Sonic CD is no longer my favourite game.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Link's Awakening is easily one of my top [insert small increment here] games of all time. The story is surreal and gut-wrenchingly bittersweet. No Zelda before or after (Majora's Mask comes close) has really had such a effective melancholy atmosphere. And yeah, Tarin is easily the greatest supporting character in the entire series. "Dig! Dig to the center of the Earth!"

Ice Climbers mode is okay (I forget the name, but it has something to do with a tower that you destroy with the stylus?). Zelda "Puzzle" mode is an interesting twist on the formula, but nothing terribly substantial.

That's the Balloon Fight one; Ice Climbers didn't have a themed mode.

And the Zelda one was more of a 'mission mode' than a puzzle.

[Segaholic2]

Where did you get a GBA SP for $30? I've been interested in buying an AGS-101 but they're ridiculously expensive where I've been looking; like $70 used.

[Senbei]

GameStop. You'll have to check each one though, since they aren't sold with a distinction between models, and 95% are guaranteed to be scratched as hell.

Also, it's GameStop.

[Shadow Hog]

Yeah, I had to check every game store within like a 10-mile radius of where I live to find one. Most only had AGS-001s, some didn't have any at all (one didn't even carry GBA games anymore - somehow I'm not surprised, knowing how, as of late, GameStop hates to sell used games for any console not of the current generation). I lucked out finding one at a GameStop I'd actually considered skipping entirely due to how little luck I'd been having. Of course, I also went shopping the month after Christmas, so that contributed to their lack of stock.

The one I got was a bit dinged up, but still looks okay. Screen is pretty much clean, no scratches I can recall or anything. Start button had this annoying, stiff "snap" to it if it hadn't been pressed in a few minutes, but that seems to have gone away as I've used it over the past two months. GB/GBC games are also a bit prone to resetting on me if I accidentally bump the cartridge a slight amount, making me think the contacts aren't as clean as they should be, but for the most part, it's worked great for that.

I was going to trade in my Arctic GBA, but apparently they're only worth $6, and with the damaged battery cover, it was worth all of $2. I decided sentimental value was probably worth the $2 I could've saved.

[Green Gibbon!]

Yeah, I had to check every game store within like a 10-mile radius of where I live to find one.

Are there really that many? LameStop's approaching McDonald's/Starbucks saturation. I remember when I started working at - well, it was Babbage's at the time, but when I started it was the only one for at least 50 miles in each direction. As of a couple years ago, there were three in that same nowhere city, plus another one in an even smaller town nearby.

I fucking hate GameStop.


Hate.

[gr4yJ4Y]

I suppose I'll cop out and say that no matter how good they are, Link's Awakening DX was still better. I mean, it's probably my favorite Zelda of all time (that or Ocarina of Time, but I'm pretty sure LA wins out here), so it really goes without saying that I'd prefer it. I really am not sure what it is, but few other Zelda games have come close to capturing the same kinds of feelings LA gave me, a unique sense of joy - Ocarina is probably the only other one. That LA was my first Zelda and that OoT was my first 3D Zelda (specifically the Wind Waker preorder version - taking a bit of a gamble preordering that when never having played a 3D Zelda, but I figured, being Zelda, I'd likely not be disappointed) probably has a lot to do with it.

This. Although I'm not sure if I'd say that OoT was the only 3D Zelda to give me a unique sense of joy. I actually rushed through it the first time because I still hadn't finished it when Wind Waker came out and I was interested in trying that out as soon as possible, but didn't want to be playing through 2 Zeldas at the same time.

The GBC was my first Nintendo system. It was my first taste of owning a Mario or a Zelda. I got it because I wanted to play Pokemon mostly, but also as something to tide me over between then and when the Dreamcast came out. There's been something more... magical (?) about when I first played those games than Sony's PS3 offerings have been.

