Topic: Biggest Gaming Regrets

[NWR_insanolord]

I think everyone here has probably been playing video games for a while, and has done a lot of things in that regard. Still, no matter how long you've been playing, I'll bet we all have something in gaming we regret. Whether it's something we missed out on, or something we did and wish we hadn't, I thought this would be an interesting discussion to bring up those things from our gaming pasts.


For me, it's how many things I've sold. There are plenty of games I've sold that I'm perfectly okay with, but when it comes to systems, I almost always regret the decision. I sold my Genesis and Dreamcast only to end up buying those systems again later on, and I still wish I hadn't sold my GameCube and Game Boy Player.

[Ceric]

Earthbound.

[Adrock]

I traded in Dracula X and Ninja Gaiden Trilogy on SNES as well as Valkyrie Profile and Vagrant Story on PSOne. All of those games are worth a **** ton more than what I traded them in for at GameStop. I'm mostly disappointed in trading Valkyrie Profile because out of those games, I actually ended up wanting to play it again.

I also traded in my N64 and GameCube (since Wii was backwards compatible) only to rebuy them. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea, but I haven't traded in hardware since.

While I've done much better in the past year or so, I often purchased games on release day at full price even though for the past decade, I rarely got around to playing through them in a timely manner. For example, Pandora's Tower is still factory sealed. It's like $20 now. I used a gift card on it, but still, that's wasteful.

[lolmonade]

About 4 years back now, my wife and I we're just recently married, and she lost her job due to the economy.  There was about a year-long gap between that job and her next one, and at the time, I didn't have a good enough job to cover our standard of living.  Because I was young & foolish, I didn't adjust our expenses accordingly, and instead sold-off things & racked-up debt to pay for activities.
 
Regretfully, I sold my Sega Genesis with 30+ games that I had since I was 8, a used Super Nintendo I bought in really nice condition with 10 games during high school, and a Gamecube I bought right before college, and played endless hours of Megaman & Smash Bros on. 
 
I technically have the money on-hand to repurchase these things, but I don't have any guarantee that they'll be in as good a condition as the ones I had.  That, and at this stage in my life (demanding career, wife, a 2 year old, and another one on the way), I just don't think I would have the time to play it all if I recouped them.  Maybe someday 4-5 years down the road when both my children are old enough to play & appreciate such things.
 

[Ian Sane]

I regret not taking better care of my old games when I was a kid.  All the games still work but the boxes are all crushed and wrecked.

When I first started collecting old SNES games Mega Man X2 was available and I didn't get it.  My brothers gave me flack for that and, sure enough, it was gone the next time I was at the store.  It look 8 or 9 years before I saw it again though it cost me about twice as much.  I did however find it and X3 at the same time and that was pretty cool.

Around the same timeframe as the first X2 sighting I saw Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for $20 and I didn't get it.  This wasn't the Greatest Hits version either.  I chalk this up to being early in my working life where I finally had money to spend on games.  Every time I went to the store there would be like ten things worth buying and I had to prioritize.  I would pass on some gems because I was already spending money on something else and didn't want to drop 100 bucks every time I went to the store.  Sometimes that let me down but I still got EarthBound, Ogre Battle, Super Metroid with box & manual, and Star Fox Super Weekend during this timeframe so I mostly made the right choices.

A collectable store in my area had Chrono Trigger, cartridge only, for $100 about two years ago.  I figured that was too expensive but that store no longer has a game section so it's gone.  And SNES games have exploded in price in the last few years (a negative side effect of the VC introducing the classics to a new generation) so that is now a pretty reasonable price.  If it ever shows up at my usual used game store it probably will cost $100 so I should have just bought it then.  It's the most prominent missing piece in my SNES collection.

A store in my area once got a Vectrex in with about 8 games or so and were selling it all for $250.  I thought about getting it but didn't and now I kind of wish I did.  Now it was expensive and I'm not very interested in pre-crash games but it seems that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I passed on.

Got a Superscope in box.  Left the box on the floor and the damn cat chewed up the corner of it.  ****!  I feel like such an idiot for leaving it where she could get at it, even though she's never wrecked anything else I've left around.

I bought NBA Hangtime for the SNES for 2 bucks thinking it would be the ultimate version of NBA Jam.  It's **** and is undoubtedly the worst SNES game I own.  It didn't even use the same engine and it reversed the pass and shoot buttons which totally fucked me up when I tried to play it.  The game is so bad that I paid only TWO DOLLARS for this thing and I feel ripped off!

