.  I started with VIC-20 games, but then also bought some Commodore 64 games for my C128D I got last year because I have few legit games for that system, and finished off by buying a whole bunch of stuff for the TI 99/4A because that is a pretty interesting computer.  I also repaired my TI99 by replacing a failed chip and keyboard, but I will get to that later.  It should be fully working now, though, which is pretty awesome; I've never had a TI99 before that works as well as this one does now!

To spoil the ending though, I do now have a working VIC20.  I do not have a working cassette drive for it yet, howver; I have one on order but it hasn't arrived yet.  So, I haven't been able to play the cassette games below for the VIC-20 and C64.  I can play the TI99 tape games I got though, and have trid some of them.

These first four VIC-20 games are the ones that came with the computer that broke immediately.  Galactic Defender and Search & Destroy are the rare ones.

Muncher    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/19/21        Complete (Cassette Game)    $180 for the system+games bundle
Swarm!    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/19/21        Complete? (Cassette in case)    $180 for the system+games bundle
Search & Destroy    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/19/21        Complete (Cassette Game)    $180 for the system+games bundle
Galactic Defender    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/19/21        Complete (Cassette Game)    $180 for the system+games bundle

Additionally, the VIC-20 game I already owned from several years ago is Clowns. I got it complete basically for free with other purchases.  It requires paddle controllers.

Then I bought about a dozen more VIC-20 games from ebay over the next week or so, some solo and some in lots.

Gridder    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/22/21        Complete (Cassette Game)    $24.00
Gorf    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/22/21        Cart Only    $10.00 (not the greatest port of this arcade classic, but decent.)
Omega Race    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/23/21        Cart Only    $40.76 for five VIC-20 games (a good version of this game, though not a match for the Colecovision version.)
Road Race    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/23/21        Cart Only    $40.76 for five VIC-20 games
Raid on Fort Knox    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/23/21        Cart Only    $40.76 for five VIC-20 games
Sky is Falling, The    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/23/21        Cart Only    $40.76 for five VIC-20 games (this game requires paddle controllers.)
Avenger (VIC-20)    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/23/21        Cart Only    $40.76 for five VIC-20 games           03/25/21            $6.00
Amok    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/29/21        Complete (Cartridge Game)    $22.00 (a Berzerk-style game)
Pinball    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/29/21        Complete (Cartridge Game)    $38 for 3 complete VIC-20 games (this game requires paddle controllers.)
Super Alien    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/29/21        Complete (Cartridge Game)    $38 for 3 complete VIC-20 games (this is a port/clone of Heiankyo Alien.)
Radar Ratrace    Commodore VIC-20, VIC                            03/29/21        Complete (Cartridge Game)    $38 for 3 complete VIC-20 games (this is a clone of Namco's arcade game Rally-X.)

Then,  in the 8-bit computer mood, I decided to get my poor TI99 working. See, its video chip had been failing for a few years, but sometime in 2020 it died entirely, the system wouldn't turn on at all anymore.  I had bought a replacement chip but was too scared to take the thing apart.  I decided to finally try, and shockingly, after getting it apart and back together... it worked great!  I actually fixed it!    Amazing.  Now, it helped that the video chip is socketed so I didn't need to desolder a chip from the board, but still it was a bit tricky, the chip did not want to fit inot the socket.  After getting it back together it worked!  I was pleasantly surprised.  However, I found that half of the keyboard keys were dead. I thought it had had a working keyboard before so maybe something wasn't plugged in right.  Instead of just using that keyboard though, I decided to look at an untouched TI99 keyboard I had in a bag in my closet, from when I'd gotten a cheap bunch of TI99 carts locally backwhen I bought my first one of these computers in the early/mid '10s.  After looking at that keyboard I saw it said Alps on it, which made me want to try that keyboard -- Alps is known to make the best TI99 keyboards.  The other keyboard was a Stackpole keyboardm not the worst brand for TI99 keyboards but not Alps quality.  After plugging in the Alps keyboard and turning the thing on again... it works perfectly!  Sitting in a plastic bag in a store and then my closet didn't kill this keyboard, amazingly enough.  Every single key works perfectly.  That's just awesome, I've never had a fully working no issues TI99 keyboard before.  .. .well, I apparently did, I just didn't realize it... heh.

So with that success I bought some TI99 games.  Now, I bought a TI99 tape cable last year, I just hadn't used it much.  Now I have used it more.  The TI99 doesn't use a custom tape player for software, you can use any compatible recorder.  I have one that works well, though I also got a TI Program Recorder (for under $20) that weirdly enough works less well.  Heh. It's fine though, it's useful to have.

For $155, I got a 12-game bundle of the first twelve adventture games on the TI99 in the Scott Adams Adventure series., all 'complete' with their manuals.  TI99 software didn't have custom boxes, just a generic box with the manual in front, so media+manual basically is complete.  Scott Adams was the first popular text adventure game maker and made a bunch of them in computer gaming's early yuears. This bundle was expensive, but far far cheaper than buying these games by themselves! FAR cheaper.  And it's pretty cool to have almost all of them.  11 of the games are on cassette, and one is on cartridge.

Strange Odyssey    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Mystery Fun House    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Savage Island Series    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Mission Impossible    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Voodoo Castle    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Adventureland    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Adventure (w/ Pirate Adventure cassette)    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cartridge and Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Return to Pirate's Isle    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cart and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Ghost Town    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
Pyramid of Doom    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
The Count    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle
The Golden Voyage   TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cassette in Case and Manual    $155 for the 12-game Scott Adams Adventure bundle

I got a few more TI99 games from other sellers as well.  Tunnels of Doom  with the cassette was a must;  this early RPG is quite fascinating.  I had the bootup cart but not the cassette and I wanted a real one, not a copy.  It's a pretty cool game I will have more to say on at some point for sure.  I've been playing some of it, it's a simple first person dungeon crawler with strategic combat on a separate battle screen (apparently for the first time ever in an RPG) and a full ingame map  (amazing!).  So yeah, it's 100% playable and fun, lots of slow loading times aside.  I am quite impressed.

Tunnels of Doom (w/cassette)    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cart, Cassette in Case, and Manual    $30.00

Munchmobile    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cart and Manual    $17.00 (this thoroughly mediocre title is, oddly enough, based on a SNK arcade game.)
Moon Mine    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cart and Manual    $17.00 (this tunnel shooting game makes great use of the TI99 Speech Synthesizer, which I have, and has nice graphics for the system as well.)
Rabbit Trail    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cart Only    $40.00 (a Donkey Kong-inspired title.)
Shamus    TI-99/4A                            03/29/21        Cart Only    $30.00 (perhaps not the best version of this multiplatform classic, but it's a solid one.)

These two games I bought individually from ebay.  For the first it looked interesting and I wanted an American C64 game on cassette, for once I get that working tape drive.  These are rare, in the US almost all C64 owners bought a floppy drive immediately.  In Europe cassettes were the primary format into the early '90s, but that was definitely not true here.  Only '70s and early '80s computers and earlier such as the VIC-20 or TI99 had software on cassette here.  And for the second, Hardball 3 for PC/Genesis is one of my favorite sports gamse ever and I always have wanted to get the original.  I know it's not as good but it's a fascinating one to look at regardless.

Pharaoh's Curse, The    Commodore 64, C64                            03/30/21        Cassette in Case Only    $9.50
Hardball    Commodore 64, C64                            03/30/21        Complete (Disk Game)    $24.00

This was a 10-title PC and C64 game lot from ebay.  All games are complete in box.  I was particularly interested by the Adventure Pak, Sky Shark, Grand Slam Baseball, and Command HQ.

Superstar Indoor Sports    PC                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Grand Slam Baseball: Steve Garvey vs. Jose Canseco    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Silent Service    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Sky Shark    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Adventure Pak    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Stock Market: The Game    PC                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Decisive Battles of the American Civil War, Volume II    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Superstar Indoor Sports    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Arkanoid II: Return of Doh    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Command H.Q.    PC                            03/31/21        Sealed    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle
Arcade Games I    Commodore 64, C64                            03/31/21        Complete    $78 for 10 PC/C64 game bundle

Then, on 4/1, my third and hopefully final ViC-20 arrived.  It is from ebay, but this time I bought the first model of the computer instead of the second, because the original model has a MUCH more reliable power supply -- the model 2 VIC-20 power supplies are, like C64 power supplies, infamous for failing and kiling computers when they go down.   (This is one reason why I got a Commodore 128D instead of a 64, as I know I mentioned last year.)  I really should have bought one of the first model systems all along, but that software bundle with the second one got me to buy it.  It may have been worth it for that, but for the actual machine this is much better because it aactually works right.  The computer was $100 with no power supply, and I got an early, metal case VIC-20 power supply for $45.  Both work perfectly with no issues.  The case on this VIC-20 is very, VERY yellow on the top half, though.  I think I'll swap the top halves of the shell with the nice white one from that other VIC-20.  It won't match labelling wise because they changed the labels from the early model to the later one, but I'd much rather have the white plastic than the yellowed mess this one has.  SO yeah, there's another use of that other VIC-20.  (The third broken VIC-20 that I got a few years ago wouldn't be nearly as nice of an option as a case donor, its case isn't as white as the second one and is all nicked and hacked into with damage marks.)

Then I got a few more things for the TI99.

Super Demon Attack    TI-99/4A                            04/02/21        Cart Only    $10.00 - This is a graphically enhanced TI99 exclusive version of the Imagic classic.

Lastly for the 8-bit computers, I ordered a few games from one of the main TI99/4A hobbist websites (not ebay).  I got, for $8 each, three cassettes with a bunch of interesting homebrew stuff on them -- one Adventure modules, one Tunnels of Doom mods, and one a couple of games for TI Basic.  These I can use and work just fine.  I know you could make tapes like this yourself but this was easier and got reliable copies.  Additonally though, for $60, I got a brand new game for the TI99/4A.  That is the one I will list below.  The game below arrived on 4/5, and the three cassettes several days later.

TI99/4A
--
Realms of Antiquity: The Shattered Crown - $60, new. I got one of the last two physical copies of this now sold out title.  It is still available for digital download for TI99/4A (if you have a drive emulator to run it on real hardware with) and also on PC on Steam however, which is nice.   I hadn't really been following this project, but when I realized a few copies were still available I bought one of them.  This game is a classic 8-bit computer RPG style overhead RPG for the TI99 made over the course of more than a decade by a guy who made the whole game himself.  The game is quite ambitious, though it has limitations -- the view window is small so you can't see too many tiles around your character, and there isn't an ingame map.  This physical box version helps out with things such as a printed map of the world, though.  It also has the game on discs, though I can't actually run it on my TI99 -- the game requires an aftermarket 1 MB RAM expansion and also either a peripheral expansion box with two floppy disk drives or a disk drive emulator to run on real hardware, and though I will get things to be able to run this on real hardware eventually, I have not done so yet; the PEBs are expensive and huge, and the best kind of drive emulator (one which has a built in 1MB RAM expansion) is sold out at the moment.  The purchase also came with a digital copy though so that's fine for now.

As for console games after that Gamestop order, I only got one more in March.  Before its delisting, on March 24th I got ...

Switch DD
--
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light (NES Virtual Console)    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)  - $6


And lastly, a few days ago (April 5th) I got a few more console games, some locally and some from ebay.

PS2
--
Romancing SaGa - $20

PS4
--
Gravity Rush 2 - $21, complete
The Last Guardian - $14, complete - yup, finally I have it.
Metal Max Xeno - $7, complete (oddly this is a European copy of the game.  A strange find in a local shop, given this game did get a US release too...)

And lastly, this arrived from ebay also on April 5th.

Atari 5200
--
Space Dungeon - $18, complete and unopened.  This game came in a large box with the game, manual, and a plastic controller holder that holds two controllers stably in place.  This is needed because the game is a twin-stick shooter which you control with the sticks from two controllers, and using two controllers is quite uncomfortable if you're just trying to hold them both. Atari thought of that and released this accessory for the 5200's two twinstick games, which are this game and Robotron.  Now, this game usually sells for a LOT more than this, like $50 to $100 in fact.    Why did this complete and sealed copy go for so cheap in an Ebay auction?  Well, there was a giant hole on the top of the box.  Obviously something had chewed through the box at some point and gotten inside, but the owner didn't open it to see.  Probably cautious because of the oobvious damage people didn't bid much, so my bid won for a surprisingly low price.  I wasn't sure waht I would get, but after opening it (and I oipened this one quickly) I found...just a few little old and long-dead maggotlike bugs, nothing alarming.  People should have bid higher for this one, the contents of the box alone are worth way more than I paid!  Everything inside was in very good condition except for some damage to the bottom of the box from the bugs, and I cleaned that up. The cart, controller holder, and manual are new and unused.  (I did have to toss out the bag the controller holder came in, but oh well.)

As for the game, this game is fantastic!  Space Dungeon almost immediately has jumped into my 5200 top three.  I've ordered a second 5200-compatible DB15 joystick extension cable so that I can use two controllers more comfortably from my chairs since I only had one, but this game is fantastic and incredibly addictive.  This game is really good and I'll be playing a lot of it.  It was apparently a Taito arcade game originally, though this is one of its very few home ports.

I don't have Robotron for the 5200, only the 7800, and that verison is not good to control because there isn't a 7800 controller holder and using two of those controllers at once is pretty uncomfrotable.  I definitely need a cart copy of 5200 Robotron now.


I think I will be buying less for a while. :p

Space Dungeon is amazing and probably my favorite game that I have bought in the last few months.

Quote:I think I will be buying less for a while. :p

Why do I say things like this, all it does is prove I sometimes say very dumb things that I know aren't going to happen. :p

On the one hand, games-wise I somewhat kept to that. I have bought games over the past almost-a-month, but not THAT many.
I just... also bought ANOTHER expensive old computer platform... but uh more on that later.

Games first.

These four I bought locally a couple of weeks ago, on April 22nd.  They're a mixed bag to be sure.  Rival Turf's a decent beat 'em up; I've had the last game in this 'series' from Jaleco for a long time, The Peace Keepers.  This one isn't as good as that game but it's alright.  Bloody Roar I have always disliked but those games' prices have gone way up so this actually was a decent price.  And anyway I've never played the PS1 Bloody Roar games, I mostly dislike the series from its GC/PS2 games.  I can't imagine these are any better but who knows?

