<![CDATA[Thrift Store Adventures: PS1 and GBA]]>Today I went to Value Village, a Canadian thrift store chain, in search of some retro games.  This place is hit and miss depending on who in town has recently emptied out their closet, and whether or not you get there when the stuff goes out into the glass case.  I’ve gotten my hands on some really good finds there in the past, which I might write about at some point.  Anyway, Value Village’s prices have been creeping up and up for the last few years, so it’s really a matter of deciding whether some of the stuff they have is worth the price they’re asking.  They’re normally about 20% cheaper than eBay, which is a bit bothersome to me — they have someone in store searching for competitive rates on their merchandise that gets donated to them.  Yep.  You read that right.  They mark up donated items to be competitive with other sources.  Sigh.  I could go on about why I feel this is a bit ridiculous, but I will let you draw your own conclusions.

I actually had some luck picking up some Playstation 1 titles for okay prices.  I say okay prices because I’m still a bit sour that games cost more than $1 each since I just recently got 190ish games and 16 consoles for $300, but I digress (read here about that magical experience).  I managed to get my hands on Ape Escape, The Legend of Dragoon, Jersey Devil and Tomba 2: The Evil Swine Return for about $60 Canadian total.  All the games are in pretty good condition and came with their manuals.  The only physical problems are with some of the cases: one of the CD compartments in the Dragoon case has damaged teeth making disc 3 a bit of a free spirit, and the front of Ape Escape’s case is cracked.  Other than that, things look pretty good!

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After getting home, I did a bit of research on two Game Boy Advance games that were also available: Golden sun and Shining Soul.  For $12, I was hesitant to pick up a loose GBA game unless it had some good reviews.  I was shocked to see the extremely high ratings for Golden Sun, so I went back and picked that up.  I didn’t end up getting Shining Soul.  Based on what I read/watched about the game, it was not well-loved, and was also far along in a game series that I hadn’t even heard of.  It didn’t feel like a good fit for now, so I passed.

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I’d say I’ve had a pretty successful day in the game-hunting world!

Thanks for reading!

-GG

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