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If he thinks he can just assemble his IKEA cabinet without any worries, well, he's missing a few screws...

Ah, wow! Congratulations I was being facetious when I said in the original post Alright, who here at VGS purchased this??

I think any combination of what you said might be the case. If I had to guess, I would say someone with a good amount of disposable income (a millionaire) who remembers playing the NES and Castlevania, and decided this was a great investment opportunity. As to whether 3 is a better game (it sure is), that does not factor into the price because this is the ORIGINAL Castlevania, one of the most influential games of all time. I would absolutely say Castlevania is "historic" and "pivotal" -- I could walk down the street telling people how important Our Town is to the American zeitgeist and why Thornton Wilder is a genius... and people will stare blankly. But, for better or worse, everyone will know what Castlevania is... Anyway, while I think Castlevania III is fabulous, it's like saying "I think Mickey's Christmas Special is much better than Steamboat Willie" -- that may be the case, but Steamboat Willie is the first appearance of Mikey Mouse and will always be the more valuable and scarce collectible.

Yeah, the genie is out of the bottle. Now that games can be graded, there's no going back. Very much along the lines of all other highly collectibles -- Star Wars, GI Joe, Magic the Gathering, comic books, etc. -- once something can safely be authenticated and then sealed so that it basically appreciates in value, prices go up and up. Again, 20 years ago a Black Lotus was around $1k -- one recently sold on ebay for over $28k

I mean, to be fair, how can you review one without the other

Sure you could in principle get super unlucky and get obliterated, but it's worlds apart from Slay the Spire Also, to be clear, it's not that Inscryption doesn't have it's challenges, especially at the beginning. But, from start to finish it's about 10-15 hours and the game truly is meant to be experienced and completed. There's no artificially increasing the playtime by needlessly making enemies super challenging or always starting from scratch as in Slay the Spire -- My frustrations with Slay the Spire, 100 hours later https://www.giantbomb.com/slay-the-spire/3030-59383/forums/my-frustrations-with-slay-the-spire-100-hours-late-1822259/ I have NEVER beaten the Awakened One...Yeah screw The Awakened One. I've beaten the games 4-5 times or something, but never won against him/that. I feel it was stupidly poorly balanced ...I really hope they change/balance the last bosses some more. I did beat the Awakened One, it was tough, but I got lucky. And therein is the major problem with Slay the Spire, even if you play it for hundreds of hours, at the end, it comes to luck. While you can grind in Inscryption, there's really no point. Slay the Spire on the other hand SHOULD have a mechanism to strengthen your deck or at least re-balance the bosses so that it's not entirely RNG dependent -- as it stands, that's exactly what it is, RNG dependent.

Inscryption shares some game mechanics with Slay the Spire, that's really about it. I feel that in Spire you have: 1)Limited growth. 2)It's all about RNG. 3)No saves -- have to start from scratch every time -- gets incredibly BORING. 4)Artificially increase the game time by making the last stage incredibly challenging, so that's it's all about the RNG to win. 5)And lastly, is there a story or plot? Inscryption basically bypasses all of the faults above. Again, without spoiling, let me say Inscryption wants you to win, it's the opposite of artificially increasing the difficulty. Even if you're "not so good" at deck building, you will complete the game, and what a marvelous game it is

Battletoads was amazing, but yeah, I almost always blew it on that POS level

I played it on the PS5, had no glitches or any issues. As far as I can tell it's solid on any platform. Definitely want to hear your thoughts on it! My only advice: don't look anything up, just play and enjoy the journey...

I will write a short review of the game later. I actually finished Inscryption a few months ago, and I like to let a game linger for a moment, that way I can truly decide what I think of it! Yes, no doubt, Inscryption is a masterpiece. The basic premise of the game is that it's a "roguelike deck-building game" similar to Slay the Spire. I am happy to say that while it outwardly shares traits similar to Slay the Spire, it is far superior in basically every way. I have to think about what to carefully say in the review, because in my mind the greatest strength of the game is the story. It's amazing, and the journey from start to finish is beautiful. I'm old(ish), like quite a few of you on here So yeah, I've played games from the NES to the PS5 and very few are ones I will truly remember fondly. Inscryption is one of them. It's something to be experienced.