720 Degrees    NES        Cart Only    $5.00
Bloody Roar II    PlayStation, PSX, PS1       Disc in Generic Case    $8.00
Rival Turf    Super NES      Cart Only    $15.00
Sky Diver    Atari 2600   Cart Only    $1.00

These next four I got from ebay, from several different sellers.  The two import games took a while to arrive, but by the standards of COVID-era shipping from Japan it really wasn't too bad.  As for the games, all four are definitely good.  Treasure Island is an interesting and good arcade game with its only home port on the TI99/4A, Charge n Blast a somewhat original rail-shooter-ish game, and the two Japanese games some pretty cool imports for their systems.  Gate of Thunder is one of the big Turbo CD shmups I don't have, so it's awesome to finally have it; it's a great game for sure.

Treasure Island (Data East)    TI-99/4A   04/26/21    from ebay    Cart Only    $18.62
Charge 'N Blast    Dreamcast  04/28/21    from ebay    Complete    $25.24
Splatterhouse Wanpaku Grafitti (J)    NES   05/08/21    from ebay    Cart Only    $44.54
Gate of Thunder (J)    TurboGrafx-CD, TCD 05/09/21    from ebay    Complete    $118.16

Also from ebay I bought some (unopened) sets for Lego Dimensions, adding some more of the character packs and such. I got the Sonic the Hedgehog and Teen Titans (team pack) ones, along with Gremlins and Portal 2.  These things are not cheap but hey, nothing Lego is.  I do still want the two other main expansions for the game, the Ghostbusters Movie and Fantastic Beasts ones, but other than that these are the main ones I really wanted.

Additionally, I backed a new game for a classic console last year, and after a not-too-long delay the game's here already.  It's a platformer for the Turbo CD.  It's a somewhat Metroid-ish game in a way because the levels have multiple routes and you collect items which open up paths as you go.The game will also have TG16 HuCard and Sega Genesis releases, so despite being a Super CD game it does nothing with the format at all other than having CD audio, disappointingly, but the game itself is solid.  Some kind of enhanced intro and such for the CD version would have been nice though, oh well.

Jessie Jaeger in Cleopatra's Curse [Homebrew Release]    TurboGrafx-CD, TCD                            04/23/21    Kickstarter backed - got complete disc copy    Complete    $39.00


And these three I bought today.

Cradle of Rome    Nintendo DS, NDS             Cart Only    $4.00 - I like DS (and 3DS) puzzle games a lot, and still play them almost daily.
Ghost of Tsushima    PlayStation 4, PS4                 Complete    $40.00 - Paying this much for something probably unlikely to really be my thing may not be the best idea but the game does at least look amazing visually and I want to give it a try...
Woody Woodpecker Racing    Game Boy Color, GBC (GBC Only)        Cart Only    $9.00  Why this game?  Well, it's actually highly regarded as one of the GBC's best kart-style racers.  I remembered that and wanted to give the game a try.

And what new old computer did I spend a bunch of money on?  Well, it's something a lot more intresting than that VIC-20, that's for sure, at least for me.  I'll cover it soon, I've spent a lot of time over the past week-plus researching a lot of the complexities of using this platform...

Why haven't I posted here in a while?  I don't know, I know nobody else cares but I do so I should.  Part of it is that for a while I wasn't buying games, just hardware for that old computer I got and bought stuff for through May.  I did get some games after that though so I need to list it all.


Apple IIGS Computer    Apple IIGS    Apple            04/30/21    $242.89 for computer and monitor    works great    with monitor, 1MB RAM card, SATA type C card, and Echo IIb card.    from ebay
AppleColor Monitor for IIGS (12" analog RGB monitor)    Apple IIGS    Apple            04/30/21    with computer    works great    with power cord    from ebay
Apple SATA Card, Revision C [original, NOT High Speed card]    Apple II / IIGS    Apple            04/30/21    with computer    works great        from ebay
Apple 1MB RAM expansion card for IIGS [fully populated]    Apple IIGS    Apple            04/30/21    with computer    works great    fully populated with RAM chips    from ebay
Echo IIb Speech Synthesizer Card    Apple II / IIGS                04/30/21    with computer        missing cable to connect it to speaker output    from ebay
Apple ADB Mouse II    Apple IIGS / Mac    Apple            05/03/21    $24.95    works but sometimes ball seems iffy        from ebay
Interex MAC-105A Keyboard [Apple Extended Keyboard clone]    Apple IIGS / Mac    Interex            05/05/21    $42.19    works great        from ebay
SCSI2SD V5.5 Pocket Edition    Apple IIGS (also supports many other platforms)    Inertial Computing            05/06/21    $80.00    new        from ebay
Apple DuoDisk Dual Floppy Drive - Model A9M0108    Apple II / IIGS    Apple            05/08/21    $92.80    seem to work fine        from ebay
GG Labs RAMGS/8 - 8MB RAM expansion card for Apple IIGS    Apple IIGS    GG Labs            05/08/21    $93.90    new        from ebay
Commodore VIC-20 Motherboard - Model 1 (I put this in the case from one of my other, less working VICs)    VIC    Commodore            05/14/21    $73.89    works fine        from ebay
Advanced Gravis Joystick    PC    Gravis            05/05/21    $30.00            from ebay
AppleCD 150 CD-ROM Drive model M3022 [1x caddy CD-ROM]    Apple IIGS / Mac    Apple            05/20/21    $72.73    seems to work        from ebay
Sony CD Caddies for Caddy CD-ROM drives - got 4 caddies [for AppleCD 150]    Apple IIGS / Mac    Sony            05/21/21    $31.21    in good condition    for four caddies    from ebay
50-pin SCSI cable - 3ft    SCSI stuff    Centronics            05/17/21    $9.00            from ebay
Apple UniDisk 5.25" Disk Drive model A9M0104    Apple IIGS / Mac    Apple            05/24/21    $49.26    works well        from ebay
Archer Super Deluxe Competition Joystick model 270-1707    Apple II / PC    Archer (Radio Shack)            05/24/21    $32.06    works great        from ebay
25-pin male to 50-pin male SCSI cables - 2 of them    SCSI stuff (Apple IIGS)    ?            05/24/21    $25.22        for two cables    from ebay
25-pin female to female gender changers - 2 of them    SCSI stuff (Apple IIGS)    ?            05/29/21    $6.17        for two adapters    from ebay
ADTPro - cable, USB adapter, ADT Pro floppy disk, box of 20 blank 5.25" floppy disks    Apple II / IIGS    RetroFloppy            05/26/21    $94.75
Also sometime in May, for like $15 I got a battery replacement kit for the IIGS's internal clock/settings battery.  The old battery had not leaked and damaged the motherboard, thankfully, but was dead.  This new one has a socket and should last a long time, I got one with a 1/2AA battery just like the original.

So yeah, I got an Apple IIGS.  Unlike the Commodore VIC-20 from earlier this year, which turned into something of a disaster as I kept buying more of them as I kept getting ones with issues (yes, I bought a fourth, as was listed above, this time a motherboard-only machine.  I put it into one of the cases and using it with that power supply I got previously, this one finally is the 100% working model 1 system I wanted all along.  The two model 2 machines are worthless and broken, I'll sell them or give them away to someone who can repair that stuff.  The other model 1 mentioned in my last post works, but has a weird RAM mod that makes it only sometimes useful.  It's neat to have but can't run all software.), the Apple IIGS itself ... works perfectly!  Yeah, it's flawless hardware-wise.  SOFTWARE wise it's unbelievably cionfusing as I have no idea waht I am doing and still can't figure out basic things like "how in the world do I format a disk on this stupid machine, I think I'm doing it right but nothing works other than transferring over a disk from my PC via ADTPro" but hardware-wise? No issues at all.  And that's why I got so much stuff for it, the Apple II in general is a machine that I have a lot of nostalgia for from the '80s to mid '90s from school and a friends' house and it's amazing to finally own one.  The Apple II is the only Apple product I've ever wanted to own and it's incredibly cool that I finally have this.  And yeah, again, it works great, apart from some software issues that are still confusing me badly.  But that is an issue for another thread.  Any official disks work, and anything made to run from a hard drive works.  (Oh, there is one issue -- I can't get that CD drive to work right.  It's annoying, but I didn't really expect it to fully work -- I know I don't have the high speed SCSI card you really need to use a CD drive on the Apple II, I only have the slow speed SCSI card.  High speed SCSI cards are VERY expensive now and I am not buying one soon.  The CD drive works fine, it just doesn't interface with the computer correctly, to be clear.  With the ADT Pro and the SCSI2SD I can run anything anyway, it's just that transferring things over to the Apple II is a tediously slow process.  Oh well.  The CD drive wouldn't fix that, it'd be just as slow anyway, the bottleneck is the SCSI card.  But yeah, the computer works, it has a somewhat valuable card in it in that regular-speed SCSI card, the 8MB RAM expansion card I got works great and really speeds the system up a lot, and the CRT monitor even works perfectly!  It's awesome, the issues are minor in comparison.  This is probably the most directly nostalgia-based gaming purchase I have made since... oh I don't know, a Sega Genesis back in 2006?

I still need one thing for this system, and that is a 3.5" disk drive.  See, the Apple II used 5.25" disks, but IIGS software is on 3.5" disks.  I don't have any IIGS software on real disks yet but I'm sure I will eventually and I need a drive for that.  I've thought of buying one, but at prices of $90-$120 for tested ones, I've held off so far... just spend too much, you know?  I'll get one eventually.  I should say that both 52.5" drives I did get work well, which is amazing.  (Yes, I could WANT a bunch of things for the Apple IIGS -- a high speed SCSI card, maybe a different storage card other than the SCSI2SD, a CPU speed-up board... but those things are mostly very expensive and not absolutely necessary.  I may or may not get those.  A 3.5" drive is necessary.)

After spending so much on hardware I didn't want to spend much on software, so all I have is this one purchase of three educational games.  That's highly appropriate for an Apple II, heh.  I chose some Stickybear games because there is a Stickybear sticker on the front of the IIGS's case.

Stickybear ABC    Apple II, AII        05/14/21            $26 for 3 games
Stickybear Math    Apple II, AII        05/14/21            $26 for 3 games
Stickybear Reading    Apple II, AII 05/14/21            $26 for 3 games
The only other disc I ahve for the Apple II is

After that, here is the first of three batches of cheap digital Switch games I got during the last two months.

Flat Heroes    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            05/18/21    On Sale        $2.00
Super Arcade Racing    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            05/21/21    On Sale        $3.00
Island Flight Simulator    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            05/23/21    On Sale        $4.00
Wanderjahr: TryAgainOrWalkAway    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            05/23/21    On Sale        $4.00

Then, I got some stuff from ebay.  The next few batches after this are also ebay games.  Zenith is one I've wanted ever since I got a CD-i, so when one showed up at this price I bought it right away!  The game is a somewhat cool top-down platform/puzzle game where you control a bouncing ball thing.  It's fun and is very much like a PC shareware game I remember from the '90s called Jump/Dschump.

Dokyousei 2 (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX        05/25/21        Complete (with spine card)    16.89
Zenith (E)    Phillips CD-i    05/29/21        Complete    $43.31

This one is a homebrew Jaguar CD game.  I happened to have recently checked AtariAge right when it released so I got it; the guy only made a few copies with a full set of pretty neat Jaguar stickers, and sold them for very cheap, so they sold in under a day. You can still get the game, but game only, no stickers.  It's a Simon clone with pretty nice prerendered backdrops.  The game is simple but it shows off the system's color and prerendered-display capabilities well.

Simone (Unlicensed Homebrew)    Atari Jaguar CD, JCD    06/10/21    Homebrew release.    Complete (cardboard sleeve with disc, ad flyers, and Jaguar stickers)    $12.00

In May/June, I ordered a bunch of import games from Japan from several sellers.  The shipping mostly arrived here reasonably quickly, apart from one item that took longer.  I got a bunch of PC-FX games because I hadn't gotten anything new for that system since the games I bought when I bought the thing a year and a half ago.  I got some of the games I really wanted for the PC-FX, most notably Farland Story FX and Dragon Knight IV, and a few others. (by the way, the PC-FX's reputation for being an extremely anime console is accurate.  Its reputation for adult content, however, is wildly overstated -- there are only a handful of "adult" titles, and they're all just risque, nothing more.  I got a few of those here, not that I'll ever play enough of them to see any of it, I don't like visual novels.)  At the same time I got some games for other consoles as well -- I finally got the N64 Robopon RPG, Skweek for the PC Engine (this game is also on Game Gear as Slider.), and more.  None of this stuff is as exciting as Gate of Thunder (from my last post), but some of it's decent stuff.

Anime Freak FX Vol. 1 (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX    NEC Interchannel                        06/21/21        Complete    $21.50
Aubird Force (J)    PlayStation, PSX, PS1                            06/21/21        Complete    $8.50
Farland Story FX (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX                            06/21/21        Complete    $53.50
First Kiss Story (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX                            06/21/21        Complete    $43.50
Gebockers (J)    Saturn, SS                            06/21/21        Complete    $10.86
Robot Ponkottsu 64 (J)    Nintendo 64, N64                            06/21/21        Complete    $23.50
Skweek (J)    TurboGrafx-16, TG16                            06/21/21        Complete    $15.50
Sotsugyu II FX Neo Graduation (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX                            06/21/21        Cart Only    $18.50
Super Real Mahjong P IV Custom (J)    TurboGrafx-CD, TCD                        06/21/21        Complete    $11.50
Welcome to Pia Carrot (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX                            06/21/21        Complete    $38.50 (this is a visual novel so I'm sure I won't play much of it, but it is one of the very few PC-FX games with a full English translation patch available.)

In late June I got some cheap, on sale digital Switch games.  I'll get a bunch more at the end of this post.

112th Seed    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/27/21    On Sale        $2.00
Kingdom Rush Frontiers    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/27/21    On Sale        $4.00
Lode Runner Legacy    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/27/21    On Sale        $6.00
Lost Wing    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/27/21    On Sale        $2.00
TowerFall    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/27/21    On Sale        $4.00

Then on the last day of June, I went to the two locations of our local electronics-and-such chain (one closed thanks to the pandemic, leaving just these two in the area) and got... a bunch of stuff really.

