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[Yagharek]

Who here has built up or considered a small collection of classic games for an old console?

Last year I went through a stage of being fed up with current gen, and combined with my interest in reading Retro Gamer, I decided to go out and begin a collection of some old, out-of-date consoles with the "best of the best" games on them. I decided that some consoles were easy to rule out, others were great but had mitigating issues and others still were rendered redundant based on BC.

What I ruled out:
* Systems with moving parts (wear and tear and my inability/lack of confidence to fix them myself). - ie PS1, Saturn, 3DO due drive issues and N64 due controller wear and tear.
* Systems that are prohibitively expensive - eg NeoGeo, Panasonic Cube
* Systems with hard to acquire games - eg Amiga CD32, Atari Jaguar

I was also after something that was in wide circulation, in order to make up a quick and quality library. So basically that left me with a few simple options. MegaDrive, SNES, Master System or NES. I was always a MegaDrive/Amiga gamer back in the day, so I opted for SNES for the games I missed out on then.

Since then, I have accumulated a small but quality library. So far I have managed to get:

* A Link to the Past
* Mario All Stars
* Super Metroid (big box edition)
* Super Mario World
* NBA Jam
* Mortal Kombat 3
* Starwing
* Shadowrun
* The Lost Vikings
* F Zero
* Yoshis Island
* R Type 3
* Super Mario Kart

My aim was to build up a small, but quality library with a nice diversity and in good condition. All of them are complete and only F Zero has significant wear to the box.

So my interest lies in what are a couple of other good games to get to round out the collection (PAL SNES)? I'm thinking Bomberman belongs in there. Maybe that Secret of Mana game as well.

And more importantly, what sort of collections have people built up for consoles they would like to keep for a long time? The kind of stuff that will take pride of place in a man-cave or similar.

I'm interested in what older systems people are still into, and why they get the games for them that they do. Not so much interested in collectors editions, but the actual games themselves and why they are worth hanging onto and playing years after they were consigned to history.

Disclaimer: 'Retro/Legacy' is a trivial term here. I dont want to spark debate over what counts as 'retro'. So if you want to talk about building a collection for current systems that you intend to hang onto long-term, feel free to do so.

 

[Snytbaggen]

Well, I have a Wii

 

[ArachosiA 78]

In my opinion, you still need:

ActRaiser
Pilotwings
Super Castlevania 4
Contra 3
Super Ghouls n' Ghosts
Street Fighter 2
Earthbound
Final Fantasy 2 & 3

 

[Deleted member 74300]

Thanks to the internet I did for the Super Nintendo. Out with the bad games and in with the best only. A rule I live by after playing many movie based games on the Genesis. Ugh... Batman Forever.

During one X-mas I went in this one Gamestop and bought all the SNES games they used to have for $60 or more and got them half or more off.

Chrono Trigger - $30
Final Fantasy 3 - $30
Earthbound - $20 <-- I'd say it's a good deal after seeing what it goes for now.
Secret of Mana - I forgot.

But anyways it's obviously harder to find good old games at stores. The store I had to go to for old games because Gamestop stopped selling them was Game Crazy but those died. Now I check out Disk Replays to see what they have.

 

[JustAnotherOtaku]

Personally I think having a collection of the best and some quirky games is essential for the (Japanese) Saturn and Dreamcast. Not just because they have some truly great games, but because, unlike 8 and 16-bit systems, they can't or aren't frequently emulated.

 

[-KRS-]

Earthbound is just $20 now? Somehow I find that hard to believe. Did the fan hype die down? Well in either case you should get that because it's literally one of the best SNES games I've played.

And if you like fighting games I'd say get the Street Fighter games and the Mortal Kombat games too. They're definitely classics of the era that should be in every SNES collector's... collection. I bought the japanese versions of SFII: Turbo and SSFII very cheaply, and the Mortal Kombat ones are pretty cheap even when complete.

Oh and they make new control sticks for the N64 that is more like the GC controller in that it's attached to a ball instead of being just a stick. They're definitely not as good as the GC ones though. Definitely not as loose. The one I have is a little stiff when pushing it to the left, but it's still way better than the original, and it probably wont become worthless that quickly.

Also, if you are willing to spend that kind of money you could buy the SNES PowerPak which is a flashcart for the SNES. It's not compatible with all games (as some of them used custom chips in the cartridge) but it works with most of them from what I understand. I have the NES one and it's one hell of a product.