[Khushrenada]

Buying a Wii U.

Ho ho ho.

How does he do it?

Gets me every time.

[ejamer]

About the only thing I regret now is selling of my old GBA games. The console I don't care about... but the games were small and could have easily been kept, and selling them brought back a pittance. Some are hard to replace now too.  Especially wish I had kept the GBA version of Final Fantasy VI.

[BranDonk Kong]

All the stuff I've gotten rid of - PSX, Saturn, Dreamcast (though I have 2 now, and I've probably gone through at least 5 all together), NES, SNES, N64.

[Shaymin]

Swapping games with someone where I got Killer Instinct for Earthbound and having them skip town.

[Oblivion]

Buying a 3DS at launch and buying a Wii U at launch. Sure, the 3DS became a must-have system later on. Sure, the Wii U might become a must have system in the future. But was that worth waiting years to get enough games to make the purchase worth it? **** no.

[Br26]

In Chrono Trigger you had to do a certain event in order to unlock the New Game + option once you beat the game. I lazed out and just beat Lavos and skipped that part of the game because i didn't feel like battling a bunch of enemies. I sorta regret that now because I didn't experience any of the other endings.

[Shaymin]

Pretty sure that "certain event" was beating the game...

[BranDonk Kong]

Actually my biggest single gaming regret is purchasing Superman 64 having never seen or played it before. It's even worse when you don't have the warnings going into it.

[Sarail]

WCW Mayhem. Oh wow, what a kick in the jumblies that game was. Going from WCW World Tour on the PS1 to WCW vs. nWo to WCW Revenge (both N64) to finally Mayhem... oh god. Just...just terrible.

[BranDonk Kong]

Yeah Mayhem was horrible, so were Nitro and Thunder, and Backstage Assault. WrestleMania XIX for GameCube was garbage too, just because of Revenge mode.

Sorry to nitpick but it was WCW Vs. The World on PSX, it was WCW vs. NWO World Tour and Revenge for N64.

[Sarail]

Yeah Mayhem was horrible, so were Nitro and Thunder, and Backstage Assault. WrestleMania XIX for GameCube was garbage too, just because of Revenge mode.

Sorry to nitpick but it was WCW Vs. The World on PSX, it was WCW vs. NWO World Tour and Revenge for N64.

Ah, of course! Thanks for the correction. I knew "World" was in the title, though. Hah.

EDIT: And yeah, I remember playing Backstage Assault thinking they'd corrected the problems from Mayhem. NOPE. BA was like a glorious turd covered in chocolate - but even the chocolate was terrible. :/

[BranDonk Kong]

Seriously only EA would green light a wrestling game that has no wrestling ring in it.

[ShyGuy]

Not buying SideArms for the TG-16.

[Br26]

Pretty sure that "certain event" was beating the game...

Which I did, but there was no New Game + option after beating it. I believe there's a certain way of unlocking it that I didn't do.

[Chad Sexington]

My biggest regret is being so much of a Nintendo fanboy that I refused to buy a Playstation or Playstation 2.  I stuck with my N64 and Gamecube only and I feel like I missed out on some of the best games ever made.

[Shaymin]

The only redeeming feature of WCW Backstage Assault is the ability to light Vince Russo on fire for his **** WCW booking.

[BranDonk Kong]

To this day I'm still convinced that Vince McMahon paid Vince Russo a **** ton to go to WCW and burn it to the ground. There is no other explanation. His shoot promo on Hulk Hogan was epic though.

[ballisticmedicine]

Lending first-party controllers (N64 and GCN) to 'friends.' It always ends with loose analog sticks or no controller at all.

[ymeegod]

No WILL POWER--keep buying games when I have an huge ass backlog that'll never be finished.  Very upset with an impulse buy which was Silent Hill: Book of Memories for the Vita.  Thinking I was buying an actually Silent Hill game and not an crappy diablo clone with silent hill name attached--urgh.

[nickmitch]

Not buying any GC LAN adapters.  Could've easily made for some serious fun times down the road.

[Br26]

To this day I'm still convinced that Vince McMahon paid Vince Russo a **** ton to go to WCW and burn it to the ground. There is no other explanation. His shoot promo on Hulk Hogan was epic though.

