G&C Podcast - Episode 163: Collecting Stories And Experiences #3: Retro Hangover Edition! (ft. Chris Coplien of Retro Hangover)

[00:00:00] Hey everybody! On this episode of Gaming And Collecting, we are going to be having another Collecting Stories And Experiences episode, this time talking to Chris Coplien from the Retro Hangover Podcast. Lots of stories were shared with this one. Hope you all enjoy the episode.

[00:00:38] So this is where I normally say how you've been, but we got a guest this time. We've got Chris from Retro Hangover. How are you doing, Chris? Hey, I'm doing great, Bill. Thanks for having me, both of you. Pleasure being back here

[00:00:49] on the Gaming And Collecting Podcast. I've been on here a few times and it's always great coming back and talking with y'all. Well thanks for coming on dude. Yeah, thank you. And like I normally say every episode, how you guys been? Oh my god. I guess so.

[00:01:07] Awkward silence every time. Go ahead, Alex. I just rambled for a little bit. Oh, okay. Well, I've been doing great. For those of you... I mean it's been pretty on the show that I've been going through a little bit of a job struggle but I turned in my

[00:01:23] two weeks notice three weeks ago and I started a new job on Monday so I'm out of golf ball hell. Yeah, so it's been pretty good. Mostly just training this week which has been interesting but it's been pretty nice. Congratulations on the new job. Thank you.

[00:01:46] Yeah, I'm still stuck in golf ball hell but... Hey, they're hiring in the tool room, Bill. I'll put a good morning for you. I don't know, but what it sounds like they have more overtime there than I'm already working

[00:01:58] now so I think I'll stick around to where I'm at. As for me, I'm counting down the days until I'm going to be in a job struggle about 319, 318 days now and until I am done with my job which is with the military so I'm just

[00:02:21] wondering what I'm even going to be doing at that time so hopefully that's a good landing spot but in the meantime I'm just being a massive pain in the ass at work because

[00:02:31] I think anyone, I don't know how it's like in the civilian world but I think anyone who knows that they're on their way out the door generally doesn't care as much and... Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. The last two weeks I did nothing. At that place, nothing.

[00:02:50] Imagine having that mentality for two years straight and that's kind of where I'm at because I know the end is there so as long as I don't do anything illegal or anything that can get me early fired, so to speak, my effort is minimal.

[00:03:08] So that's what's going on in my life right now other than just the normal mundanery that exists so just still collecting video games which I guess is apropos for today but other than that yeah that's what's going on just trying to make it through, trying to

[00:03:29] make it through the struggle to find another struggle and hopefully be in a position that Alex is currently in right now in about a year's time. Nice. Yeah, I laugh speaking of collecting. It's funny how like the mindset of people has changed over the years.

[00:03:47] I posted one of my most recent collecting halls across all the Discord servers and I think I got more comments about my rug than I did the actual games on the collection. I had three people like that's a nice carpet. I'm like okay, thanks. Thank you.

[00:04:04] Not what the post was about. Priorities. Well, for those who like rugs there is a nice rug behind me so calm it away. No. Has a nice design and flowers. Yes. Very much brings out the e-room. Yeah. Why thank you. I've got a dead... I've got a dead...

[00:04:29] I've got a dead Sega Master System chilling back there. I almost thought you were going to make a comment about Dale Earnhardt but then you swapped over to the Master System so good save. Oh no, that's Jeff Gordon. I don't... I thought 24 was Jeff Gordon.

[00:04:46] Oh no, the bobbleheads Jeff Gordon. The 19 is a Mark Truex Jr. See, this is how much I know about racing. I thought... There is also a lot of information on his screen like there's a 78, a 19, a Jeff Gordon. There's a lot going on. Yeah. Dale Earnhardt's three, sorry.

[00:05:05] That was three. Yep, my bad. No worries. But yeah, so for today's episode we're actually going to be doing another installment in our I guess ongoing series that we're trying to do now because this is the Gaming and Collecting podcast.

[00:05:19] We should probably talk about collecting at some point. And we've been doing a series now called... It's just implied. I mean it has been for three seasons now but we've started a series called Collecting Stories and Experiences where we bring on different collectors from within the podcast

[00:05:37] and community. We just kind of chat about collecting for one to two hours. So we'll see how it goes. But yeah, so my best way to start I guess is first question Chris. How did you get into collecting?

[00:05:53] Slowly and just kind of progressively it more just snuck up on me. So I've been thinking about this a little bit coming into this episode but when I really started collecting and I could give you two different answers because if I really go back

[00:06:10] to when I was a kid, 16, 17 years old, maybe a little bit before that. What really kicked it off was getting into Castlevania Symphony of the Night which I think came out in 97. I didn't plant until 98.

[00:06:25] So I was about 13 and then around 14, 15, yeah I started like oh I really need to get into the Castlevania series. So I tried to get all the Castlevania games and I think I eventually did.

[00:06:39] But of course at that point that means that I was trying to get games for the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and because that's where all of them were and of course

[00:06:48] on the GBA the PS2 games would come as new games and I think I left for the Navy before Curse of Darkness came out so I never got to that. But in many ways that was what I was doing was trying to complete like the Castlevania

[00:07:04] collection and then it was I got to get all these like RPGs because RPGs are somewhat rare but I was getting them as they were new. Like I wasn't going back and getting new Nintendo games or Super Nintendo games

[00:07:17] or anything like that mostly because I had emulation, because emulation was just coming out and it was very efficient back then for Super Nintendo and Nintendo games, Sega Genesis games if you wanted to play them there was no need to go out and buy them.

[00:07:30] Which was my mentality back then. I wish that mentality held. My wallet would greatly appreciate me but that's kind of the mentality that I had. So flash forward many years. I just don't collect at all.

[00:07:44] I'm just your typical almost dude bro kind of video game player but playing RPGs because I would play like a lot of mainstream games. I played a lot of the Madden's. I played Mass Effect that was like the hardcore RPG was into Dragon Age origins.

[00:08:02] Just playing the more current stuff as opposed to anything retro. Just played things as they came out, got the good deals on them. You know talked about games contemporaneously and that's the gamer was for a very long time and then in 2012 we paid off our car.

[00:08:22] It was a Ford, it was a Ford Escort Ford Escape. I don't know. It's a hatchback. I don't know. You probably know you're a car guy but Ford Focus. That's what it was. Ford Focus hatchback. Ford Focus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:08:34] And I was like, OK, so this this was costing us $300 a month. I have a little bit more disposable income. And I discovered this wonderful world of YouTube, which I had been watching anyway, just for more modern games.

[00:08:50] I think it was big into like like Angry Joe and just other other YouTube channels at that time. But then I started finding other channels like the completionist, which is probably not the best channel name to throw out there right now. But other ones like. Yeah.

[00:09:10] He donated his soul. Wish he donated other things. But there's a pro there's pro Jared that I picked up in probably another one. Yeah. With him, we got to see how the sausage was made and also classic game room, which was I got really, really big in soon.

[00:09:34] Of course, classic game room was a new show every day that has EGR undertoe. So that that itched to play older games was really getting to me. That nostalgia bug was hitting me. Another one is like a pat the NES punk also went through controversy.

[00:09:48] They all gone through controversy. I mean, Mark, thank God, Mark was normal. Mark was normal. So yeah, well, I wouldn't say normal. He's just well mean. He didn't come off as he didn't come out as like a foot guy or some weird shit. OK, yeah.

[00:10:06] See, like the foot thing is fine. Like, yeah, the pedal thing that's a little too far. But thank God, it wasn't one of those. Actually, pedo foot. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying, Bill. That's a good turn of phrase. Horrible, but entertaining nonetheless.

[00:10:24] But classic game room, like I remember him getting into the older games and I remember having a we and wanting to get on the virtual console, but I just never did. I wasn't a big proponent of getting digital on consoles for whatever reason.

[00:10:40] I kind of did with the Xbox and I hadn't fully bought into steam yet. I was still very much a physical guy, not out of the sake of principle, by just like owning things.

[00:10:48] But I got this little bit of extra income and I was like, you know what? I don't know what's spurned this. I maybe of his classic game room, but he wasn't doing a ton of Saturn stuff, but he was doing it.

[00:10:59] I was just like, I really miss having a Sega Saturn. I really miss having this system. I want to play Shining Force three again. I want to play some X-Men versus Street Fighter again. Like I was like, these are experiences that I just can't get on modern consoles.

[00:11:14] And there's no way I can I can play them right now. And of course, back then, Saturn emulation was prohibitively difficult. I think another reason why I went to the Saturn first is, you know,

[00:11:24] on the PS3 you can play PS1 and PS2 games, of course, depending on the PS3 you have, I had a PS2 anyway. The GameCube wasn't ancient at the time. I didn't care much for the N64 because, I mean, to me at the time

[00:11:38] and still pretty much today, it was an N64 box with the side of, I mean, it was a Mario 64 box with the side of Zelda, for the most part. Some people will argue against that, but that's pretty much all it is. Wait, you know what?

[00:11:52] You know, she won't argue. I know she won't argue. I was all I'm all for the N64 slander. Keep on slandering. Oh, I can tell it out. But yeah, he's just like and all the other stuff like the Genesis stuff,

[00:12:09] the the Super Nintendo stuff, like as I already said, that was easily emulated. So I was like, you know what? I really let's get a Saturn. And so I went on eBay and this was in 2012, 2013 ish. And I was like, OK, let's see what I can find.

[00:12:25] And I found a Saturn which came with a couple controllers. I think three controllers. One is a third party. There's a model one controller, a model two controller. I ended up getting a model on Saturn, a 3D, a 3D control pad

[00:12:41] came with the pro action replay, Mortal Kombat 2, Loose and Knights into Dreams, Loose. And I got that for, I think, 60 or 70 dollars. Oh, man, that was what a time that was. What a time to be alive. And that's because like no one wanted Mortal Kombat 2.

[00:12:56] I think people still don't, but it's way more than like nothing. And people kind of wanted Knights, but to get all those accessories and get all the hookups and stuff like that, like that was about standard at that time. Yeah, that was about that was about it.

[00:13:11] Like, I always think back to like I got got into collecting oh nine also because of classic game room, Marx videos. And for me, it was the sake of Dreamcast. And I still remember getting the Dreamcast brand new sealed in the box

[00:13:25] for twenty dollars because they just no one cared about the thing at the time. No, no. And this is kind of a little bit of a diversion here, but you brought up Dreamcast, I'm sure we'll get into later.

[00:13:34] But I remember when I did eventually get get my Dreamcast. I got to Dreamcasts and 30 games for about 80 dollars. It was part of the package that they like, hey, take two of them. And like, oh, OK. Come from us, please. We don't want. Yeah.

[00:13:55] That was at that point when I got the Saturn, I still didn't consider myself a collector. I didn't consider myself a collector for a very long time. I just saw myself as someone of just, you know, hoarding video games,

[00:14:06] more or less like, oh, this game is good. I want it. This game is good. I want it. This game is good. I want it. Um, and so it took me until not that long. It's probably about a year and a year after that,

[00:14:16] that I could probably technically call myself a collector maybe a little bit longer. But it was with the second master system because I was looking to get to Genesis and like the Genesis wasn't expensive, but it was it was moderately priced.

[00:14:30] And it needs still compare the Super Nintendo. The Super Nintendo was insane even back then, comparatively, comparatively. Now it's it's way worse than it was back in 2013. But at the time when you're on a budget and you don't, you know, you can't afford a ton of video games,

[00:14:44] Super Nintendo wasn't exactly the retro system you probably wanted to go into, especially for an RPG fan. So I was like, you know what? A system I really want that I don't remember playing a lot of.

[00:14:57] But I remember seeing it at my great aunt's house up in Wisconsin a long time ago, but I've never played it. I've never experienced it and I've never heard anyone talk about it. I want to see if I can get a master system.

[00:15:10] And so once again, I went on on eBay because no retro stores. First of all, like retro stores, video game stores didn't really exist. No, it wasn't a thing. No, no, like mom and pop stops, mom and pop shops weren't really open.

