Hey guys. I’ve been watching some JRPGLife lately. They’re doing a cool video series they call the Retro100. In it, they hunt down recommended Gameboy through the GBA titles. The catches are they must be recommended by friends and viewers and they must be $20 or under. They’re going until they hit 100 games combined [not 100 per handheld.].

I’ve thought it pretty neat and wondered how I could tie in a similiar aspect to my collecting life. Truthfully, I’m doing something similar but definitely not the same. I’ve mentioned before I am going for three complete console libraries: Wii U, Gamecube, and the N64. Obviously, these self imposed rules don’t apply to these 3 consoles.

But when I look at other consoles I own, I think I’m fine setting hard caps on them. For example, I shared yesterday my OG Xbox collection. I’m sitting at about 71 or so games. I’m thinking about capping it at 100. That let’s me get the Star Wars games, Psychonauts, Otogi 2, the Destory All Humans, Stubs the Zombie, the Oddworlds, Drake of the 99 Dragons, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and maybe a few cheap or hidden gems titles I don’t know about yet. At that point, I will probably be more than content with my collection. That’s not to say I would never buy an OG Xbox game again, but I would feel I would have the cream of the crop at that point.

And that 100 titles has felt right to me for a handful of other consoles like Xbox 360, PS2/PS3/PS4/PS5 and maybe the SNES and the Switch. These are consoles I enjoy and feel like I could pick up an average game on these consoles and enjoy it. So 100 games let’s me build up a nice library to explore and love.

But there are other consoles I just don’t feel the need to endlessly explore. Take the NES for example. For the longest time my NES collection has been Legend of Zelda 1, Super Mario Bros 3, Crystalis, Willow, Contra and Star Tropics. I don’t have a huge need or want to collect more than this. The SNES is probably a better console for my favorite retro genres: Platformers and Adventure games. However, there’s a few I wouldn’t mind getting. Namely: Monster Party, Zelda 2, Battle for Olympus, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Kirby, Faxanadu, and The Guardian Legend. And that’s probably it. At least off the top of head. As iconic as the side scrollers are, most are just difficult for the sake of it. The games listed above are really the only games that interest me. That would put me at around 14ish titles. And that would give 6 flex slots to hit my goal of 20 games for consoles I’m less interested in exploring.

I look at my Wii and my PS2 libraries but I have almost everything I want for them. I do love both of these libraries. With the Wii I have Pokémon Battle Revolution, Poke Park 1 and 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Skyward Sword, Munchibles, Lost in Shadow, Little King’s Story, the Kirby games, Bomberman Land, one of the Namco Museum games, Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, Okami, Mad World, Super Mario Bros Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Party 8 and 9, No More Heroes 1 and 2, Rune Factory Frontier, and some other stuff I got cheap like Sonic and the Secret Rings, Dewy’s Adventure, and Disney’s Universe. My library, for my purposes, is basically complete. There’s a few games I’d like to get: like replacing my Opoona that doesn’t work and getting Pandora’s Tower and trying out Red Steel. Red Steel always looked cool and interesting back in the day. But that’s really it. Xenoblade has ported to the Switch and honestly, I don’t care about the Wii Motes. As you can see I have a little over 20 games already [as I’m sure there’s a few games I forgot]. Most of the games are cheap, just not interesting to me. I just don’t a need to really add too much more to this library.

My PS2 library is awesome. Dark Cloud 1 and 2, Onimusha 2, all the Ratchet and Clanks, Jak and Daxters, and Sly Coopers. I have Dragon Quest 8 and Final Fantasy 10 and 12. I have Kingdom Hearts, the GTAs and God of War. I have Ape Escape 2 and 3. I have most of the 3D Platformers, action adventures and RPGs that I want for the console. I wouldn’t mind Half Life, Ape Escape Pumped and Primed and Onimusha 3 and I guess the Metal Gear Solids. But again, not too many titles I want. I’m happy with this library. Most of the multi-plats just simply played or looked better on the Xbox and the Gamecube. I have most of the PS2 exclusives I want.

That brings us to the handhelds: GB-GBA. The Gameboy Advance was my lifeline for what felt like forever. But you guys probably have similiar stories. My GBA was used almost entirely to play Pokémon. Thankful, I have almost all the Pokemon games released during this era. I also had a few others like Castlevania 2, Kirby GB, the Mega Man Battle Network [though, sadly I’ve lost these]. But now that I’ve rebuilt my Pokemon collection to a point I’m happy with, I kind of want to explore these libraries a little deeper.

The original Gameboy doesn’t interest me too much. It was iconic and revolutionary at the time, but its time has sadly passed. So here’s what I’m looking to pick up on the original Gameboy:

Kirby Dreamland 2, Gargoyle’s Quest, Kid Icarus, and maybe the Wario Land and Donkey Kong Land games. That’s about it. I’m not looking to go too deep on the original Gameboy. Heck, even Link’s Awakening got an updated version on the GBC.

Which now brings us to the Gameboy Color.

I don’t own a lot of Gameboy Color’s admittedly. I owned Pokémon Gold but its battery is dead sadly. I wouldn’t mind getting Pokémon Crystal, but like Shantae, its just too expensive. The Zelda games of course lead my want list with both Oracle Games and Link’s Awakening. From there, the prices for the GBC games really sky rocket. I mentioned the two above but even Lufia on GBC is about $100. I love the way GBC games look but its tough to find fun looking games for $30 or less [even Kirby Tilt and Tumble is $65]. I’m down for some recommendations.

The GBA is the handheld I want to turn my attention to. So really, unload your recommendations. I have Fire Red and Leaf Green, Emerald/Sapphire/Ruby, Yoshi’s Island, Golden Sun, and Super Mario Advance 4. I’m eyeing the two Kirby games, the Mega Man Battle Network games [though these are on the Switch now], the Legacy of Goku games, the Metroid games, and of course, Minish Cap. The Castlevania games are expensive but on my radar.

I want to explore these libraries, but as you can see I’m not mentioning a whole lot of games. I definitely want to add the iconic titles I’ve missed over the years first, but I want to hear about great deep cuts, especially if they’re affordable.

Are there any game console libraries that you love or want to explore but don’t feel the need to have an exhaustive collection for? Let me know. Thanks for reading. Have a great day!