Tank Abbott as world champion was gonna work, dawg.

[Stratos]

Selling off any game I previously owned.


Rouge Squadron 2 on the Gamecube was a recent one. I sold it because the 3rd one had the entire 2nd game in it with co-op. But I wanted to play it later without co-op and ended up repurchasing it.


I also regret not buying Chrono Trigger and a few other SNES games when I had the chance as a kid. My friend owned them so I just borrowed them, not realizing the value they would hold later.


The biggest regret was letting my mother convince me to sell all my NES stuff because I was getting a SNES for my birthday. A lady tricked my poor-at-math kid brain and walked off with 7-8 games leaving me with not even 10 dollars. Ironically all of my games got sold off that day except for one of those crappy Bible games (the one that was like Mario Party) and the system. So mom ended up letting me keep the system but all of my old Nintendo and Capcom games (don't remember what else I had besides those two companies) were gone. I re-bought the original Super Mario Brothers at ToysAreThem a year or so later for $25 because I was still a dumb kid who couldn't count right. Mom did say she was sorry for making me sell them all because she saw me trying to re-buy the same games down the road. She viewed a game system like a cassette deck or a car in that you didn't need multiples of them for one person until she saw my actions.


Lastly, I used to keep all of the boxes for any game I got. Kept them on a shelf as a kid. I was slowly badgered to give them up, starting with the oldest and the non-Nintendo ones. I actually saved all sorts of packaging, from LEGOs, GI-Joes, Star Wars and other toys. Looking back I could have sold most of these for a bundle. I do still have most every game manual I ever owned in a box or two in the closet. May have a box or two like the holo N64 Zeldas but I would have to look to be sure. I gave the Yoshi's Story box to my youngest sister as a gift because she loved that game. It was her first experience with gaming.


Hell, lets keep going and add all of my Nintendo Power magazines from several years of subscriptions. I finally let those get recycled after I was finagled out of my box collection.

[Cyrian]

About five years or so ago eStarland got a complete copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga in stock for $205, and I saw it as soon as it went live. At the time that was on the high end of what it was going for, but now I seriously wish I'd jumped on it when I had the chance.

Other biggest regret, I used to have a habit of playing games partway through and then moving on to something else. I did that with Final Fantasy 7 when it first came out, and quit before Aeris died. By the time I got back to playing it that point had well been spoiled, which always made me kind of sad.

[jarodea]

I'll break it down into a few different categories:

Worst game I bought for the stupidest reason - Hydlide.  The name is reminiscent of Hyrule and the boxart is similar to Dragon Warrior, two of my favorite games at the time.  Long story short, there went one of the 2 games per annum (at most) I received as a kid.

Game I really wish I didn't sell - Tetris DS.  The game was tetris without korobeiniki, therefor it wasn't tetris.  I traded it in for maybe $20.

The time I screwed up most falling for "hype" - Medal of Honor: Heroes.  I was mostly on the IGN insider forum at the  time and according to everyone it had the best controls and online for any Wii FPS.  Not so much on the first and maybe on the second but big deal.  Wasted $50 gift card.

[geckog7]

Like the thread starter, I too regret giving away my GCN with GBA player. My biggest regret is getting rid of my Super Nintendo. I also never played through Chrono Trigger (rented it, but never bought it)

Non-Nintendo regret: letting my sister steal my PS1 copy of Symphony of the Night and Suikoden.

On the positives, I kept my N64 and I also never bought a Wii, so my Wii U has been getting used catching up on those games I missed :-). I can play  my 2 favorite games on Wii U (Link to the Past and Resident Evil Remake)

[MagicCow64]

Worst game I bought for the stupidest reason - Hydlide.  The name is reminiscent of Hyrule and the boxart is similar to Dragon Warrior, two of my favorite games at the time.  Long story short, there went one of the 2 games per annum (at most) I received as a kid.

Ha, oh man, I had that game. I was so young that I thought the fact that it was so terrible was my fault. I'd actually be interested in trying it again to see how my 20-years-older self handles it.

Here's a couple of mine:

-I bought Xenoblade off the shelf at a Gamestop in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, and the dude at the counter was like "that's our only copy. Nobody here pre-ordered it." I got about 10 hours in before my launch Wii's disc drive died. I intended to hold on to it until I got a WiiU so I could pick it back up, but I hit a money crunch and sold it back for like $15 cash. BIG FUCKING MISTAKE.