I'm mostly collecting NES games these days myself, but there was a period when I focused on the SNES. I'm trying to think of other games that are good.
Goof Troop is actually pretty good if you have a friend to play with.
Super Tetris 3 is the best version of tetris for the SNES if you're into that.
Super Castlevania IV is also a must have I'd say.
Turtles IV: Turtles in Time is awesome.
SMW2: Yoshi's Island.

I'll update if I think of more.

 

[Snytbaggen]

Well, I have a Wii

Really bad joke posts aside, I do have a NES/SNES/GBC and am currently trying to expand my collection, both by rebuying old games I lost (still mad for losing mega man 2 when I moved...) and also buying games I've heard about, borrowed or played at a friend's place. At the moment I have:

NES
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 3
Trojan
Little Nemo the Dream Master
Metroid (USA import, runs slowly on a PAL unit)

AFAIK I've only lost Mega Man 2 and Ghosts 'n Goblins for the NES

SNES
Super Metroid
Donkey Kong Country 2
Super Gameboy Player (although not really a game)

I've lost Super Mario All-Stars, Jurassic park and Kirby's Dream Course for the SNES.

GBC
Pokémon Blue
Pokémon Yellow
Pokémon Pinball
Pokémon Silver
Metroid II
Pirate cart with tons of games (my brother traded another game for this waaay back, we were too young to know what piracy was. The games suck anyway.)

EDIT:

Goof Troop is actually pretty good if you have a friend to play with.

I second this, a friend got this many years ago and it's still a great and very fun co-op game

 

[nismogrendel]

In my opinion, you still need:

ActRaiser
Pilotwings
Super Castlevania 4
Contra 3
Super Ghouls n' Ghosts
Street Fighter 2
Earthbound
Final Fantasy 2 & 3

Good list I'd add

Chrono Trigger
Earthworm Jim
UN Squadron

 

[A Black Falcon]

What I ruled out:
* Systems with moving parts (wear and tear and my inability/lack of confidence to fix them myself). - ie PS1, Saturn, 3DO due drive issues and N64 due controller wear and tear.
* Systems that are prohibitively expensive - eg NeoGeo, Panasonic Cube
* Systems with hard to acquire games - eg Amiga CD32, Atari Jaguar

I just want to say, N64 controller analog sticks are in fact VERY easy to replace, and anyone can do it; all you need is a Phillips screwdriver and a replacement stick (available on the internet), nothing else. Take the screws out of the controller, unplug the old stick inside (it's just plugged in, no glue or solder or anything), put in the new one, and screw it back together. It's about as easy as console repairs get.


The thing I do want to mention, for numerous consoles, is the batteries inside many cartridges that hold the saves. All games on the NES, SNES, GB, GG, and SMS that save have batteries inside. Almost all GBC games do as well. So do all N64 controller paks (memory cards; I actually kind of like Performance/Interact's 1X cards, on that note, because they have Phillips screws and not special ones like Nintendo's, and BATTERY CLIPS inside instead of batteries firmly attached to the circuit board! Don't buy compressed cards though, those will die on you.), and PC Engine CD and Neo Geo memory cards too. N64 carts with on-cart saving, though, usually have EEPROM or Flash RAM (not battery backed) save chips, not batteries... about a dozen do have batteries however. It's similar on the GBA, some games have batteries inside, most don't. The GBA is the only console released in 2000 or later with games (or memory cards) with batteries inside, though.

This is, of course, an issue because these 10-20 year old batteries die eventually, and then unless you have a local store or something that can do battery replacement, or you can do it yourself, it makes those games hard to play... it is something that people collecting classic console games for affected systems do need to consider. There are solutions, sure, but it's annoying. I don't like Sony, but this is one thing they did right -- the PSX is entirely flash memory based saving, no batteries involved. (As for the Saturn, its memory cards are flash memory, but the system's internal save is a user-replaceable cell battery that lasts a few years at most. At least you can change it yourself though, but have a memory card (or Action Replay 4M+) first, so you don't lose your saves, and for everything else it does.)

Don't take this to mean I don't recommend buying old consoles, though -- quite the opposite, I absolutely do, and have a pretty sizable older console game collection myself. Do buy old consoles and games... but internal save batteries ARE something to think about, in addition to things like CD drives, etc.

 

[-KRS-]

Pirate cart with tons of games (my brother traded another game for this waaay back, we were too young to know what piracy was. The games suck anyway.)

