a chill day and castlevania.

saturday, january 28th, 2023.

It's past midnight today, so technically it's Saturday, right?

I had the day off yesterday, so I spent the day doing errands and shopping with my partner. We got some pizza, poked around an antique store at things that we couldn't afford, then picked up some incense and visited a second-hand / retro gaming store. It was a lovely, relaxing sort of day. The sort that puts a subtle grin on my face.

This was my first time in this gaming store and I was amazed at their killer collection of retro games. NES, Genesis, PlayStation, TurboGrafx-16, GameCube, Dreamcast— you name it, they had it! Their prices were on par with what you'd see on eBay, plus they'd put new box art and a clamshell case on games that were loose cassettes & discs.

I was like a kid in a candy store!

I've been hoping I'll run into a copy of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse in the wild for a while now, but no such luck today. However, I did stumble upon a copy of the original Castlevania in good condition!

Went home with my wallet $30 lighter, and spent several hours on my couch yesterday evening trundling through Dracula's castle. And dying. A lot.

This game plays almost exactly like Castlevania III— in other words, it's Nintendo hard.

So, yeah! My evening flew by and I had a great time.

There's something magical about holding a physical cart that has the game you want to play on it. These carts were made in the late 1980s and they're still going strong. I still have a bunch of 'em from when I was growing up, too. I think we really lost something when games started being released digitally. A downloaded game is rented, at best.

But a cart? It's here. It's in my hand. That's pretty darned cool!

Until next time, be well! :)