-I bought a used 360 in the first year of release because I wanted to play Perfect Dark Zero, which was terrible. While playing this terrible game, my 360 RRODed. Once I received it back, there wasn't much else out, but I hung on for Dead Rising because Dawn of the Dead was one of my favorite movies. I bought DR at full price, and played it for about four hours before quitting, because (A.) It was awful and (B.) I had an SD TV at the time, and the on-screen text, of which there was a lot, was unreadable.

-The original Harvest Moon is one of my most cherished video game memories, and I was never able to get a hold of Harvest Moon 64. When A Wonderful Life came out on GC I bought it at full price upon release. Played it for four hours, and it was terrible, traded it back at a huge loss.

-I left my SNES, 64, and GC game collection at home when I went to college. My goddamned little brother sold them all to Game Crazy, including my gold Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask carts and my Master's Quest disc.

[Oblivion]

-I bought Xenoblade off the shelf at a Gamestop in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, and the dude at the counter was like "that's our only copy. Nobody here pre-ordered it." I got about 10 hours in before my launch Wii's disc drive died. I intended to hold on to it until I got a WiiU so I could pick it back up, but I hit a money crunch and sold it back for like $15 cash. BIG FUCKING MISTAKE.

Ouch. Holy ****, I actually cringed reading that.

[Ian Sane]

-I left my SNES, 64, and GC game collection at home when I went to college. My goddamned little brother sold them all to Game Crazy, including my gold Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask carts and my Master's Quest disc.

These sorts of stories always horrify me because my family members would never blatantly steal from each other like that.  If my brother did that to me, he wouldn't be my brother anymore.  Yet, I meet all sorts of people with similar stories and they somehow haven't disowned their family members.

[Oblivion]

Because they're your family, and family is more important than video games? Forgive and forget, dude.

[Adrock]

I traded in my brother's original Xbox when he went to visit relatives with my parents. I put it towards an Xbox 360 so I kept all the games which were on the backwards compatibility list. I came up with the troll (my brother really wanted a 360 and isn't a collector) and my mom, sister, and girlfriend at the time collectively agreed to pretend to ruin his birthday. When he came back, I told him I sold his Xbox and I was being especially douchey to him in other ways. I think he was ready to punch me in the face when he saw the 360 and Gears of War sitting on his bed. My ex-girlfriend told me he gave her a what-the-****-is-his-problem look. This was one of my proudest moments.

I would never dream of selling off someone else's things, let alone my brother's. I realize parents clean out their basement/attic, but at least ask first.

Anyway, I have a near-regret. I almost traded in one of the Zelda bonus discs to GameStop (I forget if it was the Master Quest one or the other one). The employee actually convinced me not to because it was rare-ish. Not all my Gamestop experiences are horror stories.

[Stogi]

My biggest gaming regret is not finishing Skies of Arcadia because I saved right at the beginning of a match that is impossible to win at the level I'm in. It's a bounty hunt where I'm taking down my impostors. I was too brazen and took them on before I was truly ready.

To be clear, I've tried to beat them at least 20x and couldn't. It's impossible. So it's either I start over or never play the game again. So far, I've chosen the later.

But damn I love that game. I still play some of its music from time to time.

[Ian Sane]

Because they're your family, and family is more important than video games? Forgive and forget, dude.

Is my family important to me because of the good relationship we have built together or because we share genetics?  If someone betrays my trust in a way that would completely destroy a friendship or a romantic relationship should they get a free pass because they happen to be related to me?  It's not about videogames but rather the betrayal of trust caused by someone stealing from you.  But then my family doesn't do stuff like that so I don't know how I would truly react to it.

[ejamer]

Because they're your family, and family is more important than video games? Forgive and forget, dude.

If a sibling broke my favorite game/console/whatever, I'd be fine with forgive and forget. Hopefully they would be willing to replace it, but if cost or availability makes that unreasonable then I'd just grin and bear it. Stuff is just stuff, and family is clearly more important.


But if a sibling sold off my stuff without permission, I'd be upset and make sure they knew exactly why. That's totally disrespectful.  Replacement wouldn't just be a nice idea, it would be an obligation.  (Flip side: I know people who go to college and expect life to stand still while they are gone. Gotta be realistic, especially if the concept of ownership isn't something well understand with younger family members.)

