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indigozealThere's a thread down at the 1UP forums regarding gaming purchases (or failures to purchase, or unfortunate trades) that were later regretted. I honestly don't have many myself, probably due to my spending habits. I'm cheap, so I vet potential purchases pretty thoroughly. That, or I just don't spend that much in the first place, which is probably to my detriment in the long run; I miss out on a lot of premium titles that cost a little more to enjoy.
The one purchase that really comes to mind here is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer on the NES when I was a kid. I really took to the game for some reason after reading an article in Game Players, and I don't know why - I had no particular affection for the story besides watching the anime on HBO. When I actually bought and played the game, though, it struck even little me as glaringly unpolished and unspectacular. The graphics in particular were really raw (and you'd think I'd be forewarned, having seen the magazine spread, but the visuals looked much worse in action, especially accompanied by the game's plinky music). I played the game enough, certainly, but even while young, I knew I was just killing time doing so. Oddly enough, the title seems to be inexplicably well-respected by a few reviewers out there nowadays.
I've seldom had a bad trade experience, as I horde my games. It takes a lot for me to let go of a title, confident that I'll never ever want to go back to it. I regretted trading away even Phantasy Star III at one point and immediately bought my copy back when it resurfaced. The only title I've dismissed without a second thought was Contact, an aggressively nondescript RPG for the DS that does its best to insult the player with its ending.
I do kind of regret spending 30+ hours on Glory of Heracles, which gave back absolutely nothing I sunk into it and is a sort of breathtaking nonentity of a game. It still hasn't disappeared from my shelf, though. I also blew part of a Walmart gift card I won on Zelda: Spirit Tracks, thinking Nintendo would surely never make a bad Zelda game. Even that title I'll still probably finish someday. I must have attachment issues.
Not commerce-related, but I think I accidentally threw away my copies of Mach Rider and Paperboy when I was a kid (I'd lent them to a classmate, for some reason never took them out of my bookbag when I got them back, the bookbag got thrown away at end of term). I was facepalming over that for a while, but now, eh. Mach Rider. (Paperboy's a bit more of a loss, but it pales graphically to the arcade, and how often do I play either nowadays, really.)
(Actually, how often do I play console cartridges at all now? Portable collections and, when morally excusable, ROMs are so much more convenient. I could probably let go of my entire 8- and 16-bit collections without any impact on my gaming.)
One game that incited considerable gnashing of teeth in the 1UP thread was Lunar: Dragon Song. While the game's indeed disappointing, were hopes really that stratospheric for it? Were wonders really expected with the original creators so long absent from the franchise? Hadn't we'd learned by then from the GBA Lufia games about B-team releases for portable systems from dormant 16-bit RPG franchises? I'd missed the entire buildup to Dragon Song's release; the first I knew of the game's existence was when I was in a Walmart one day and happened to see the title in the display case. What the hell happened during its promotional period? I'd never think it...significant enough to provoke such rancor.
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The one purchase that really comes to mind here is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer on the NES when I was a kid. I really took to the game for some reason after reading an article in Game Players, and I don't know why - I had no particular affection for the story besides watching the anime on HBO. When I actually bought and played the game, though, it struck even little me as glaringly unpolished and unspectacular. The graphics in particular were really raw (and you'd think I'd be forewarned, having seen the magazine spread, but the visuals looked much worse in action, especially accompanied by the game's plinky music). I played the game enough, certainly, but even while young, I knew I was just killing time doing so. Oddly enough, the title seems to be inexplicably well-respected by a few reviewers out there nowadays.
I've seldom had a bad trade experience, as I horde my games. It takes a lot for me to let go of a title, confident that I'll never ever want to go back to it. I regretted trading away even Phantasy Star III at one point and immediately bought my copy back when it resurfaced. The only title I've dismissed without a second thought was Contact, an aggressively nondescript RPG for the DS that does its best to insult the player with its ending.
I do kind of regret spending 30+ hours on Glory of Heracles, which gave back absolutely nothing I sunk into it and is a sort of breathtaking nonentity of a game. It still hasn't disappeared from my shelf, though. I also blew part of a Walmart gift card I won on Zelda: Spirit Tracks, thinking Nintendo would surely never make a bad Zelda game. Even that title I'll still probably finish someday. I must have attachment issues.
Not commerce-related, but I think I accidentally threw away my copies of Mach Rider and Paperboy when I was a kid (I'd lent them to a classmate, for some reason never took them out of my bookbag when I got them back, the bookbag got thrown away at end of term). I was facepalming over that for a while, but now, eh. Mach Rider. (Paperboy's a bit more of a loss, but it pales graphically to the arcade, and how often do I play either nowadays, really.)
(Actually, how often do I play console cartridges at all now? Portable collections and, when morally excusable, ROMs are so much more convenient. I could probably let go of my entire 8- and 16-bit collections without any impact on my gaming.)
One game that incited considerable gnashing of teeth in the 1UP thread was Lunar: Dragon Song. While the game's indeed disappointing, were hopes really that stratospheric for it? Were wonders really expected with the original creators so long absent from the franchise? Hadn't we'd learned by then from the GBA Lufia games about B-team releases for portable systems from dormant 16-bit RPG franchises? I'd missed the entire buildup to Dragon Song's release; the first I knew of the game's existence was when I was in a Walmart one day and happened to see the title in the display case. What the hell happened during its promotional period? I'd never think it...significant enough to provoke such rancor.
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