Is it one of those "Game USA Color" ones? I have two of those. One with all Pokémon games up to Gold/Silver + other small games, and one with random smaller games and some pirate games like the infamous Super Mario 4. The pokémon cart sounds interesting but they ripped out all the battle sprites so they could fit the cartridge. And Green, Gold and Silver are poorly translated versions of the Japanese releases, so it's obvious the cart came out sometime between the Japanese release of G/S and the western release of those games. And they're incredibly buggy as well.

N64 carts with on-cart saving, though, usually have EEPROM or Flash RAM (not battery backed) save chips, not batteries... about a dozen do have batteries however.

Among them TLoZ: OoT =/
At least the Collector's Edition version.

 

[RadioHeadAche]

Earthbound is just $20 now? Somehow I find that hard to believe. Did the fan hype die down? Well in either case you should get that because it's literally one of the best SNES games I've played.

No, he got that when Gamestop used to sell used SNES games several years ago.

 

[-KRS-]

No, he got that when Gamestop used to sell used SNES games several years ago.

Oh I see now, I misread his quote. Well, never mind then

 

[A Black Falcon]

Among them TLoZ: OoT =/
At least the Collector's Edition version.

True. The SRAM (battery backup) was used on the N64 for games with a large amount of on-cart save memory, before the later release of the Flash RAM memory option that games like Majora's Mask use, so most of those 12 games are games of note, such as OoT, The New Tetris, one of the wrestling games with internal save, Ogre Battle 64, F-Zero X I believe, and some others. It's unfortunate that some of the system's better games do have internal batteries, but I find the fact that the memory cards have them in them too even more frustrating... I mean, the PSX and Saturn both have flash memory memory cards. It's unfortunate that Nintendo used a more archaic design for its cards that gen.

(As a note though, for Ogre Battle 64 at least, you can copy save files to memory cards via the menu that appears if you hold Start down when you turn the system on, so for that game anyway you can get the files off the card before the battery dies.)

 

[Celine]

Suggestion for your SNES software collection:
Terranigma

Suggestion for a new hardware to collect software for:
PC Engine ( or Turbograf-x but less so )

 

[Ubersnug]

I have, and always will be, an Amiga gamer. Although, when I was younger I had to sell my CD32 and Amiga 1200 to help my parents afford the PC I was after. 10 years later I was able to pick up a replacement A1200 and CD32 from ebay.

And, to this day I still have them. Although my Mig1200 sits at my parents house, I took my CD32 with me when I moved in with my girlfriend. I even still shop about for games for it. Think I currently have about 40+ CD32 games at the moment. Let me try and think what ones I have (using Wikipedia to help):

Alien Breed Tower Assault (one of the greatest games ever)
Alien Breed 92
Arcade Pool
Banshee
Beneath a Steel Sky
Brutal Sports Football
Cannon Fodder
The Chaos Engine
D/Generation (Don;t know why but I love this game)
Dangerous Streets
Deep Core
Diggers
Fire and Ice
Fire Force
Fury of the Furries
Global Effect
Gloom
International Karate +
Robocod
Jetstrike (Another absolute Gem)
Lemmings
Liberation: Captive 2
Mean Arenas
Microcosm
Morph
Oscar
Project X (one of my all time fav shmups)
Pirates Gold
Putty
Qwak
Rise of the Robots
Roadkill
Sabre Team
Sensible Soccer: European Champions: 92/93 Edition
Simon the Sorcerer
Soccer Kid
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Stardust
Syndicate
Superfrog
UFO: Enemy Unknown
Ultimate Body Blows
Wing Commander
Worms
Zool
Zool 2

Also, I have a very soft spot for the NeoGeo Pocket Color. Currently got about 15+ games for that including a fully boxed version of Fasalei which is apparently very rare.

 

[jonno394]

So my interest lies in what are a couple of other good games to get to round out the collection (PAL SNES)? I'm thinking Bomberman belongs in there. Maybe that Secret of Mana game as well.

As a fellow PAL gamer I must point you in the direction of Terranigma, it can be a bit pricey as it never received an english language release in America. Also pick up Illusion of Time. Both are great action RPGs.

 

[djtiesto]

I'd think Virtual Boy would be a cool system to collect for - the release lineup is pretty slim, and having the thing sitting on your desk makes a great talking piece. Likewise, the SuperGrafx... it only has 5 games for it, so a complete collection wouldn't be too difficult!

I've always wanted to get into Neo-Geo collecting, because I love those big, bulky cases reminiscent of old Disney VHS cases. The games look great on a shelf.

 

[bubnbob]

GameCube

 

[thetrin]

I'd think Virtual Boy would be a cool system to collect for - the release lineup is pretty slim, and having the thing sitting on your desk makes a great talking piece. Likewise, the SuperGrafx... it only has 5 games for it, so a complete collection wouldn't be too difficult!