[00:15:26] The ones that did carry older games like Rhino Games were bought out by GameStop like almost a decade before 2013 at that point, a little bit less, but around that point. So people selling old games were really hit or miss and they were very, very dispersed.

[00:15:42] Like they are hard to get to. I remember in Chicago when I wanted to get Saturn Games, I had to drive like 30 miles west to a town called Volo at their antique mall to go find this video game store. They just weren't comp. They were hard to find.

[00:15:56] So I went to let's get into eBay, found a master system with the with the was it is it light phasers? What was the name of that? The gun. Yeah, the Sega light phaser thing. The light phasers, yeah. The 3D glasses about five games, all the connections.

[00:16:16] It was the 3D model Sega Master System. You turn on you get Missed Defense 3D. That's the that's the packing game. Just a bunch of games. And again, that was like 60 bucks. And when I would go on eBay, I start looking for these games like Master System games

[00:16:31] complete in box and be anywhere, especially if you went to Goodwill because that's when Goodwill would send would sell four dollar games, free shipping. You could get Master System games complete in box with the brochure that came with it, their little game catalog

[00:16:45] for four dollars like the most of us, 16 dollars. I was like, you know what? I I've been seeing things like this with like Pat Contrary, Pat the NES punk and he has a complete Nintendo collection. Maybe I can find a way to get a complete Master System collection.

[00:17:01] And I think at that point, that's when I officially became a collector, whether I whether I wanted to admit it or not, whether I considered my one or myself one or not. That was the instance that yeah, I could pinpoint like, yeah,

[00:17:13] I'm a Master System collector now because the Sega Saturn is too expensive. Even then, especially once again, if you're on a budget, I can emulate every other console and this feels weird and unique and fun and I'm discovering new things.

[00:17:27] So I think, yeah, that's I know it's a really long winded story, but that brings you to how I officially became a collector with with the Sega Master System and it goes from there. Nice. That reminds me of like my

[00:17:40] when I got my Genesis for the first time, that was like my first experience with eBay. God, that was 2010. I want to say it was a year after I got the Dreamcast because I started in 2009, 2010. Sophomore in high school at the time. And I just remember

[00:17:59] that was my first experience with an eBay bid and actually like bidding on something and like stocking the eBay, the listing for like days on end, just waiting for someone else to bid higher than I'd have to run in and bid again

[00:18:10] because it was a it was like a perfect deal. It was a Genesis with all the classic Sonic games, except for Knuckles. I had to find that one separately. A whole bunch of games, like a bunch of sports games, a crusty super fun house,

[00:18:25] a crusty gold and axe, just a bunch of games, like four controllers, all the hookups and everything. And it was like the bid started at one dollar. Yeah. And by the end, I think I paid like 29. So not a bad deal at all. That's not bad at all.

[00:18:44] I just remember like I'd be like stocking that thing. Like I'd go to sleep and I'd wake up and I'd be like, Holy shit, someone put a bid in and get a bid higher because it was like a three day bid going on.

[00:18:55] I was like, shit. All right. You're going to watch this. Yeah. There was a time I went into a goodwill because I used to go to Goodwill's a lot to find video games. Not anymore. Like good luck with that. They they wise end up to that.

[00:19:07] But I went in there once and they wanted like twenty five thirty dollars for a for a Sega Genesis thing was a model to. And I laughed at them. That's that's how low the prices were. And this was like 15 or 2015, 2016.

[00:19:20] I was like, there is no way I'm paying thirty dollars for a Sega Genesis. Like you get out of here. Like that is a horrible price today. Yeah, I mean, I think I bided the chance to get a Genesis for thirty dollars if I was looking for one.

[00:19:33] Yeah, it's funny. It's like back then, like I ended up getting a second Genesis basically for free because it was attached to my Sega CD. It was like I ordered, bought the Sega CD and came in. There was just a Genesis model once stuck to it.

[00:19:45] I was like, oh, who like that's I have this parasite now. I gave I gave it to Alex for like a year and she used it once. And then it just sat there and then no, I did it a couple times.

[00:19:56] But also I think it was like it wasn't like you gave it to me like right before I went to college and like I didn't bring it with me because I couldn't have a TV. I did something like that. You basically it was you basically at one point

[00:20:10] it was collecting dust and you were like, I don't want it. So I was like, OK, fine. Yeah. But I think that was when I like I was in college and I was like, I'm not home. Take it back.

[00:20:21] That was I sold it to a retro store for like 30 bucks. Yeah. It was one of the shittier ones with like the the updated audio chip that didn't sound as good as the the original setup. They changed the Genesis hardware like later on.

[00:20:37] It was one of the weird ones that was like it was a model one still, but like it didn't have the same chipset or something. That is weird. That is weird. That there's that had to be like a very late model one

[00:20:48] because they had the original one that said like high definition graphics at the top. No, in high definition, that's something different. And then they had the the models that didn't have that anymore. And I guess you're I guess you're saying they had another model

[00:21:00] after that before the model too. That's weird. Yeah, it was like because I remember like I opened it up to clean it out. I'm like, wow, this looks entirely different than mine because I had opened mine up because at one point I was considering modding

[00:21:11] mine with a region switch and a the S video stuff. But then I realized that's way above my abilities because like, I don't want to mess this up. Yeah, I was kind of I gave up on that real fast. I was like, I don't really care that much.

[00:21:28] Yeah, it was funny. But anyway, so moving on to my next question. These will be progressively kind of all over the place. Just like I am. Just like the podcast. Oh. Wow. Perfect. Yes. So shout out to James from Games with John and James.

[00:21:44] He was our guinea pig for the first one of these. We didn't we kind of formed all the questions around him. And so what's one of the craziest stories you've ever had collecting? Oh, that one's that one's pretty easy. That was early on in my collecting days.

[00:22:00] This was back I think 2014. So like about a year after I started collecting, I got a Sega Genesis. That's what I got after the Master System, I think. I can't remember if I got a Dreamcast or Sega Genesis after that.

[00:22:11] Very heavy and a Sega collecting, if you couldn't tell, because back then in the early days of collecting, this isn't even early. This is like because what the collecting boom really started in 2012, 2013, I think it started started with the release of the Wii and the virtual console.

[00:22:26] I think that's what really kicked it off for a lot of people, but became mainstream around the time I was getting into it. So this was like when the big YouTube channels started getting it anyway. 2014 I'm going to a store. It was called Gorilla Games here in Jacksonville.

[00:22:44] This is finally this is one of the few places you could go to that specialized in older video games and video game shops back then kind of knew what they were doing, but for the most part, they didn't because there wasn't a real established standard.

[00:23:02] There wasn't an established like collecting culture. We weren't as big as snobs back then. So you say it was better in a lot of ways. Yeah, people just people just wanted to game. They wanted to make sure it worked, which is probably why I have so many

[00:23:15] games and poor condition, unfortunately, that that don't work anymore because the way I stored them and they got damaged and such. But I went to the store and there was this guy turning in about I have to say about 20, 30 Genesis games.

[00:23:34] And they were all RPGs like these were games that like I like had a massive stiffy for right. So there was like Fantasy Star Four, Shining Force Two, Shining Force. A bunch of might magic games just like you name it.

[00:23:50] You like it was there if you're an RPG fan. And I was like, man, this guy's going to trade in all these games and probably get like 25 percent of the value. Uh, I don't want to like hurt the store.

[00:24:05] I'm but I do want these games and I don't want to pay as much as they're going to charge for me, but I want to give them a better price than what they're probably going to give him.

[00:24:14] So I walked up to him is like, hey, are you willing to sell any of these games? And he's like, yeah. And of course, behind the counter, like in a regular situation, if you're a good store, you're going to tell people to stop that.

[00:24:27] They didn't. So I continued. I didn't know this, by the way. I'd had no like store etiquette retro, like trade store etiquette whatsoever. So this is being a yeah. I'm trying to be a douchebag. I'll probably kick you out of the store for that.

[00:24:42] You just really wanted the games. Yeah, but but they should write because that there's a business deal going on. There's a business transaction and you're effectively sniping it. Like this is how they make their money. I didn't think about it that way.

[00:24:53] I'm just like, I want the games. I don't give me. But so I'm looking at like how much if I wanted to buy some games from you, how much do you want from him? And he's like, well, what games do you want?

[00:25:07] So I picked out a couple of games. Some of them I recognize that never played before. But I didn't get like any of the big, big, big ticket games, and at least in my mind, because I was like, you know what? Like this store needs these games.

[00:25:19] So I'll let them have like the Shining Force twos and the Fanny's fantasy star games and like the things that are very familiar because I know that's going to sell. I'm just going to get some games that are that I've never heard of before.

[00:25:30] And if I've never heard of them before in their Sega games, that must mean that no one cares about these games and no one's looking for. So I was like, OK, there was so. So it's like, how much are you willing to sell these for?

[00:25:44] And eventually he came to an agreement of $50. So the games I picked out were Shadow Run, which was not complete in box, but it had the box. And it had like this cute little printed out manual that the

[00:25:57] that they printed out for people because you do need a manual to play again. Yes. The other one was Beyond Oasis, which still had like it was open, but it still had the shrink wrap on it. So you can open it up with like the shrink wrap

[00:26:11] because cardboard box right lost Vikings. I got a Sega, the official Sega wireless controller. And of course, I get no standard, no knowledge of collecting back then. It came with both controllers and I'm like, you know what?

[00:26:24] You can have the other wireless controller in case someone wants it. But the thing is, is that that thing only sold with two controllers. So it made no sense to just take one. I think Light Crusader was another one complete in box that that I got from there.

[00:26:39] There was another one I got. But the one item that I picked out of that that bunch, because I saw the name on it and I was a persona fan was it was an Atlas game. And it was Crusader of Seney.

[00:26:52] And so I'm just like, I don't know what this game is. It just has a sword on it. It says Atlas, you know, this is this probably a pretty interesting game. No idea what this with this game even is. And so I bring all these games home

[00:27:05] and I start doing the price charting on them and see if I made any money because price charting was just starting out at the time. Maybe not just starting out, but it was like it wasn't as big as people know that it is now. I start comparing prices.

[00:27:17] I'm like, oh, wow, like Beyond Oasis. It's worth like $30. All right, I made my money back like really like Crusader five bucks. OK, whatever, still going to be interesting. Lost Vikings, OK, 15, Shadowrun 20. OK, made my money back. Cool. What's this Crusader of Seney game?

[00:27:35] Two hundred and fifty dollars. Oh, dang. So now it's like a fifteen hundred dollar game and it's gone up just a little bit. But like I still look back at it. Now, they made me like do the the official transaction outside the store

[00:27:52] because you cannot make an independent transaction within the store. And I was like, that's when I figured out like, yeah, this is kind of douchey. But still did it anyway, because I wanted the games. But like that's kind of the craziest story I ever had

[00:28:05] is when I unknowingly bought a fifteen hundred dollar game now, at least, for effectively seven dollars. And I don't think I'm ever going to top that in my entire in my entire collecting life because those those kind of opportunities only present themselves so often, which is never.

[00:28:26] And the fact I got one of those stories, at least under my belt is is I'm always happy to tell it because I still can't believe it. I always have to predicate it with, yeah, don't do this, but and just go from there.

[00:28:40] It's like it was a different time. It was a different time. It's the beginning. Yeah, is so. Ironically, question three might be the same answer. Not sure yet, but what would you say is your biggest collecting score? That. Yeah.

[00:29:00] That's that's what I figured I was sitting here thinking about it. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, question shit. And you still have it. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes, I can really I came really close to selling it once

[00:29:14] because going back to the first question, first part about collecting, I was really getting into Master System collecting. And I really, really wanted that complete set or I wanted some unique experiences because again, this is a system I didn't have when I was a kid

[00:29:30] and everything was new, even if it was bad, it was new. It was fresh. It was a new experience. So there was there's another video game shop that just started out and they just hit their 10th anniversary just about a week or two ago.

[00:29:43] And there was called Video Game Rescue here in Jacksonville as well. And there was a shopper there. He was they were a pretty constant shopper at Video Game Rescue and they offered they heard I had Crusader of Senty and they really wanted Crusader of Senty.

