Sunday Roundup: 5/6/17

The first lot of DS and GBA games caught my eye because it featured three Pokemon games I didn’t have, including this version of Emerald on the GameBoy Advance. Unfortunately the version I got was missing the sticker label in the front of the cartridge signifying it was Pokemon Emerald, but thankfully the game works fine.

My experiences with the Pokemon franchise has largely gone, “Play one generaion, skip the next.” As was the case with the generation IV games including Platinum: I played Ruby & Sapphire, but didn’t play this game, only to really enjoy Gen V and Black & White afterward. As such, I don’t really know all that much about these games and their Pokemon!

First came Pearl and Diamond, then the updated version came in the form of Platinum. This was the case with Red & Blue releasing first, only to be followed by Yellow on the original GameBoy/GameBoy Color, and then again with Gold & Silver releasing before Crystal. Regardless, I am happy to say they are in my collection now!

I guess this comes in at $12 even though I’m technically not adding in the games I already had… despite all that, I never actually played any of the mentally stimulating games on the DS aside from the Brain Age games when they came out. Even then, I didn’t really get in on the craze, but a ton of people certainly did, prompting a lot of games to come out centered around puzzles and
“brain training”.

Back when the Wii first came out, I convinced a friend to pick up the first Mario & Sonic Olympic title, and while it was fun it wasn’t anything extraordinary. Apparently though it was enough to create an entire franchise out of, because there have been several other releases coinciding with other Olympic Games’ over the years. Hell, there’s even an arcade game out now (Quick plug for my arcade game blog, where you can see the machine in action!)

The first game in the second set from Craigslist is a collection of older Konami NES titles jammed onto one GBA pack. Frogger, Gyrus, Scramble, Time Pilot, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, and Rush’n Attack are all included in their original forms, I believe.

The Kirby series has always been a good series in my mind, but I’ve somehow never really gotten around to playing all too many of the pink puffball’s titles. But here we are with Kirby & The Amazing Mirror. This is the final game in the series released on the GameBoy Advance, and it is considered to be one of the better games in the series.

Man, here’s an old one. And one that I thought I had already, but I must have been mistaking it with something else, because I don’t have any Castlevania games on the GB. I tried this one out for a little bit because I was intrigued, and for an early GameBoy game, it has pretty impressive visuals and sound, but it plays realllly slow. Compliments to the developers though for creating a GameBoy game that plays, looks, and sounds like the original NES game!

A trash game that came along with the lot. Interestingly, I popped it in to make sure it worked, and there were real NBA players you could be, including big names like Patrick Ewing, Hakeen Olajuwon, and even Michael Jordan!

The real reason I picked up this second crop of games was becuase it came with a boxed Sega Game Gear! Unfortunately, and I didnt’ know this before I had said I’d buy it, the Game Gear itself has a very common issue with older systems: the screen is completely shot and needs to be replaced. Still though, the system came with a very good condition box which will look nice on display, and the system does work, so maybe down the road I can get it replaced and have a working system. Still though, I can start collection for Sega’s flagship portable!!

When older games talk about games from their childhood or early years of gaming, every now and then the Castle of Illusion series pops up as one of the better platformers. I am not sure how well the Game Gear version stands in that regard, but I’m happy to have a game with a quality name included in the lot.

Sega’s mascot certainly had his fair share of games on the Game Gear, including a port of the original Sega Master System Sonic. For my money, though, the games I’d really want with Sonic on the Game Gear are the exclusives. Sonic Chaos, Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Labyrinth, and the racing series Sonic Drift are all exclusives, and all games I’d love to have in my collection!