Your Biggest Retro-Gaming Mistake

[Areala]

*Cue Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time"*

We've all made mistakes in our gaming past that we wish we could rectify, so what were some of yours? Maybe you got a Saturn when all the rest of your friends got Playstations? Maybe you decided that you'd come back later on to buy that hard-to-find game only to discover someone else had scooped it up? Perhaps, in a moment of weakness, you sold a game, or a system, or a collection, that you wish you now had back. Maybe you bought a Super Nintendo only to wish you'd bought a Genesis, or vice-versa. Maybe you ignored all the reviews on a game you'd been looking forward to by telling yourself, "It can't be THAT bad..." only to later discover that, yes, it could be.

No matter what it was, we all have those skeletons in the closet. It's time to bare your soul, let those bones air out for a while, and allow your sins or shortcomings to be forgiven. Cannoness Areala will now hear your confession and provide your absolution. Unless you paid full price for a Sega CD system...then you're pretty much screwed.

It's only fair to start with my own tale of woe, so here it is. In my defense, I was young and didn't know any better. I shall let you decide.

It was the summer of 1986, I was 9 years old (but ALMOST ten, by golly), and we were going around to garage sales one weekend. The week before, I had discovered an Atari 2600 (the newer, black/chrome "2600 Jr." version) and 3 games (Space Invaders, Circus Atari, and Combat) at a yard sale. This week, I had one dollar left to spend, when we stumbled across another yard sale with a plethora of 2600 games, many of which were still in their boxes and had their manuals, being sold for a buck a piece.

Boy, did I have options! Asteroids, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Chopper Command, River Raid, Warlords, Frogger, Atlantis...the list of games read like a "Who's Who" of some of the best the 2600 had to offer. But instead of picking any of those, my eyes were drawn to a grey box with a cute little rendering of a boy and his intergalactic best friend on the cover, and I spent my last dollar purchasing...you guessed it... E.T.

A valuable lesson was learned that day, boys and girls of Retromags. Licensed properties often make horrible video games. This is a hard lesson for any nine year old to learn, but learn it I did, and it has served me well. Even so, I have to wonder...what if that little nine-year old girl with the reddish-blonde hair and the Rainbow Brite t-shirt had instead selected a different game? Defender, perhaps, or Gorf?

The world may never know. Ages come and go, and the Wheel turns, and all that rubbish. This was my transgression, my faithful. What, pray tell, is yours?

*huggles*

Areala

[Guest s1500]

Probably giving away a lot of my older consoles instead of holding onto them & selling them on eBay. We're talking 2600, NES, Turbo Grafx 16, a complete boxed Sega Master System(w/ the glasses), Atari Jaguar + Virtual Boy(+ spare core).

[Gnash]

Selling my Nes games and console to buy a Game Gear.

Selling my Snes to buy crap, specially my Super Mario All Stars and Final Fantasy IV.

[Mister Zero]

I have always let the wrong people get close to my game systems. @!#?@!

First, there was my original Sega Genesis. I lent it to the kid next door and it came bck with the microphone jack broken and something loose inside the console. Years later, my sister or brothers dug it out of my room and God knows where it is now..

Second to disappear were my Playstation games. FFVII, Gran Turismo 2, and a few others were stolen by my brothers and traded in at Gamestop for a few bucks towards a Yu-Gi-Oh game..... PISSED!

Third was my N64 and all the good games I had gathered when N64 games were going out of style at Gamestop(I paid like $15 for each). I let my brothers keep it in their room, since technically the system was theirs. One day it went missing and I believe my mom's ex-boyfriend either sold it or took it for himself when he moved out, the prick. Same with my 2600!

Lessons learned:

1. Don't let punks borrow your stuff!

2. If you have siblings, steps, or in-laws, keep your games under lock and key!

3. Keep record and close track on where your games are at all times!

[Schloss Ritter]

Long ago dumbly traded in all my SNES, NES, and GameBoy systems and games for a new PS2 and a couple new games. It wasn't a big collection but most of the SNES and GB games went with the full box contents. Also among it was Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana (no box or manual), Final Fantasy III (no manual), and Earthbound (fully intact). Since this was before the price dip when emulation became common, I could have made as much on just those four as the whole collection had I bothered to put them up on eBay...

