Woe is shortsighted me
I have a troubled history with collecting games. Growing up, I lived in one console household until both my brother and I were in high school. So when we got our NES, that is all we had. When it came time to move up to the SNES, we sold our 8-bit wonder and all of its games to pay for the new system. When the PlayStation came into fashion, we traded in the SNES to Funcoland to pay for it. It wasn’t until the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast were available that my brother and I were able to have our own consoles as well as our own TV sets.
With my Dreamcast, I finally had a choice. As a teenager with a job, I didn’t need to trade in anything to pay for something new, but there was a problem: the practice had already imprinted on my brain. Three generations of starting from scratch will do that. So I kept with my habit of trading in the old for the new. When the Dreamcast was discontinued, I traded it in and put the money towards a GameCube. The GameCube led to the Wii and the Wii to the Wii U.
I’ve wasted a lot of fucking money on games I should never have purchased, and I’ve wasted far too much on games I gave up on before I had the chance to truly experience them. In the Destructoid Slack chat, this topic was brought up as I lamented my decision to trade in my copy ofCubivore —stupid, stupid CJ! — and I thought it would make a great topic for a Destructoid Discusses question. I was going to talk about my regret in getting rid of that game, orOpoonawhich I somehow bought brand new for $9, but as I write this lede I realize I’m still not over trading in my Dreamcast.
Fuck me I was carelessly shortsighted with that one! I had the system, two of those awesome VMU memory cards, two controllers and the following kick-ass games:Sonic Adventure,Sonic Adventure 2,Marvel vs. Capcom,NFL 2K1,Crazy Taxi,Ready 2 Rumble BoxingandSpace Channel 5. All of them wonderful games, all of them I would play today, all of them gone. My anger at Sega for discontinuing the product so soon after I got it for Christmas clouded my judgment and made me miss out on so many other titles I could have enjoyed. I didn’t even get a chance to tryJet Set RadioorShenmue.
I have a lot of trade-in regrets, but nothing causes me to lose sleep like my idiotic decision to get rid of my Dreamcast collection.
Chris Carter
HawkingFinal Fantasy VIIkind of represents the lament of trading in any of my PS1 games as a whole. Two words — Greatest Hits.
My firstFFVIIclear came from a friend’s copy, by way of disc trading in school. I’d clear Disc 1, someone else would swap me Disc 2, and that’s how seven of us beatVII. It was glorious as we’d share stories of uncovering secret items or regale tales of bosses we each needed to prepare for, and a year later I decided to buy my own version — only to trade it in a year later.
It was short-sighted, as I needed the cash forFinal Fantasy VIII, and figured “hey, I can just buy it again one day.” Except my new purchase was a green disc version, a decision that haunts me to this day as I stare into the abyss of my case wheneverI check in on my collection— commenters won’t let me forget it either as they constantly ask about it!
Pixie The Fairy
I don’t know if I could ever narrow this down to just one game, as I’ve traded countless games and systems at this point, a habit I’ve only really broken this last year. Well, and having a steady, reliable income helps you keep things you like.
But if I ever really regretted selling off anything it was my PlayStation 2 and the mountain of RPGs I had for it and putting it toward a Wii in anticipation ofMetroid Other M.
Let me clarify that statement a bit. I don’t particularly regret trading away the PS2 itself. It was one of the older models I constantly had to repair to keep the DVD lens in alignment because I sure as hell wasn’t paying the price of a console for someone at Sony to fix it. The video output was also somehow capable of overheating after long periods of play and the video output signal would be scrambled if I reset the system, meaning if I wanted to play anything else within the next half hour, I had to stick the PS2 in the freezer for a few minutes.
So that specific PS2 was a piece of crap. I still regard the platform itself the best thing since the SNES. I don’t regret getting the Wii, either. I really just regret trading all those PS2 RPGs forMetroid Other M.
I also regretThe Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess being my first Wii game, but how could that not be disappointing when my last finished PS2 game wasOkami? It just did everything better, even if it overstayed it welcome by, oh, 20 hours or so.
But theMario Galaxygames,Metroid Prime Trilogy,No More Heroesand more washed away the disappointment. The Wii had its fair share of gems andXenobladewas excellent.
But all those RPGs forOther M?Ugh. Even as middling as some of theXenosagaorDevil Summonergames were, I’d take all their flaws overOther M.I don’t think I even have to explain how awful that game is, as it is the living embodiment of regret.
Chris Moyse
Having worked in game retail for years, I’ve always been fortunate enough to be able to buy, resell and borrow games frequently, for cheap, so I’ve never really regretted any I’ve sold. I do, however,reallyregret the loss of myBaywatchpinball machine. No, seriously.
One thing about pinball is you should never judge a machine by its theme, and despite the campy aesthetics of the title, this SEGA developed cabinet from ’95 is really solid and a lot of fun. It has a ton of modes, great sound and music, a supersized Dot Matrix screen with nicely animated clips and an inventive, colourful playfield.