[00:30:02] And I was like, well, what are you willing to to give for that? And I and anyone knows when you get a big ticket item in your collection, you like it's really hard for some collectors to have it pride out, especially if that's like your biggest ticket item.

[00:30:18] I think anyone can can attest to that. And that was my biggest ticket item. I didn't have Panzer of the Goon saga right now. Panzer of the Goon saga is my number two. And there is a difference now of like about five hundred dollars

[00:30:28] between Crusader of Senty and Panzer of the Goon saga in terms of value. And then even after Panzer of the Goon saga, it's like another four hundred and fifty dollars in terms of value between that and my JVC XI.

[00:30:41] So like when I talk about like Crusader of Senty is like the crown jewel of my collection. It's the crown jewel of my collection by country mile and even was then by this point, it was it was worth about four hundred dollars

[00:30:53] and five hundred if you had the manual. But I but it was special to me. It's like, OK, I'll trade this for five hundred dollars because there were complete box copies going for five hundred. They just weren't like all the way available or I can trade in games.

[00:31:09] And he gave me a pretty fair estimate of some master system games that were comparable, like it had Ninja Gaiden. It had some other rare master system games and I almost pulled the trigger and boy am I happy I didn't because those those master system games

[00:31:27] today are not worth the same in terms of equivalence of value. And really, if we're being honest, like master system games are pretty rough even compared to Nintendo games as much as I do love them. I would and I'd much rather play Crusader of Senty

[00:31:42] and just having that as a as an item piece in your collection is just like kind of a feather in your cap, especially when like I used to go to like retro gaming parties at these shops

[00:31:55] and I bring it along because I believe these games should be played and they should be played on the original hardware. And that's what I would do, but like that still has some clout like or made me feel like a had clout. Yeah.

[00:32:06] Did you like watch the game like a hawk while you were while you were there? No one touch it. Yes and no, because I would watch it because I wanted people to play it like because here's a super rare game that I just happened to stumble upon.

[00:32:22] And I want to I would love to see other people who may not ever have the opportunity to play this on original hardware to play it because that's one of the reasons I collect is this. This is something that is super interesting to me.

[00:32:35] It's part of video game history. It's an experience that we may not get to have because of the barriers that might be there when it comes to cost, when it comes to availability, when it comes to accessibility. So, you know, when I hear people love games,

[00:32:50] I'm going to bring the super rare game and I want to see people are playing it. No one played it because, again, like I don't think many people knew about Crusader of Sensey. I still don't think they do. But I I I love seeing those opportunities happen

[00:33:04] because I really think that's key to the video game experience is to play the games that they were play the games in the way that they were meant to be intended to be played, which is on original hardware with an original controller on like a CRT.

[00:33:18] Doesn't have to be a CRT. I don't want to be gatekeeping. But like if you if you have the opportunity to do that and you love video games, that is I think that's the way that you should do it if you have that opportunity.

[00:33:30] So for context for Alex, because I know you've probably never heard of this game before. No, it is essentially Legend of Zelda on Genesis. Oh, OK. Yeah. With animals. Yes. And fun fact that I just discovered. I thought you were just going to say and fun.

[00:33:48] I mean, it's fun. It's not the greatest Zelda clone, but it's still a really fun game. It is fun fact. I just discovered this recently. They put it on the Sega app for the switch. Yeah. So it's also on the Sega Mini too. Yeah, it's nice.

[00:34:06] It's at least you can play it even if it's not exactly the original method. But I enjoyed that like they put like a few gems over on the Sega Genesis app on Switch. If you have the means to do it.

[00:34:20] I got to ask when you went and you did went to these like parties at the store, was it at the store that you did the journey? It was no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that place that place closed down.

[00:34:31] OK, within like a year after that, which was understandable, they were letting people buy. I miss I do I do miss that store. I realize now I think I was getting hit on by one of the associates, which, you know, I'm married.

[00:34:48] So nothing was going to come of that. But like she was like looking at a Super Nintendo and like one of the things I did, even when I was a kid, because I was starting to I was I imported Saturn games when I was a kid.

[00:35:00] So one of the next things I wanted to do was import Super Nintendo games because I imported Nintendo games going to Japan and got like a copy of Final Fantasy III is like, can I play Final Fantasy five on my on my Super Nintendo? Oh, I can.

[00:35:12] I just got to take some pliers and remove the tabs on that motherfucker. And now I have now I have a region free Super Nintendo. And so I remember going to the counter and I was like, I'm also incredibly dense, so I didn't pick up on this.

[00:35:26] But like she was talking about the Super Nintendo to a customer. And I was like, so you could just, you know, you can make that region free, right? And she's like, yeah, no, I didn't. How do you do it?

[00:35:36] And like going into like describing how to remove the tabs and what we'll do. She's like, oh, that's cool. Is it possible? Like I could get your phone number and call you whenever we might need help, you know, trying to figure out, give customers advice.

[00:35:51] And I'm just like, yeah, sure, whatever, because I'm just thinking I'm going to help out gamers. I'm helping out gamers. Like I look back at it nowadays and like she she was probably hitting on me. Yeah, that's like a very roundabout way. Oh, you can get it.

[00:36:07] And I'm just like completely like, oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, I'll help out everybody. I was like, did you call you? No, no, I don't actually think I ended up giving her my number. I can't remember what happened.

[00:36:20] Like I never got a phone call, but I think like, you know, I don't want to say, you know how it is because I don't know how it is. But I'm sure like people will get like phone numbers of other people and they're like, should I call them?

[00:36:32] He's married and he didn't seem to be picking up on anything. Probably not. I have to assume that's what happened. If she was hitting on me, I'm just going to assume that she was because, you know, I'm so suddenly, but it's funny.

[00:36:47] I was trying to think of like, because I don't think I answered this on the previous collecting stores we did. I'm trying to think what my biggest score was. And I think the two that come to mind were like

[00:37:00] when I went to anime, not anime Boston, Boston, Comic Con. Yeah. Twenty fifteen, I want to say. I remember I found both Lunar Oh, yeah, I remember this and Lunar Silver Star Sega CD. Not exactly mint copies because the cases were cracked on the front

[00:37:22] like most Sega CD games, unfortunately, but they were pretty much mint in all other cases like they had the Styrofoam block, the discs were pristine. And I believe Lunar two cost one thirty because I remember I saw that like legit the first booth I checked out.

[00:37:36] It was just sitting there and I looked over. I'm like, one thirty of like, yeah, I got to do it. And then I think like a different booth on the other side. They had like three copies of Silver Star just like chilling there

[00:37:49] for hundreds. So I ended up paying like one hundred and fifty total, I think. I know two. I should two fifty total for both Lunar one and two on CD. That was probably one of a bigger score.

[00:38:00] I think my biggest score, though, was finding Knuckles Chaotix at a yard sale for five bucks box. Oh, yeah. Well, that I mean, there was a time no one cared about that game. That game just shot up in price out of like nowhere.

[00:38:13] The first part of to be that good. No, it's a very repetitive. I mean, it's it's decent. It's kind of cool for like an hour and then you realize just how repetitive it is. Yeah. But I remember because I was just chill.

[00:38:25] I was back when I actually went yard sailing because it was actually a good way to find games for cheap. Yeah. And I remember I found this one seller. They had it was a pile of VHS tapes. And I remember walking by, I just saw the 32 X logo

[00:38:40] on the side of the box like bright yellow and I was like, wait a minute. So I backed up and I just like saw Knuckles Chaotix and I pulled it out. The box was a little ripped on the side like they taped it back together,

[00:38:51] but it was pretty much mint. And I just like looked at it. I didn't even have a 32 X at this point. I just I saw I was pretty sure you didn't have one at the.

[00:38:59] I didn't have one at the time, but I was like, it's a box 32 X game. I'm like, I got to ask. And I just I looked it was like an older lady. It must have been like her sons or something

[00:39:08] that was just like piled up with a bunch of crap. And I just asked him, like, how much for this? And she looked at she's like, five bucks. I'm like, thank you. And then I had to buy a 32 X after that. Yeah.

[00:39:22] Now, this wasn't my my biggest score or biggest score, but that does remind me of a decent score of mine that I got when I wouldn't call it collecting. I just wanted to play Game Boy games, Game Boy advanced games on my TV again

[00:39:35] because I was one of those poor souls that got the Game Boy player for the GameCube and lost their disc. Yep. So I I couldn't find a disc anywhere. And then like I just tried to get rid of the the Game Boy player itself.

[00:39:51] And this was back when no one wanted them. They're like, every GameCube comes with these, like get this out of our face. We don't want them. And of course, you couldn't play them without the disc. And if that was the common thing is like everyone lost their disc.

[00:40:03] So no one wanted the player. So I had to go online and I had to find them. And even then the discs were about 40, 50 bucks. I think they're up. I think they went up really high and they came back down

[00:40:15] because there's now so many workarounds that you don't necessarily need them. But for a while, they got like really pricey. And so I went to the website. I think it's was it half price books? I think it's half price.

[00:40:31] It was it was. Yeah, it was an eBay company that specialized in selling college books. But they also had they also had a video game section and they would be like discounted from like the actual eBay stores just a completely different marketplace, like a completely different economy.

[00:40:49] And I went there and found a Game Boy player and it was for 15 bucks. And it came, I just like, I just want the disc. And they're like, no, like take the entire thing. Here's the Game Boy player. Here's the disc. Fifteen dollars. I'm like, yeah, bought sold.

[00:41:03] Perfect free shipping. Get that to me. I can't wait to play my my games on my my TV again. And it came in. So like the box came like in really good condition with the disc.

[00:41:14] Got a new Game Boy player that I just still have sitting in a corner somewhere. But on top of that, it wasn't complete in box. But on top of that, like I got a message, I think in the mail from

[00:41:26] from this, I think this was an older woman that sent me this package. And she said, I decided to throw a game in there because my daughter really enjoyed it. So here's Zelda for swords adventures on top of it.

[00:41:41] So I hope you enjoy this as much as she did. Have a good time. So for 15 bucks, I got a complete Game Boy player set with the with the box for the disc and Zelda's Zelda for swords adventure. And like, I was just like, this is great.

[00:41:58] And that was right before Game Cube went crazy, like right before it went crazy. But it was already crazy for the Game Boy player. But aside from that, like I still remember going into a GameStop in 2012 and getting Paper Mario for $14.

[00:42:14] So that yeah, it exploded not long after that. I mean, my favorite is still I paid $5 for my GameCube and 50 for melee. The same purchase. So wow. Oh, when I was in San Antonio in 2013, I went to a flea market and I ended up getting Rogue Leader there.

[00:42:35] Star Wars Rogue Squadron to Rogue Leader for five dollars. But prior to that, the person selling it was like begging me to take their GameCube with it for 15. Begging me, this was in 2013. They're like, you can have the GameCube and the game and a controller for 15 bucks.

[00:42:54] I'm like, I already have a GameCube. I don't need that. I was stupid. But no. But it's like, I just want the game. I just want I don't need anything else. Just give me the game. All right, five dollars. Like, OK.

[00:43:10] Now people can't find GameCube to save their lives. And I just I just wish I just cleaned up GameCube back then, because I don't have the one with the AV out that allows composite no component that allows component. And now they're coming out with component cables for that.

[00:43:25] But you need to have that AV out. And I'm just kicking myself because like, man, if I just if I knew anything about anything back then I could have cleaned house. And I think we all believe that. But oh yeah. The joy of collecting is the hindsight.

[00:43:40] I mean, I still think my my craziest collecting adventure I ever went on was I told this in the previous episode, but when the Vita got discontinued, I went on a entire day road trip across Massachusetts to every game

[00:43:55] stop I could find and cleaned out their Vita sections because they were all clearance like fire sale and those things. And that's how I got like all my obscure shitty Vita RPGs. I guess this leads to me to have a question for you.

[00:44:09] I know that you're asking me stuff or either you. The tables. But I look at a lot of this collecting that happened, you know, when it started getting big in between 2008 or 10 when everyone is say that boom started and pretty much up to about 2000.

[00:44:27] I want to say right before covid 2020 is when it got really stupid. But I think it's yeah, it was already it was already pretty stupid at about 2018. It got really dumb. That's right around when the when it started getting insane.

