wyansas

So you collect and play games but hardly ever beat them? How many games do you think you've beaten, and which ones are they? To answer the poll though, easy 10. I was a Genesis kid and didn't beat ALttP until college, so the light and dark world mechanic didn't blow my mind or anything, but just the simple sword and shield combat was really well done and just felt good, then the dungeons, secrets and exploration were all great. I've always said that if aliens landed and they wanted to know what video games on planet earth were like, this is the first game I'd give them. It's close to a perfect game.

Got another one for the Samurai Sleuths. It's not a Samurai technically, but I bought it from an ebayer in India. It's an Asian version with a Spanish version code, NES-SM-ESP. Weird. Any thoughts?

@Hollywoodcaddylinks were in my post.

A while ago I commented that I had found a weird Gyromite 3 screw with no Made in Japan, flathead screws, and chip dates from the middle of 1987, and I asked if anybody else had one. My other Gyromite 3 screw has MiJ and security screws, which makes sense as it came later than the common 5 screw, but it also has chip dates from before the other one with no MiJ and flatheads. Back then nobody responded that they had one too, but @bowser just found one. Not huge news, but I thought this was pretty interesting.

Here's mine, and it doesn't have a stamp on the back. I'm not totally sure I'm right, but I deciphered the date code with help from the bootgod database. That site's down right now but this one has good info too: https://telcontar.net/KBK/tech/IC_dates On mine, 7E5 is the weird date code. 7 means 1987, E is the 5th letter and means the fifth month (May), 5 means the fifth week of the month. So if you were to use some internet tools to figure out which week of 1987 that was, the standardized date code would be 8722. Yours standardized would be the 2nd week of September, 1987, or 8737. J is the 10th letter, but means the 9th month because they skipped using I because it looks like a 1 or something.

That Gyromite has flathead screws right? You don't see a whole lot of 3 screw Gyromites with no Made in Japan. I have one and it has flatheads. I also wonder what the chip dates are. The label of the one without Made in Japan came first obviously, but mine has later chip dates than the one with Made in Japan. 8722 without Made in Japan, 8652 with Made in Japan.

The condition of the PCB doesn't match the condition of the cart, the PCB has a little wear but the cart is pretty minty. That plus the chip dates point toward it being a refurb. But there are a few of these out there, so maybe not. I submitted this to the thread because it doesn't seem all that different from the case of the DK Jr. Math 3 screw which is already in the thread, so might as well add it. I personally don't care if it's a refurb or not. The RC Pro Am, DK Jr Math and every Konami/Ultra might all be refurbs, but even if they were, I'd still want them.

I recently 100%ed The Wonderful 101 Remastered, a feat I thought was nearly impossible back when I first played the original in 2013. Summary of my thoughts on it: Game's hard. It's so hard that it's honestly not a whole lot of fun for your first two or three playthroughs. For any Kamiya or Platinum game, your first playthrough on Normal is the tutorial, but it took me a lot longer than that. You might feel like a pussy doing this, but I'd recommend dialing the difficulty back on your first playthrough to Easy. I wish I had done that, and if you end up wanting to 100% it, you'll need to play the lower difficulties anyway. I actually think if this game had shipped with its second lowest difficulty being labeled Normal instead of Easy, it would have been received better. The game's onramp seems to make a bit more sense if you play it that way. Game's deep. There's a lot to learn here if pulling off crazy combos is your thing. The final mission can be cheesed but there is plenty in there to challenge you if you want it. Buy it on PS4 or PC, not Switch. Frame rate really drags on the Switch and it messed up my glyph drawing. I moved to PS4, and the experience was so much better. The voice acting is superb, surprisingly, and worth mentioning. Game is worth 100%ing if you're into this kinda thing. These kinds of character action games are my bread and butter and I love learning these games' combat systems, and this game's combat is superb. Now that I've 100%ed it, I'm not that motivated to really master it though. There's way too much bullshit and the checkpoints are too infrequent for me to even attempt to Pure Platinum everything, and crazy combo videos on youtube are fun to watch but I don't know if I want to git that gud. I might try to at least platinum everything eventually, though. The missions I died the most on in my first playthroughs eventually became my favorite missions once I gat gud. Means it's a good game. I'd give it an 8.5/10

