N64 collecting milestone! Full US exclusive subset!

[OptOut | 8,881]

As some of you may be aware, I've spent the past several years working on my N64 set. Generally speaking I'm NOT a fullset kind of guy, but for my favourite system ever this is something I really want to do.

Now, whereas for most N64 collectors on this site, collecting the full set is as easy as picking up the 300 or so games in the US set and calling it a day, for me this journey is going in a slightly more unusual direction.

I am originally from the UK, and so my primary target set is actually the PAL fullset. I'm about 35 games away from that at the moment. To bolster this, I also intend to collect every US exclusive, Japanese exclusive and the US/Japan only games, so that I can complete my ultimate goal of a full worldwide Franken-set of every N64 game.

Today I have completed a significant piece in this puzzle, I present for your appraisal the 50 games of the N64 US exclusive subset:

To most of you this is probably highly unimpressive, but for a British guy living in Taiwan, trust me this is NOT a cheap or easy set to complete! Shipping alone I probably spent several hundred dollars, but to have these all here and to see such a significant part of my collecting goals accomplished feels just incredible.

Big thanks to those members here who helped me along the way, absolutely no way I could have put this collection together without the community here. A special shout out to @Jeevan who shipped the final 16 games I needed before I had even paid him for them, what a champ!

Anyway, not sure how interested anyone will be, but just wanted to share my happiness today! 

[Jeevan | 8,909]

u are a cool mofo opty  glad i could help ya out b!!!!!!!

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,011]

The dank has officially been skipped. 

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,055]

That's some real dedication to assemble that all in Taiwan and all that shipping. The N64 is an awesome console that gets crapped on too much, good to see it get some love. I completed my set in 2012 and that feeling of completeing any kind of set is akin to graduation. The "I'm finally done, and can really enjoy the fruits of my labor."

Which subset is your main focus after this one?

[OptOut | 8,881]

1 hour ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

The dank has officially been skipped. 

Lol, indeed! An unfortunate consequence of the fact that a good majority of US exclusives are American sports titles which wouldn't have much of a market outside the states.

Nonetheless, there are a few cherry exclusives that I really enjoy, particularly Dr. Mario 64, of course, Indiana Jones, and Nightmare Creatures. There are also some decent arcade collections and remakes, which I am glad I now have the chance to experience!

58 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Which subset is your main focus after this one?

Well, I have a feeling I will be polishing off the PAL fullset pretty soon. I only have one big title left to get (Rush 2049), and all the rest are gonna be cheap sports and racing stuff.

However, I am also really getting excited about my Japanese exclusives collection. I'm going for boxed for that particular set, because I love the Japanese boxart and they are SO cheap it makes no sense not to. I have about 50 Japanese exclusives left to get, but fortunately they are MUCH easier to find here in Taiwan than US games!

[Clutchcards | 9]

Awesome collection! Pretty sure I contributed a few games to this collection. I recall selling you a handful of games on the old NintendoAge website (it's probably been over a year). Glad to see the games found a great home.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

Congrats! Such a cool collection. If you ever decide to upgrade to COB, make sure to let us all know so we can help.

[OptOut | 8,881]

16 minutes ago, Clutchcards said:

Awesome collection! Pretty sure I contributed a few games to this collection. I recall selling you a handful of games on the old NintendoAge website (it's probably been over a year). Glad to see the games found a great home.

That you did! In fact, you were the very first person to sell me US N64 games! I believe Nightmare creatures was one of those I got from you, as well as Hey You Pikachu, Harvest Moon and something else I can't remember! Here are some of those, among my non-exclusive US games:

Thank you for getting the ball rolling and feeding my insane addiction, lol!

 

[KokiriChild | 1,644]

Congrats! N64 is the best!

[drxandy | 3,225]

Congratulations!! Pretty impressive since shipping is such a pain.

I am going for the Japanese exclusives as well, in the same vein of franken-setting the whole thing and it's really fun to play games I hadn't as a kid.

Good luck on your quest!!

[themisfit138 | 523]

Congrats! Happy to have been of assistance. 

[Nes Freak | 584]

i completed my set for usa including the test cart a few years ago.  but ive also been going toward getting all EU and JP exclusives too.  i think the most expansive of the JP ones in getter love  and sculpters cut is the rarest us release.

[Tanooki | 4,930]

You're right in general it shouldn't be that interesting, but you're doing it strange, and in a way truly software complete so actually it is pretty much of a big deal.  Who cares about duplicates?  You don't.  Right there is growing a list of games that uniquely came out in one region or another but not yours so that you truly get every single game without cross over.  That's really a different way about things and it works.

[OptOut | 8,881]

2 hours ago, Nes Freak said:

i completed my set for usa including the test cart a few years ago.  but ive also been going toward getting all EU and JP exclusives too.  i think the most expansive of the JP ones in getter love  and sculpters cut is the rarest us release.