[00:44:41] Yeah. Do you think that that insanity around the retro collecting market is what drove almost every single niche video game creator, not even niche like mainstream to to just get super working designs with their release, with their video game releases, how everything needs to have a collector's edition,

[00:45:03] how everything needs to have like a special super edition that that like, oh, it's limited because I mean, we look back and like we're all like, man, I wish I bought this game at this time because of value. And that's when that really started to take hold.

[00:45:18] That's when you started to see like even limited run games started becoming bigger around that time frame. Do you think that has anything to do with it? I'd say so, like, I mean, because I'm guilty of it, like I did not need those. I have like three.

[00:45:30] I have both the Persona 5 Take Your Heart Edition and the Royal The Shadow Thieves Edition. I've looked, I've opened those boxes once to get the game out, looked at the stuff was like, it just put it on the shelf and it just lives there now.

[00:45:43] So and I've been guilty of that. Like I have the Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Switch Special Edition never opened it because there's literally a code in there and it doesn't work anymore, which is wonderful. And it's literally just because collectors were crazy sometimes.

[00:46:02] We see things that were like, I need it and you buy it and then you're like, do I actually need this? And then you just put it on the shelf. We're crazy. You say we're crazy as in like the past tense. Oh, it's still absolutely crazy.

[00:46:15] If Tango Gameworks or whatever, whatever Victor Ireland's company is now comes out with a. Lunar one and two thing that's like out there, you know if day one I'm buying that. Yeah, especially the Lunar two one because like

[00:46:32] you need more Lunar two in our lives. But oh, absolutely. But I'd say so. I was just I'd agree with you. Yeah, I think all this like. All these special editions are very much part of the boom in collecting.

[00:46:46] It's not only that, but I think that's why we're seeing a lot more niche titles get physical releases because I can't tell you I have no idea how many games there are for the switch and PS4. No idea, no clue.

[00:46:58] I know you go to like limited run in there like on their 500, 600, maybe 700th PS4 release. Like that's just one publisher with the physical branding. If plumbers don't wear ties. I was going to bring that up. Hi, Ray Ray. Anything is possible at this point.

[00:47:19] We are talking we are talking publishers that have published more games for a system, whether it be the switch, whether it be the Xbox, whether it be PS4 at this point. And I assume it's going to be the same with the PS5

[00:47:33] and whatever Nintendo decides to release next, assuming they just don't completely get away from physical. But we're talking about more physical copies of games produced by a single publisher than there are entire games released for the Super Nintendo or Nintendo Entertainment System. Like that is that's gross.

[00:47:50] As much as I love physical copies, not much as I like video game presentation. But this is why you see like some markets within the the collecting market. How many people do you know are like, oh, it's an NIS game

[00:48:05] and it's worth and it's costing less than 20 dollars. I have to buy it or. Hey, here's the guilty of that. I am too. Like I got this game. It was part of GameStop's game. One of GameStop's fire sales before they just melt down

[00:48:20] like over the past couple months, it's called like the Legend of Zangetsu or something like that is by some company I've never heard of. And it's like a first person dungeon crawler. And I was like, if I don't want to play that now,

[00:48:31] but maybe in 10 years, it's going to be worth one hundred and fifty dollars. And I'm going to think it looks fun. So I might as well get it just because that's now with the retro gaming collecting market has done to my mind.

[00:48:43] Like if I don't get this game now that no one wants and no one is buying, then it's going to be one of those. Yes, going to be one of those games on a top 10 YouTube channel

[00:48:52] that games you've never heard of there are worth more than five hundred dollars. Yeah, I don't want to be that guy again. Yeah, but you're that guy. No, I'm a different kind of guy. I'm a worse kind of guy.

[00:49:07] This is why I own criminal girls one and two and drive girls for the Vita. I want those games unironically. Oh, drive girls, drive girls is my favorite, like what the fuck Vita game? Because it's literally a beat them up where the girls are

[00:49:20] transformers and turn into cars. It's it's great. It's it's bad. It sounds fantastic. It could be the worst game ever. I'm still going to love it. I legit went to a retro store and they had it for sale for like 15 bucks. Like, what the hell is this?

[00:49:35] I'm like, it's like anime white booze and they turn into cars. And I'm just like, yep, I'm buying this. Say no more. Say no more. They got like like a 30 on Metacritic. What's that? Metac, what's Metacritic? Is that a transformer porn site? No, then I don't care. Nice.

[00:49:56] So next question, this one kind of goes off of the greatest gaming score. What would you say is your greatest gaming fail? Game collecting fail? Probably there's there's a. No, I'll say this is my greatest gaming fail. It's not about purchasing games.

[00:50:17] So I went I was gone for for two years. I left home in 2016, essentially two deployments, independent tours. And I used to store. I still store my loose games in them, but you know those big CD boxes because I didn't really have a bookcase or anything like that.

[00:50:39] So what are my games accessible? So I put all my games in these big CD books. And as like I said, I like it when people play games. So I have kids and I want my kids to be able to play games all good.

[00:50:52] One of the CD books, the zipper, the zipper on it broke. And that normally doesn't sound like a big deal. However, that was one of the books where most of the CDs were and that zipper started going to town on the covers of the CDs.

[00:51:13] Yeah. And also happened in a couple of my other CD books. The tops of them got scratched and damaged. So what ended up happening is because I stored games that way when I went back to play them, Final Fantasy Nine, Parasite Eve,

[00:51:29] Skies of Arcadia, games that I had no problem playing in the past. They had problems loading certain scenes because the top was scratched. Now that doesn't what I found out, by the way, is that it does not matter for PS2 games like the PS2 games.

[00:51:43] They're all about the bottom. If your top cover is scratched to shit for PS2 games, they will still load up. They will still boot. They will still play. But it's specific for CD games and to include GD ROMs for Dreamcast.

[00:51:55] When you scratch, that's why all of them have art on the top of it. That because that's where the data, I won't say necessarily is stored, but that's like how the laser reads it. It reflects it off that art into like the disc itself

[00:52:08] and reports back to the data where I think on a DVD, all that data is on the bottom. So like you look at a game, do you have Sui Koden 4? Yes. So you know what Sui Koden 4?

[00:52:19] Like it has that big silver thing in the middle that you can look through that there's no art on that so you can hold it up to a light and you can see through it.

[00:52:27] But for a if that happens to like a music CD or a video game CD and you can see through it, that means there is a hole there where data should be that there is no data anymore. And that is unrecoverable. There's no way to restore that data.

[00:52:41] Once that data is scratched, it's gone. So because I had stored so many games that way, I don't know how many of my games are completely thought that that were part of my collection. I mean, they still are.

[00:52:55] But like this is like it's at the point that some like most of my PlayStation one collection, I'm just afraid to play because I don't want to find out that it doesn't work. It's it's extremely terrifying. It's like I can imagine.

[00:53:10] I think like like Lunar One and two are games like have slight damage that's not bad. So it's like I think it can get away with it, but like I don't want to find out. I don't want to find out my copy of Lunar

[00:53:20] to Eternal Blue Complete is is worthless because that would be heartbreaking to know I have just all it is is just something to look pretty on a shelf. And that that's my biggest gaming fail

[00:53:34] is I did not take care of games because I didn't consider myself a collector. I just considered myself someone who was getting games and wanted to play games and it got to a point where and I think this happens with every collector.

[00:53:48] You start buying games that you don't necessarily intend to play or you start buying so many games, you just don't have enough time to play them all. And so exactly. And it's just more sentimental than it is about playing the games

[00:54:06] because there was a time that I would play almost every single game I would buy and then it just got to be too much, especially when I started getting more into the RPGs. So yeah, that's that's my biggest fail.

[00:54:18] So if you're getting into collecting and you if you're not sure you're a collector, just ask yourself this, do I have enough time to play all my games? The answer is no. And you're still buying games. You are a collector. Yeah.

[00:54:38] And then start treating your games right at that point because you don't know you don't know when you want to go. You don't know when you're going to want to get to them. And when you do, you want to make sure you're able to play that.

[00:54:49] Yeah. Now 100 percent. Now I was thinking like fails because that honestly is way more in depth than I thought I thought the question would go because for me, like my biggest fail was like the time I got duped on a copy of a.

[00:55:06] Power stone on Dreamcast, where I paid. This is before when I learned like eBay, you have to check everything like in depth. Yeah, because it was one of those like even listings where there was no actual picture of the game.

[00:55:20] It was just a picture of the cover art and my brain at the time was like, oh, this is trustworthy. I can surely trust them. I haven't been burned on eBay yet. It's fine. Yeah. And I didn't really know that Dreamcast games were easily burnable at the time.

[00:55:36] So when I ordered it, it was like $50 for Power Stone one. I was like, oh, that's a good deal. It comes in and I pull the disc out of the case before I even look at it. I'm like, this feels really light and really flimsy,

[00:55:48] like right off the bat, like it's a burned CD disc. And then I pull it out of like the cover art says Power Stone Collection. And I'm just like, wait a minute, something here is not right. And then I immediately open it up. There's no manual.

[00:56:03] It's just a printed out piece of paper. And the disc is clearly not a GD ROM. It's clearly a burned CD. And it was a burned copy that they shoved Power Stone one and two on to and they sold for $50.

[00:56:18] And I was like, this is not what I thought. And I'm like, it works kind of. So I guess I'm not really that upset, but I'm also kind of mad because I wanted copies of Power Stone. Well, the thing about eBay is where they will get you.

[00:56:34] Now, if they didn't put this in their description, you could have gone to town because eBay is almost universally with the buyer. Yes, they like this is why a lot of people do not sell on eBay is because it can be a seller's nightmare,

[00:56:49] especially when you're selling games that have value because all the seller has to say is this game doesn't work. I was lied to. It doesn't look good. I want to refund and eBay will be like, well, give the man a refund, better given that refund.

[00:57:02] And they could be lying their ass off, but they're not going to know. They deal with millions of people every day when you're wondering what are they going to do? But the thing is, is that the way that a lot of these scammers can get away

[00:57:13] with it is they just put in the description like, please read or they don't even have to put please read, especially back then they didn't have to. They said they would just have to say this is a burned disc

[00:57:21] with Power Stone one and two for you to buy. They just have to put it like in a corner in the small text and they don't have to say it's the actual game. So when you go to be like, hey, they lied to me.

[00:57:32] They're like, no, I didn't. It's right there for a disc, not not actual copy. Yeah. So I mean, I don't know if that was the case with you because I was going to ask you why the hell did you not like set them on fire?

[00:57:44] Because I was high school. Oh, below 18. Yeah. Also, one of those Karen yet. Well, they also are Karen when I went back to message them. Stop being a Karen, though. Well, I need to speak to your manager talk. Well, no, I think so.

[00:58:03] I think I think actually what happened was I went back to the cellar and they did one of those like magician acts where they were just mysteriously gone. And I was like, oh, yeah. So that was probably the only one you probably were one of many.

[00:58:20] I've since acquired both Power Stone one and two like real versions. So not as bad, but I was still I don't even know if I have that bootleg anymore. I should go see if I still have it somewhere. Hey, maybe you could sell it to the bootleg man.

[00:58:33] So we can have a con next year. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we went to a convention. There was a guy selling nothing but bootleg. It was hilarious. I still have to do. You should call the cops and just make sure you're not selling that for a profit, right?

[00:58:48] You can't sell that for a profit. Yeah, I still think my favorite was when we it was at the retro world and me, Alex and Josh from a still wooden were just walking through and all of a sudden like Josh's paws and goes, how is that?

[00:59:01] He looks every picks up a cartridge. Just says I list Mario. And I'm just like, what is this? Was that like Nintendo's fatal frame? It was it was like some like boot themed Mario World like Ramac, but it was just like the cover. It was ridiculous. Yeah.

[00:59:19] Was it like his eyes were bleeding or something? Like, yeah. It was like. It was it was more funny than it was like annoying to see. I was like, they're just doing whatever. I list Mario. I'd play it. So now next question, this one I find interesting.