For hardware, I got:
Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 Joystick    PC    Microsoft            06/30/21    $10.00        complete in box
Wico The Boss Joystick    Atari 2600 / Commodore VIC-20 / TI99/4A                06/30/21    $5.00        used, loose stick
Wico The Boss Joystick    Atari 2600 / Commodore VIC-20 / TI99/4A                06/30/21    $5.00        used, tight stick

Both of these finds were really, REALLY cool.  That FOrece Feedback 2 stick is worth quite a lot on ebay and is incredibly cool, so it was an amazing find for so cheap!  The store clearly hadn't tested it properly, because they didn't realize it actually worked perfectly and thought it was broken because it didn't spring back to the center when not plugged in... heh.  I realized that's how it is supposed to be and certainly will benefit from that, it's super cool not just for the force feedback but also the motor-based autocentering -- the stick will stay where you leave it until you touch the back of the stick, at which point it'll spring back to the center.  It's really cool.  As for the two Wico sticks, they are nice and high quality sticks from one of the better early '80s brands.  I've been looking for better controllers for my VIC-20 and TI99 and I hoped this will be better than the Atari 7800 or Sega Master System controllers I have to use (... or for the TI the official joysticks for that thing, but those are even worse.  And I do not like Atari 2600 controllers.).  They aren't as good as Genesis controllers would be, but oh well, they're good and also sell online for well over what I paid.

And for games... I didn't do quite as well here, one game in particular I hugely overpaid for, but given the amazing deal I got on that Force Feedback 2 stick I'm not complaining at all, I came out well ahead.

Curved Space    Xbox Series X|S, XSX & Xbox One                    06/30/21        New    $20
Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below    PlayStation 4, PS4                            06/30/21        Complete    $14.00
Treasures of Montezuma, The    Nintendo DS, NDS                            06/30/21        Cart Only    $4.00
Jewel Link Chronicles: Mountains of Madness    Nintendo DS, NDS                            06/30/21        Cart Only    $4.00
Jewels of the Ages    Nintendo DS, NDS    City Interactive (CI Games)
Mendel Palace    NES    Hudson Soft    Game Freak                    06/30/21        Cart Only    $16.00
New Pokemon Snap    Nintendo Switch, NS    Nintendo                        06/30/21        Complete    $40.00
Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl Deluxe    Nintendo Switch, NS    Level 5                        06/30/21        New    $47.00
Game Builder Garage    Nintendo Switch, NS                    06/30/21        New    $30.00


... Given how much I have criticized the original I know buying New Pokemon Snap may seem really dumb, but... I don't know, I was interested and thought that it looked alright.  Plus, it does fix the first games' biggest problem, which was the extreme paucity of content; this one has a lot more to do.
As for the rest of it, the DS games are tile-matching puzzle games.  Light entertainment stuff.  On the other Switch games, Game Builder Garage is incredibly cool.  3D game development is hard and I'll never be any good at it, but it is a really interesting thing.  It's unbelievably stupid that Nintendo didn't put any way to download other projects without an external code, but still it's neat.  And Snack World is a decent action-RPG dungeon crawler.  It's nothing special but I am having some fun with it.


Then, a week and a half ago I bought a whole bunch of digital games for Nintendo platforms.  The Switch games and the 3DS game were all on sale but the Wii U ones were not.

Elli    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/02/21    On Sale        $2.00
Cecconoid    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/03/21    On Sale        $2.00
Bishoujo Battle Cyber Panic!    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21    On Sale        $4.00
Damascus Gear Operation Osaka    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21    On Sale        $2.50
Demon Crest [SNES Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                07/04/21            $8.00
Future Aero Racing S Ultra    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21    On Sale        $3.50
Jewel Match 3    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21    On Sale        $3.50
Mini Motor Racing X    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21    On Sale        $1.15
Pushmo World    Wii U - DD (eShop)    Nintendo                        07/04/21            $10.00
Space Hunted    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21            $3.00
Tiny Racer    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21    On Sale        $2.00
Twisted Fusion    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            07/04/21            $5.00
Soldier Blade [TG16 Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)    07/05/21            $6.00

After that, I got a controller from ebay.  This is the actual remote for my CD-i player, which means I can finally use the media control buttons without having to get up and push buttons on the system itself if watching a CD-i movie or music on the thing!  Yes, you need to use the buttons on the player for play, pause, stop, and such, there is no on-screen display.  These buttons are only for movies and music and cannot be used in games, sadly.  It sure would be nice if they did work for added functions in games, but no.  I previously, last year or so I believe, got a Phillips remote and the remote reciever you need to use the Phillips remote on a system without built-in Phillips remote support, but the media buttons don't work thorugh that reciever, only the main two action buttons and stick.  So I got this to fix that problem.  And while not cheap it works great so I am not complaining.  You need either a DVS or LG remote for the DVS and LG model of the CD-i you see,t they use a different wireless signal than Phillips systems do.

DVS CD-i Remote    CD-i [LG/DVS models only]    DVS / LG            07/08/21    $71.10    works great        from ebay

The same day as that, after two months of waiting, an order I made on AtariAge over two months ago now FINALLY showed up.  That took a long time, but it was probably worht it.  I got three new games for old systems and one basically-a-repro.

Blaster - Atari 5200.  Cart and box, $40. (No manual is available.)  This is a cancelled game that was finished in 1984 but never released by Atari.  It's a port of the Williams arcade game of the same name, and is a rail shooter.  Amazing graphical display for the 5200!
Magical Fairy Force - Atari 5200. Complete. $50.  This is a new release.  It's a shooter inspired by Twinkle Star Sprites.  It's not as good as that game but is pretty fun, I was looking forward to this game quite a bit and I think overall it lives up to expectations.  It is more focused on multiplayer than single player, but is also a fun single player game at least with some of the characters.
Last Strike - Atari Jaguar.  Complete, $70.  This is another new release.  It's a shmup inspired by Scramble.  It's... alright.  Decent to maybe good once you get used to it.  Is it worth the money, I don't know, but I really wanted to have it anyway and have been playing it so... for me I guess?  It looks nice enough, though extremely Amiga-like and entirely 2d, and plays like Scramble with a mandatory rescue-the-people element added that is kind of annoying.
Ninjish Guy in Low-Rez World - $50, complete, Atari 2600.  This is a single-screen 2d platformer with pretty good controls and gameplay for the 2600.  I don't buy many homebrew 2600 games, but after seeing it I knew I had to get this one and it was worth it.

First, I got these games locally a few weeks ago.

Snowboarding    PlayStation, PSX, PS1    A1 Games                        07/29/21        Complete    $4.00
BursTrick Wakeboarding    PlayStation, PSX, PS1    Natsume                        07/29/21        Complete    $7.00
Big Air    PlayStation, PSX, PS1    Accolade                        07/29/21        Complete    $5.00

The other thing I got is also for the PS1(/PS2) and is quite interesting -- a DOC's Racing Controller.  This is a third party clone of Namco's Jogcon controller, first designed for R4 but also compatible with a couple of other games - Ridge Racer Type 4, V-Rally 2, Pac-Man World, Breakout (PS1 remake), Ridge Racer V  (for PS2).  And that's it, the Jogcon was a failure, unlike the NeGcon before it.  I had totally forgotten that there even was a third party clone of the Jogcon out there, but there was and I got this for very cheap, it was like $5.  Looking them up online these are uncommon and have some value so that was a great deal.  The Jogcon is a very odd controller, with a large dial in the center replacing the analog stick or Negcon controller rotation, but it has force feedback in the games designed for it so it works alright.  This controller can do something that I don't think a real Jogcon can, also -- it can also emulate a dual shock controller's left analog stick!  That's right, it has three modes, digital, dual shock, or jogcon.  That's very cool; yeah, it won't be nearly as good in dual shock games because without the force feedback you just have a free-spinning wheel, but... well, that's good for games like Super Sprint or Super Off-Road, anyway... so yeah, a pretty interesting find.


Then I got some new games.  These I ordered online from Best Buy and Amazon.

R-Type Final 2: Inaugural Flight Edition    Xbox One / Xbox Series X      07/27/21    New    Complete    $50.00
Streets of Rage 4  Xbox One                                          8/1/2021   New     Complete  $40.00
Cotton Reboot!    Nintendo Switch, NS                            07/28/21    New    Complete    $40.00
Panzer Paladin    Nintendo Switch, NS                            07/27/21    New    Complete    $35.00

Then I got a whole bunch of digital Switch games that were on  sale... and also a few digital 3DS and Xbox 1/Series X games as well.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)    NIS America                        08/08/21    On Sale        $17.00
HoPiKo    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/08/21    On Sale        $2.00
Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)    Kemco                        08/08/21    On Sale        $12.00
Princess Guide, The    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)    NIS America                        08/08/21    On Sale        $10.00
Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travellers    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)    NIS America                        08/08/21    On Sale        $10.00
Task Force Kampas    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/08/21    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been $2)
M.A.C.E. Space Shooter    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/08/21    On Sale        $2.00
Burn! SuperTrucks    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/08/21    On Sale        $2.00
Nexoria: Dungeon Rogue Heroes    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/08/21    On Sale        $2.00
Urban Flow    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/08/21    On Sale        $2.00
Heave Ho    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/07/21    On Sale        $5.00

Mia's Picnic    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/07/21    On Sale        $2.10
Space Defender - Battle Infinity    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/07/21    On Sale        $2.00

Forza Motorsport 7 Ultimate Edition     Xbox One, XONE - DD  Xbox Series X|S, XSX   PC - DD (Windows Store)                     08/08/21    On Sale (before it is removed from the store)       $20.00

Then looking at my MS purchase history I realized that a few things were missing that I got earlier this year... never mentioned these here or added them to my list.  Whoops.

Rotastic    Xbox 360, X360 - DD (XBLA)                            06/22/21    On Sale        $1.00
Skelattack    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            02/12/21    On Sale        $5.00
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition    Xbox One, XONE - DD   PC - DD (Windows Store)                            02/12/21    On Sale        $11.54 for bundle including both Ori games
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition                             02/12/21    On Sale        $11.54 for bundle including both Ori games
Ori and the Will of the Wisps    Xbox One, XONE - DD   PC - DD (Windows Store)    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                                02/12/21    On Sale        $11.54 for bundle including both Ori games

A couple of days ago I got these locally from a couple of local stores I hadn't been to in a few months and got some mostly older games.  So yes, it's actually a timely purchase post!  I used points at both places so these prices below are less than the sticker prices.

Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend    Saturn, SS                                    Complete    $15.00 - This game is not amazing, but this price sure is good for it, it must have been there a while and been priced before the current jump in prices or something...

Rainbow Islands  Evolution  PlayStation Portable, PSP                                    Disc Only    $3.00

Arch Rivals: The Arcade Game    Game Gear, GG                                    Cart Only    $8.00
Incredible Crash Dummies, The    Game Gear, GG                                    Cart Only    $6.00 - I have this on GB and enjoy this little game for some reason.

Omega Quintet    PlayStation 4, PS4                                    Complete    $15.50

Micro Machines    NES                                    Cart Only    $21.00 - On the one hand I am, of course, a big fan of this game, it's amazing.  On the other hand, I already have it for several other platforms.  I don't mind getting more versions of this great classic though, and I know this is a good one... not as good as the Genesis version I have, sure, but definitely good.
Super Glove Ball    NES                                    Cart Only    $3.00 - This, infamously, was designed for the Power Glove, but it works with a controller too.

Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters    Sega CD, SCD                                    Complete    $15.00 - I have the Genesis version of this one, but... why not get this CD version too?  I know it's mostly identical, but it does have CD audio and such added.

This I got from ebay. Yes, I got an American Turbo CD game, because there is way too much text to want to play this game in Japanese.  I considered paying more for a complete copy and maybe should have done so, but... this game is pretty mediocre, I couldn't justify spending any more than I have to for it. I like having the game but probably made the right choice here, a copy with a case would cost least $30-plus more.

Exile    TurboGrafx-CD, TCD 8/31/21    from ebay    Disc Only    $73.00

Then more recently, I bought two brand new games, and a couple of other titles I saw while looking for them.  Yes, I got the new WarioWare and Cruis'n games, and I have been playing them!  And yeah, they're good.  Nintendo has the best consoles.  I mean, my Xbox Series X is nice enough, and it has better graphics, but the games? Sure, there are a lot of good games there, but none I want to play as much as games like these.  Note, I got these games 10 days apart because finding a copy of Cruis'n Blast proved quite difficult. I only finally managed it after more than a week of looking.  I almost gave up and bought a digital copy, but am glad I didn't, it's a great one to have physical.

On WarioWare, it's pretty good but I'm finding the 'you control a character' concept more frustrating than past games in the series.  I like this game, but.., yeah, sometimes figuring out what to do can be really hard, and some characters have massive disadvantages in some of the games that make successfully completing them once the time limits get tight way too hard.  The mode you unlock after finishing the story mode doubles down on the most frustrating elements of the game, too -- it's a weekly challenge mode with online ranking.  Still, though, it's certainly a good enough game that any series fan should get it.

As for Cruis'n, I will say more about it for sure elsewhere, but I am particularly thrilled that Cruis'n Blast actually released on consoles. Arcade racing games have been something we have very badly lacked for a long, long time now and it is incredibly exciting that this game EXISTS! It's just awesome that it was released on Switch and the game is a whole lot of fun. This is a very simplistic and short-lived arcade game that is a total blast to play, buy it today! And while it is simple, there is enough challenge here and stuff to unlock to keep you coming back for a decent while. It's a fantastic game which looks outstanding for Switch and plays great.

WarioWare: Get It Together! Nintendo Switch, NS  09/14/21 New $49.99
Atelier Torori - PlayStation 3, PS3 09/14/21 Complete $22.00

Cruis'n Blast    Nintendo Switch, NS                            09/22/21        New    $38.00
Paper Mario: The Origami King    Nintendo Switch, NS                            09/22/21        Complete    $40.00
Jump Superstars (Japanese import tlitle)    Nintendo DS, NDS                            09/22/21        Cart Only    $4.00 (this is a neat one to find in a local store...)

So, since my last post here, I have mostly been playing the recent games I got.  I did get two more, though:

Digital Download Xbox One / Xbox Series X (Series X Enhanced games)
--
Diablo II Resurrected - $40
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 - $16 (on sale)

Considering the awful stuff Blizzard is (almost certainly accurately) being accused of maybe I should not have gotten Diablo II Resurrected, but... I just could not resist.  I got the original for my birthday back in 2000 when the game came out and quite liked it.  I wasn't addicted to the game for years like some, I basically finished it once in Normal and then mostly and moved on to other games because I don't care for the grind-for-better-items postgame and at is what the hardcore Diablo II fans spend so much time doing, and I've never found it interesting at all as a multiplayer game, but while it lasts it's a pretty great game.

