Retropalooza 2017
Despite a lack of updates here, I’ve been insanely busy the last few months 2017 and a great deal of that busyness has been due to three things. First, of course, was game hunting itself, but for the last six months of the year, I was working on converting my father’s vinyl collection to mp3 to give him for Christmas. That was about 200 albums in total, which required each one to be recorded on each side, then converted with meta data added in. In addition to this project was organizing another large quantity of items, but that’s where this story will eventually lead.
While I normally wouldn’t reach back and relate game hunts from months back, these sort of snowball into the biggest gaming find I’ve ever experienced, so it’s worth telling the whole story over the course of a few posts.
So get your Super Scope, put on your Captain N jacket, and strap in. We’re going on a game hunting story time adventure!
Retropalooza 2017
On October 7th and 8th, The Game Chasers held Retropalooza V in Arlington, Tx and despite the relatively close scheduling between it and Let’s Play Game Expo, of course I had to go. I had spent about half the money I set aside for Let’s Play at that convention, so I assumed I would spend about the same about, and the remainder of my game hunting cash, at Retropalooza.
In addition to that cash, I had a number of the sealed games from the Half Price Books gold mine for trade. As is becoming tradition, my first stop was at seeing the Nostalgic Nerds at their table to see what they had. Honestly, not too much caught my eye with the exception of Kickle Cubicle and Mega Man X3. That price tag on Mega Man X3 caught my eye as well, though. As expected, it was pricey. Around $250, though the quality of the label certainly demanded a high price tag for a rare game.
I wasn’t looking to wipe myself out immediately and wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that much on a game in general, so after we chatted a bit, I moved on to see what else was around. As always, Retropalooza had a ton of vendors and they all had great stuff. Prices weren’t outrageous, though some were higher than I was willing to pay and a few a little higher than I thought was reasonable. Of course, as with most conventions, you can usually negotiate if you buy a stack of things.
The first booth we came across that really caught my attention was a small one, a bit cramped with 3 tables in a “U” shape that only allowed a couple of people to stand in there at a time. My friend Phil looked over some of their hand held games while I waited to get in. Nothing much on top of the table really got my interest other than Winback Covert Ops for N64 at a fair price (finally) and Tiny Toon Adventures 2 on NES, but there were boxes and tubs under the table that weren’t open. Only one was and I wondered what might be down there.
The one box that was open had the Nintendo Power StarFox 64 promotional VHS, which was kind of interesting. I remember having it as a kid, so I pulled that out, but nothing much else in there besides Powerpuff Girls Relish Rampage (Pickled Edition) on GameCube, which was on my hunting list. A few more good games were there, but nothing else I was looking for from my list.
Moving over to the closed boxes, I opened one to take a peek and saw a pretty good stack of things. Namely NES game boxes. In great condition! I asked about Super Mario Bros 3 and he wanted $10. Star Tropics complete in box (with the letter) was about $10 as well. Lion King for SNES box, GBA Sonic collection, Sonic Advance box. An Akira figure of Kaneda with the motorcycle for a few bucks. Digimon World and Digimon World 3 were super cheap as well! Then, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Playstation. It was a blank case, but the disc was in great shape and it had the manual. Normally $30 for just the disc, for $5, it was a steal!
Phil got a few things from them as well, but we combined it into a single purchase and started Retropalooza off taking a pretty big chunk out of my cash, but we got far more value than what we paid.
I stopped by The Gamer Chasers booth and caught Billy clearly up way too early for his liking. It was almost 10AM and he informed me it was closer to the time he normally went to sleep, not got up. They’re not kidding on the show when they say he’s not a morning person. I purchased a Caught ‘Em Slippin’ t-shirt and each season of the series on DVD, but left them with Billy to, over the course of the convention, get everyone to sign them. I managed to get Billy & Jay, Melvorn, AlphaOmegaSin, and Woods, but it would take a return on the second day to manage to get Dodongo’s signature.
A big goal of this convention was to finish off the last of my N64 targets. I had just gotten Winback Covert Ops, leaving Loderunner 3D and Goemon’s Great Adventure to be found. Towards the end of my winding through the booths set up, I finally found one with the last of my N64 targets, and for reasonable prices. Done and done. I was finally finished with my N64 collection. I didn’t go for a complete collection and don’t plan to, though I might start keeping more if they fall in my lap. For what I set out as my goal on the system, though, I had finished that set. Plus, a booth cut a price to almost half off to convince me to add StarCraft for N64 to my collection as well.
Finally found Crystal Castles and the Tron games for Atari 2600 and I picked up a few manuals as well.
As the day was winding down, I got Ar tonelico from YouTuber Scottsquatch and on my way out, I picked up Animal Crossing (with the memory card), Wild Arms 2, and Spawn on SNES.
Overall, a good day and certainly the bulk of my spending and game finds, but there were still some gems to pick up upon returning the next day!
Day 1 was not too shabby!
Day 2 – Return to Castle Retropaloozastein
The second day is usually either pretty light or extremely heavy, depending on your luck. Sometimes vendors want to go deep on discounts and clear as much as possible so they don’t have to load everything to take back. That wasn’t on my mind, though, with so little left in my wallet. Don’t let that deter you at a convention, though. I know someone that made a wild pitch of $10 for an entire box of games and walked away with them. Nothing great, all commons, but they traded into a local store and he got enough credit to get a high value game from said store for essentially the $10 he spent.
I hadn’t had any luck with trades the first day and the second proved lackluster in working any trade deals as well. Although I had some good titles, sealed games didn’t grab much attention since they’re hard to move and take longer to find a buyer.
I picked up an SNES Super Scope for $5, which was just a fun thing to have, even though I’ll never really use it. The big score out and about was a booth that I guess had opened a lot more of their crates and were trying to clear them out. Crate after crate of Atari 2600 games at $3 each or 3 for $5. I knocked out 9 Atari 2600 titles I’d been looking for and was more than happy to do so.
Wrapping up the day, I rounded back to Nostalgia Nerd’s booth and took a final look at what they had. I had a few things they were interested in taking as trade and so, with a combination of trades and the last of my cash, I got that Kickle Cubicle and, of course, that Mega Man X3, completing my SNES Mega Man X trilogy. And, as tends to be my luck, Mega Man X3 has steadily dropped in value since I bought it…. but I have a beautiful condition label and it’s a great game, so I can’t be too disappointed.
I didn’t quite end the day there, as I finally decided to add one final N64 game to my library that wasn’t on my original list. Since I had Goemon’s Great Adventure, I decided to sell some Texas Instruments game cartridges and used the money to pick up Mystical Ninja starring Goemon to have both Goemon N64 games.
Finally tapped out and rather tired of two days of convention walking, I headed home. Of course, an hour before the convention ended, I came back when I realized I had left my Super Scope with the Nostalgic Nerd guys so I wouldn’t have to carry it around. It was this final hour return run that let me get Dodongo’s signature on my Game Chasers DVDs as well.
Day 2 wasn’t as hefty, but Mega Man X3 was a huge addition.
And with that, finally, Retropalooza 2017 drew to a close for me. I thought my game hunting was pretty much done for the year. After all, October leads right into holiday shopping season and Christmas gifts would need to be bought, but of course….
That first taste of video game victory was so sweet.
NinjaFox Games & Geekery 