[00:59:39] Have you ever had a game that like you were just kind of out and about and you found this at like, say, a retro store, you just happened to pop into that you did. Honestly, did not have the money for what you could not pass it up.

[00:59:55] Do I do I have to have bought it? Yeah, that's kind of like the thought. Because there was a couple I'd be like, I didn't have the money for it. And then I was told I was going to be murdered if I bought it.

[01:00:06] And I really wanted to buy it. Um, you know, I don't. I mean, do I I don't know if I technically have the money most of the time. True. Yes. I guess maybe like the rephrase it like, did you ever see something that

[01:00:27] like it was like such like a, like you'll never see this kind of again, kind of thing that you just had to get it there. Like no questions asked kind of thing. Well, since this is going to be on YouTube, give me one second.

[01:00:38] I'm going to say yes. They they had a layaway system. So I was mostly responsible about this, but the answer is technically yes. So let me go. Let me go grab that game. No problem. Bill will insert some background music as we wait or not.

[01:00:53] Wait, you said you can do that. You did it the other day. I know this is entertaining podcasting for the audio only. Listen to them to insert some background music. The clown music was not playing though. I was very so. Xenosaga three is an expensive game. Yes.

[01:01:14] I have not played Xenosaga one or two. Uh, I well, I played a little bit of one and I was quite bored and it just got to a point by probably one. I should play it again because I need to. But. I saw Xenosaga three at the store

[01:01:30] and like at one time, the store even had the version with the lenticular cover that I could have picked up, which yeah, that's super rare. But it's got to the point. I'm going to blame Rick from Pixel Project Radio because I mean, understandable. Yeah. It's not like Rick.

[01:01:48] Rick got like a copy for like one hundred and seventy dollars. And I saw it as like you bastard. Like I wish I dare you find a good deal on a game I want and can't have. So then I finally saw it for sale over at once again,

[01:02:04] I don't know how my local game store gets like copies of Xenosaga three on a regular basis, but they had a copy. They have multiple people apparently, especially like where that's at. Like it's so weird, but like Xenosaga.

[01:02:18] It's called gone broke gaming, you know, pulling out all the throwing out all the shout outs to my my local peeps. Also, no, as an orange park, but technically Jacksonville. But I saw it there and I'm like, you know what?

[01:02:31] I'm just going to I'm just going to take the dive. I'm probably never going to play it because I don't have the time. But I super am interested in having it. I have no nostalgia for it. I technically shouldn't be buying this.

[01:02:47] I could probably put my money into something far more responsible. Yeah, but I'm going to get it. I think the number two thing that but I had nostalgia for it, so I don't necessarily want to say that like it's

[01:03:02] it's like I because this kind of kind of sounds like regret. I still do kind of regret this purchase, but like I had to get a physical copy of the game. And that was the Scott Pilgrim KO edition,

[01:03:14] which was like one hundred and fifty, one hundred and sixty dollars from limited run. As soon as that was announced, I jumped on that. Like, you know, like I am getting the like super premium ultra special edition

[01:03:24] of that game, which ironically was still cheaper than Zeno Saga three. So I don't feel I don't feel too bad about that one because like it didn't doesn't break the bank as badly.

[01:03:38] But yeah, Zeno Saga three is probably the closest thing I have to an example like that. OK, yes. The the game that spawned this question for me is I've mentioned it before, like because Alex remembers because this was ironically, it's like a game store literally that

[01:03:55] me and Alex can drive to on a daily basis now, because it's like a few minutes away. But at the time, this is when Alex first moved to Connecticut and I was visiting her at the time.

[01:04:04] Yeah. And I said, oh, I found a game store when I went to Target. Let's go. So this is this is precovid, like pre prepodcasting. I was still just a gaming blogger at the time. Yeah, 2019. Twenty nineteen.

[01:04:19] At one time went into this random game store and I'll never forget. Looked in the it was I was looking around. They had a bunch of stuff, but nothing too crazy. And then I looked under the glass case by the register

[01:04:30] where all the rare games always are. Right. And for one hundred and twenty dollars. Popful mail mint. And I saw it and I was just I looked at it and Alex and I went. I don't have the money for this, but I need it. And I said, but.

[01:04:52] Because we had we had planned on going to a bunch of retro game stores that weekend. And I was like, I'm going to blow my entire funds in this. The first store we go to.

[01:05:05] So I ended up shifting some money around in my bank account to make it work. But like this thing was like mint condition. I get it. Opened up the Styrofoam block manual, like nice shiny lenticular manual disc pristine, like perfectly clean.

[01:05:21] And I was just like hundred to twenty. I'm like, I didn't even look on gate like price starting to see what it was even going for. I just like I needed it. So bought it there and nowadays that game is like seven hundred dollars.

[01:05:32] So so you made a deal. I think I made it that high. Or I might be thinking of Burning Rangers. It's it's definitely Burning Rangers. Let's let's visit good old price starting real quick. Things like three hundred and eighty four hundred. Four thirty. Yeah.

[01:05:49] Still. Oh, Burning Rangers is like down to six hundred now. But that's besides the time it gets for that deal. Yeah. Regardless, I still one twenty compared to four hundred. I think I did pretty good for a. I think so.

[01:06:06] For a game at the time, I thought was really good. And then I was on a certain show called Retro Hangover, you might have heard of it and we've heard of it. Huh? I discovered that show. I discovered that game's a bit more frustrating than I remember.

[01:06:19] But yeah, it. But yeah, so that was probably that that was the inspiration for that question in particular, just like the kind of like all logic goes out the window and you just I need it now.

[01:06:31] And you just might now think of worry about it later kind of thing. And I'm not the voice of reason. I'm always the voice of chaos to Bill. I'm like, you know, you want to just do it. I couldn't I couldn't pick that up.

[01:06:44] Yeah. No, I'm the calming presence of the show. I try and get Bill to do ASMR and he just won't do it. Come on, Bill. Are you going to are you going to lick the microphone, Bill? No. I don't know what this thing has been.

[01:07:00] This microphone has been to like three different houses now. I don't know where it's been. But anyway, so now kind of turning that question on on its head. What would you say is the one game that you let get away?

[01:07:17] It wasn't a game and I have two answers for this and they're both PlayStation answers. Puffle Puffle Mail is close to, by the way, because I had the opportunity to buy that like 180. But I someone else picked it up and it was right before covid.

[01:07:35] So that's that's up there. But one that I let get away. Thing was 2015 or 2016. And this is the one that really chaps my ass. It was a PS1 with the first party LCD screen combo. And it was 50 bucks. Oh, nice.

[01:08:00] And I did not have the money for it at the time or I couldn't justify purchasing it. And it was one of those. Both of these end up with me calling my wife, my wife saying, you bring that home, I'll kill you.

[01:08:14] So I did not get it at the time. I really wanted it because that's the console I had. I had that was a console that did have when I was a kid and I loved playing PlayStation one games that way.

[01:08:26] The screen was beautiful, like really popped out the color and the resolution was small enough that everything looked phenomenal on it. And so like for 50 bucks, I was like, that's not a bad deal. PlayStation ones were starting to go up in price,

[01:08:42] but you can still get a PS1 for about 15, 20 bucks in and of themselves. It was the LCD screen that was always the big money gainer. But like they've really shot up in price recently. So like I look at it and like I really kicks me in the ass.

[01:08:56] Like really, really hard. The other one. And then I'm getting a PSTV later. I still have a PS. I have a little PS1 now. I got it for super cheap. I don't have an LCD screen, unfortunately. And it's that the PS1 is in shit condition.

[01:09:11] The other ones are meant, but I had the opportunity to get a PSTV. The the Lego bundle, like the Lego movie bundle, and all came in the box, except so that would have been a controller, a PSTV and the Lego movie game digitally on it.

[01:09:29] But the the person who had gotten the PlayStation TV had to had to have swapped out the memory card because the memory card was was the largest one that the PS Vita had. So I think it was either 128. Was it gigabytes?

[01:09:44] I don't know. I don't know the memory. Yes, the Vita's memories were very limited. There are 128 or 256 or maybe it was even 64 gigabytes. I can't remember. But it was the biggest, biggest commercial one under the second biggest commercial one that the Vita had offered. And that was $40.

[01:10:02] So like the price of the memory card itself was like one hundred and fifty dollars. And that was one I was like, I get a PSV and a controller and this memory card for 40 bucks. And they're like, yeah, I'm like, let me call

[01:10:22] let me call my wife because this isn't exactly in the budget right now because this is like back ten, fifteen dollar games. That's what I was doing. And I still am doing that, by the way.

[01:10:30] But I called her up like, hey, I got a really good deal here on this thing. Like to get this is something I can buy. And once again, it was like you bring another one of those stupid video game things home and I'm murdering you.

[01:10:44] And that that's the one mostly because of the cost of the memory card. Now there's plenty of options for like like SD to Vita memory card adapters that you can do. And they're fairly they're fairly easy and accessible. But that was not the case back then.

[01:11:02] And it's always better to have OEM and first party first party equipment over, you know, doing third party solutions when you have the option. And so just thinking to myself like the memory card itself would like you essentially had to pay the price for a new console.

[01:11:16] Just like yet I was like, oh, man, I really wish I had the option to go back and pick that up. Now, I get that a lot. Like like for me, like the biggest one that I passed on that I still kick myself over was.

[01:11:32] Twenty seventeen, I had the I had an opportunity to get. It was a copy of Magic Night Rare Earth for. Three hundred, I want to say. And at the time I'm kicking myself still because it was basically between that or Burning Rangers, he basically told me he's like.

[01:11:52] I'll do three hundred for one or the other. Like you pick and I kind of like juggled it and I went with Burning Rangers instead. And I don't regret it because they're both absurdly expensive now. But Magic Night Rare has become like that game

[01:12:09] that haunts me in my Saturn collection, like to this day. Because like one of my biggest collecting goals I want to complete that I'm probably never going to just because it's absurdly expensive is I wanted to finish off the Saturn Final Five,

[01:12:22] which was a bigger saga, Shining Force Three, Burning Rangers, Magic Night Rare Earth and House of the Dead, I believe. I think so. I have three of those missing House of the Dead and Magic Night Rare Earth.

[01:12:38] And it's just one of those things where I see it like when we were at Retro World this year, I saw a copy of it for seven hundred. I just went. No, like it's not not worth it. Um, the other one I let get away was

[01:12:51] a mint boxed copy of Earthbound, like everything there, manual case, everything. Three hundred dollars. That's a score. That's like the time. At the time, I was like, I'm like, like I just couldn't do it at the time. I was still living at home.

[01:13:09] I wasn't making a lot of money at the job I was working in. And I was just like, I just can't do it. And I the owner of the store, Bowser's Basement, shout out to John.

[01:13:19] He told me he would have like held on to it for me, but I told him like, thought I'm like, if you get someone who's going to buy this thing, sell it.

[01:13:25] Like don't like try holding on to it for me, who's probably never going to get the money. And like a month later, someone came and bought it. And I was just like, yeah. Now it's a boxed copy of that game is probably double that at this point.

[01:13:40] Mm hmm. I don't like to view a lot of those games as games that have got away because normally if you can't afford them, you can't afford them. It's just kind of the nature of the beast. If we could afford them, then we'd have them. Yeah.

[01:14:00] And like if that's the fair market value at the time, that's the fair market value. Yeah. So I so I struggle to say those games got away. And that's kind of why I shied away from potful mail is just that

[01:14:11] immediately after for me, immediately after potful mail left that store because that was they just forgot to keep up with the pricing. That was in like the early days of COVID. Like so that price was already way low.

[01:14:25] But I was still able, for example, like I was still able to secure a copy of Shining for CD. So just because I wasn't able to get that one game, it's still translated into another game that I was happy with because we're collectors and we're always buying garbage.

[01:14:40] So like that's just I don't that's why I don't like to view some of these things as games they've gotten away. I'm not trying to take that away from you. But like if a game is at fair market value and I can't afford it,

[01:14:52] I mean, that's just I just can't afford it. If the game is way below fair market value and I can't afford it. That's when I'm like, I hate myself. Like, yeah, because this is I'm never going to see an opportunity like this probably ever again.