And is this remake good?  Yes, it's very good!  Because I got it on Xbox I can't carry over my old PC save files, but that's fine; I wanted to start over anyway.  The game looks amazing and plays great. I really like the added button mappings you get on a console controller, to be able to use more than two abilities at once.    It's mostly a very faithful port of the original, but one major change is here.  No, not the graphics; the new graphics mode looks really good, but that isn't the best thing about this.  No, the expanded storage box is!  In the original game you have almost no storage.  Your character's storage is just as tiny here as ever, but your storage box in town is a lot larger!  There are four tabs now instead of one, and each one is larger than the original storage box.  Three of the tabs are shared between all of your characters, which is nice.  It's a dramatic improvement over the original game, where storage runs out fast and there's nowhere to keep the many interesting items you will find if you keep playing.  Here space is still limited, but you can keep a lot more than you could before.

Other than that though, it's a largely very faithful remaster and that's exactly what this still-fantastic game needed.  The core of the game is still one of the best in the genre, I strongly strongly disagree with some reviewers who seem to think that games get significantly worse over time simply by continuing to exist.  That is wrong!  Diablo II is far from perfect, there could be more content and quests, and the grind-based postgame is tedious, and multiplayer never interested me too much in part because it's often just 'people running around and doing stuff in the same world' as opposed to something requiring people to actually work together (and this games' lack of text chat on consoles does not help this, as an aside... but oh well), but even so, it's a fantastic game and this is the best way to play this classic.

(And while Activision-Blizzard is unquestionably a company which needs serious cleaning out of abusers, I haven't heard anything bad said about the team that actually made this new version of the game, Vicarious Visions.)

I have one gameplay related criticism of Diablo II's remaster.  They stripped out LAN play entirely.  There's no way to play the game with other people outside Blizzard's ecosystem.  More and more companies are pulling stunts like this, and it's clear why.  They want to pitch their microtransactions to players, and their misguided matchmaking can't do that if you aren't on their network.  Local LAN multiplayer is the best of course, since there's no lag and no risk of a disconnect, but more than that, you know it'll work long past when Blizzard turns off the lights on their servers.

In any case, I've started posting a few game reviews here.  I put a few up for Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong 64 if you'd like to check them out.

That's a fair criticism, but when is the last time a major game actually HAD LAN play?  It seems like a feature that was common in the '90s but has since been removed in favor of networks that the publisher controls.  And yes, you are entirely right that that's horrible for future-proofing, but with how connected many modern games are in terms of online features, levelling systems, DLC and microtransactions, etc., etc.  I agree that the PC version of a game like this should have kept LAN play in, but once publishers realized that they COULD lock everyone into their walled gardens and not allow anything else they did and they definitely aren't looking back.

If your argument for them not adding is "that's just the way things are", i reject it.

I recently picked up a copy of Final Fantasy Legend III for Game Boy.

The artwork is... almost as bad that revised box art release of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow on DS.



Behold...  nested redundancy.

Oh just for completion, here's that second release of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow to compare this incredibly lazy mistake to.


I think my favorite part of that second one is the claim that this is "Konami's Best".

I was wondering 'is that just the re-release cart?' since the Sunsoft name on the label makes it clear that's the late '90s re-release of the game, but looking it up, nope.  FFL3's cart looks like that, the only thing that was changed was replacing Squaresoft with Sunsoft on the side.  How odd.
 

(16th October 2021, 12:25 PM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]If your argument for them not adding is "that's just the way things are", i reject it.

I mean, I'm all for games having less reliance on things that will destroy the ability of people in the future to play that game once the servers get turned off, since games should continue to exist and not only be something people can play for a short time, but... do PC games have LAN support in them much at all anymore?  I don't like it either but walled-gardens-only is clearly the way things are now.

Yes, hence me pointing it out.  "This thing exists and I don't like it" doesn't require you to point out "this thing exists" as some sort of tautology.  It doesn't add to the conversation.  I'm saying "the way things are" needs to change.  The good news is, indy games still use LAN play all the time.

Anyway, yep, that's how it originally looked in the first release, and it's so strange and lazy.

I put up a couple reviews for Crash Team Racing, one for the original and one for the remake.

Here is everything I've gotten since my last post.  Yes, it's a long list and I should have been updating much more frequently, but I fell behind even in my spreadsheet.  I'm finally caught up.  Here you see a mixture of some physical-disk games from ebay (the Apple II stuff and one PC game, Star Command Deluxe) and various digital games for the WIi U, Switch, and Xbox Series X that I got.

Reader Rabbit    Apple II, AII    The Learning Company                        10/17/21    from ebay    Disks Only    $15 for the two games
Toy Shop    Apple II, AII    The Learning Company                        10/17/21    from ebay    Disk Only    $15 for the two games
Gravity Rider Zero    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) - DLC                            10/18/21    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been $2)
Star Wars: Episode I: Racer    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            10/18/21    On Sale        $7.50
Gleylancer    Xbox Series X|S, XSX - DD                            10/19/21    On Sale        Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Gleylancer    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            10/19/21    On Sale        $5.59
One Step from Eden    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop) - DLC                            10/21/21    On Sale        $14.00
Rock'n Racing Off Road    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            10/22/21    On Sale        $2.00
Whispering Willows    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            10/22/21    On Sale        $2.00
Gauntlet    Apple IIGS, GS    Mindscape                        10/29/21    from ebay    Complete    $35.00
Hunt for Red October, The    Apple IIGS, GS                            10/29/21    from ebay    Complete    $35.00
Ikari Warriors    Apple II, AII                            10/30/21    from ebay    Disk in Sleeve and Manual    $25.00
Bard's Tale, The III: Thief of Fate    Apple II, AII    Electronic Arts    Interplay                    10/30/21    from ebay    Complete    $49.00
Capcom Arcade Stadium Packs 1, 2, and 3    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/01/21    On Sale        $30.00
Code Vein Deluxe Edition    Xbox One, XONE - DD (DLC)                            11/04/21    On Sale        $20.00
Trials Rising - Digital Gold Edition    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/11/21    On Sale        $9.00
Trials Fusion: The Awesome Max Edition    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/11/21    On Sale        $10.00
Star Command Deluxe    PC    Metropolis Digital                        11/12/21    from ebay    Disc and Manual Only    $7.36
Mega Man 30th Anniversary Bundle - Mega Man Legacy Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/14/21    On Sale        $40 for the 5-pack bundle
Mega Man 30th Anniversary Bundle - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/14/21    On Sale        $40 for the 5-pack bundle
Mega Man 30th Anniversary Bundle - Mega Man 11    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/14/21    On Sale        $40 for the 5-pack bundle
Mega Man 30th Anniversary Bundle - Mega Man Legacy Collection 2    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/14/21    On Sale        $40 for the 5-pack bundle
Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/14/21    On Sale        $19.50
Mega Man 30th Anniversary Bundle - Mega Man X Legacy Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/14/21    On Sale        $40 for the 5-pack bundle
SolSeraph    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            11/25/21    On Sale        $3.00
Explorer of Night, The    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            11/25/21    On Sale        $2.00
Mr. Driller Drill Land    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            11/25/21    On Sale        $7.50
Back to Bed    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            11/27/21    On Sale        $2.00
SturmFront - The Mutant War: Ubel Edition    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            11/27/21    On Sale        $5.00
Magical High School Girl, A    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            11/28/21    On Sale        $7.50
Sky Races    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            11/28/21    On Sale        $2.00
Zengeon    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            11/28/21    On Sale        $15.00

I got these three from a local store recently.  I was considering whether to get Skyward Sword HD, Xenoblade Chronicles HD, or neither, and eventually decided to get Zelda but not Xenoblade because it seems like Zelda is more upgraded.  Xenoblade is just 'the old game but with better graphics' and, eh, I can just play the original.  But Zelda has some actual gameplay improvements.  I don't think it's essential given that I have the also-great Wii game, but I do want to try this new version of the game.  As for the others, seeing Omega Boost was cool, that's one I've always kind of wanted to get and it's really nice to finally have.   It's almost certainly the best-regarded rail shooter on the PS1.

Pac-Attack    Game Gear, GG                            11/29/21        Cart Only    $6.00
Omega Boost    PlayStation, PSX, PS1                            11/29/21        Complete    $35.00
Legend of Zelda, The: Skyward Sword HD    Nintendo Switch, NS                            11/29/21        Complete    $40.00

I got a bunch of stuff from Steam's sale just before it ended.  I'm sure some of these are not PC only but I didn't write down all of the platforms when getting them so they're listed as PC games for now.  That's fine.

Crazy Machines 3    PC - DD                            11/22/21    On Sale        $1.00
Quake (Complete Pack)    PC - DD    Bethesda Softworks                        11/22/21    On Sale        $4.00
Darkest Dungeon    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $3.95
Valley    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $2.36
Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r]    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $8.69
Lara Croft GO    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $2.10
Total War: Warhammer    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $15.81
StoryTale, The    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $1.31
Spiral Scouts, The    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $2.63
Dragon Age Inquisition - Game of the Year Edition    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $10.54
Keen - One Girl Army    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $1.57
Haunted: Halloween '86 (The Curse of Possum Hollow)    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $3.15
Woolfe - The Red Hood Diiaries    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $3.58
Interphase    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $2.57
Star Wars: Squadrons    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $15.60
Minotaur Arcade Volume 1    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $1.32
Polybius    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $1.32
Moose Life    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $1.32
Civilization VI - DLC Bundle (all remaining DLC)    PC - DD                            12/01/21    On Sale        $25.00

And lastly, this batch are from Gamestop's Black Friday sale.  This was a web purchase.  It's a mixture of new (recent) and used games, with reduced prices for everything of course.  I ended up getting all Xbox and PS4 games because I couldn't think of any Switch games in the sale I wanted enough... though as you see above I did also get Skyward Sword HD around the same time so I got that one for its sale price, just not from Gamestop.

Tales of Arise    Xbox One, XONE                            11/30/21    Gamestop - Web Order    New    $40.00
Balan Wonderworld    Xbox One, XONE                            11/30/21    Gamestop - Web Order    New    $15.00
Scarlet Nexus    Xbox One, XONE                            11/30/21    Gamestop - Web Order    New    $25.00
Tales of Arise    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            11/30/21    Gamestop - Web Order    New    free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Balan Wonderworld    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            11/30/21    Gamestop - Web Order    New    free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Scarlet Nexus    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            11/30/21    Gamestop - Web Order    New    free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Control Ultimate Edition    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Complete    $23.00
Mass Effect Legendary Edition    Xbox One, XONE                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Complete    $23.00
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition    Xbox One, XONE                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Complete    $17.00
GRIP: Combat Racing Ultimate Edition    Xbox One, XONE                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Disc in Generic Case    free in a B2G1 (would have been $10)
Dragon Quest Builders 2    PlayStation 4, PS4                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Complete    $17.00
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT    PlayStation 4, PS4                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Complete    free in a B2G1 (would have been $15)
Mass Effect Legendary Edition    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            12/02/21    Gamestop - Web Order    Complete    free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game

Total War: Warhammer missed a rather obvious logo opportunity.  Why not just name the games "Total Warhammer"?

Yeah, it would have made a lot of sense if they'd done that, that's an amusing title for sure. :)

Oh, and I did also get the Zelda & Loftwing Amiibo to go with Skyward Sword.

I recently rediscovered an old DOS edutainment title called The Dinosaur Discovery Kit.  It had dinosaurs, which are basically science dragons powered by meteors.  Whalers hunt them today to provide oil for our lamps.

It had old school voice synthesis for narration and a coloring book.

What have I gotten in the past month, videogames-wise?  Not that much, really.  Just some digital games for Nintendo, Xbox, and Steam.  I did get one quite new game though which I have been playing some of.  And I did get a few physical games a month ago, in the couple of days after my last post. I really should have posted that batch right away.

For these physical games, none are super exciting, though I guess it's kind of neat to have Fatal Labyrinth.  It's an early Japanese roguelike and is pretty interesting for it.  Hard game, though!  The boxed copy of Gyruss is cool as well; of course.  I'd rather it was the 5200 version, but oh well, Coleco's alright too.  (I've had the better NES version for years, of course.  Still, seeing this release is interesting.)

Lion King, The    Genesis, Gen                            12/07/21        Cart Only    $5.00 (why did I get yet another version of this mediocre game?  I'm not really sure...)
Fatal Labyrinth    Genesis, Gen    SEGA                        12/07/21        Cart Only    $18.00
Dragon Quest Heroes II    PlayStation 4, PS4    Square Enix                        12/08/21        Complete    $12.00
Gyruss    Colecovision, CVIS    Parker Bros.                        12/08/21        Cart and Box (no manual)    $45.00
Donkey Kong    Mattel Intellivision, INTV    Coleco    Coleco (licensed from Nintendo)    NR                12/08/21        Cart Only    $3.00
Star Wars: Dark Forces    PlayStation, PSX, PS1    LucasArts                        12/08/21        Complete    $8.00 (yes, I've had the PC version of this one since the '90s.)

And here we have my digital Switch purchases. Are some more expensive than they'd be on PC?  Yeah.  But oh well, I like having stuff on the Switch... and 3DS and Wii U.  Captain U there is one of the last couple of Wii U releases; Nintendo apparently is going to not allow new Wii U releases after some point a few months from now, and Captain U, from longtime NES-style Wii U game developer Ultra Dolphin Revolution, released in December as most likely that dev's last Wii U game.

TOUHOU Spell Bubble    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $24.00
GENSOU Skydrift    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $12.00
ACA NEOGEO Shock Troopers    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $4.00
Hopping girl KOHANE Jumping Kingdom: Princess of the Black Rabbit    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $5.00
DUNGEON ENCOUNTERS    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $24.00
Warlock's Tower    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $2.00
Kawak Deathu Desu    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $2.00
They Bleed Pixels    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $2.00
Aggelos    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/29/21    On Sale        $2.00
Bridge Constructor Portal    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/27/21    On Sale        $3.75
Ultracore    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            12/27/21    On Sale        $4.00

World Conqueror 3D    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            12/22/21    On Sale        $3.00
Silver Falls - Undertakers    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            12/22/21    On Sale        $3.75
Gourmet Dream    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            12/22/21    On Sale        $2.50
Glory of Generals    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            12/22/21    On Sale        $3.50
Captain U    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            12/19/21            $2.00

For this Xbox stuff, some are games I already own on PC and/or Switch, but I bought them again because 4K and a better controller than the Switch has, mostly.

