T-Pac

Wishing you all a safe, happy, and healthy Easter! -CasualCart

I really want to like Section Z, but the maze element ruins the fun for me. -CasualCart

Thanks for the info @bronzeshield! The case of Solomon's Key is especially interesting with the code on the poster. And I didn't know a lot of early Genesis games had continue codes - I'll have to look into that more... -CasualCart

Which NES games had their continue codes or other codes included in the manual? I know there's plenty of games with simple inputs to continue indefinitely after game-overs (like Super Mario Bros and Solomon's Key), and games with "extra-lives" codes (like Tom & Jerry and Life Force with the Konami Code). So which of these were discovered on their own, and which were printed in instruction booklets or other era-appropriate publications? -CasualCart

I remember when I was brand-new to gaming, I enjoyed playing Mario Kart on Gamecube with my friend because he could steer the cart as player 1, and I just rode along and used items as player 2. It was great because I got to experience the game without worrying about driving the cart right away. That might be a good way to ease your spouse into gaming without overwhelming her with controls and mechanics. -CasualCart

Nice, so you are the Dragon Warrior guy! I love the website you made cataloging the collection - always excited to see updates! (and I'll stop derailing your thread now haha) -CasualCart

@Ferris Bueller are you the Dragon Warrior guy? Because if you are, I expect you to make a submission with all DW carts... -CasualCart

This seems ... excessive. But then again, I guess cart collecting could seem like that, too - It's just a matter of small plastic squares versus big plastic squares that play the small plastic squares. -CasualCart

Trying to strategically figure out when loose NES prices will be at their lowest this year so I can swoop in... -CasualCart

Excellent - funny that you should suggest that, because the other part of my Lenten resolution has been to pray a rosary each day during my morning jog. It definitely presents a great opportunity to calm down and clear my head before I start my day. It's a great exercise in mindfulness, for sure! -CasualCart

Bravo @SuperJimtendo and @guillavoie - that really exceeded my expectations! Glad I could help out with your devious little scheme haha. -CasualCart

@Scrobins and @ICrappedMyPants - huge props for the more 'psychological' Lenten resolutions of curbing your anger and negativity. I'm guilty of just giving up something material most years (this year, for instance, I'm limiting my Youtube/Netflix time), and I often find myself just gravitating to an equally wasteful/unproductive replacement (like retro game forums haha). I'd like to try following your example next time around to strengthen my mentality a bit more. This is certainly an unprecedented Lenten season with the pandemic going on, but maybe it'll have the effect of making us all a little more reflective and reverent. It's also an interesting paradox that church closures have left me watching Sunday mass on YouTube despite my Lenten resolution to give up YouTube haha. -CasualCart

Just throwing this out there @Johnny and @Archon 1981 - there are a lot of Pirates of Dark Water animation cels on ebay right now. Not to make you sad or anything... -CasualCart

The tattoo charm has me wondering if my "robot-arm" qualifies. It's not directly video-game related, but the design was heavily inspired by cartridge PCBs. No problem if it doesn't count, though! -CasualCart

Wow - I just had to jump in and say you are all amazing at this game. Star Force is one of my favorite space-shooters, but I've never actually paid much attention to the scoring. I played a bit tonight to get a frame of reference, and I could barely get over 6k on a single life (even with an arcade stick). Huge props to all of you psychos haha. -CasualCart

I've always wanted to give Werewolf a chance, but I can't figure out how to get past those hallways right at the beginning where squiggly lasers randomly strike you and drain all your health before you can get through. Any tips on that part? -CasualCart

"Rare" is a relative term as far as I'm concerned. Almost any given Bally Astrocade game is harder to find than Felix the Cat for NES, but Felix is still a "rare" game because there are less of them in circulation than the average game of it's same category (meaning carts for the NES). People tend to get upset over the inaccuracy of all those YouTube videos listing off "rare" retro games, but I think a lot of them aren't too far off the mark. If a game isn't as readily available or exists in lower quantities than the average game of it's same classification, I don't think it's wrong to say that it's "rare" (relatively speaking). Now, rarity verses value is a different topic that I'd rather not get into... -CasualCart

I'm not a set collector, but I've always felt drawn toward accumulating a full Sega Master System set. It's relatively small (if you're only after the North American releases), and I'd love to get more exposure to Sega's 8-bit library. I'm also interested in publisher-sets for the Atari 2600 (since a full-set is practically impossible). -CasualCart

I feel that the SNES had a tendency to over-complicate things that worked perfectly well on the NES. It just fueled the departure from pick-up-an-play, arcade style gaming. That's not always a bad thing; it's just what makes the 16-bit era different from what came before it. But in spite of that, I agree that Gradius III is better than Gradius because of all the customization options. I'm also partial to Super Mario World over SMB3 - there's a case where the SNES iteration of a classic NES series really kept its stride without making the game convoluted. -CasualCart

These are really neat - I've never seen them before. Does the border color indicate the platform for each game? (From the looks of it, purple borders for Gameboy games and red borders for NES?) -CasualCart

I have to jump on the Super Mario World train ... tentatively. I might lean towards Yoshi's Island as my #1 SNES game, but considering I've only played the GBA port, I'll reserve judgement until I play the original version. -CasualCart

I've always wondered just how impossible it would be to see every confirmed Atari 2600 game in the same place at the same time... -CasualCart

I've got plenty of cartridges that are physically trashed, but it might be worth mentioning the item in my collection that's in the worst functional condition: my poor, sad Neo Geo X didn't last very long before it stopped working entirely. That console made so many great promises, but the software was such a mess. It still pains me to think of how great the system could have been. -CasualCart