[01:15:11] And I am just I'm just in a position where I cannot justify the purchase. That's that's where it's a dagger. But if if a game is three hundred dollars and I'm seeing it for three hundred dollars and I can't afford it, oh, well, I mean, yeah,

[01:15:28] it's just I'll emulate it and cry. I think in the corner. Thinking about it now, I think for like future versions of when we do these in the future, I might change that question to like maybe like what's your biggest

[01:15:41] gaming like White Whale, like the game that you always like looking for. That I think that might make a bit more sense. Because I mean, for me, that's still Magic Night Rare. It's going to forever be the one that's haunting me. You're like, no.

[01:15:57] So moving on to this next question, this is purely a is probably the biggest joke question in here, but it's the one that I always go back to because it happened to me once. And I'm always curious if it happened to somebody else.

[01:16:09] Have you ever been bamboozled on a cartridge game? Yes, just once to my knowledge. And not as a collector, just trying to get a game. And that was Final Fantasy Six Advance, much like your story of Power Stone.

[01:16:27] I ended up buying the game on eBay and it was a Chinese reproduction picking up on laying down. It worked fine. So like I didn't care until I realized later down the line when I actually wanted to play it, it didn't save.

[01:16:43] But I already gave the seller a great review and was like, oh. Oh, well, this sucks. Like that's why it was about $10 cheaper. Makes sense. Yeah, that's the long short of that one. That's not as bad as mine because mine is forever. It's in the shot right now.

[01:17:01] There's a nice copy of Ken Saitin in that master system back there. Oh, it's not actually a copy of Ken Saitin. It's some baseball game. They put they swap the card. They swap the board inside. Can say it's not that expensive of a game, though.

[01:17:19] No, why would you do that? Now all I know is I spent $15 on it and I popped it in my my master system and baseball pops up. But I just went. OK, maybe maybe there's more backstory to this.

[01:17:36] Maybe it was a manufacturing error and they accidentally put you never know. Maybe you have a good event because I mean, if it's not that expensive of a game, like why would someone do that? Maybe it really was like, you know, manufacturing error.

[01:17:50] They put the wrong sticker on it or yeah. It's not like Tonka was was known for their great video game you know, production acumen. So it's possible. True. That's just the one all the one I always think of

[01:18:03] because I bought that at a flea market and I just I always remember plugging it in thinking like, oh, can say this is considered one of the better master system games and then baseball. And I'm just like, great.

[01:18:14] That's that's just like master system games can be taken apart with the Phillips head, right? Yeah, we're going to find out. We're about to know. Yeah, yep. Yeah, it makes me wonder. It's probably great baseball because there's not a ton of baseball games.

[01:18:36] For the master system, it's I think there's a Reggie Wayne baseball as well for the master system. But actually might have been that one because I remember the Reggie Wayne baseball. So I think it's picture pops up and I was like, this ain't

[01:18:49] Kinsaden, which I think is about I think might be more valuable than Kinsaden. But I'd have to look that up. So maybe you won. No, he still didn't win. As I can say, I left this price tag and it's still I paid $12 for this. So oh my God.

[01:19:04] But the only thing I could think of is maybe for whatever reason. When did you buy it? Twenty. Sixteen. OK, so that was right around the time. Like, yeah, it started to get stupid. We we all say like it officially got stupid in 2018.

[01:19:23] It was well on its way to getting stupid in twenty sixteen. And that's when a lot of people wanted to check carts to see see that the carts were valid because that's when you were starting to see copies of Chrono Trigger, Earthbound,

[01:19:37] you know, all the big Super Nintendo games, people want to open them up and Nintendo games, open them up and make sure that it was like the original cartridge and not some like repro trash. So what probably I could imagine happened is that you have a retro game

[01:19:50] store that was in possession of it at one time. They don't know what Master System games are. They don't know much about retro games, but they go online to these communities and they're like, oh, they open up the carts to make sure

[01:20:01] everything's good and they clean them and everything like that. So we got to do that too. So they like probably got a bunch of Master System games out one time and they opened all of them and they're like, let's clean them all

[01:20:12] and then just took them and they start putting them back together. They're like, OK, then they just put it out. That might be the answer right there. That's probably a bunch of random games that are just all messed up.

[01:20:24] Maybe see. See, to me, like nothing will ever beat the GameStop Chrono Trigger debacle with that Chrono Trigger. That was a man that went to like 12 houses before they finally took it off the market. Yeah, like that. All you got to do is turn it on, GameStop.

[01:20:39] No, why would we do that? They did turn it on. It started up and they were like, that's good. Good. Like the context. No, don't care. This is EA sports. Yeah, they made Chrono Trigger, sure. Square EA. I mean, it was. True.

[01:20:59] Yeah, I just always laugh because like I'm always like this god damn can say and that's haunted me forever. I got a real one later on, but like I still have this. You know, you know, you should you know what you should do is you should find someone

[01:21:12] and if anyone's listening here, here's here's what you can do for Bill. Take get a new PCB board. Have someone make a ROM hack of Reggie Wayne as the protagonist for can say

[01:21:25] and then flash that ROM onto a PCB board and put it into your copy of Consatant. Yes, that would be something. So next question, this one is a little out there. But like, what would you say is like one of your like strangest collecting habits?

[01:21:43] Like I've noticed a lot of collectors, sometimes they just have weird things they do with their collections. What do you mean? Like, Bill, you say yours. For me, it's like. I have like this really weird like hatred for alphabet alphabetical order in my games on like the shelf.

[01:22:01] Like it drives me insane, like for whatever reason. And I have to like arrange things in a certain way. Like I always have my RPGs right up front because I just like to show those. Or another one is like my obsession with like collecting 3D games.

[01:22:16] Just like just like bizarre, like odd habits that you have. Or just random garbage games that you. That too. I don't know. Um, I mean, there's probably something I'm doing this weird. If I'm when I look over here, it's because

[01:22:35] is my collections right over here like to my right of the bulk of it. I thought you were looking for escape route. Yeah, that too. I still collect amiibos. I think that's I think that's weird. I do think that's actually pretty weird because why?

[01:22:53] Like there's there's really no purpose to it. You can see over my left shoulder here, a bunch of amiibos over there. There's a bunch of amiibos up there and there's even more there. There's like no more room for amiibos, but I'm still getting amiibos.

[01:23:08] And they don't really do anything. So but I guess a lot of people do this kind of like Funko pops. So I mean, if you like it, like it. You know, figurines, I mean, like we build both collect figures.

[01:23:19] So yeah, I guess I guess the next thing that would be a little weird is I am always buying a new controller to see if I like it more than the previous controller. So like like retro fighters for some reason, I'm just very eight bit

[01:23:41] duovers not because I think eight bit do makes bad controllers, not because I have any problem with eight bit to. It's just that I want to find the eight bit do alternative. I can find something better than eight bit do, which I don't think I can.

[01:23:54] But like I've spent a lot of time getting retro fighter controllers and they're fine, like they're really good controllers. But but it's like I could have gotten that with an eight bit do controller. So why didn't get the eight bit do? I don't know.

[01:24:06] So I keep on buying these controllers looking for better controllers for exactly what I want. And like now I have like just a pile of controllers that like I have all these like USB dongles just sitting in front of me

[01:24:18] for different situations and different controllers and different controller types. And I have like three different Saturn controllers that I can use on my Saturn, even though I only use one. So I think that's a little bit weird is just my obsession with like, oh, there's a new controller.

[01:24:36] Got to get it. But I don't need them at all. I have plenty of controllers. In fact, I do wish I want to say this while I'm on the topic of controllers. Can someone please release a decent aftermarket PS3 controller because my PS3 controllers have horrible drift

[01:24:55] or just have weird fucking problems that need to be addressed. And this one from retro fighters, which is called the Defender, it's pretty good for the most part. But like the D pad, that's not the D pad. The D pad. It kind of sucks. It's not horrible.

[01:25:13] It's not the worst, but it's it's not good. And just when you rest your fingers on like the triggers, like just slightly at register, like this registers as a button press. I barely move my finger. It's just pressing on it.

[01:25:27] So I cannot play my PS3 games like just through it all that. I just I cannot play my PS3 controllers like that. My PS3 games. I can play my controllers like that. Can't play my games like that. So please, someone a solution because playing Dark Souls,

[01:25:43] I've used this shitty power a controller with an even worse D pad, but as a better form factor because for some reason, my DualShock 3 just wanted to have my character run around in circles after playing for 30 seconds. So I'd use this monstrosity.

[01:26:01] This looks like an Xbox controller and feels like it was made. It's it's I mean, it works. But like God, it feels not right. Not it's the yeah, it's like the best solution. So please, somebody. I know I'm in the minority, but I hate that analog stick configuration.

[01:26:20] Oh, what? The Xbox one? Yeah, I it's like basically the non Sony one where I just they have to both be below. You just you just grew up on Sony and you can't. It can't escape for me. It's I can't adapt to the D pad being low.

[01:26:34] The D pad has to be up top. Quidditch talk. I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, the the Wii U greatest console ever. Yes, they're both up top. Yeah, they reversed it. They're both up top. Still, the Wii U Pro controller is still my favorite funny one

[01:26:52] just because they're still up top on that. And it's basically a reverse 80 80 hours of battery life. Oh, yeah, I'm pretty sure mine still has a charge at this point. Yeah, it's not good for 2D games, though. It's really. If only there was an episode about controllers out there.

[01:27:09] Yeah, and Alex sends Cheetos. Patrick Starr and Salagasse. It's good controller. You should get it. So the next one, this might sound kind of similar, but I'm going to kind of like explain my reasoning. OK, what would you say are some of your favorite

[01:27:29] like oddball collections like within your collection? Like I'll give a couple examples. Like for me, I have an obsession with collecting NASCAR games and I have almost every NASCAR game or say my collection of like I'm trying to collect every version of clacks.

[01:27:44] There is just kind of weird oddball collections that like probably no one else goes for, but you do just because they bring you joy. Saga games. That's one. OK. Square. So Squaresoft came out with Saga. It's not just Saga games.

[01:28:04] I'll get to some of those in a minute, too. That's this is probably my runner up when I really think about it, because something just something else just popped. But so I have the three romancing saga games for the Super Famicom,

[01:28:16] even though I can't speak speak or read Japanese yet. Yes, yeah, probably never will. I have the three Game Boy games, which are the Final Fantasy Legend one through three, which are all saga games. I have romancing saga for the PS2, unlimited saga for the PS2.

[01:28:34] I got the play Asia releases of the romancing saga remasters for the switch. I got Saga Frontier, Saga Frontier, too, that I just got recently for the PS1. I also got the remasters for romancing or Saga Frontier on on the switch as well.

[01:28:54] I got the Scarlet Grace for the switch, the play Asia physical release. So I don't know why I love collecting saga games. I think I have some variation of every single saga game in one way or another. I'm pretty sure. Why? I couldn't tell you.

[01:29:14] It's like Saga Frontier is one of those games that like it felt like my special little game, because when that game came out, like it came out after Final Fantasy seven. And so it was in that era where everyone saw an RPG

[01:29:27] and if it didn't have tremendous production value, it was trash. If anyone remembers that era, I don't think you were born yet. But it's it's I'm not trying to make like 1997. Oh, yeah, I was. Yeah, we both were. So Alex was one. I was two.

[01:29:46] OK, I'm not trying to like make make fun of you. I'm just saying like it. It's OK. It's OK to make fun of him all the time. But in 1998 is when Saga Frontier came out. And I remember really liking it, picking it up because now, hey,

[01:30:02] wow, we're getting all sorts of RPGs and then other people played it like no 3D graphics and it plays weird and worse all the movies. This sucks. And that was just that was the mentality for our for like the new wave of RPG fans for a long time

[01:30:19] that if it didn't have that, it sucked. It was like not at the good level. And I actually, to be honest, I had that thought about a lot like anime looking RPG games hoping you didn't have a lot of anime movies, which is Lunar's fault

[01:30:31] that I didn't really care about it. I just put it down, which is why I think put I put down Tales of Fantasia, not Fantasia Destiny originally, because I was like, we're all the movies. I want more anime movies and didn't have a lot of them, honestly.