Doom 64    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            01/02/22    On Sale        $1.50
Doom II (Classic)    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            01/02/22    On Sale        $1.50
DOOM (1993)    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            01/02/22    On Sale        $1.50
Crown Trick    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            01/02/22    On Sale        $8.00
Quake    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            01/02/22    On Sale        $4.00
Quake    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            01/02/22            Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Resident Evil: Deluxe Origins Bundle [Resident Evil Zero & Resident Evil [Remake]]    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            01/02/22    On Sale        $10.00

And here we have the new game I got, Age of Empires IV.  I mentioned it in my GOTY 2021 thread so it's not a surprise, but yup, I got it. And yes, I didn't really play it until this year, but it was a 2021 release and I've played it so it goes in my 2021 GOTY list.  So far I like but don't love it.  It's good I guess.  AoE always was a series I liked but didn't love, with its slow pacing and sometimes frustratingly hard challenge, and this game is probably a little bit less good than AoE II, but it has some strengths and I'm enjoying it enough to be worth getting for sure, at least.  It seems easier than the old games, which is nice at the moment.  I imagine good players will be less thrilled with that though.

Age of Empires IV    PC - DD                            12/31/2021    Steam Sale        $56.96
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - DLC Addons    PC - DD (DLC)                            01/02/22    Steam Sale        $14.96
WitchAction    PC - DD                            01/02/22    Steam Sale        $5.00
Hovership Hacoc    PC - DD                            01/02/22    Steam Sale        $1.00

So what have I been getting this year so far?  Some digital stuff of moderate interest, and a few physical games mostly not the greatest, pretty much.  Nothing super exciting really, so far, though some are good and well worth playing.

First, various Nintendo platform digital games.  As you see I started buying some random 3DS and Wii U games that interest me before the shutdown was announced.  I'm sure I will be buying more over time.  There are some games I wanted but hadn't gotten because I was hoping they would go on sale, but that's not happening for a lot of titles, so for some I decided to buy them before they get delisted or something...

Armored ACORNS: Action Squirrel Squad    Wii U - DD (eShop)                        Action (Beat 'em up)    01/16/22            $8.00
Typoman    Wii U - DD (eShop)                        Platformer (2.5D)    01/16/22            $10.00
Quad Fighter K    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                        Shmup    01/16/22    On Sale        $4.00
Reverse Crawl    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                        Strategy (TBS)    01/16/22    On Sale        $3.15
Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                        Action (Beat 'em up)    01/16/22    On Sale        $9.00
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix Pack    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                        Music    01/16/22    On Sale        $30.00
Stack 'em High    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                        Puzzle    01/16/22    On Sale        $2.00
Chameleon    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                6.0        Board-Puzzle (Logic)    01/16/22    On Sale        $2.00
SpaceRoads    Wii U - DD (eShop)                        Racing (Skyroads clone)    01/16/22            $10.00
Keep, The    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            01/18/22    On Sale        $2.00
3 Heroes: Crystal Soul    Nintendo DSi, NDSi - DD (DSiWare)                        Puzzle (Logic)    01/19/22            $5.00
Ikachan    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                        Platformer (2D)    01/19/22    On Sale        $5.00
VectorRacing    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                        Racing (Futuristic)    01/19/22            $8.00
X-Scape    Nintendo DSi, NDSi - DD (DSiWare)                        Flight Action    01/19/22            $8.00

And now some PS4 and Xbox stuff.  You will notice here that I bought several games I already own on other platforms -- I got the Xbox One versions of the Contra and Castlevania collections and Star Wars Squadrons, even though I have those elsewhere (Switch and PC, respectively), because I wanted the best console versions of those Konami collections and that's definitely playing them on my Series XZ and not my Switch, and because I wanted to play Star Wars Squadrons in 4k on my TV and not only on my PC.  Similarly, I got the PS4 version of the modern Gauntlet game even though I have it for PC (got that years ago) because I wanted that on console, and it's only on PS4 on consoles unfortunately.  It's definitely a game more designed for console than PC.  it was on sale too.  Rez Infinite... it has a new exclusive mode, probably is worth getting.  And such.

Bullet Soul -Infinite Burst-    Xbox 360, X360 - DD (XBLA)                        Shmup    01/20/22            $10.00
Sega Vintage Collection: Golden Axe    Xbox 360, X360 - DD (XBLA)                        Action (Beat 'em up)    01/20/22    On Sale        $3.00
Gauntlet: Slayer Edition    PlayStation 4, PS4 - DD                8.0        Action-RPG (Topdown)    01/20/22    On Sale        $5.00
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone Bundle    PlayStation 4, PS4 - DD                        Music    01/23/22    On Sale        $20.00
Rez Infinite    PlayStation 4, PS4 - DD                9.0        Rail Shooter    01/23/22    On Sale        $9.00
Five Covens, The    PlayStation 4, PS4 - DD                6.5        Platformer (3D)    01/23/22    On Sale        $4.54
Treasure Rangers    PlayStation 4, PS4 - DD                        Platformer (3D)    01/23/22    On Sale        $5.00
Bard's Tale Trilogy, The    Xbox One, XONE - DD    Microsoft Game Studios                    RPG (WRPG)    02/06/22    On Sale        $3.74
Star Wars: Squadrons    Xbox One, XONE - DD    Electronic Arts                    Flight Action    02/06/22    On Sale        $11.99
PAC-MAN 256    Xbox One, XONE - DD    Bandai Namco Games                    Arcade Action (Maze)    02/06/22    On Sale        $2.50
Star Wars: Squadrons    Xbox Series X|S, XSX - DD    Electronic Arts                    Flight Action    02/06/22    On Sale        Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Marathon: Durandal    Xbox 360, X360 - DD (XBLA)    Microsoft Game Studios                    FPS    02/06/22    On Sale        $5.00
Castlevania Anniversary Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD    Konami                    Platformer (2D)    02/07/22    On Sale        $5.00
Contra Anniversary Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD    Konami                    Action (Run & Gun)    02/07/22    On Sale        $5.00

Then about a week and a half ago I got some physical games for the first time since December.  There's nothing too exciting here, though Cultures 2 is a solid The Settlers-style game.  Also, I'm now up to 298 NES games.  Both of the games I got here are solid, but I'd really like to make that into a round 300, soon!  There are still lots of great NES games I don't own, so it'll go up from there, but I definitely need to get two more NES games soon. 

Super Baseball 2020    Super NES, SNES                            02/15/22        Cart Only    $16.00
Battleship    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS                            02/15/22        Complete    $6.00
Michael Andretti's Indy Car Challenge    Super NES, SNES                            02/16/22        Cart Only    $6.00
NASCAR Thunder 2003    GameCube, GCN    Electronic Arts                        02/16/22        Complete    $5.00
All-Star Baseball 2004    GameCube, GCN    Acclaim Entertainment                        02/16/22        Complete    $5.00
Cultures 2: Gates of Asgard    PC                            02/16/22        Complete    $3.00
Double Dragon    NES    Tradewest                        02/16/22        Cart Only    $17.00
Kid Icarus    NES    Nintendo                        02/16/22        Cart Only    $35.00

A few more digital games on the 3DS.  There are a lot of moderately interesting digital releases on the 3DS.

Link-A-Pix Color    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            02/16/22    On Sale        $4.00
Gal Galaxy Pain    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            02/16/22            $0.50
Mini Sports Collection    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            02/17/22    On Sale        $2.00

And lastly, last week I got some more physical games.  Nothing too exciting here, though I guess finding that RE game for $2 was interesting?

RESIDENT EVIL: Biohazard [Resident Evil 7]    Xbox One, XONE    Capcom                        02/20/22        Disc Only    $2.00
FIFA Soccer '19    Xbox One, XONE    Electronic Arts                        02/20/22        Disc Only    $2.00
Fishing Derby    Atari 2600, 2600    Activision                        02/20/22        Cart Only    $2.00
WildSnake    Super NES, SNES                            02/20/22        Cart Only    $8.00
Super Tennis (1991)    Super NES, SNES                            02/20/22        Cart Only    $8.00
Wimbledon Tennis    Genesis, Gen    SEGA                        02/20/22        Cart Only    $4.00

What have I bought in the last... uh, like six weeks now?  Some stuff.

Here is a batch of Wii U and 3DS digital stuff.  Oncoming shutdown next year and all...

Harold's Walk    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/05/22    On Sale        $3.00
Run Run and Die    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            03/06/22            $4.00
Art Style: AQUIA    Nintendo DSi, NDSi - DD (DSiWare)                            03/06/22            $5.00
Kirby's Blowout Blast    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/06/22            $7.00 This is a game I should have bought years ago.  I'm glad I finally got it though, it's fantastic!
Miko Mole    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            03/06/22            $5.00
Toon War    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            03/06/22            $5.00
Might Switch Force! 2    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            03/06/22            $6.00
Flowerworks HD: Follie's Adventure    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            03/06/22            $2.00
Tumble Pop    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/08/22    On Sale        $3.00
Mega Man IV (Game Boy Virtual Console)    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/08/22            $3.00
Sword of Hope II, The (Game Boy Virtual Console)    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/08/22            $3.00

Now some digital mostly Xbox and Switch stuff that was on sale.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            03/14/22    On Sale        $20.00
Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            03/14/22    On Sale        $20.00
Unravel [from Unravel: Yarny Bundle]    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            03/14/22    On Sale        $6 for both games
Unravel Two [from Unravel: Yarny Bundle]    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            03/14/22    On Sale        $6 for both games
Eagle Island Twist    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            03/14/22    On Sale        $6.50
Omega Labyrinth Life Deluxe Edition    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            03/16/22    On Sale        $30.00

I went to a few local places.  Slim pickings as usual these days, but I got a few things.  Also, a few more digital 3DS games.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/17/22    On Sale        $5.00
World Series Baseball '95    Game Gear, GG                            03/17/22        Cart Only    $1.00
Wheel of Fortune    NES                            03/17/22        Cart Only    $3.00 (Why did I buy this?  Honestly, I have no idea...)
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            03/17/22    On Sale        $5.00
Yoshi's Crafted World    Nintendo Switch, NS                            03/17/22        Complete    $40.00
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity    Nintendo Switch, NS                            03/17/22        Complete    $40.00
Mystery Tales: Time Travel    Nintendo DS, NDS                            03/17/22        Cart Only    $4.00
Earth Defense Force 4.1: Shadow of New Despair    PlayStation 4, PS4                            03/17/22        Complete    $7.00
Dirt Jockey: Heavy Equipment Operator    PlayStation, PSX, PS1                            03/17/22        Complete    $8.00
Mortal Kombat    Game Gear, GG                            03/17/22        Cart Only    $2.00
WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game    Genesis, Gen                            03/17/22        Cart and Case (no manual)    $14.00 This Midway game plays kind of like Mortal Kombat.

These two are from ebay.  I have spent quite a lot since last year gadding to my TI 99/4A setup (more on that soon...) and getting an Apple IIGS.

Cubit    TI-99/4A                            03/19/22    from ebay; Game not listed on GameFAQs    Complete (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $22.98  This is a floppy disk game, which I now can play since I spent a whole bunch of money (~$350 including the expensive shipping, these things are heavy) to get a working TI 99 PEB addon box with floppy drive, 32KB RAM, and the regular basic TI disk controller that only supports single density disks.  It's pretty nisce, but there isn't much software, at least not that many games.  There is some more though, I keep meaning to get some... this is such an interesting platform.

See The U.S.A.    Apple II, AII                            03/21/22    from ebay; game not listed on GameFAQs (though the PC version is)    Complete    $55.06  When I saw this I just couldn't resist.  It looks pretty much unused, which is cool.  I like geography and obviously have lots of nostalgia for Apple II edutainment software, that's part of why I got the IIGS, so this is great stuff.  (I may have plenty of issues with the Apple IIGS, but not with disk-based games like this, they work fine.  So long as the disks are good of course, but these are.)


I made a few more trips to local places and I got this stuff.  I decided to buy a bunch of NES baseball games.  I do like baseball and didn't have any NES baseball games... well, now I do, from all the major series.

Hot Wheels: All Out    Game Boy Advance, GBA                            03/21/22        Cart Only    $4.00  This is the only top-down Hot Wheels game on GBA.  That makes it pretty different from the others, which are all third person.
Matchbox Missions: Air, Land and Sea Rescue / Emergency Response    Game Boy Advance, GBA                            03/21/22        Cart Only    $3.00
Matchbox: Cross Town Heroes    Game Boy Advance, GBA                            03/21/22        Cart Only    $3.00
Top Players Tennis    NES                            03/23/22        Cart Only    $5.00
Major League Baseball (1988)    NES                            03/23/22        Cart Only    $5.00
Bases Loaded: The Second Season    NES                            03/23/22        Cart, Slipcover, and Manual    $6.00
R.B.I. Baseball 3    NES                            03/25/22        Cart Only    $7.00
Kirby and the Forgotten Land    Nintendo Switch, NS                            03/25/22        New    $60.00 (obviously, I made a thread about it and all)
Mario Party Superstars    Nintendo Switch, NS                            03/25/22        Complete    $40.00 (no, I haven't played this yet.)


Next... well, the first is a decent Turbo CD homebrew platformer from a few yeas ago.  It's not amazing (pretty easy...)but it's neat it exists.  This ebay seller actually was selling new copies for less than it goes for on the games' own website.  Huh.

FX Unit Yuki [Homebrew Release]    TurboGrafx-CD, TCD                            03/30/22    from ebay        $39.00

As for the rest of this, yes, I got a Famicom Disk System.    On 4/5 it arrived, a FDS addon, with brand new belt, for $85 shipped. That's an okay price.  Additionally, for $35 I got an adapter from Masamura Entertainment.  This is a super cool extender cart that's a Japanese-to-US cart adapter but in a case long enough to fully extend outside of your model 1 NES!  The timing for getting this was perfect, Muramasa completed a new batch of these exactly when I was buying the console.  This means that you can put the extender in the NES, attach your FDS to the end, and play FDS on a model 1 NES... if you have a Blinking Light Win (not available at the moment, though I fortunately do have one) or REALLY good pins on your NES that can load carts without pushing them down, because you can't push this down, it goes straight out.  But I have the right hardware so that's fine, this was exactly what I wanted.  I was considering getting a Twin Famicom instead, or an AV Famicom to go with the FDS, but ended up getting this instead for now because I reallly do like the idea of using one console for everything where I can, and I want it to be a model 1 NES, that's what my nostalgia is for.  With that said, unless I can find the unobtanium ENIO board addon (a long-discontinued and very rare homebrew addon for the NES that plugs into the bottom port), I will need a Twin Famicom or AV Famicom eventually, that Famicom Accessory Port is essential for some games --for the 3d glasses, etc.  But for now thatis is awesome.  Oh, I also got a resistor.  In order to make expansion audio work on a NES, all you need to do is wire a resistor connecting two pins on the bottom accessory port connector.   I had never done this but now have the hardware.  Most FDS games seem to make limited use of the added sound channel though so it's not THAT essential really... but you are missing some sound without it.