It’s a great, underrated machine and I sadly had to sell mine (which I’d put a lot of work into restoring) when the wolf was at the door. He’salwaysat the door.Sigh, I can still hear David Hasselhoff’s score call-outs ringing in my ears…
Rich Meister
It’s hard to pin down one game in particular. I grew up on the habit of trading in games. I had to play anything I could get my hands on and as a kid with no income I would either wait for Christmas or my birthday or sell the old for the new.
As an adult, I’ve held on to all my games, but the one I miss the most is probably my black labelFinal Fantasy IX. You seeFinal Fantasy IXwas the firstFinal Fantasygame I beat and it will always hold a special place for me.
It’s still a game I fire up every few years for nostalgia sake and seeing that green greatest hits label always makes me sigh. In a perfect world, I’d go back and warn a younger me that certain games are worth saving, if not all.
Cory Arnold
After finishing the story inGrand Theft Auto Vback near release, I only fiddled around in the online mode for a short while before selling the game on eBay for extra cash. I may have been a bit annoyed because connection issues made me do that first race with Lamar like three times.
But over the years the insane amount of updates and addition to the online mode includingTron-inspired light cycles and a vehicleBattle Royalemode have continually made me regret getting rid of the game. I’ve felt like I missed out on a lot the past few years, and unlike single player games it’s not as simple as just picking it up and playing it; I’ve probably missed the boat on a lot of it.
Peter Glagowski
There are a few game series that mean a whole lot to me and one of those happens to beSuper Mario. The NES classics were essentially my childhood and I even loved watching the ridiculousMario Bros. 3andSuper Mario Worldcartoons. I also wasn’t an exceedingly rich person, so I tended to trade in games to get newer ones.
One of the games that became a casualty of my trade-in craze wasSuper Mario Sunshinefor the Gamecube. While I don’t care for the game with regards to theMarioseries, I always felt incomplete without the disc in my home. Until I eventually reacquired a used copy, I always had the sting of disappointment for getting rid of Mario’s more tropical outing. Even if it was one of the weaker games in the series, it is still a valuable and entertaining part of the pudgy plumber’s legacy.
I pride myself on having complete collections to spontaneously do series playthroughs of. I don’t need to necessarily have the original versions (lord knows I don’t withZelda), but being able to grab a random entry from a given franchise and then playing through them in differing orders was impossible for me withMariountil I purchasedSunshineagain.
Salvador G-Rodiles
When I look back to the games I traded in, one of my regrets is related to a Nintendo 64 game I enjoyed as a kid. As a person who likes Yoshi, I fell in love with Japan System Supply’sChameleon Twistsince you played as a character who fights and platforms with its tongue.
Thinking back to the day I parted ways with it, I was going through a phase where I thought I grew out of the game. When I overcame this delusion. I learned about the importance of not taking things for granted. Seeing thatChameleon Twistnever came out on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Console, I interpret this as a punishment for not appreciating my video game collection more.
Thankfully, I’m satisfied with remembering the hero’s interesting moves, such as using a tongue stand that can connect with a high jump. Even though I sold other games after this incident, I’ll never let any of my treasures go through the same fate asChameleon Twist.
Josh Tolentino
I’ve got two stories of regret to share, the first for selling, and the second for NOT selling. The first isn’t even really a sale. Back in grade school, I lent my SNES and copies ofFinal Fantasy III(VI) andSpider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage(complete with a sweet red cartridge) to a girl I had a crush on. What she failed to tell me was that she was moving to Australia the next month. I never saw my SNES again, and now I can’t remember the girl’s name.
The next story is about my NOT selling an original copy ofFinal Fantasy Tacticson the PS1. I received it as a present from a visiting relative, who had heard how I spent a lot of money piratingFinal Fantasy VII(back in the day burned CD copies of PS1 games would cost a week’s allowance per disc). I didn’t enjoy the game very much because I was a dumb idiot kid that didn’t know how to enjoy grid-based games (ironically, playingFallouta few months later would teach me what I was missing), and I considered selling it. Had I known more about things like eBay at the time, I would’ve made quite a bit of money, as physical copies ofFinal Fantasy Tacticswere vanishingly rare and valuable all the way until the release ofWar of the Lions, its enhanced remake on the PSP.
I didn’t even think about the possibility of being upset you traded in a game only to rebuy it later with an ugly “Player’s Choice” label. Hell, I remember trading inCastlevania: Dawn of Sorrowonly to rebuy it later with that stupidKonami’s Bestbox art. That copy, along with the rest of my DSCastlevaniacollection, was accidentally donated to Goodwill when it was put in the wrong box while moving. Yet another regret.
Once again, we decided to open this question up to the community because I really wanted to see what types of regrets we all had.
Rad Party God:The one I regret the most isTengen’s Tetrisfor the NES. I traded it in to get some money to buy a PSX, I didn’t care back then, but a few years later, I heard the game was one of the rarest NES games and it’s highly sought after in the collector’s market.
Snorlaxowns:I soldS.C.A.T.on NES for like less than a dollar in 2014 or 2015. 🙁 Yeah…
Michael Giff:“OH MY GOD WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!” “You GOT to make A DECISION HERE!”, ahh being screamed at my fake Samuel L Jackson made,Jurassic Park: Operation Genesisworth the price of admission alone.