[01:30:44] So I stopped playing it. But that's that's why I like saga. And the other thing, the weird thing about Saga Frontier is that when Saga Frontier 2 came out, I think in 99 or 2000, maybe 2001, whenever it came out after Saga Frontier. Now, I remember when Saga Frontier came out, EGM,

[01:31:04] which was my favorite game magazine back then, gave the game their silver award, which means it had to have an average of eight or right below eight. I think about it got all eights or an eight or all eights and a seven or something like that.

[01:31:16] It got their silver award, editor's choice, silver award saying, Hey, this is a good game. And I agreed. And then Saga Frontier 2 was about to come out and they said, well, Saga Frontier 2 is about to come out. And hopefully it fixes all the mistakes the first game made.

[01:31:29] Yeah. Wow. Like that game was rough. We don't understand anyone who liked it. It's like you did. Yeah. You did. You said you did. Why are you saying now? Like, well, we all wanted to be a better game. The last one, you thought it was a good game.

[01:31:47] Anyway, that's that's where my love for Saga comes from. That's probably why I have a bunch of Saga games. The other one, which is probably more insidious right now, and it's a big problem I'm going to have to address at some point.

[01:31:57] And I don't want to use Chemco games. Oh, yeah. From limited run. Every single time Chemco comes out with one of their little releases, I have to get it. So I think I have like about 25. Chemco PS4 games, which is just essentially a bunch of RPG maker games

[01:32:14] that they released the masses. They used to be on the Vita. I think they started out on the Vita. We're on 3DS as well. I didn't know they were on 3DS. I knew they were on the Vita. But yeah, now I have a ton of them and myself

[01:32:27] and member of our community. And it sounds like a member of your community as well, Ray Ray. He we picked these games up as as soon as we have the opportunity to. And this is probably a very bad thing.

[01:32:39] My money is going to his ankle, but Chemco Chemco forever. My favorite powerhouse. My favorite Chemco game I ever played was Alphidia on the 3DS. I played the entire game with the auto battle on just all the way through and I beat it. You can do that.

[01:32:58] I mean, they are mobile games. There's there's gotcha elements like they had to change for the console. Is that like, oh, if you pay this much into it, like they can't because they're not online. Like, oh, right.

[01:33:10] So they have different methods of of like you can see like how like if you just pay this much money for these tickets, then you can get more. But they have different methods of getting these tickets and they're supposed to break the game. It's always adorable. It's adorable.

[01:33:23] I love it. Thanks. Before we move on to the last question, I was thinking of oddball collections. This is one that I've always thought about doing, but just never have because it would be a lot of money.

[01:33:34] I always thought it'd be really funny to have like a full set of like for like maybe like PlayStation or something, just all greatest hits copies. That would be sometimes you get the better version of the game. True.

[01:33:48] Like I know particularly Crash Bandicoot, Wrath of Cortex on PS2. The greatest hits edition has much shorter load times. Silent Hill comes with all the additional Silent Hill 2 comes with the additional content.

[01:34:03] If you get the greatest hits PS2 version, which I don't think a lot of people know. I just always I just always thought it'd be funny to have like a PS1 specific like set of nothing but the green labels. So ugly.

[01:34:15] Yeah, but I kind of love I kind of love it. So ugly. It's great. So one of the last questions I got. What would you what advice would you give to people trying to get into collecting? Don't know. That's my usual. That's my usual.

[01:34:33] Alex is right. Don't don't do it. Don't usual answer. But if let's just say if they have to, like they're going to get into it regardless, like what advice would you give? Budget, budget, budget, budget, like know your limitations. Have a voice of reason.

[01:34:53] No, because you're always going to override the voice of reasons. It's always going to be overridden. Well, no, I mean, like have it be a separate person that says no. Well, here's the thing, like the only time you ever going to listen

[01:35:04] to that person is if they're a significant other. And they're telling they're going to tell you don't do that or I'm going to kill you because like we need that money to survive and eat. So like that's the only time you're ever going to listen to them.

[01:35:15] But if it's a friend, if it's a friend or someone else, if they tell you no, you're going to probably want to buy it just despite them or if they tell you yes, you're going to want to buy it because you're being encouraged to do so.

[01:35:27] So like if you are going to be told no, make sure not everyone's going to have that voice that's going to be able to reach out to them in that sense. So like it's nice to have, but not everyone is going to be able to give it.

[01:35:39] So what I would say is this, if you want to budget, know if you want to collect, first of all, know what your budget is. Set aside whatever money you can per month. Be like, this is the only amount of money

[01:35:50] I'm going to spend this month on collecting games. And by the way, I don't follow these rules. So I'm being a big hypocrite here. I'm telling you from experience what you should do. That will be very difficult. They'll be very difficult for you to do.

[01:36:04] But these are things that you should do. So get the budget out there to know exactly what you're looking for. One of the biggest pitfalls I see in this, like again, a lot of this is from personal experience.

[01:36:16] So not everyone experienced this, but I do is you'll be collecting for systems or you'll be collecting in a certain genre. And you're you'll hear people say, hey, this game is a lot like this, this game that you're trying to find. And you'll be like, oh, really?

[01:36:33] I really like Game X. I should buy Game Y. And then you'll find out other lot. Then that will start you down a new rabbit hole. So what you what you really should do is just stay to the list that you're trying to collect for and don't deviate

[01:36:48] because there's always going to be another rabbit hole. You can go down. There's there's tens of thousands of games at this point, especially because of how much gaming boomed in terms of like physical copies during the PS3, PS4 switch.

[01:37:03] All of that era, like all of those systems have just massive amount of games. You're not going to be able to get them all. And there are going to be a lot of them that are extremely cheap and or affordable or within your budget.

[01:37:17] And the thing is, too, is like once you start getting those games, now you're going to want to expand your budget because now you're going to want it, the games that you want in addition to the games that you may not know

[01:37:25] you want. So just stick to the games that you know you want. Make a plan. And if you deviate from that plan, then stop that idea. Just stop it cold, like abandon it. I used to have the idea.

[01:37:38] I was going to get every single master system game and every single Wii U game. I abandoned those because I realized I strayed off that path a long time ago and I didn't dedicate myself to it.

[01:37:49] I could have a complete Wii U collection right now if I wanted to. I have like the I think the heaviest hitter on the system technically, which is Devil's Third. So if I like but like when I realized I didn't want to spend

[01:38:03] over $100 on Turbo Stunt Squad, I was like, I need to stop this because I'm going to put that 100. I could spend $100 on Turbo Stunt Squad or I can spend $100 and get four games of decent quality in my collection. And that's that. So if that goes through your mind,

[01:38:21] maybe deviate the way that you're collecting, but be disciplined. Know what your budget is. Know what you want to collect for. If you're susceptible to peer pressure, don't even start. Yeah, don't don't even start because peer pressure is a bitch. And it'll it'll get you.

[01:38:43] And ask yourself if if it isn't better to just get a mister. Ask yourself if like you're not getting the same thing out of out of straight up emulation, because if if you don't mind and if if you're the kind of person that wants to play it

[01:39:00] on like a on your current LCD screen TV, which is fine. Again, things look really, really good nowadays on LCDs through either retro tanks or through misters or whatever. If you can do that, then there really is no harm

[01:39:16] in just getting a raspberry pi or a mister emulating because if you really do want the authentic experience, you got to get yourself a CRT TV. Those are hard to get. Those are really hard to get and they're costing more and more and more every

[01:39:29] year because no one's making them. And here's another unfortunate fact, less and less people are repairing them. Try to try to find someone to repair them and they are going to start breaking down. I had to get my repaired.

[01:39:39] I had to call like five or six different TV repair shops before I got someone who knew how to work on a CRT TV and he looked like he was close to retiring. So like ask yourself what kind of experience that you want.

[01:39:54] And if everything lines up, you have the budget, you have the money, you have the idea and you can stay disciplined and go after it. But the only reason I say all this is because you don't want to get yourself into position where you regret any of it

[01:40:08] because the minute you start regretting any of your collecting and I have a bunch of regrets. I look at my I look at my collection a lot quite a bit. I'm like, did I really need to buy like 10 Xbox one games? Probably not.

[01:40:24] They're not even games anyone cares about. They were just super cheap. Why do I have them? And you might get yourself into a position where you're just buying games just to have games because inevitably a bunch of collectors do that.

[01:40:36] And so many of them will be so cheap you can't offload them if you wanted to. So be just be very careful. Know what you want. And I repeat to myself that that would be my advice or just don't or just don't.

[01:40:51] That's my usual answer, but sometimes people won't take no for an answer. So right. A lot of people won't. But I do think that the retro collecting scene has cooled down quite a bit. Yeah, there's that's good. I just said there's not as many people

[01:41:07] that are just getting into it because it's the hip thing to do. There's the people that are I've noticed lately are people who actually are interested. Yeah. I think that was always there, but I think just like all trends. There's so many ways to play these games

[01:41:26] that don't require the physical copy that and people are becoming happy or not playing it originally, especially now that you start seeing it like all these digital copies. And I understand you don't own them, but all these digital copies you're starting to see on these the switch

[01:41:44] virtual switch online, whatever the hell they call it. And as long as Nintendo keeps doing that and and Sony makes a lot of these old PS one titles available through PS Plus, even though

[01:41:58] I mean, to be to be to be fair, I heard it's just placed terribly on PS five in all the backwards compatibility capabilities that that the Xbox series has that you can play these games still digitally that you don't necessarily need to go out and get them.

[01:42:14] I think a lot of that's cooled. And I think like a lot of that that that nostalgia for NES games has eroded. I think that that nostalgia for a lot of Super Nintendo games has eroded and the the the nostalgia you're seeing is like

[01:42:30] the more like more around RPGs because RPG fans are are have mental problems and as someone who is one, because we can't because we hold these titles up so pristinely. It's not like someone who is a fan of Donkey Kong Country, like they don't need to go back.

[01:42:50] They don't need to have a physical copy the same way that a Chrono Trigger fan feels about Chrono Trigger. So but that's why I think like the market overall is cooling because a lot of those games that were big, I think

[01:43:02] they did belong to casual people and the people who really wanted to get their fix got their fix and they're moving on. And that's why like RPG RPG fans just have a different mentality when it comes to these kind of things, which is why those games

[01:43:12] always maintain their value. And there's a lot of crossover with other games. There's why you see that. But I think when it comes to PS three, a lot of these people are like, oh, this is a hidden gem. It might collect value. A lot of them won't.

[01:43:25] And you're seeing this on price charting right now coming down from the COVID high like in like 2021, maybe 2022 is when they hit their peak. I think mid 20 late 2021. I'd have to go like look at the charts again.

[01:43:37] But a lot of the PS one and PS two games have gone down like a third in value from that peak. They're like right at slightly after COVID craziness. So they're coming down. And I think there's that the reason for it is, yeah, I mean

[01:43:54] the market has has cooled and people are moving on and that that retro market, especially with all these remasters that are coming out like every day. There's no reason that you need to go back and play it on original hardware.

[01:44:07] You have like all these current options and people there's a lot of snobs that are just like, well, it's not 60 frames per second. No one cares. No, nobody cares. Stop it. You can I understand you care. But like the majority of people are not going to notice

[01:44:25] the difference between 30 and 60 frames per second, unless you have it side by side. OK, like I don't need you don't need to tell people in order to go play Tales in Symphonia. They got to go buy a game cube. They can hook it up to their LCD TV.

[01:44:36] Oh wait, that looks like crap too. So you're going to tell them to go get a fricking CRT on top of it. No, then let them enjoy it on their fucking 30 frame per second remaster. Yep. Let it out. So the final question I have for this, this one

[01:44:59] originally was a joke question. I just kind of threw at James during our previous episode, but his answer was so mind blowing that I had to keep it for future episodes. What is the one game that you will never have in your collection? Hmm.

[01:45:18] So to preface what you think about it, the reason why this one was so like shocking to me was his answer was flat out Final Fantasy 6. And he gave this massive like big answer about how like I know, like it shocked me too.

[01:45:33] And he just like the game like it's one of those games he just doesn't have any feelings for at all. And he just doesn't want it in his collection period. And it was like it blew my mind hearing it.