As for the games, I got them all from a seller with pretty good prices and lots of listings.  I also got a Turbo CD game and a FC cart while I was at it.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (J) [Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels]    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete    $14.69
Reflect World (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $7.81
Esper Dream (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete    $9.92
Akamajou Dracula (J) [Castlevania]    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $18.41
19 Neunzehn (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $6.41
Hikari Shinwa: Palutena no Kagami (J) [Kid Icarus]    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $10.74
Falsion (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only
Doki Doki Panic: Dream Factory Heartbreak (J) [Super Mario 2 USA]    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk Only (wrong label)    $15.73
Ginga Densho: Galaxy Odyssey - Jigoma Sousa File (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete (with cassette)    $35.19
Kinnikuman Kinniku-Sei Oi Sodatsusen (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $5.69
Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 Race (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $12.81
Gall Force: Eternal Story (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $24.83
Seiken Psycho Calibur (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete (with cassette)    $25.82
Nazo no Murasame-Jo (J) [The Mysterious Murasame Castle]    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete    $14.74
Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete    $18.01
Spriggan Mark II: Re-Terraform Project    TurboGrafx-CD, TCD                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Complete    $51.03
Silviana (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk Only    $5.00
3D Gunstar Heroes [Genesis]    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            04/01/22    On Sale        $3.00
Nazo no Kabe: Block Kuzushi (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $10.08
Tobidase Daisakusen (J) [The 3-D Adventures of WorldRunner]    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $10.65
Akumajo Densetsu (J) [Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse]    NES                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Cart Only    $41.06
Katekkika Mario Bros. (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk Only    $10.70
3D Ecco the Dolphin [Genesis]    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            04/01/22    On Sale        $3.00
Kiki Kaikai: Dotou-Hen (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/01/22    from ebay; bought 21 games together for cheaper shipping.    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    $9.05
Exciting Soccer: Konami Cup (J)    NES Famicom Disk System, FDS                            04/05/22    from ebay; bundled with system    Disk in Protector with Sleeve Only    Bundled with FDS system

A few days later, I got a couple more NES sports games locally.  Why not?  I think I have most of the NES baseball games I could need, now... and Kings of the Beach is actually pretty good.

Kings of the Beach    NES                            04/06/22        Cart Only    $3.00
Baseball    NES                            04/06/22        Cart Only    $6.00

Arriving on 4/16 from ebay, I got, for $174, a high speed SCSI card for the Apple II (or, in my case, IIGS).  This may be a lot for card that only gets you twice the speed of the  pretty slow regular card -- so copying a 32MB partition from one drive to another now finishing in like an hour or more, instead of several hours -- but given how slow the regular card is, as awesome as it is that I have it, I wanted something better.  I know that a SFFA3000 would be a better use of money, but after seeing this one up for auction for what actually was a really good price I bid on it and won for less than I was expecting it to go for.  And yeah, it's very nice to have, it certainly speeds up the OS and file operations.  I'm not sure if it's $175 nice when you can get other cards that are newer and do more, but... oh well, I'm sticking with my 'real Apple SCSI card + SCSI to SD drive emulator' setup.

... This now makes my slow SCSI card superfluous, joining my 1MB Apple RAM card in not being needed.  I'm not sure if I wanted to keep them just in case or what.  For now, I actually have both SCSI cards installed in the machine, I'm just only using the fast one right now.

Then, for some random reason (a good price or a bundle on ebay being that reason), I got an educational console from the late '80s.  This was a pretty nice bundle on ebay, $87 for the console with its power supply, wireless keyboard controller, the Touch Pad accessory controller, the speech cartridge, four game carts, some cables and an RFU (this is an RF only device), the manuals for all four of those games, and the manuals for the system and the touch pad.  I already had four game carts for this that I'd randomly found in the basement years ago. I have no idea where they came from, the Socrates isn't something we owned when I was a kid, it's probably from someone else who used to live here decades ago.  Now here's the crazy part: NONE of the four games in this bundle were doubles of the four games I had already!  So with this one purchase now I have all but one cart for this system.  I don't have the Mousepad for the mouse cart I have, though, so I'd need two things for a complete (no box, only some manuals) Socrates collection.  Still, pretty neat.  The system works well too, with nice speech (with that speech synthesizer cart I have) and graphics.  The screen draws slowly but it's pretty cool stuff for the time.  This is definitely not for fast action games, control is very slow, but it's an edutainment system so that's fine.  It does what it does well.  Oh, and those carts from the basement may smell a bit musty,but surprisingly enough they work fine.

The loose carts I already had are: CAD Professor Mouse (unusable unless I get the mouse accessory sometime), Hodge-Podge, Facts 'n Fractions, and Memory Mania.

Around the World    Socrates                            04/21/22        Cart and Manual    $87 bundle with system and four games
State to State    Socrates                            04/21/22        Cart and Manual    $87 bundle with system and four games
Numbers Shapes & Letters    Socrates                            04/21/22        Cart and Manual    $87 bundle with system and four games
Amazing Mazes    Socrates                            04/21/22        Cart and Manual    $87 bundle with system and four games

And almost lastly, I got these locally.  Nothing too exciting here except for how cheap that copy of Mortal Shell was.  It's not a game I'm too interested in (Souls-like...) but at that price why not?

Build-a-lot    Nintendo DS, NDS                            05/04/22        Complete    $4.00
Mortal Shell    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            05/04/22        Complete    $3.00
Mortal Shell    Xbox Series X|S, XSX                            05/04/22        Complete    Free XSX upgrade for the X1 version
Monster High: Skulltimate Roller Maze    Wii                            05/04/22        Complete    $5.00
Squishy Tank    Nintendo DS, NDS                            05/04/22        Complete    $4.50
Connectank    Nintendo Switch, NS                            05/04/22        New    $27.00

Lastly, I got these on Xbox a few days ago.

Romancing SaGa 2    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            05/10/22    On Sale        $7.49
Romancing SaGa 3    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            05/10/22    On Sale        $8.69
Redout: Lightspeed Edition    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            05/10/22    On Sale        $16.00

So yeah, a fair amount of stuff here for sure, but it wouldn't be quite so bad if I'd just keep this thread updated... I mean, I've spent a lot, but it HAS been a month and a half...

So, what have I gotten over the past month?

Well, some more digital stuff for Nintendo consoles, and a few digital games for Xbox.  Also I bought a bunch more stuff for the TI99/4A, some of which hasn't arrived yet but some has and is listed here.  And I got a few physical games about two weeks ago.

First, though, a game I preordered last year.  It's a new game for an old console.  This was a preorder-only release, you can't buy it without having ordered it last year.  Yes I find that kind of Limited Run-style thing incredibly obnoxious, but the game is interesting enough that I got it anyway.

Alwa's Awakening: 8-Bit Edition [Homebrew Release]    NES    Retro-Bit    Elden Pixels    NR        05/16/22    Platformer (2D)    05/13/22    Had to pre-purchase in order to get the game. Bought online from Castlemania Games.    New    $50.00

Next, some digital Nintendo stuff.

Parking Star 3D    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)    CIRCLE Entertainment    Easytech    NR        05/08/14    Simulation (Vehicle)    05/14/22    On Sale        $2.00
Miles & Kilo    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)    Four Horses    Four Horses    NR        03/26/20    Platformer (2D)    05/14/22    On Sale        $2.00
Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)    Yacht Club Games    Yacht Club Games    NR        06/26/14    Platformer (2D)    05/21/22    On Sale        $7.50
Bricks Pinball VI    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)    nuGAME    nuGAME    NR        03/11/21    Arcade Action (Blockbusting)    05/21/22    On Sale; Game not listed on GameFAQs        $2.00
Fire Emblem (DLC)    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop) (DLC)                            05/22/22
Star Splash: Shattered Star    Wii U - DD (eShop)    Snails Animation    Snails Animation    NR        02/02/17    Platformer (2D) (Auto-Runner)    05/25/22    On Sale        $2.00
Ninja Strike: Dangerous Dash    Wii U - DD (eShop)    Natsume    Platinum Egg Inc.    NR        10/15/15    Platformer (2D)    05/25/22    On Sale        $3.00
Brave Tank Hero    Wii U - DD (eShop)    Natsume    Arc System Works    NR        08/27/15    Simulation (Vehicle)    05/25/22    On Sale        $3.00

The physical release of this game is only being sold on Amazon, so I got it there.  I don't LOVE the Cotton series, but I like it enough to pick this up quickly.  It's good.

Cotton Fantasy    Nintendo Switch, NS    ININ Games    Studio Saizensen    NR        05/20/22    Shmup (Horizontal)    05/30/22    web order    New    $40.00

These games I got locally a few weeks ago.


Riders Republic    Xbox Series X|S, XSX    Ubisoft                        06/03/22        Complete    Free XSX upgrade for the X1 version
Project Spark    Xbox One, XONE    Microsoft Game Studios                        06/03/22        Complete    $1.00 (This game creation toolkit title had its online service shut down years ago, but you CAN still use it offline so it's not a useless disc.)
Riders Republic    Xbox One, XONE    Ubisoft                        06/03/22        Complete    $40.00
Batman: The Animated Series    Game Boy, GB    Konami                        06/03/22        Cart Only    $35.00 (this game has fantastic graphics and sound but average gameplay.)
Digimon World: Next Order    PlayStation 4, PS4    Bandai Namco Games                        06/03/22        Complete    $14.00

And this is the TI99 stuff.  Most of it I got from the main TI99-focused site, Arcade Shopper, though the last game is from ebay.

First though in addition to the games I got one piece of hardware for TI99, from Arcade Shopper -- a 1MB SAMS RAM card for my PEB.  The 32K card can run almost everything, but there are a few games and such which require more memory and this solves that problem.  It's a really cool thing to have that I'd been wanting for a while, particularly for Realms of Antiquity, the RPG released a year or two ago which requires the SAMS card.  It was $85.

None of these games below require the SAMS, but most are on floppy disks so they do require a PEB.

Winging It! Flight Simulator    TI-99/4A    Asgard Software    Not-Polyoptics            01/01/84        06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $15.00 (floppy disk game, requires SSSD disk system and Extended Basic cartridge.)
Wizard's Lair    TI-99/4A    Rainbow Software    Rainbow Software                    06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $20.00 (floppy disk game, requires SSSD disk system and Extended Basic cartridge.)
Flying Shark [Homebrew Release]    TI-99/4A    Rasmus Moustgaard    Rasmus Moustgaard                    06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (Cart Only)    $35.00 (This cart game requires a 32K RAM expansion.)
Escape North Korea    TI-99/4A    Airshack    Airshack            01/01/20        06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (Cart Only)    $35.00
Tunnels of Doom Collection [3 Disks] (Copy of Asgard Software's Doom Games Modules]    TI-99/4A    Arcade Shopper    Asgard Software                    06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (Disks Only)    $15.00 (requires SSSD disk system, 32K RAM, and Tunnels of Doom cart.)
Rock Runner    TI-99/4A    Asgard Software    Asgard Software, Eric LaFortune            01/01/90        06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $15.00 (requires SSSD disk system and Editor/Assembler cart)
Wizard's Revenge    TI-99/4A    Rainbow Software    Rainbow Software                    06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $20.00 (floppy disk game, requires SSSD disk system and Extended Basic cartridge.)
Zoom Flume    TI-99/4A    Asgard Software    Asgard Software, Lynn Gardiner            01/01/89        06/10/22    from Arcade Shopper    New (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $15.00 (requires SSSD disk system and Adventure cart.)
TI-Toad / Midnight Mason / Micro Pinball / Burger Builder    TI-99/4A    Software Specialties, Inc    Software Specialties, Inc    NR        01/01/85    Collection    06/15/22    from ebay    New (disk and manual in plastic bag)    $27.15 (floppy disk game, requires SSSD disk system and Extended Basic cartridge.)

And here's another batch of digital stuff.

Johnny Impossible    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            06/16/22    On Sale        $2.00
Johnny Hotshot    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            06/16/22    On Sale        $2.00
Johnny Kung Fu    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            06/16/22    On Sale        $2.00
Toy Stunt Bike    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            06/16/22    On Sale        $2.00
Clockwork Aquario    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/12/22    On Sale        $12.00
Pure Mini Golf    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/12/22    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points
Formula Retro Racing    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/12/22    On Sale        $5.00
Dungeons of Dreadrock    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/12/22    On Sale        $4.00
Power Racing Bundle 3    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/12/22    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points
Offroad Racing - Buggy X ATV X Moto    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/12/22    On Sale        $3.00
Percy's Predicament    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/09/22    On Sale        $6.00
Bombing Bastards    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/09/22    On Sale        $3.50
Quiet Collection, The    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/09/22    On Sale        $3.75
Brick Breaker    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/09/22    On Sale        $2.50
Shantae and the Seven Sirens    Xbox One, XONE - DD    WayForward Technologies    WayForward                    06/13/22    On Sale        $18.00

Before the new Sonic collection released, Sega delisted the individual Genesis Sonic games for the Xbox 360 and PC.  I already had all of these on PC but decided to buy them for X360 before the delisting because the X360 Sega classic collections don't include Sonic 3 & Knuckles, while buying the two standalone games individually does get you S3&K.  Or did get you it, now.  :(

Sonic CD    Xbox 360, X360    SEGA                        05/18/22    bought before game was delisted        $5.00
Sonic the Hedgehog 2    Xbox 360, X360    SEGA                        05/18/22    bought before game was delisted        $5.00
Sonic the Hedgehog    Xbox 360, X360    SEGA                        05/18/22    bought before game was delisted        $5.00
Sonic the Hedgehog 3    Xbox 360, X360    SEGA                        05/18/22    bought before game was delisted        $5.00
Sonic & Knuckles    Xbox 360, X360    SEGA                        05/18/22    lockon support, enables S3&K, S2&K, and Blue Spheres. Bought before game was delisted        $3.00

Woa you got the whole Johnny trilogy?!  Amazing!

