Dusting off the old systems

I dusted off my old Super Nintendo system and replayed a lot of my games in preparation before complying my list of favorite games for that system. It was nice to play games I hadn't played in quite some time. Years even. It brought back some good memories.

This last weekend I tried to do the same thing with my N64. Notice how I said "tried." Things didn't go so well. I packed up my system and almost all of my games (except Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Magical Tetris Challenge) and headed to my parent's house. My brother was going over to do laundry and I wanted another person to help out with some of the multiplayer options in the games. I was a little disappointed to find that I only had 12 games for the system. That didn't seem right, but that's all I had.

Once the system was hooked up my brother popped in Gauntlet Legends and went to load a file from the memory card that was still in my controller. Apparently I had saves from games that I didn't have the cartridge for. At least for none of the cartridges I had in front of me. Did I sell some games back? Do I have a stash of games somewhere that I haven't unpacked?

Yes, I have lived in the same place for 5 years now and still have boxes I haven't unpacked. At least unpacked completely. I have a lot of boxes that are partially unpacked because I couldn't figure out where to put things so it was best to leave them where they were. I thought I knew what treasures were in those boxes but maybe I don't. I've always meant to unpack them and now maybe I have the motivation to do it. I've got games that are missing people. I need to find them!

But since it's been a long time since I played my N64 I was wondering if I sold any of those games back. I remembered owning Aidyn Chronicles (it was a black cartridge) and I have a save for it but did I sell it back? I think I remember owning Turok too. I didn't have a save so where's that game? I've gone through a list online of N64 games and I think there's 10 more games I should have . . . somewhere. Unless I sold them back of course.

I remember when I got my N64. I was just out of college with very little money to spare. I couldn't get every game I wanted to. Even when I found Game Stop and their used games for less money. I had to pick and choose which games I would get because every game was a splurge and my budget couldn't afford too many of them. I also remember picking up a bunch of older Super Nintendo games during that time. They were cheaper.

So I guess I'm going to have to spend some time unpacking boxes and looking for N64 game cartridges which I may or may not still have. I don't feel comfortable putting out a "favorites" list of games for the system if I don't even know what games I have anymore. Maybe I should have dusted off those old systems more often.