NiGHTS into dreams...

The earliest days of this memory are rather hazy, so I can’t pinpoint the exact year. I want to say it was 1996 when I was thirteen, but I’m not entirely certain. All I can recall is my family and I were at a Target store, doing some shopping, and I eventually made my way to the electronics department. I couldn’t get or play the latest and greatest, but that didn’t stop me from checking out the demos in the video game sections of stores like Target, Walmart, Toys R Us, Best Buy and Media Play whilst the latter was still around. Sometimes I’d play a demo, but generally was forced to watch from a distance whilst other kids, usually boys aged seven to fifteen, hogged the kiosks. It was disappointing at times, but it was how things went at home too, so I just fell into the usual routine of watching others play.

This time, whilst at Target, I saw a demo for a colourful game I’d never seen before. It looked like the character was… flying. No, not on an aeroplane or spacecraft or the like, but the person’s body was floating far above ground, racing through coloured rings in the sky, performing all kinds of spectacular aerial acrobatics the player commanded.

I was mesmerised.

Thankfully, the kid playing the demo left after a while, and I found myself holding a strange black controller that resembled a Sega Genesis controller and guiding the actions of this, er… purple-robed character. They sure looked bizarre, like a jester, in a way, but their manoeuvres through the skies were nothing to sneeze at. The gameplay was surprisingly confusing, and the time limit quickly wore down. I couldn’t figure out what to do once the purple character turned into what looked like a kid and just ran round the ground, so I regrettably left it. However, before I stepped away from the demo station, I learnt the name of the game:

NiGHTS into dreams…

Complete with the ellipsis, even. I didn’t know what system it was on – it was rather advanced for the Genesis – but the game stayed in my mind for a while afterwards. As time passed, I soon forgot all about it for a decade. Sometime around 2006, I stumbled across pictures of the game online and remembered playing a bit of the demo a long time ago. I quickly found out the purple character’s name was NiGHTS, and they were a species called Nightmaren. Even more surprising to learn was the fact the game was developed by Sonic Team. No wonder the game was so amazing, if the same team who worked on the first three Sonic games made this one.

I also discovered the game was only available on the Sega Saturn. I hadn’t heard of the console before then, which was also discouraging because even as an adult, I wouldn’t be able to afford the game or system. I was working part-time at a fast-food restaurant and didn’t get paid much. However, that couldn’t stop me from using the power of the internet to collect pictures and screenshots, and it certainly never stopped me from drawing several pieces of fanart, as I was wont to do during that time. I absolutely loved NiGHTS into dreams… and dearly wished I could play the game for myself.

A few years later, a friend told me about a Game Boy Advance ROM of a NiGHTS game was online for people to play called NiGHTS into dreams… ~Score Attack~. It came with the games Phantasy Star Online and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on GameCube. Rather self-explanatory, the game has NiGHTS flying around Nightopia, collecting blue chips and flying through rings to collect enough points to keep the timer going. Once the timer hits zero, the game is over. It was a simplistic game, but it was the only way to play anything with NiGHTS in it for me. And it was free, who could argue with that? I downloaded the ROM, played the game for hours and had so much fun with it. Sure, it was just the one level with one basic mission, so to speak, but it was NiGHTS and I was hooked.

Fast forward another eleven years to 2017. I was thirty-four and living in Pennsylvania, working two jobs and finishing my stay at college thirty miles away. I frequented the local used video game store and had become a serious collector by then. One day, I went to the store and saw a loose disc of the game I was unable to play for so long: NiGHTS into dreams… for Sega Saturn. It was a little more than I’d wanted to pay, especially when it was just the disc by itself, so I left it. I thought about the game for many hours afterwards, mentally kicking myself for leaving it behind. Who knew when I’d come across another copy of the game? Sure, I didn’t own a Saturn, but someday I would, and I’d have the game in hand when that day came. I went back the following morning and bought the game, thankful no one else had bought it in the meantime.