So what have I bought in the last two months?  Well, a few games, but not as much as you might think.  Basically, there are some expensive gaming-related things I want to get, most notably a bunch of homebrew games from various different web stores but also some other pricey stuff (more TI99 hardware, Xbox Series X storage expansion, and more...), but I've been, like... 'I really want this stuff, but buying all of it would cost so much! But if I don't buy it I know some will sell out and become unavailable, a lot of this stuff is made in quite limited quantities.  So what should I do...'  I mean, can I afford it yes, but still... so yeah, it's my usual indecisiveness problem.  It'd probably be better to just get it over with and order most of the stuff I want, heh... I mean, then I'd actually be getting something, rather than not much really of note beyond a whole bunch of random cheap digital games. :P

The main purchase I made last month was an AtariAge order for a bunch of games that I haven't received yet, because orders from there often take at least a month.  So that won't be listed here.  Nor will whatever else I order soon, and I know I will get some things.

Here's what I HAVE got over the last almost two months.

First, in June I got a whole bunch of digital games for various platforms, including Wii U, 3DS, Switch, Xbox One/Series, and PC.

Battle Lode Runner [TG16 Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            06/26/22            $6.00
Block-a-Pix Color    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        $4.00
Bridge Constructor Bundle    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $4.00
Chew Man Fu [TG16 Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            06/26/22            $6.00
Dimension Drive    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been $3)
Double Cross    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $4.00
Georifters    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been $2)
Knight's Quest, A    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $1.24
Lords of Thunder [TG16 Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            06/26/22            $8.00
Minigolf Adventure    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        Free with Nintendo Gold Points (would have been $2)
Never Stop    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        $2.00
REDO!    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $8.50
REDO!    Xbox Series X|S, XSX - DD                            06/26/22            Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Rise Eterna    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $5.00
Scarlet Nexus - Season's Pass DLC    Xbox One, XONE - DD (DLC)                            06/26/22    On Sale        $10.00
Space Hunted: The Lost Levels    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        $4.00
Steel Rats    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $1.00
Sudoku Party    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        $2.50
Tomeling in Trouble    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            06/26/22    On Sale        $3.00
TrackMania Turbo    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/26/22    On Sale        $10.00
Avant-Garde Discerning Paralleler    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $3.00
Blade Arcus From Shining: Battle Arena    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $6.00
Disappearing of Gensokyo, The    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $2.20
htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $2.00
Hypersonic Speed GIrl    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $5.00
Invasher    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $1.50
Light Fairytale Episode 1    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $5.00
Light Fairytale Episode 1    Xbox Series X|S, XSX - DD                            06/27/22            Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Light Fairytale Episode 2    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $7.50
Light Fairytale Episode 2    Xbox Series X|S, XSX - DD                            06/27/22            Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Metal Unit    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $4.50
Noita    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $10.00
Prison Princess    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $10.00
Spark the Electric Jester 2    PC - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $10.00
Zangeki Warp    PC / Linux - DD                            06/27/22    On Sale        $2.40

These three games I ordered online from Gamestop.  The main thing here is KOFXV, which is easily the best of the modern 2.5d SNK games.

Gears Tactics    Xbox Series X|S, XSX    Xbox Game Studios                        06/29/22    online order from Gamestop    Complete    free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Gears Tactics    Xbox One, XONE    Xbox Game Studios                        06/29/22    online order from Gamestop    Complete    $14.00
King of Fighters XV, The    Xbox One, XONE    SNK Corporation            8.6            06/29/22    online order from Gamestop    Complete    $38.00
King of Fighters XV, The    Xbox Series X|S, XSX    SNK Corporation                        06/29/22    online order from Gamestop    Complete    free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Microsoft Flight Simulator [2021]    Xbox Series X|S, XSX    Xbox Game Studios                        06/29/22    online order from Gamestop    Complete    $38.00

These two I got locally.  This is the kind of thing you see these days, not much.  I definitely look for games locally less than I used to not only because of being worried about COVID, I still very much am, but also because even when I DO go look I usually see so, so little.  I mean, these two games are fine, but... it's slim pickings, and not because I own the good games, it's not like I'm seeing those very often either.

Freestyle Boardin' 99    PlayStation, PSX, PS1    Capcom                        06/30/22            $9.00
RealSports Volleyball    Atari 2600, 2600    Atari Inc. (1972-1984)                        06/30/22            $2.00

This game I ordered online from Gamestop as soon as it was finally released physically in the US.  It's pretty good!  I definitely recommend it.

Pocky & Rocky Reshrined    Nintendo Switch, NS    07/01/22    online order from Gamestop    New    $30.00

I got these two locally.  Yes, I added yet again to my NES baseball library.  I haven't been in a local game store since this purchase a few weeks ago.  But yeah, I actually didn't own the PSP MMX remake.  Sadly, my PSP's disc drive seems to have died, it won't work at all.  That's really frustrating, I like that PSP quite a bit, it's a great green color.  I'll need to get another one or something...

Baseball Stars    NES                         07/22/22        Cart Only    $12.00
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X    PlayStation Portable, PSP                            07/22/22        Disc Only    $4.00

I ordered these two games from Songbird.  I ordered them the same time as that AtariAge order or after, but when you order from Songbird you get your order promptly, instead of ... sometime a month or more down the road, who knows.  That's nice.    As for the games, they're pretty solid too.  They are both purely 2d, but have good gameplay.

Asteroite [PD Homebrew]    Atari Jaguar, JAG    Songbird Productions                        08/01/22    New; not listed on GameFAQs        $80.00 - This game is a Metroidvania, and a solidly made one too.  Good game.

Kings of Edom [PD Homebrew]    Atari Jaguar, JAG    Songbird Productions                        08/01/22    New; not listed on GameFAQs        $80.00 - This game is a roguelike.  It's fine for the genre, I like it.

I got this on ebay.  I've been looking at the Apple IIGS version of this game every so often when it shows up and I still will get that eventually, but this PC copy was really cheap and probably is better overall, so I picked it up.  It's a decent little tube racing game.

Tunnels of Armageddon    PC    California Dreams    Logical Design Works                    08/05/22    from ebay    Complete    $6.00

And lastly, the digital games I've gotten in July and August.  It's a lot less so far than I got in June.

Namco Museum Archives Vol. 1    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            07/10/22    On Sale        $5.00
Swords & Soldiers 3D    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            07/31/22    On Sale        $4.00
Glory of Generals: The Pacific    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            07/31/22    On Sale        $3.50
Harold Reborn    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            07/31/22    On Sale        $9.00
Ittle Dew    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            07/31/22    On Sale        $10.00
Pad of Time    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            07/31/22    On Sale        $5.50
Good Job!    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)    Nintendo                        07/31/22    On Sale        $14.50
Code Shifter    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            08/14/22    On Sale        $4.50

I finally got the two Everdrives I ordered in.  I have one for original/GBC which I can finally use for all kinds of custom ROMs on actual Gameboy/Super Gameboy hardware.  I also have one for my PC Engine.  I finished up adding parts to allow USB access but other than that it simply works.  Unlike my Famicom one, neither of these really make use FPGA cores because the GB/C and PC Engine never really made use of "addon chips" the way the NES and SNES did.  The Gameboy only ever used mappers to exceed the normal cartridge size, which is easy enough to simulate.  The PC Engine had a game with built in saving and another with built in additional RAM (both also rather easily to simulate) but otherwise didn't make use of much beyond that.  If I want to run CD games, this is the wrong addon for that anyway.  There's another that attaches to the back I could get but it's incredibly expensive even by the standards of Everdrives.

Anyway, beyond that I now have a physical cart of Starfox 2.  I've seen numerous guides for making these online, but most of them involve an utter rat's nest of loose wires.  I didn't want to deal with that kind of nightmare, but I eventually found someone had made a lovely adapter board to allow my writable ROM chips to connect with zero odd wiring.  I ripped the ROM straight off my SNES Classic and, after removing it's "header" data to leave the ROM clean, flashed away and soldered it in with that board (after "reversing" the battery on the donor copy of WinterGold I had and replacing it's region chip with one of those aftermarket "region free" replacements).  Now not only is it clean internally, it looks lovely externally too.  I found someone on Etsy that was printing out SNES cart labels and full manuals using Nintendo's own officially released artwork and manual for the game.  Now, what I should do is go to Everdrive and pick up an FX Pack Pro, but I do love original hardware and that includes the Super FX, and this ONE project in particular I just had to do this way for my own reasons.  I'll get an Everdrive later on.  The one I'm aiming for for my SNES is, after all, the most expensive one that Krikzz sells.  https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridg...k-pro.html  (As an aside, as interested as I am in a Master System Everdrive, it's a shame there's not a Japanese style version of that cart for sale.  I would also absolutely buy "cartridge adapters" from that site if they sold say a NES to Famicom adapter.

We start with a batch of digital games for Nintendo platforms.

ACA NEOGEO ALPHA MISSION II    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/16/22            $4.00
Automaton Lung    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/16/22            $7.00
Smash Cat Heroes    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/16/22            $2.00
Puzzle & Dragons Nintendo Switch Edition    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            08/16/22            $2.00
3D Game Collection    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/16/22            $2.75
Color Zen Kids    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $3.15
Bloo Kid 2    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $2.00
Word Search 10K    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $4.00
Secret Agent Files: Miami    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $3.50
Word Puzzles by POWGI    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $5.00
Word Logic by POWGI    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $5.00
Splat the Difference    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/17/22            $2.50
Umihara Kawase Fresh    Nintendo Switch, NS    Nicalis                        08/19/22        Complete    $27.00
Antz Extreme Racing    Xbox    Empire Interactive                        08/19/22        Complete    $9.00

Then, the Eye of Typhoon re-release I made a thread for.

Eye of Typhoon, The (2022 Re-Release)    PC                            08/25/22        New    with 3DO version
Eye of Typhoon, The (2022 Re-Release)    3DO    Viccom, Pico Interactive, Limited Run Games                        08/25/22        New    $130.00

I also made an order from AtariAge.  The order is actually from July, it just took a solid month, like usual, for the games to actually be delivered.  It's a nice variety of mostly very recent homebrew releases.  Other than Adventure II, the rest of these are from the most recent batch of AtariAge releases earlier this year.

Knight Guy in Low-Res World (PD Homebrew)    Atari 7800, 7800    AtariAge                        08/31/22        Complete    $55.00
Intellidiscs (PD Homebrew)    Atari 5200, 5200    AtariAge                        08/31/22        Complete    $50.00
Adventure II (PD Homebrew)    Atari 5200, 5200    AtariAge                        08/31/22        Complete    $50.00
Gravitic Mines (Deluxe Edition) (PD Homebrew)    Atari Jaguar, JAG    AtariAge                        08/31/22        Complete    $130.00
Escape from the Castle (PD Homebrew)    Atari 2600, 2600    AtariAge                        08/31/22        Complete    $50.00
Wizard's Dungeon (PD Homebrew)    Atari 7800, 7800    AtariAge                        08/31/22        Complete    $50.00

I also got this game from ebay.  It's the other major release that uses the controller holder for the 5200 so you can easily use two sticks in the game.  With it it plays great.

Robotron 2084    Atari 5200, 5200    Atari Inc. (1972-1984)                        09/02/22        Cart in Box (no manual)    $24.00

Next, another big bunch of digital Nintendo platform purchases.

Brunch Panic    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            08/30/22            $2.00
Potata: Fairy Flower    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            09/01/22            $2.50
QV    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            09/02/22            $7.50
KONAMI KRAZY RACERS [Game Boy Advance Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            09/04/22            $5.00
Toki Tori 2+    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $2.00
Trine 2: Director's Cut    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $5.00
Trine Enhanced Edition    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $4.00
Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $10.00
Rorrim    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $7.00
Wicked Monsters BLAST! HD+    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $2.50
BONK 3 Bonk's Big Adventure [TurboGrafx-16 Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            09/04/22            $6.00
Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom [NES Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            09/04/22            $5.00
Shadow Archer Special    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $4.00
Kuru Kuru Kururin [Game Boy Advance Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            09/04/22            $7.00
Olympia Racing    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $5.00
New Adventure Island [TurboGrafx-16 Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            09/04/22            $6.00
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons [SNES Virtual Console]    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)                            09/04/22            $8.00
Dying is Dangerous    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/04/22            $1.00
Quarters, Please!    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/08/22            $4.00
Quarters, Please! Vol. 2    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/08/22            $4.00

Here are a bunch of physical games I got in September.  Some are from ebay and some are from local stores.  It's a mix.  The most notable ones here are Splatoon 3, which I have played some of and think is better than Splatoon 2 but worse than Splatoon 1, and Gremlins for the Atari 5200, which is very cool and I'm really happy to have.

Kikstart Off-Road Simulator    Atari 8-bit Computers, A8    Mastertronic                        09/12/22        Disk Only    $16 for Kikstart and Elektraglide. Both games are flippy disks, C64 & A8 on one disk.
Elektraglide    Atari 8-bit Computers, A8    Mastertronic                        09/12/22        Disk Only    Flippy disk, C64 and A8 on one disk.
Kikstart Off-Road Simulator    Commodore 64, C64    Mastertronic                        09/12/22        Disk Only    $16 for Kikstart and Elektraglide. Both games are flippy disks, C64 & A8 on one disk.
Elektraglide    Commodore 64, C64    Mastertronic                        09/12/22        Disk Only    Flippy disk, C64 and A8 on one disk.
Mountain Bike Adrenaline    PlayStation 2, PS2                            09/14/22        Complete    $4.00
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection    Xbox One, XONE    Konami                        09/14/22        New    $40.00
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection    Xbox Series X|S, XSX    Konami                        09/14/22        New    Free XSX upgrade with purchase
Prisoner of War    Xbox                            09/14/22        Complete    $6.00
Lego Xtreme Stunts    PlayStation 2, PS2                            09/14/22        Complete    $13.00
Bombastic    PlayStation 2, PS2                            09/14/22        Complete    $8.00
Disney's Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge    PlayStation, PSX, PS1    Disney Interactive Studios                        09/14/22        Complete    $11.00
Inside Pitch 2003    Xbox                            09/14/22        Complete    $6.00
Deathlord    Apple II, AII    Electronic Arts                        09/14/22        Complete    $65.00
Nightcaster 2: Equinox    Xbox                            09/14/22        Complete    $4.00
Sudoku Ball Detective    Nintendo DS, NDS    Playlogic                        09/14/22        Cart Only    $4.00
Splatoon 3    Nintendo Switch, NS                            09/14/22        New    $58.00
Gremlins    Atari 5200, 5200    Atari Corp. (1984-1996)                        09/14/22        Complete    $63.00
Justice League Heroes    Xbox                            09/14/22        Complete    $8.00
Tennis Masters Series    Xbox                            09/14/22        Complete    $4.00
James Patterson's Women's Murder Club: Games of Passion    Nintendo DS, NDS                            09/14/22        Complete    $6.00

And here I got another batch of digital games for Nintendo platforms.  I haven't gotten more since, I should...