Very cool! Do they come with some guarantee of authenticity? There are so many fakes out there (not saying yours are), you gotta be careful. WATA has started something that authenticates video game autographs, which is great! It's similar to what CGC does for autographed comic books -- https://blog.watagames.com/2023/07/17/welcome-to-watagraphs/ That said, they've only done a handful of games, it would be lovely if they do more.

NES sports games -- my favorite were Blades of Steel and Tecmo Bowl. I don't consider Mike Tyson's Punch-Out a true "sports game" -- although it absolutely is a fabulous classic!

Effin NYC, what do you expect? I've said this numerous times, years and years ago, NYC was a safe place. You felt if anyone tried anything violent police would not tolerate it. Now, thanks to some people (politicians) the police are neutered and people are fending for themselves. At this rate, you gotta wonder when people are just going to say "enough is enough" and start shooting/killing violent criminals that just get released over and over and over...

I saw like two copies in the past year. The one you just linked, which is still in the process of exploding someone's wallet, and just the disk. Like cartridges for the NES etc, the disk is certainly valuable but not THAT valuable -- to be fair, you could fake one of those pretty easily. However, the insert is much harder to fake and can be authenticated, and that's where the money is. It really is a piece of gaming history so I can't blame people for bidding like crazy. I wonder if the seller had any idea? Can you imagine thinking your game would hopefully go for a couple of hundred and then you see it's within a day or two $4000+

WOW Still 5+ days to go --

That's Cali for you! The police department noted: Why the covered faces? On January 1st, a new law went into effect that restricts the how and when law enforcement agencies in California share suspect photos & mugshots. The new law, Assembly Bill 994 & Penal Code 13665, now prohibits law enforcement from sharing suspect photos for nonviolent crimes, unless specified circumstances exist. Additionally, the new law requires agencies to remove suspect mugshots from social media after 14 days, unless special circumstances exist. The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community, but also honors everyone's rights & protections as afforded by law; even suspects. In order to share what is happening in Murrieta, we chose to cover the faces of suspects to protect their identity while still aligning with the new law. Kudos to the MPD for doing what they can while adhering to California's protect the criminals laws.

Nah, that's nothing. Remember this --

I'm honestly not familiar with Mercari. Did a quick look -- looks like they definitely have some good stuff, but just a tiny fraction of what ebay has.

Color me surprised, but somehow I figured a member with the screen name of "G-type" who has an image of R-type as their picture would list R-type as a favorite

More fakes If you take a look, it looks like the P-station is absolutely spelled out "Playstation" much in the same ways as the original. The bootleggers clearly just photoshopped a few characters in the first pic. I would imagine that these fakes are probably clearly fakes in the hands of someone who knows what they are looking for, but again this is going to dilute the market and make it hard for everyone

Have you read The Night Circus? I just started it, so far so good. We'll see what I think the farther in I get https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Circus

Fair, I know our changes and sensibilities definitely change. Still, feel free to list what in your mind are your favorites, even if you haven't read them in a good while

Gradius III was my favorite back in the day! But, I was also a big fan of R-type. Wow, those games were also super hard! My favorite of the more recent games is Ikaruga. I will say, I am FAR from "good" at these games. I enjoy them, but I'm not someone that can make it to the end of a bullet hell unless I seriously tone down the challenge or cheat I know some folks on here are experts, so I wanted people's opinion! What are your favorite games in the genre, and on what systems? Also, any truly great compilations that are worth tracking down? I will say, as a fan of the Everade, I have to give kudos to Irem Arcade 1 which includes the original arcade version of R-type. I know R-type was ported to numerous consoles, but as far as I know the Evercade is the only official arcade release which is cool -- EDIT: I think R-Type Dimensions EX also includes the original arcades which can be played in both updated or retro graphics -- can someone confirm this? Now I also know that Irem is releasing a 5-disc Collection and so far of the three announced game lists NONE of them include R-type, yeah seems strange to me. https://www.strictlylimitedgames.com/collections/irem-collection-vol-1/products/irem-collection-vol-1-5-bundle-playstation-5 That, and why exactly do we only get only three games per PS5 disc -- yeah, to maximize profitability, I get it. Still kinda sucks. But anyway, talk games to me... Edit: Also, if anyone can help me figure out what games are included in the gazzilion and 1 Darius Collections that have been released, that would be great! SLG has released I have no idea how many compilations, and they never seem to include an actual list of the games...

One of my favorites too! Okay, what are your top 25?