Are there really that many? LameStop's approaching McDonald's/Starbucks saturation. I remember when I started working at - well, it was Babbage's at the time, but when I started it was the only one for at least 50 miles in each direction. As of a couple years ago, there were three in that same nowhere city, plus another one in an even smaller town nearby.

There's actually more GameStops in my area than there are Starbucks and Biggbys combined. There's one on the other side of the field by my house, which has been there since at least 1991 when it was a FuncoLand. There's one across the street from that one and there's another about a half-mile down the road next door to a Starbucks. Then there's another at an outdoor "mall" another mile away from that. And this is after they closed down the EB Games that was in the indoors mall (you know an actual building) that's on the corner of the street opposite the first GameStop. So for a while we essentially had 3 GameStops at one intersection.

[Shadow Hog]

Well, with GameStop buying everyone out left and right, yeah. Funcoland? GameStop. Babbage's? Yeah, GameStop. EB Games? GameStop! It's ludicrous.

They're even opening one up on-campus, right next to the second-hand game store I go to all the time. Now granted, this second-hand store sells SNES and N64 games, which I wouldn't ever get from GameStop (shit, they're trying to get rid of GBA games, they're that desperate to remain modern), but between a recent county law, actually intended for pawn shops but broad enough to affect the store, that states they can't sell whatever they take in for 30 days (which GameStop seems immune to) and, well, the fact it's goddamn GameStop, they're going to be on rough times. It's enough to make me consider rescinding my New Year's resolution of one game purchase a month... Gotta help fight the system, right?

(Incidentally I checked this store too while hunting for an AGS-101. They didn't have it, but I got a few GB games while I was there...)

[Delphine]

My buddy works for GameStop in a shitty no money town. There's another store down the street from his. LA is one thing -- there are so many goddamn people that having, say, four different coffee shops within walking distance, two of them Starbucks, makes sense. (Actually, you need more than that, because all of them will still be full. Goddamn this city likes its coffee.) But the town he works in has nothing but giant illegal Mexican families, white trash, and welfare queens. But they need their goddamn Madden, so two Gamestops it is!

[Edgerock]

They do occasionally have good deals.

Endless Ocean 2 comes with Wii Speak for just 30 bucks. Save $40.
http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/Product ... t_id=76728

[Green Gibbon!]

Well, with GameStop buying everyone out left and right, yeah. Funcoland? GameStop. Babbage's? Yeah, GameStop. EB Games? GameStop! It's ludicrous.

Funcoland, Babbage's, and LameStop were all the same company to begin with. They decided to merge the brands, so all Funcolands and Babbage'seseses eventually became LameStops.

Now, EB was a buyout.

[Tsuyoshi-kun]

The LameStops downtown in Center City Philadelphia don't even allow to play the demos of the games they have on display. They were afraid people would be "too distracted" to actually buy games. So often you get nothing on display except for the system menu booting up indefinitely. Brilliant.

I miss Funcoland. Their employees weren't a quarter as retarded as the ones Lamestop has today.

[plasticwingsband]

Hey just wanted to chime in and agree with whoever said Link's Awakening is the best (or at least, their favorite) Zelda game. It is the pinnacle of the series for me, and probably one of the only Nintendo games that would make it on my personal top games list. Part of it is nostalgia probably, but no matter how many times I play it, I never tire of that game.

[gr4yJ4Y]

My favorite part of Funcoland was that you could try out just about any used game in the store before you bought it. It was often my first taste with different games, since there wasn't any of this fancy YouTube or downloadable demo stuff. Depending on who was working at the time, you might get 2-10 minutes with the game or be like my brother and beat an entire game in store (it was Pokemon Snap for the record).

Of course nowadays I don't know if the first 10 minutes or so of a game can really represent what the game is like in full. Like right now I'm playing Brutal Legend. The game starts off fairly linear and it seems like it's going to be some kind of a beat-em-up with driving portions. But then the game turns into an open-world adventure with occasional RTS battles.