Gun Gun Pixies    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            09/22/22            $7.90
Battle Axe    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)                            09/22/22            $12.65
Silver Falls - Ghoul Busters    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $7.00
A-Train 3D: City Simulator    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $10.00
Urban Trial Freestyle 2    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $2.80
Urban Trial Freestyle    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $2.00
Sudoku Party    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            Free with purchase of Wii U version
Murder on the Titanic    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $3.50
Pushmo    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)    Nintendo                        09/24/22            $7.00
Noitu Love 2: Devolution    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $10.00
Queen's Garden    Wii U - DD (eShop)                            09/24/22            $3.30
World Sports Competition (TG16 Virtual Console)    Wii U - DD (eShop) (Virtual Console)    Konami                        09/24/22            $6.00

After watching some footage of this game, I decided to pick up the X1 version to play on my Series X.  Yes, I have it on PC and Xbox 360, but the X1 version looks a lot nicer than the 360 original, so it is worth getting again, I think.  I have been playing this game some here and there, so it was a good purchase.  This is one I think I'll be going back to for a while, there are good and bad things about Dragon's Dogma but there is enough good that I think it's worth the effort.  I should say though, each time I buy this game I pay more than I did for the previous version.  I got a digital copy of the X360 version on sale for $2.50, then several years later the PC version for $12, and now this X1 version for $20.  Ah well.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen    Xbox One, XONE    Capcom                        09/27/22            $20.00 Complete

In October, I got nothing other than a couple of licensed homebrew releases of classic games.   The first is a mediocre game infamous for its Clinton-era political theme, and the second a very visually impressive previously Japan-only Genesis rail shooter that I've never liked all that much due to its very rough framerate.  Unfortunately, playing it on real hardware doesn't make me like it more.  It's still neat to have, though, and it is in English.

Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill (Unreleased Game Homebrew Release)    Super NES, SNES    Second Dimension                        10/03/22        Cart Only    $35.00
Panorama Cotton (Licensed Homebrew Release of previously J-exclusive game)    Genesis, Gen    Limited Run                        10/09/22            $60.00

After getting almost nothing in October, I've gotten more games this month... and then let them sit around unopened.  I haven't played any of these games yet.

Death End Re;Quest 2    Nintendo Switch, NS                            11/02/22        New    $50.00
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope    Nintendo Switch, NS                            11/02/22        New    $60.00
Legend of Heroes, The: Trails from Zero    Nintendo Switch, NS                            11/04/22        New    $50.00
Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition    Genesis, Gen    SEGA                        11/04/22        Cart Only    $6.00
Star Ocean: The Divine Force    Xbox Series X|S, XSX    Square Enix                        11/04/22        New    Free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Star Ocean: The Divine Force    Xbox One, XONE                            11/04/22        New    $60.00
Rad Rogers    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/15/22            $2.00
Orcs Must Die 3    Xbox Series X|S, XSX - DD                            11/15/22            Free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Orcs Must Die 3 (both DLC packs)    Xbox One, XONE - DD (DLC)                            11/15/22            $8.00
Orcs Must Die 3    Xbox One, XONE - DD                            11/15/22            $15.00

What have I been doing for the past few months?  I don't know... Mario Maker 2, watching too much youtube instead of playing videogames, building Legos... and, for a while, buying a somewhat ridiculous number of games.  See, in October and early November I got almost no videogames, as I said in my last post.

But then, I started thinking about how many consoles I own that I hadn't bought a game for yet in 2022.  The list was several dozen consoles long when I started in mid November.  And so, I decided to correct that and buy games for most of them.

Well, it is now January 1.  Here's how I did.

systems I have not bought any games for yet in 2022 as of mid November:

Note: an asterisk before the system name means that I've bought at least one game for that console every year since I got the system, whenever that was.  My longest streak is for the N64, I've never missed a year for that system since buying one in 1999.  No asterisk means I've missed years before since getting the system in question.

Neo Geo Pocket Color
N-Gage
N64 DD
*CD-i
*PlayStation 3 (haven't gotten physical or digital titles)
Vita (haven't gotten physical or digital titles)
Sega 32X CD
Sega 32X
Xbox 360 (physical discs; have gotten digital games)
Wii U (physical discs; have gotten digital games)

Also haven't gotten a digital game for PS Vita or PS3


received

*Jaguar CD
*Intellivision
Colecovision
Sega CD
*Nintendo 64
WonderSwan
WonderSwan Color
*Saturn
*Dreamcast
*PC-FX
*Commodore VIC-20
TurboGrafx-16 (HuCards; have gotten CD games)
Odyssey 2
Nintendo 3DS (physical cart)
Game Boy Color (or GB/GBC Dual Mode)
*Sega Master System
*Apple IIGS

And for many of these systems I got several games, not just one.  And I got a bunch of Lego sets too.  Well, at this point almost everything I ordered has arrived.  I'm thinking of getting a few more things, but have not ordered anything yet.  I do have some Lego orders to be delivered, and one modern game I'm looking forward to, but most of it is here as of now.

Now, looking at the list of systems I ended up not getting any games for, for most of those I don't care; there aren't many 32X games and the remaining ones are pretty expensive, for example.  The Wii U is a system I bought a lot of digital games for last year, so who cares that I didn't get any more disc games.  I do not care that I broke the PS3 streak, whatever.  That CD-i though... I was going to get something for it, but then after trying to use my CD-i for the first time in a while I learned that it seems to be completely dead now.  Considering that I own a somewhat rare model of the system, the DVS VE-200, this is Not Good.  It does not display any image on screen and the LCD display on the front of the unit just says DISC and never attempts to spin the drive.  Ugh, I wonder what is broken... but given we're talking about me here I don't know if I could figure it out even if I took it apart unless it's really obvious, so I haven't tried to figure this out yet in the weeks since discovering it.  I will need to do something eventually, though -- the CD-i's not all bad and I want to have one.  I really want to have this model, too, if I can figure out what went wrong or get it fixed or something...

My PSP seems to be broken as well, I discovered this sometime last month.  It works fine for digital games but doesn't make even a hint of a sound of reading a disc.  What a pain!  I have a lot of disc PSP games, I'd like to be able to play them once in a while.


Other than that everything seems to be in working order, though, so it could be worse given how little I've used a lot of my retro stuff in a while.

As for new games, here's the list.

First, some physical games.  I got most of these locally except for the first one, which is from ebay.

Silpheed (1988)    Apple IIGS, GS        11/26/22    from ebay    Complete    $88.88
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3D    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS        11/29/22        Cart Only    $7.00
Evel Knievel    Game Boy/GB Color Dual Mode        11/29/22        Cart Only    $9.00
Wayne Gretzky and the NHLPA All-Stars    Genesis, Gen        11/29/22        Cart Only    $5.00
Tales of Berseria    PlayStation 4, PS4        11/29/22        Complete    $14.00

Now some digital games for Nintendo systems.

Hover Racer    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $2.50
Hammerwatch    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $2.00
Fluffy Horde    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $2.00
Lost Ruins    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $9.00
Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $12.00
Gal*Gun 2: Complete Edition    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $6.00
Xavier    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $5.00
GIGA WRECKER ALT.    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $7.50
Super Ultra Star Shooter    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $2.00
Momonga Pinball Adventures    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $6.00
Sofiya and the Ancient Clan    Nintendo Switch, NS - DD (eShop)        11/30/22    on sale        $5.50
Blast 'Em Bunnies    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)        12/01/22    on sale        $2.00
Yumi's Odd Odyssey    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)        12/01/22    on sale        $10.00

And here we get into the numerous mostly retro physical games I got in December.  Most of these are from ebay, but not all.

Killer Bees!    Odyssey2/Videopac, O2        12/01/22    from ebay    Complete    $45.44
Horseshoe Crab Rescue!    Nintendo 3DS, 3DS - DD (eShop)        12/04/22            $1.00
Laser Zone    Commodore 64, C64        12/05/22    from ebay    Complete (Sealed)    $21.83
Sinistron    TurboGrafx-16, TG16        12/05/22    from ebay    Cart Only    $44.93
Pachinko!    Odyssey2/Videopac, O2        12/05/22    from ebay    Complete    $23.98
Aggressor    Commodore VIC-20, VIC        12/05/22    from ebay    Cart Only    $14.47
Galaxy Fraulein Yuna FX (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX        12/07/22    from ebay    Complete    $45.00
Zap! Snowboarding Trix (J)    Saturn, SS        12/08/22    from ebay    Complete    $8.50
Tsukai! Slot Shooting (J)    Saturn, SS        12/08/22    from ebay    Complete    $18.00
I.Q Final (J)    PlayStation, PSX, PS1        12/08/22    from ebay    Complete    $12.50
Blue Wing Blitz (J)    WonderSwan Color, WSC (Color Only)        12/10/22    from ebay    Complete    $40.00
Buffers Evolution (J)    WonderSwan, WS        12/10/22    from ebay    Complete    $25.00
Engacho (J)    WonderSwan, WS        12/10/22    from ebay    Complete    $60.00
Layer Section II (J) [aka RayStorm]    Saturn, SS        12/10/22    from ebay    Complete    $65.51
Ganbare Goemon: Dero Dero Douchu (J) [aka Goemon's Great Adventure]    Nintendo 64, N64        12/10/22    from ebay    Complete    $27.29
Doraemon 3: Nobita no Machi SOS! (J)    Nintendo 64, N64        12/10/22    from ebay    Cart Only    $17.15
Thunder Force Gold Pack I (J)    Saturn, SS        12/12/22    from ebay    Complete    $58.83
K-Star Patrol    Commodore VIC-20, VIC        12/12/22    from ebay    Complete    $29.83
Donpachi (J)    Saturn, SS        12/12/22    from ebay    Complete    $73.40

This group are the ones I got locally.

Wheel of Fortune    Nintendo 64, N64        12/14/22        Cart Only    $10.00
Dashin' Desperadoes    Genesis, Gen        12/14/22        Complete    $40.00
F-16 Fighting Falcon    Master System, SMS        12/14/22        Complete    $15.00
Tanglewood (Unlicensed PD Homebrew Release)    Genesis, Gen        12/14/22        Complete    $50.00 (found this in a local shop!)
Shadowgate    NES        12/14/22        Cart Only    $8.00
Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side    Sega CD, SCD        12/14/22        Complete    $50.00

And now we're back to ebay. 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy    Apple II, AII        12/16/22    from ebay    Complete    $61.20 for four game lot
Archon    Apple II, AII        12/16/22    from ebay    Complete    $61.20 for four game lot  - This game is my favorite purchase of this post, by a lot.  It's not so much for the game though, it's fine.  It's for the absolutely spectacular boxart which might be my favorite ever in a game.
Fight Night    Apple II, AII        12/16/22    from ebay    Complete    $61.20 for four game lot
Autoduel    Apple II, AII        12/16/22    from ebay    Complete    $61.20 for four game lot
Tron: Maze-A-Tron    Mattel Intellivision, INTV        12/17/22    from ebay    Cart, Box, and Manual (no overlays)    $19.82
Utopia (1981)    Mattel Intellivision, INTV        12/19/22    from ebay    Complete (Sealed)    $12.98
Toy Racer (E)    Dreamcast, DC        12/22/22    from ebay    Complete (cracked case)
Tropical Trouble    Mattel Intellivision, INTV        12/22/22    from ebay    Complete    $50.86
Deep Blue Fleet (J)    NEC PC-FX, PCFX        12/23/22    from ebay    Complete
W.I.T.C.H. (E)    Game Boy Advance, GBA        12/27/22    from ebay    Cart Only    $21.91
Highlander: Last of the MacLeods    Atari Jaguar CD, JCD        12/30/22    from ebay    Sealed    $49.64

This new game I got online new.

Sonic Frontiers    Xbox Series X|S, XSX        12/30/22        New    Free XSX upgrade of an X1/XSX dual-mode game
Sonic Frontiers    Xbox One, XONE        12/30/22    on sale    New    $40.00

And lastly, some digital games I got today.

Radical Rabbit Stew    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale        $4.00
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale        $16.24
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale; bundle with Rogue Stormers        $2.50 for Giana and Rogue Stormers
Rogue Stormers    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale; bundle with Giana Sisters        $2.50 for Giana and Rogue Stormers
Black Widow: Recharged    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale        $5.00
R-Type Final 2 (DLC)    Xbox One, XONE - DD (DLC)        01/01/23    on sale        $24.00
Octahedron    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale        $3.24
Centipede: Recharged    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale        $5.00
Ruvato: Original Complex    Xbox One, XONE - DD        01/01/23    on sale        $7.50


Best thing I got: Archon's box
Most questionable decision: my choices of Intellivision games

I'd recommend doing what I had to do at one point and examining the drive bay of your PSP very carfully.  Mine suffered the same symptoms caused by a single human hair that had managed to wedge itself in the gear assembly.  Removing it fixed it good as new and it still works to this day.

That said, you may not be so lucky.  You may want to look into hacking your PSP and ripping all your UMDs (or finding copies in "the usual way").  The games run a lot quicker (as in load times) when done that way.  There's also third party SD card adapters to drastically enhance storage space.  My PSP is a streamlined little machine now.

I recently obtained the GBA versions of DKC 2 and 3.  While the visuals are cropped, washed out, and noticeably less detailed, I appreciate some of the extra content.  I also very much appreciate a very Wise addition to DKC3's soundtrack.

(2nd January 2023, 8:53 AM)Dark Jaguar Wrote: [ -> ]I'd recommend doing what I had to do at one point and examining the drive bay of your PSP very carfully.  Mine suffered the same symptoms caused by a single human hair that had managed to wedge itself in the gear assembly.  Removing it fixed it good as new and it still works to this day.

That said, you may not be so lucky.  You may want to look into hacking your PSP and ripping all your UMDs (or finding copies in "the usual way").  The games run a lot quicker (as in load times) when done that way.  There's also third party SD card adapters to drastically enhance storage space.  My PSP is a streamlined little machine now.

I recently obtained the GBA versions of DKC 2 and 3.  While the visuals are cropped, washed out, and noticeably less detailed, I appreciate some of the extra content.  I also very much appreciate a very Wise addition to DKC3's soundtrack.

So I tried my PSP again, and it's kind of worse than I remembered -- it actually does make a disc-spinning sound for a second, before stopping.  The problem is that it does NOT make any kind of laser transport sound, and the laser mechanism very obviously isn't moving at all.  Ugh.