I was incredibly happy to finally have the game at long last, even though I couldn’t play it. They didn’t even have a Saturn at the store for purchase or playability. But again, it didn’t matter; I had the game, which was the most important. I looked forward to the day I’d buy my own Saturn and finally play the game.

That day came just over a year later.

May 2018, I lived in Oklahoma with my mom and sister, and I worked part-time as a rep for a marketing company. The job was thankless and often gruelling, but I got a pay cheque every week and could pay bills and buy things for myself, namely video games. I’d found a used video game store in the next town over, and although it was in one of the busiest parts of the city, I went there on occasion to buy games and consoles when money allowed.

That day, I traded in several games I had no interest in keeping and received a good bit of credit. I used it to cover half the cost of a Sega Saturn. I got some free demo games with it, along with some racing game just so I could say I got a boxed game as well. I eagerly took the console home, anxious to pop in my NiGHTS game and play it.

Unfortunately, the disc wouldn’t spin whenever I turned it on. I tried and tried and tried, but it was the same thing: the disc was immobile. I was so disappointed. I returned to the store the next day with the console and explained the problem. The owner apologised, saying he’d tested the console himself and it had worked; he had no idea why it wasn’t working now. He swapped it out for another Saturn, though this was a different model, and even gave me a small discount on an Action Replay that enables the Saturn to play games from other regions.

I returned home with the replacement console and Action Replay (and a Game Boy copy of R-Type), plugged in the console, popped in the NiGHTS disc and hoped for the best as I pressed the button to turn on the console.

It played perfectly the first time. I was astounded as I watched the opening cinema and heard the sweeping orchestral score playing in the background. After more than twenty years, I finally owned the game and the console, and could play NiGHTS into dreams… whenever I wanted.

I had tears in my eyes as I began playing.

Rock Band

Summer, 2008. I was twenty-five years old and had recently dropped out of college for the second time. (Okay, I actually was put on academic dismissal) I lived in a two-bedroom townhouse in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, with my sister. My brother had lived with a friend somewhere nearby but moved in with us just weeks prior. My parents lived about a forty-five minutes’ drive away in a Cincinnati suburb. They were there for my dad’s job whilst my siblings and I were in the Dayton area for school the past three years. My sister was the only one who graduated, as my brother had also dropped out of college. We weren’t planning on staying in the townhouse for long since none of us were going to school anymore; my parents certainly weren’t about to continue paying double rent when we weren’t furthering our education anymore.

Nevertheless, that summer, the three of us were in the two-story townhouse for a bit longer. I was fortunate to have the master bedroom – a privilege I would no longer have again, even to this day – whilst my sister took the second bedroom. When my brother moved in with us, he stayed on the couch in the living room. Thankfully, he didn’t have a lot of possessions, and I’d recently gone through my excess items and got rid of a large amount of it. We had a small storage unit behind the townhouse, which my sister and I used to store our extra stuff.

At the time, my brother, at twenty-seven, worked at Best Buy and was fascinated with the “latest and greatest” in technology, especially when it came to mobile phones and video games. One of the latest consoles of the time was the Xbox 360, and he just had to have it. He bought one, of course, and played lots of NFL games on it, as well as some other games here and there. He was always obsessed with playing the coaching/management side of Madden NFL games, rarely playing an actual football game. When NFL Head Coach came out, he bought a copy, but was disappointed in the game. I never really understood why, but then again, I never understood the appeal of just managing players on a team within the game and not actually, you know, playing the game.