[Gnash]

Long ago dumbly traded in all my SNES, NES, and GameBoy systems and games for a new PS2 and a couple new games. It wasn't a big collection but most of the SNES and GB games went with the full box contents. Also among it was Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana (no box or manual), Final Fantasy III (no manual), and Earthbound (fully intact). Since this was before the price dip when emulation became common, I could have made as much on just those four as the whole collection had I bothered to put them up on eBay...

Oh man! Earthbound?!?!?! thats painful!

[Schloss Ritter]

Yeah, I could have easily gotten twice as much for my used copy of Earthbound as I paid for it new.

[E-Day]

I traded my Sega Genesis, Sega CD, and 32X with all my games (all in immaculate condition), to my friend for his N64 and a couple of games, which I sold to my parents for $200. At the time I stopped playing the consoles, so it was no big deal. But later I regretted letting go of those perfect games.

I also threw all my GamePro magazines from 1992 to 1996 away. That might be worse since I was able to replace all the games and consoles.

[phil]

Biggest mistake was selling the snes and games years ago... only got a v v small amount compared to the joy it could still bring....

Oh an the other mistake was trying to play Frankie goes to Hollywood on the Speccy... I never learned.. it just kept crashing!

[tinman]

Buying, Playing...finishing Hydlide and or Sega's Ecco

Ecco got me so frustrated I broke things

[Data]

I used to regret selling my games and consoles I collected between age 10 and 22. I always took care of them and the boxes and manuals remained in mint condition but there gone now and I don't care anymore. Emulation has made it easy for me to play these games anytime I want and that is really what's the most important to me. The nostalgia of the days when playing these games new will never be forgotten. I also don't care how much there worth. If I let something like a few dollars get me down then I'm just being greedy.

[skalynuik]

Biggest mistake was selling all my original Nintendo and super Nintendo system, with all the games, addon accessories, robby the robot, superscope (best ever gun and games), zapper (loved baby boomer, gumshoe).

[ramiel5a]

Biggest mistake I made was selling off some of my Super Nintendo games for some money to go towards a playstaion. Thankfully it wasn't my whole collection but unfortunately one of the games I sold was the first Mega Man X. I've reacquired copies of some of the games I sold off and ever since then I've vowed to never sell off any of my games again.

[strat]

I'd like to forget how to beat the original Zelda and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, having spoiled them with strategy guides. No serious financial mistakes. Did buy a Turbografx-16 for a hundred bucks in 1991 (When it would drop to $40 a year later), but that's not a big deal.

[MrUppercut]

My most recent regret was giving away my original xbox with 60+ games away. I needed the money so at the sametime I had to do it.

MY biggest regret gaming wise is ever letting my cousin use my consoles. I've lost a N64 & a Genesis throuh him. To make it worse all my games were lost too. This was devastating as a kid. I've recovered most of my collection back but I wish I could of spent that money building other parts of my collection.

[GrinningGoku]

I sold my PS1 in tenth grade and practically gave away my sweet, sweet N64 *sniff* *sniff*. The horrible thing is that I gave my N64 to a "friend" I didn't even like when I was in college. Man, if I had a time machine, I would slap my past self for even thinking about doing either of those things. If I'm ever single and without kids, I'm buying myself a mint N64, PS1, PS2, SNES, and Sega Genesis (well, maybe not mint ;-)) from ebay. I mean, emulators are awesome, but there's nothing like playing a classic console on an old 32 inch CRT monitor.

[Sb20]

So many I have lost count.... many a one where I either bought a game at full price, or passed on a game (or even game merchandise, toys, books, etc) and came to miss out entirely because of it... Among my most regretted full price purchases, certainly Where's Waldo and Ghostbusters 2 for the NES, and Mega Man's Soccer for the SNES (not because I wouldn't have bought it anyway, but because I bought it for $60 and a month later I saw 6 copies in the discount bin for $15 each. Ack...) I still continue this trend today, since I got MvC3 late but at the same price as when it was new, and less than a month before the Ultimate version was announced.