I was lucky enough to find a complete copy of Getter Love here in a local gamestore for 10 bux! Game collecting is still a tiny niche interest here in Taiwan, so I've been able to amass a pretty big collection of Japanese games for rock bottom prices. Kinda averages out the cost when I have to pay over the odds for certain other games, such as the US ones.

Still, a long way to go! I wouldn't mind owning a test cart or something like that myself, but I'm really just sticking to the retail releases for now and see where that takes me!

Also, if you need help with PAL exclusives let me know, I was able to get the full set of those for @fcgamer last time I was back in UK, there's only like 4/5 of them, lol!

[GPX | 1,369]

Although N64 isn't my favorite console of choice in gaming, it ranks right up there in the best set to collect for. Looking forward to see you complete the entire Pal set + US/Jap exclusives! What's the total number altogether?

[OptOut | 8,881]

8 hours ago, GPX said:

Although N64 isn't my favorite console of choice in gaming, it ranks right up there in the best set to collect for. Looking forward to see you complete the entire Pal set + US/Jap exclusives! What's the total number altogether?

It's something like 388 or somewhere round there... I'm about 80-90 games away in total I think, but tracking down some of the more obscure Japanese games is where the main challenge lies from here on out.

Still, that's the fun of collecting I guess, even small gains can bring great satisfaction!

[The Count | 526]

There are like four PAL exclusives, right? F1 Racing Championship, F-1 World Grand Prix II, Premier Manager 64, and Taz Express?

[Tanooki | 4,930]

What do you need from Japan anyway?  I've got one of those Puyo Sun 64 carts lying about I was looking to get rid of and I can't remember if I stuffed it on ebay or not.

[OptOut | 8,881]

7 hours ago, The Count said:

There are like four PAL exclusives, right? F1 Racing Championship, F-1 World Grand Prix II, Premier Manager 64, and Taz Express?

Indeed those are the 4 out and out exclusives. There are also 3 games that came out in Japan and PAL but not USA: Rakuga Kids, Airboarder 64 and Centre Court Tennis.

There are also two games that have significant PAL variants, which I personally would also count. Mia Hamm Soccer is known as Michael Owen WLS2000 in the UK, with male as opposed to female teams. And then there's Beetle Adventure Racing which is known as HSV Adventure Racing in Australia, with different cars.

(There are several other name change variants and other minimal code change variants I could mention, including TWO further versions of WLS2000 with different branding and title screens, but I'm pretty sure I've already bored you enough, lol!)

[OptOut | 8,881]

9 hours ago, Tanooki said:

What do you need from Japan anyway?  I've got one of those Puyo Sun 64 carts lying about I was looking to get rid of and I can't remember if I stuffed it on ebay or not.

I've got around 45 or so CIB Japanese games to go. I've already got the two Puyo Puyo games on the system tho.

I am toying with the idea of going for the fullset of Japanese CIB's but I guess that will depend on how I feel after I get all the exclusives... You know what it's like with scope creep when you really start getting into collecting something, lol!

I only wanted about a handful of US games when I first started! 

[RH | 4,895]

Big congrats! I found that making subsets of the complete sets always helped full set collecting more fun.  I'd collect by letters, or game developers in my path to a full GB set.  But, now with only 5 left to go, that IS my subset.

Awesome to see. I didn't know there were that many exclusives to the US for the N64.

[Tanooki | 4,930]

12 hours ago, OptOut said:

I've got around 45 or so CIB Japanese games to go. I've already got the two Puyo Puyo games on the system tho.

I am toying with the idea of going for the fullset of Japanese CIB's but I guess that will depend on how I feel after I get all the exclusives... You know what it's like with scope creep when you really start getting into collecting something, lol!

I only wanted about a handful of US games when I first started! 

Yeah I guess so.  I haven't gone through it in a lot of years up until this one with the Virtual Boy.  But when the rental case intact, hyper fighting, a prototype, stupid cheap boxes/manuals, and other oddities pop up despite just wanting loose games, you do it.  Same happened with my couple dozen or so PCE HuCard games as I just wanted loose to save as much as possible, but I ended up having 2/3 of my games complete because ignorantly (or friendly/overly generous?) price BINs on LOTs made complete stuff less than the loose on a few occasions which was weird.  Intent is one thing, but well you know, things creep when deals present themselves.

[Nes Freak | 584]

On 12/14/2019 at 6:35 PM, OptOut said:

I was lucky enough to find a complete copy of Getter Love here in a local gamestore for 10 bux! Game collecting is still a tiny niche interest here in Taiwan, so I've been able to amass a pretty big collection of Japanese games for rock bottom prices. Kinda averages out the cost when I have to pay over the odds for certain other games, such as the US ones.

Still, a long way to go! I wouldn't mind owning a test cart or something like that myself, but I'm really just sticking to the retail releases for now and see where that takes me!

Also, if you need help with PAL exclusives let me know, I was able to get the full set of those for @fcgamer last time I was back in UK, there's only like 4/5 of them, lol!

nice!  lucky