Genesiswas a park building sim. Where your built your own Jurassic Park and open it to the public, going through a variation of challenges to keep your Dinosaurs happy and your visitors off the menu.
I must have spent hundreds of hours in this game and I was really quite fond of it… maybe too fond. At one point I played the game so much I felt comfortable that there was nothing else new to see or experiment with. The game had a pretty rigid cap on resources. Only X amount of sidewalk, Y amount of electric fence, and as a kid that was really frustrating. So when I traded it in for ten bucks I thought nothing of it.
But as the years went by I started to miss the game and am always sticker shocked to see the game going for well over a hundred dollars on ebay… Nostalgia can be very expensive at times.
Tohsaka:Kirby’s Super Staron the SNES. Forced hand to do so. Spent about 70 bucks for it. Had to get rid of it per basically what my mother said. Got all of 4 bucks back for it from GS. Worth so much more than that.
Voodoome:Oh man … this list could be a mile long. So many mistakes made when I was a dumb kid trying to upgrade to the latest and greatest system. The SNES to N64 transition was especially painful. So many Square RPGs sold away for next to nothing.
My crowning achievement in idiocy, however, is when I gave away all my PS1 and PS2 games to impress my then girlfriend. She hated videogames and I wanted to convince her that I had grown beyond the need of such trivial things. It’s hard to remember what was there exactly, but I hadHaunting Groundwhich was a game I liked a lot and a bunch of SE and Atlus stuff.
We ended up getting married a couple years later, and I resumed the hobby. I walked into our apartment one afternoon after work and she was sitting on the floor tearing my Gamecube games to ribbons with a can opener. She also took a hammer to our TV. There were bodies everywhere. It was like a war scene with ripped apart classics likeSkies of ArcadiaandFire Emblemtorn to shreds and scattered around the floor. I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan, and this incident gave me more PTSD then those deployments combined.
We ended up getting divorced a couple years after that. My current wife enjoys games as much as I do, so I suppose it all worked out. She even hadHaunting Groundin her personal library! I have replaced mostly everything that I have lost over the years, but man did those losses sting at the time.
TysonOfTime:When I was much younger and less intelligent, I traded in my copy ofDragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime.
I use that experience as a reminder to never trade a game in again.
Electric Reaper:Alienators Evolution Continueson the GBA. You had 1 life and no continues, but a pretty decent health bar and a lot of health pickups.
iam16bit:Well I keep most of the games I buy but there is one I did regret selling. It was calledAzure Dreams.
For those not familiar with the game, it’s like ifPokemon,Chocobo’s DungeonandHarvest Moonhad a baby. You have to traverse a randomly generated dungeon located in a massive tower in the middle of the desert looking for monster eggs to hatch, raise and sell. All the while attracting new visitors to your town and courting one of the many women in town to marry.
Well at the time I was playing it, I was also strapped for cash. So once I finished it, I did what I thought was a good decision and sold it. Then a few years later I got in the mood to play it again and started kicking myself for selling it. Eventually, I found a copy online and every once in a while I like to give it a go, it really is one of the most underrated games on the PS1.
RenaudB90:Rogue Squadron 2.
If I could invent time travel and go back in time to slap my 18 year old self, I would. It’s true that I was between jobs and needed the store credit,Fallout 3being around the corner.
Maybe if I still hadRogue Squadron 2and its fantastic arcade style dog-fighting action to keep me warm at night, I wouldn’t have turned to drinking.
Not that trying to get to get a Gold Medal on Razor Rendezvous again is any healthier than a near decade of alcoholism.
Also RenaudB90:Aww, great, that reminds me I also exchangedPath of Radiance,Tales of SymphoniaandHarvest Moon A Wonderful Lifethat day, too.
And the EB Games clerk gave me a French Copy ofFallout 3after all that, the bastard. And I only noticed when I got back home and started playing.
jasondm300:I dont trade games in anymore, but the one I do regret isAvalon Codefor the DS. It had a really weird mechanic where you could add attributes to everything. Weapons you would want to add power ups and elements and enemies you could weaken. It was really weird but pretty cool. I could order it, but it is pretty expensive.
RiffRaff:I’ve learned my lesson and stopped trading games in. I think this trade went towards some Working Designs game, so not a total bust, but it’s a game my collection is sorely missing.
Lex:I regret trading inMetroid Prime 3 Corruptionsome time after I gotMetroid Prime Trilogyfor the Wii.
For some stupid reason the discs were switched and I now still haveMP3in aMPTbox while someone is now a happy owner ofMPTin aMP3box… and it took me at least two years to notice that when I wanted to replayMP1-3at one point.
Not sure if it’s the worst one but it’s the one I remember first because it’s so stupid.
Jiraya:All my Master System games and console for a single SNES and them all my SNES carts and SNES for a single ps1.
SHAME ON YOU POVERTY! LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!
Samhain:I just sold 23 PS3 games for $75. I feel good about it now but I’m sure Ill regret it later
The most shocking thing admitted by the Destructoid community here is that it took a couple ofyearsafter that massacre for Voodoome to get divorced.