You might just be joking and not actually curious, but in case you are, I get less focused on collecting when I'm travelling or engaged with my true hobbies. Collecting's not really a core interest of mine. I went through a phase when I bought back my childhood, but now I have all those games and then some, and the only things left that I want to find are the rare NES variants and the last few international Super Mario Bros variants I need. I really want to find all of them, and if I do I'll stop looking to expand my collection altogether.

This seems to be a pattern with me. I usually check eBay daily, but I've found some of my best stuff on my first time checking eBay in a few weeks because I've been too busy or travelling or something. But maybe I'm just making things up. Anybody else notice this?

bump

I sold one for $200 last summer.

I had no idea how far down the rabbit hole you go. That's... a lot to deal with. I would consider the N7 to be a major variant. Different part number and a different game feature (Bulls guard #00) seems pretty significant to me. But it's semantics.

Fortune smiles upon me, got another one . The top label's a bit ugly, but they can't all be beautiful. Another one down! https://www.ebay.com/itm/254707641346 Date code is 0CB KA on the PRG, and according to bootgod, that means 2nd week of March, 1990, I think.

Thanks!! I was checking the tracking and was excited to get home from work and open this baby up

Added this to my rare variant collection. It was the first time I had checked eBay in about a week and it was 4 or 5 down from the top of the search results, so it had been sitting there for a bit. Got lucky . https://www.ebay.com/itm/275193140747 Date codes are 9139 on the PRG and CHR.

Bump

My Metal Gear 5 screw has the Konami chipset and board, and it's been postulated in the rare variant thread that this is the case for all the rare Konami 5 screws. This hasn't been proven though, as really nothing has been proven about these Konami-Ultra oddities, we're still trying to unravel the mystery. But the fact that this one doesn't have the Konami chips and board, as well as the fact that the label is not perfect--it's off center and peeling up in a couple spots on top--make me wonder about its authenticity. I have no strong feeling either way though, and there's no consensus yet about what one of these SHOULD look like, so call it what you like. Here's a picture of mine.

bump

I'm the buyer of the Asian + Samurai cart. As far as I can tell, @bowser is right, it's a first edition Asian cartridge with the Samurai sticker on the back on top of the original one, as you can see in the picture. The fact that it has two back stickers also proves that it's not an Asian front and a Samurai back that someone slapped together. It has flathead screws, which is consistent with other first edition Asians. A nice surprise addition to my SMB variant collection, as I didn't even know this one existed. Thanks for the history lesson, @bowser.

Looks like skinny maybe. I knew there were skinny and fat 00s but I didn't know the difference was significant. What's the difference?

I bought this one when the winner of this BIN flipped it. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Stinger-Nintendo-Entertainment-System-NES-Cart-Only-/265318298484?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0 Here's my pic of the board. Same dates as the 5 screw, but I am baffled by the security screws and 00 code on the back.

Just bumping this again to say that this is a really cool idea for a collection. Would love to see it someday.

I was expecting this one to go for a lot more than it did. Pleased that it didn't.

Great list. A lot of tracks I didn't expect from games I expected, which was interesting. Made me listen to them in a different way. The song from your list I'm most glad we agree about is the one from Rollergames. That track takes you on a hell of a journey in just over a minute. One of my favorites. I appreciate the effort it took to deep dive and find some of these tracks. Always nice to see a list that's not dominated by all the standards. My list would have had some Contra Force and Mitsume Ga Tooru in it. Made a YouTube playlist a while back of "Kickass NES Music". As the title says it favors kickass-ness over sentimentality or atmosphere. That's why I liked your list. Here it is anyway: