I stopped buying new NES games around 1992-1993 while in high school, as I was saving up money for college and spare money and time was spent with my girlfriend and friends. I had owned my NES for 5+ years at this point and it seemed to me like video games were a thing of the past, a representation of my childhood. I still enjoyed playing the games I had not sold off but the idea of buying any of the few new releases coming out at the time seemed silly as I knew the NES was dying and the SNES was the present. My incorrect assumption was that any of the late release NES games would not be of the caliber of the games released during the system’s pinnacle because developers were spending their time creating masterpieces for the SNES. I just figured the companies low level developers were tasked with churning out derivative platformers for a console on its last legs. I wish I would have had more of an interest in purchasing these games at the time as many of these late release NES titles are the most expensive and highly sought after games in the library (Little Samson anyone?) and more importantly, many of them are actually very good!
Flash forward 6 years and I am now a college graduate living alone in my own apartment for the first time in my life. I have a full time job and disposable income and most importantly, spare time. I get nostalgic for my NES, which I rescued from the closet of my old bedroom at my parents house and start playing some of my games again. I go to video game stores such as Funcoland and find NES titles selling for dirt cheap. All the games I wanted as a kid 10 years ago I can now buy used for $2-5! If I really want to splurge, there might be a popular game selling for $10 but I really have to want it to spend that kind of money on a game for a dead system. I still have my SNES from college and my recently purchased PlayStation but neither system has CHILDHOOD MEMORIES encoded into the pleasure center of my brain the way my NES does. The next few years I go on a video game buying binge, filling my collection with Nintendo games that I always wanted but never could. Or buying up games that sparked my interest from the pages of Nintendo Power circa 1988-1991. If I never heard of the game, chances are I had no interest in picking a copy up for cheap, which is another source of regret for my lack of late system release titles in my library. Most of current library was procured in this manner, back when label quality and little Johnny’s initials on the back of the cartridge had no bearing on my decision to purchase. This post is dedicated to the rest of my collection thanks to stores like the defunct Funcoland or video rental stores liquidating inventory. I don’t have a lot to say about each individual game in this post as many have been played infrequently. Some were games I was nostalgic for either playing in arcades (Millipede) or on PC (California Games, Karate Champ). Other games in this set may be considered hidden gems by some (please let me know if you think I need to give one more playtime) or below average at best to others. Yet others have relatively significant value due to rarity (Chubby Cherub). What they all have in common is that they are NES games, so I won’t be liquidating these assets anytime soon.
Currently in my collection:
- The Simpsons: Bart vs Radioactive Man (game only)
- The Simpsons: Bart vs the World (game, manual)
- The Simpsons: Bart vs the Space Mutants (game, manual, box)
- Krusty’s Funhouse (game only)
- American Gladiators (game only)
- Athletic World (game only)
- California Games (game, manual)
- Captain Skyhawk (game only)
- Chubby Cherub (game only)
- Cobra Command (game only)
- Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (game only)
- Friday the 13th (game, manual)
- Karate Kid (game, manual)
- Karate Champ (game only)
- Milon’s Secret Castle (game only)
- Millipede (game only)
- Pinbot (game, manual)
- The Ren & Stimpy Show: Buckeroos! (game only)
- Renegade (game, manual)
- Robocop (game only)
- Top Gun (game, manual)
- Sky Shark (game, manual)
- Where’s Waldo (game only)
- The Uncanny X-Men (game only)
Cartridge Corner 