I've never known the heartbreak of making a bad trade, because I have never traded or sold any of my games or systems, ever. Even the ones I hated or only got because they were bought as a lot on Ebay. That said, I've lost and broken a few...

[Spiro]

Not many retro gaming "mistakes". Usually I keep most of my stuff.

The one exception was when I let go of a fully boxed mint condition Pikachu N64 console, complete with matching controllers and the Hey You, Pikachu! game with the Voice Recognition Unit (VRU).

I had a real brain cramp where that was concerned. Sold it for next to nothing.

[GrinningGoku]

Not many retro gaming "mistakes". Usually I keep most of my stuff.

The one exception was when I let go of a fully boxed mint condition Pikachu N64 console, complete with matching controllers and the Hey You, Pikachu! game with the Voice Recognition Unit (VRU).

I had a real brain cramp where that was concerned. Sold it for next to nothing.

I know you are aware of this already, bro, but I can't go to sleep tonight without letting you know how horrible what you did was. I mean I feel like making you a time machine JUST so you could go back and beat the crap out of your younger self, or better yet, I could back in time and simply steal all of your N64 paraphernalia. Yeah, I like that plan better. I would benefit way more personally.

[Spiro]

I know you are aware of this already, bro, but I can't go to sleep tonight without letting you know how horrible what you did was. I mean I feel like making you a time machine JUST so you could go back and beat the crap out of your younger self, or better yet, I could back in time and simply steal all of your N64 paraphernalia. Yeah, I like that plan better. I would benefit way more personally.

Thanks, that makes me feel a whole lot better.

[ubersauce]

I made a couple awful retro gaming mistakes. The worst one is my purchasing of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 2nd Edition (PS1) for my sister. At the time, the show was very popular in the U.S. and my sister and I would watch it all the time, so a video game based on said TV show just sounded like a great idea. Little did I know that the game was an absolutely terrible excuse of a trivia game. The questions would get repeated way too often, Regis Philbin's personality wasn't used to its full potential, the load times were too long, and it just lacked enough replay value to warrant a full purchase. Speaking of which, I was dumb enough to spend $49.99 (plus tax) on it. Surely it wasn't the most expensive game I've ever bought (I spent around $100 for Electroplankton for DS - that's another story), but it was easily one of the worst video game-related purchases I've made in a while.

The other retro gaming mistake isn't as bad, but still made an impact on me as I became accustomed to trading in most of my beloved (and hard-to-find) PlayStation games in favor of the newer ones at my local Electronics Boutique (now GameStop). The more memorable games included: Final Fantasy VII (yup, the original SquareSoft black label pressing), Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, Mega Man Legends 2 (relatively rare), and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (also fairly rare). I was pretty young (and stupid) at the time, so I can see why I did it, but I still regret it to this day.

[pant90]

Hey

My biggest mistake was selling my N64 for some bucks plus over 30 games. Three years ago I met my girflfriend who is a real retro console enthousiast and she told me that she loved to have some new games for the N64 including (of course) most of the games I have sold some years ago.

Nonetheless we now own a pretty good collection together.

So who invented that time machine to go back and get all the today's very valuable games? I think I need to have a talk with that guy

[SourcererZ]

The first mistake I made was to give away my Atari 2600 console, I had the Vader version, one of the best.

The second and major mistake I made was to exchange many of my SNES games for a few PlayStation games just because I didn't have many games when it was new, the worst part is that I got some of the worst games.

[bawitback]

Selling my SNES with 40+ games (about 13 years ago)

Selling Street Fighter 3rd Strike for Dreamcast (years ago)

Not keeping my NES in good condition

[ButtonMasher]

My biggest retro gaming mistake was selling off a Sega Master System with somewhere between 15 and 20 boxed games at a yard sale. My dad picked it up at an auction for my brother and I for dirt cheap (as well as a Genesis with Sonic 2). The system had less sex appeal than the Genesis, so we focused on that console.

I can hardly remember what games we had aside from Ghostbusters and Shinobi since we hardly ever played it. It pains me to think about how much it would cost to reacquire it, even if the games we had weren't even that hot.