Trials of an Impulse Collector - A Hidden Gem- Depending on How You Look At It

This is the first personal story I've written in this blog- and it may not be the last. Sometimes, though, these stories are fun, a little weird, and just interesting enough to be scrawled onto the Internet.

Downtown Salem, Massachusetts is home to plenty of little privately owned businesses and one of them happens to be one of the better retro game stores I've seen in the area. Thinking that I had a little extra money in my bank account and a birthday coming up, I ventured down there on my lunch break to see what hidden gems they might have.
Now, I have my problems with this place. The employees are definitely knowledgeable- some of them to the point of ridiculing those who are not- and they are collectors. As a fellow collector, I appreciate this, but that means that their games sell at collectors' prices. As a point of reference, Valkyrie Profile for the original Playstation rings in at about $110. An apt price, but an unfortunate one for anyone who happens to be looking to buy it. The location is convenient, though, and to those of us who actually owned an original Sega Genesis or Nintendo, it's a welcome place to check out games new and used alike.

I walked in, promptly went to the wall with the NES games and Sega games and Game Boy games- you get the idea- and started immediately drooling over the rarities that I knew they would hold. Gameboy Advance games in their original boxes, Playstation games in the big hard plastic rectangles (if you've played them, you know), and Sega games from the era of black and white checkered boxes all greeted me and my leering glares at them. The employee asked if I needed any help and I managed to stutter that I didn't through glimpses at all of the relics around me. Mind you, I make this place sound like a wonderland, but it really is just a hole in the wall that looks like a game store straight out of the 1990's. I convinced myself that I was going to grab a couple of Nintendo games, just to bolster my collection, and be done with it.

Then I saw the system case.

We're talking about Colecovision, Game Gear, Nomad, and 3DO Real Players here, kids. I perused that baby until I saw a few little gems marked at a reasonable price. Those gems would be the ancient technology known as the Sega Saturn.


As it was priced lower than most of the others and the same as its handheld counterpart- the aforementioned Game Gear- I promptly decided to purchase it. The guy behind the counter was extremely informative. It has some internal memory that runs off of what appears to be a watch battery, but you can purchase a backup memory that pops into the cartridge slot at the top. That is definitely NOT for Sega Genesis games. We both agreed that would be pretty sweet, though. Upon inspection, we also agreed that the system was in almost new condition. Either someone had fixed it up really nicely before they put it out or, like most of the people who bought it at the time, they hadn't played it much. Either way, point in my favor. I looked through what little games they had for the system and decided I was just happy having the system itself for now.

Now, looking through the game list, there are a small amount of games that came out in America that I'm interested in getting. Nights Into Dreams is a big one, as well as Resident Evil, as the version that came out on the Saturn had a few extras on it that the Playstation version didn't. Shining Wisdom and Shining the Holy Ark, two entries into the Shining series that Sega produces, would be welcome entries as well. Not only those, but Shining Force III: Scenario One would be awesome. The library that came out in Japan has a lot of games that, frankly, I would kill to have for American release. Lunar: Silver Star Story, Feda: The Emblem of Justice, and Atelier Marie, for instance. I've heard great things, though, about games like Dragon Force, Burning Rangers, and Panzer Dragoon. Mind you, I'm not delusional. I know these will take some time to be able to track down and then purchase. Everyone has wish lists, though, right?

Maybe this story wasn't that interesting, but I wanted to share my retro find with those who check out the blog, as hopefully, I'll have some games soon that I can play around with and experience that I didn't get a chance to when the Saturn was in its hey- it's heyda-

All right, I guess it didn't really have a heyday. Still, it's an interesting little machine, and definitely sleek to look at. Now, my question for you, my adoring public: any of you have any interesting stories or experience with this little system? Maybe some game recommendations?

For more information on this system (and its eventual demise), check it out at 'Console Database': http://www.consoledatabase.com/consoleinfo/segasaturn/