I've always wanted to get into Neo-Geo collecting, because I love those big, bulky cases reminiscent of old Disney VHS cases. The games look great on a shelf.

I love collecting for my Neo-Geo, but there are only so many cheap games you can buy before you start paying $600 for Garou.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Provided you are willing to buy loose carts rather than CIB or worse sealed, and provided you're interested in collecting to play rather than chasing the multi-thousand dollar holy grails, SNES is probably the best system to collect for.

- Incredibly high number of excellent games
- Many major genres represented
- Relatively few games selling above $50 (there are a few, though, EVO being probably the most expensive)
- Can be made region free very easily
- Can be made US/JPN region free in five minutes with no tools
- JPN imports are dirt cheap
- Relatively cheap JPN repros with fan translations
- Most major games have been fan translated
- Tons of lots and closeout sales to bulk up your collection number rather than pick up the gems
- Very well documented, lots of reviews and screenshots online, and guides.
- If going for complete collection, lower US retail SKU count than most of the big boys and relatively few super-obscure games (Excerbike stuff, Competition carts, etc)

 

[Mupod]

I love collecting for my Neo-Geo, but there are only so many cheap games you can buy before you start paying $600 for Garou.

It's always been a goal of mine to eventually own that game, last blade 2 and metal slug 3...but yeah, not financially feasible at the moment.

When I do, though, this will be me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrQ70tGoWMM

 

[Snytbaggen]

Is it one of those "Game USA Color" ones? I have two of those. One with all Pokémon games up to Gold/Silver + other small games, and one with random smaller games and some pirate games like the infamous Super Mario 4. The pokémon cart sounds interesting but they ripped out all the battle sprites so they could fit the cartridge. And Green, Gold and Silver are poorly translated versions of the Japanese releases, so it's obvious the cart came out sometime between the Japanese release of G/S and the western release of those games. And they're incredibly buggy as well.

Nope, it looks like this

and these are the "25" games:

1. Pokemon Gold
2. Pokemon Pinball
3. Pikachu Land
4. Yokuman
5. Klax
6. Tetris
7. Hyper Lode
8. Alley Way
9. Puzzle Load
10. Dragon Slayer
11. Dr. Mario
12. World Bowling
13. Space Invaders
14. Flipull
15. Pitman
16. Klax
17. Tetris
18. Hyper Lode
19. Alley Way
20. Puzzle Load
21. Dragon Slayer
22. Dr. Mario
23. World Bowling
24. Space Invaders
25. Flipull

As you can see the games start repeating after a while, so in reality it's only 15 games. Pokemon gold is also a really bad translation, probably from before it was released over here.

 

[Omegasquash]

What sucks is that I can never seem to find SNES games at all at any yard sales. NES games, yeah. Even found a Saturn at a neighbors yard sale with like 9 games for $25. But Super NES? Not a single cart.

 

[MikeE21286]

Well, I have a Wii

Yep, a homebrewed Wii is something you're never going to sell.

I'll have mine forever.

 

[Boerseun]

Nintendo 64. Due to exorbant license fees, high costs of cartridges and difficult hardware, developers tended to give only their best when making games for it. This means that just about every game you pick up will be a gem.

 

[Yagharek]

Just want to say a big thanks for replies so far. I've had to go in to work early hence this appearing like a hit and run thread.

As mentioned, I prefer boxed versions if possible but only because its easy to find and I'm not going for the uber rare stuff. The whole point is to play them when I get the room set up.

 

[Spike]

I have been going this route from the start of this gen. I've amassed a nice collection of games for my NES, SNES, and Genesis.

I've skimmed through the recommendations and can't believe that there hasn't yet been one person to say:

How can the best puzzle game of all time not be recommended? Get on it! Oh, and Uniracers is pretty good and fairly rare because:

Shortly after the game's release, DMA Design was sued by Pixar for allegedly copying the unicycle design and concept from their 1987 short film Red's Dream. Mike Dailly, one of the developers at DMA Design, commented, "The problem with Pixar was that they seemed to think that any computer generated unicycle was owned by them."

DMA Design lost the lawsuit, and as a result, Nintendo had to terminate production of further Unirally cartridges. According to Mike Dailly, "The deal was that Nintendo wouldn't make any more carts so Unirally only sold the 300k initial run".[1] Many reviewers and players believe the game would have been quite successful, given its critical praise, had it not been limited to its 300,000 production run.