[01:45:42] But then it kind of also made me think I'm like, what? Like this there has to be other games that people have similar reasoning to. Like there's not a big reason I hate to I hate to say.

[01:45:54] I look at you and immediately a type of game comes to mind that will never have in my collection. And it's around the same reasoning that that you just said, it's like I don't ever foresee myself ever having a NASCAR game in my collection. That's fair.

[01:46:11] And it's it's not because like I'd like NASCAR is evil or I have any negative feelings towards NASCAR. I used to watch NASCAR a lot in the past, but I like I if I want a racing game, I'm going to play Gran Turismo. Yeah.

[01:46:28] Because the whole entire NASCAR like experience is like you go in a circle for 500 laps and no, there's pit there's strategy to it. Understand all that. And it can it's very interesting to watch, but I can't see if like it was a manager mode

[01:46:45] or even driving the car. It being all that entertaining from a simulation standpoint, it have to be pure arcade. But if I'm going to do that, why wouldn't I just play Daytona USA? Yeah, that's kind of my position on it.

[01:46:56] So like I don't think I would ever have it. Now, if someone just gave it to me, I'd be like, cool. I just kind of put it in the corner somewhere. I mean, I'm not going to like deny it.

[01:47:06] But I think like even even to the Final Fantasy Six comment, if someone just gave him Final Fantasy three slash six, I don't think he would just be like he would tell them no. So he probably still accept it. Fun fact, he actually gave us that answer

[01:47:24] and he said he immediately flipped it for more money. It's worth a lot of money. Yeah. But like an NASCAR games not so. Now, the funny part is like he completely threw me through a loop because my entire reasoning for that question

[01:47:40] was I wanted to make a joke because for me, the one game I always say that will never be in my collection is the guy game. For because you don't want to be convicted of child porn. Yeah, yeah, pretty much that it's a piece of shit.

[01:47:54] There's no reason to own. But I always bring that one up because that is my favorite convention. Like when I go to when I go to conventions, I have like little games I like to play going through like the game stuff. One of my favorites is like

[01:48:07] I do like a tally of how many copies of the guy game I find just to see and at Retro World this year, I ended up finding three copies and one of them definitely sold because it was there one day and it was not there the next day.

[01:48:20] E. Yeah, that was always my answer. I just always find it funny when other games people like just don't want to have in their collections for whatever reason. I mean, don't maybe someone's collecting it though to throw away. Maybe they're collecting it to destroy.

[01:48:36] Oh, well, like you see in Bob's. I know they do it. Sixty four. I mean, it's also a way all of those games, in my opinion. But anyways, I mean, getting past the obvious, like sketchy circumstances around it to it's also an expensive game

[01:48:54] that I'm not wasting money on. Like you're not true hero. The guy game, like for what it is. Oh, yeah, surprisingly expensive for no reason. And I'm just not paying that money for that. For some reason, I thought I thought you said like it was going to be.

[01:49:12] Not the guy game. I thought we were talking about Superman 64, like that games. Oh, no, no, that games worthless. In every way. Fine, the rings isn't that bad, but it's bad. It's a bad game. Well, once you once you take into it,

[01:49:26] once you figure out that Superman basically controls like a flying car, like you kind of can figure it out. The guy game is fascinating, though, because like it is so expensive. I don't know. Maybe what is it? Because they were 17, 16.

[01:49:45] Like that's why it got taken off the shelves. There was one one of the girls was like a few months away from being 18, but she lied about her age. So she was technically underage during the filming. Oh, awesome. So it was one of those because there

[01:50:00] there's a DVD version of the game where he made it into a DVD game that was later released that had that one girl removed from the actual from the game that I never actually even seen that before. The only reason I find the guy game fascinating is

[01:50:18] the guy that created a Jeff Spangenberg. His history in gaming is really fascinating because he started at a claim was a huge part of like he made like Arrow the Acrobat and then was a big part of the Turok series.

[01:50:32] Then he left a claim and formed Retro Studios and yeah, yeah. And then he was. They had their partnership with Nintendo and they were making Metroid Prime. And then Miyamoto came down to the studio to see how they were doing

[01:50:49] and realized the CEO of the studio was making soft core porn on the computers. And Nintendo basically paid him to fuck off and took the took the studio from him. And then he used said money to start top heavy studios, which made the guy game.

[01:51:05] It is just a weird, weird history of this guy. That's I mean, he has talent that something if they made it that far. I mean, that's that's that really is interesting. Yeah, just it's really funny. You can connect Retro Studios to the guy game in a way.

[01:51:23] Yeah, it's it's a it's a big web out there, especially when you start looking at what companies are connected to what? Yes, always interesting. Like when you look up as long as we're on these talent tangents here, when you look up, Koa

[01:51:37] and you look out, Koa made their money before they started making the whole entire romance of the three kingdoms games. They were a soft core porn video game company. Yep. A husband and they were a husband and wife team that made porn games.

[01:51:50] And they were they were with the Koa label. And then once they started to be financially viable, that's when they started making the more historical sim type games. Oh, yeah. So final part of this and I'm stealing this from Slade. There's your shout out Slade.

[01:52:07] Boo, this is the point where I take the Q&A and we flip it. And any questions you have, you can ask us. I hated that when he did that, by the way. Yeah. Did he make you go on a scavenger hunt?

[01:52:22] No, we're the only ones that did this scavenger hunt. I'm scared scavenger. He made he did this like I love being on a show. I don't I don't know. No, you can hate on him. We won't. It's not like this is going to be posted anywhere.

[01:52:36] But like when we were doing our top five stuff and he's like, I have a top five for you. And like I had to slot the games into the positions before I knew where they were. So like this is your number one game.

[01:52:49] I'm like it was some some game I did not like. I'm like, fuck you. I think it was Zelda. Yeah, it was Zelda games. I'm like, you motherfucker. Oh, well, whatever. I guess is my number one game.

[01:52:59] See, my favorite part of that was I was listening to it at work and I had a little speaker and like any time you got like upset about that, you just like your audio would just spike like way louder than everyone.

[01:53:09] So everyone in my shop would just look over like what the fuck was that? Just be like like it's it's nothing. Also, he coined the term bill level collection in that, which is just a thing now, I guess. Bill level collection.

[01:53:25] I mean, you do have a bill level collection bill. As for short. Yeah, I don't know. Not being stuff you a different bill. But, you know, yeah, yeah, Buffalo Bill, body's in his closet. So. Can't come. I don't mean I don't really know because I think you answered

[01:53:43] a lot of the a lot of the questions that I probably would have had throughout the game about gaming. It could just be about life. Like what's the meaning of it? Forty two. No, 12. Wait, what's Jimmy Johnson? Was that forty two? Forty eight. Forty eight.

[01:54:03] Oh, so as I say, who's forty two? Well, is there forty two? There is a forty two. It's not the same. Seventeen. It's John Hunter. Nima check now. But it's been like like multiple different drivers over the years.

[01:54:19] So I guess it's not the meaning of NASCAR life at least. Nope. OK, so my question for you is who's who's winning the Winston Cup this year? And I don't care if it's not called the Winston Cup. Well, because NASCAR's point system is an utter.

[01:54:35] At least stupid mess. Um. I'll flip a coin. Maybe it's probably going to be. So it's been a Penske driver the last two years in a row. Maybe dying. Maybe Joey Logano wins it again or something. I don't know. Um, I'd like Martin Truex to win.

[01:54:56] It might be a Hendrick car. NASCAR's point system is dumb and it's like a it's like a flip of a coin who wins half the time. That's what makes it interesting. Keeps you on your toes. Yeah, I guess I prefer I prefer when it's the actual

[01:55:13] full season points winner who wins it all in the end, not the guy who sucked all year and then got lucky in the last five races and won. But I could understand what they did that though, because, you know, like people. Like NASCAR's front loaded.

[01:55:31] Yeah, when I when I watched NASCAR, I watched NASCAR for for a few years in the early 2000s, early to mid 2000s. It's very front loaded. So like at the end of the season, even NASCAR fans were not paying

[01:55:43] attention anymore because like, oh, this guy is like 500 points ahead. We don't got to watch any of these races. And then they introduced the playoffs and that was interesting when they broke it down to like 10 racers.

[01:55:54] But they're like, well, this racer is complaining that he was within five points and he should have made it. They're like, OK, that's a good idea. Well, add more racers. Yeah. And then. Then became whatever it is now.

[01:56:06] You know, half the field makes it and there's like a knockout style thing where like every three races, they kick four of them out. It's stupid. Yeah, that sounds that sounds really dumb. They should just. Keep it to 10, keep it to 10.

[01:56:20] And if like the people who are not involved in the playoffs when the race, you know, they get their money, they get their notoriety, you know. Just like the good old days, like out of how many like I know

[01:56:30] they expanded the amount of races to and like the last thing you want to hear is maybe you shrink the season down. And I think they should because get the get farther away from the start

[01:56:42] of the football season like the better because like once we get close to football, nobody cares anymore and they're going to start watching football instead. Yeah. Well, it's always the Daytona. Daytona 500 has always been like the last or second to last weekend in February,

[01:56:56] hasn't it? It's always the week after the Super Bowl. Yeah, it's always been that. So you can't you can't do that because that's just that's when the South historically, I know it's not exclusively southern sport, but that's where it started.

[01:57:10] And that's for still most of the fan bases. But the South is big into professional. Well, South is just big into football period. Yeah, that's it's like you can't even like baseball is like nothing down here.

[01:57:24] So like once football is over, you got to give him something to do. And no one's watching hockey or baseball really. So I can understand why, you know, NASCAR is this continuation of the football season. But, you know, you start getting into.

[01:57:40] Like you start getting into August or September. No one cares anymore. Yeah, that's for sure. So if they ended it like in July, right? For they want to start it after the Super Bowl, fine, but you can start it before the regular season starts.

[01:57:54] You can stop it for the regular season starts. And that way, like everything's narrowly focused. You have a big bang and then people can immediately turn their attention to football and it's this great synergy of sports. There's something like that. Not totally, but yeah, we've gone.

[01:58:14] God, it was two hours and we got some NASCAR talk in. We did. But yeah, so we're at the end of the show. Chris, would you like to shout out all of your stuff this once again?

[01:58:28] Yeah, sure. If you I am Chris Coppain from the Retro Hangover Podcast. I do a show about retro video games with my friend Shane. And we talk about a game that is 10 years or older. We go over its characteristics.

[01:58:43] We talk about whether or not we like it and then we talk about whether or not the game holds up today in our opinions. And usually we have a guest. Bill's been on a couple of those episodes, and I highly recommend you go check those out.

[01:58:55] As Bill mentioned earlier, he was on the Popful Mail episode, and that was a fun one. Everyone had a good time. People received it well. So go check out that episode. It's a it's a very fun episode where we talk about how much working designs is terrible.

[01:59:08] And I think you you all would enjoy that if you enjoyed this today. But if you want to know where you can find us, just head over to our link tree, which is at link tr dot e slash retro hangover, where we have a variety of other

[01:59:21] stuff that you could go check out at any time. So yeah, thank you for having me on the show, Bill. Definitely appreciated it. Thank you, Alex for being here as well. Always great to enjoy your chaos and look forward to the next time.

[01:59:36] Yes, thanks for coming on, dude. This was a fun chat. And once again, guys, thanks for joining us on the Gaming Collecting Podcast. The Gaming Collecting Podcast can be found on all your major podcasting platforms, particularly Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

[01:59:50] We're now on YouTube with occasional video versions of said podcast coming out. Not always, though. It depends on if Alex does her makeup or not. Honestly, yes. And if you'd like, you can find all of our links at link tree slash the barbecue games.

[02:00:05] And if you'd also like, you can come join us over on the G and C podcast network Discord server where you can find all things water, but the podcast coming out soon. Three Dio, three Dio experience, geek addicts,

[02:00:19] all or just come to talk gaming anime or just all sorts of nonsense. Well, Alex has an entire channel there dedicated to water bottle propaganda. It is wonderful. But once again, once again, guys, thank you for joining us. And we will see you all later. No.