[MagicCow64]

But if a sibling sold off my stuff without permission, I'd be upset and make sure they knew exactly why. That's totally disrespectful.  Replacement wouldn't just be a nice idea, it would be an obligation.  (Flip side: I know people who go to college and expect life to stand still while they are gone. Gotta be realistic, especially if the concept of ownership isn't something well understand with younger family members.)

Considering some of the things that have gone down in my family, a fluid concept of ownership is preeetttty far down on the disown list. I think I was actually more pissed that my mom sold my car after I went to college. I had bought it for $250, but still.

It did have the unintended consequence, along with optical media, that I don't hold on to games anymore. I didn't have the heart to replace the lost stuff, plus I never replay stuff on my own anymore, so I've tried to divest myself of the urge to possess video games. Now they are fleeting experiences, like honeymoon relationships.

[Stratos]

I'm with Ian on this. Family just doesn't do stuff like that if they are really your family. But I was lucky and had a good one that respected each other. I had some friends where that was not the case (not just with stuff but with general treatment of each other) and I know some of those friends no longer talk to their 'family'. Family ties are stronger than blood. I've seen people come together with no blood and forge stronger bonds than some families ever could. It becomes very hard to forgive if the offender does not show signs of remorse, repentance or respect for you. True family or friends would realize their wrong and try to make amends or at least stop what they are doing in the future.


I listen to some financial and legal talk shows and it is astounding how many family members will screw over their parents/kids/spouses. Maybe my family was different because my parents had it worse and so they committed to never do the same thing to my sisters and I. My dad had a very rare coin collection that his mom used it to pay the paperboy while he was away. She also sold his baseball card collection. Both of those could have funded his retirement on their own today twice over.


The closest thing I ever experienced was my mom making me sell off my NES to get an SNES, but that was more of a 'deal' I agreed to than just going behind your back and doing it.


My wife and I have slightly differing opinions on the matter but she sides with me the more we talk about it. Her mom was that way with her, taking and tossing or selling her nice things. She has five things from her childhood and those are mostly because her grandmother held onto them. Her concern is to not have a hoarder's mentality and end up with a ton of junk. We're still working on a fine balance since I am a pack rat at heart but we are finding our way. I want to have it hammered out before we have kids so that they won't have to deal with 'double standard parenting'.

[Ceric]

My family isn't close.  Its our nature.  Its how the family is.  We rarely talk.  My Brother has a fluid sense of what is his.  Everything in the family is his.  My Mom is much the same way.  She's very much an Indian Giver.

I can understand most of the sentiments here.

[Oblivion]

Damn, you guys have shitty families.

[Mop it up]

I'm one of the suckers who got conned into buying a 3DS at the original price, though I'd probably regret that even without the massive price drop for various reasons. That thing was like an unfinished prototype that never should have been released in its current state, and it's a shame it's still on the market. Fortunately, I was able to buy a 3DS XL on sale and sell my original for a good price, so I switched to a far superior XL for about $10.

Beyond that, there's not much. I regret not having foresight when I was younger, and not buying more SNES games when I had the chance. Back when they were actually in game stores like GameStop and EB Games and all them, they were a lot cheaper than what they go for today. I'm sure I passed up a lot of games that have gone on to reach absurd prices. Not that I really could have guessed this would happen, but still, I'm sure I missed out on things I would have enjoyed even back then. The GameCube is a similar case, its games are starting to go up in price and now I kinda wished I had grabbed a few more games for that when they were cheap.

I don't really sell games because I know I'd regret it later. The first game I sold was Quest 64 which I ended up buying back years later, except now I don't have the box and manual anymore. I've gotten back the few games I've ever sold except for one, which is Eternal Darkness. I never actually played it and still don't care to.

[CaptainK.923]

I used to work at FuncoLand, and I held in my hands at least a dozen times CIB copies of Earthbound that would have cost me a cool $40. I had rented the game, and while I liked it, I didn't absolutely LOVE it, so I decided I'd just get it later. It's a Nintendo title, and those always stick around, right? Now that it's on VC, I've found that I like the game a lot more than I did the first time I played it, and I wish wish wish I had a CIB original copy for my collection. Now I have to save up a couple hundred dollars to get what I could have had all these years.