Trading Regrets

Regrets. Everyone has them. In life, in relationships and even in gaming. But more than passing up that air bubble, jumping too soon or jumping too late, many of my gaming related regrets comes to trade-ins.

I once picked up a copy of Einhander at KB Toys for $14.99. This was one of the few times Square branched outside of the RPG genre and it did not disappoint. It had some amazing music, one of my favorite pieces being one of the boss themes, "Shudder." For whatever reason, I traded Einhander in and have since regretted doing so, big time. I think it became one of those rare PS1 games because it rarely appears in stores that sells old games and usually goes for $60 and up on eBay.

There was a time when I traded in nearly all of my Game Boy games, save for Mega Man I-V, but the rest included titles such as Donkey Kong, Super Mario Land 2 and Metroid II. Donkey Kong on the Game Boy is easily one of the best handheld games ever and one of the best Mario titles so I'm not sure what possessed me to trade it away. Thankfully, I was able to buy it back years later along with Metroid II and Super Mario Land 2.

Speaking of Game Boy, I traded in my Blue GBA SP model along with some PS2 games and a ton of other stuff to get the original Nintendo DS. Much as I love the DS, I found out the hard way that it doesn't play original Game Boy games. That'll teach me to not to read up on new hardware, but even so, my GBA SP was just such a wonderful handheld device. From the flip design, extra lighting , being compact, it was a marvel. OK, so Nintendo screwing us over on the headphone jack sucked, but dang it, I should never have given it up! The 3DS will support downloadable games for the original Game Boy games, but I have no idea when I'll get around to buying one and picking up a GBA SP is a heck of a lot cheaper.

Thinking of all the trade-ins I've done over the years has made me realize that I have quite a few that I wish I'd never have let go. Sure, I got some good things like my DS, Mario Kart Double Dash!! (even if that blue shell is freaking annoying) and some others but I've got far more regrets than anything. It's made me think twice about all the games I currently have and will have in the future. So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm going to be more of a packrat now more than ever. Yeah, crappy games will more than likely be tossed aside, but for the most part, I'll be hanging on to all the good stuff.