I had a Nintendo 64, along with a “cobalt” Game Boy Advance SP (it’s the purplest cobalt I’ve ever seen) and the boxed Atari 2600 that once belonged to my parents. My brother had given it to me, claiming the console didn’t work, but the games and controllers still worked. I’d planned to eventually have it repaired or replaced, but almost all of it sadly went missing in the move to Pennsylvania in late 2010. My sister had a PlayStation but never played it; I once borrowed it, along with a friend’s copy of Final Fantasy VII, and had a blast playing the first twenty hours of the game before returning both game and console to their respective owners. I also obtained a black GameCube around that time, as the aforementioned friend got a Wii for Christmas and didn’t want his GameCube any longer. He gave it to me, along with his copy of Tales of Symphonia and a purchased copy of Mario Party 4. At the time, I still wasn’t all that serious about game collecting, but I liked all the systems and games I owned.

Then my brother introduced us to Rock Band.

He got the game on his 360, and had even bought a drum set, a guitar and a microphone for the family to play. Our parents were coming up for a visit soon, so he’d downloaded “Call Me” by Blondie so my mom could participate as well. I’d only heard of Guitar Hero prior to this, so the idea of a similar game, but with more instruments and an option for vocals, was quite intriguing to me. The last time I’d played an instrument was in the mid- to late 90s, when I was in the school orchestra and played the cello. I’d quit because I couldn’t stand the teacher and her obvious bias towards certain students, so I dropped the class and never played the cello again. Don’t get me wrong, I loved playing the cello, but those instruments are big, heavy and expensive… and nobody in the family, not even my parents, had the money to even buy one second-hand from a pawn shop.

However, with Rock Band, there were options to play an instrument, though technically only three. There were the drums, rhythm guitar and bass guitar. In addition to the instruments, one could pick up the microphone and just sing, keeping one’s pitch in tune to the actual song.

And I love singing.

Going back even further than the cello in middle and intermediate high school, I was in the school choir when I was in fifth grade. I’d tried out for it my last year of elementary school, made it and was placed in the alto section. I’d had so much fun singing in the choir then, but the idea of playing an instrument in middle school appealed to me more. That was why I’d joined the orchestra in sixth grade instead of the choir. Regardless, over the years, I continued singing along to my favourite songs; if my parents heard me, they’d harshly critique my singing – as if they sang any better – so I’d fine-tune my voice the best I could. And tried not to sing around them as often.

As mentioned in previous stories, when it comes to video games, I tend to watch someone else play it for a while before I pick up a controller. It’s just something I’d done when I was younger, and it’s something I still do today. It helps me figure out how to play the game better, as opposed to rushing in blind and getting killed right off the bat. I’m not very skilled at video games – whether it’s poor eye-hand coordination, some unknown problem with brain functionality or something else, I don’t know – so taking this approach has helped me tremendously. I rely heavily on strategy guides and walkthrough videos, especially when it comes to RPGs. With Rock Band, however, no regular game-playing skills are needed; one just needs to know how to do the basic motions of playing a guitar (holding the neck with one hand whilst moving their other hand up and down on the pickups on the body) or drums (hitting a certain drum in a certain pattern and rhythm with drumsticks) or holding a microphone to their mouth and singing. That’s it.

When my parents came for a visit, my brother let them go first. He gave my dad the microphone and let him sing along to “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. My dad was a huge fan of Ozzy and loved to sing the opening lyrics to “War Pigs” in a very exaggerated manner. When he tried doing so in Rock Band, he lost points right away. He was frustrated and disappointed, and quickly gave up before the song had even gone halfway. My brother offered the mic to my mom to sing the Blondie song, but she politely refused. I have a feeling she didn’t want to try when she couldn’t sing it the way she wanted.

That left me and my siblings to play the game.

Through trial and error, my sister ended up on the drums, my brother on rhythm guitar, and me on vocals. We played through Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”, Radiohead’s “Creep”, Blue Öyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and many more. My sister became frustrated with how hard she had to hit the drums sometimes, but we all had a lot of fun playing through the songs and delighting in unlocking more of them. We normally never got along for more than ten minutes or so, but Rock Band brought us together for several hours across one or two days, and I’ll never forget that.

I think we chose this logo because it looked like Japanese kanji. yeah yeah, weebs blah blah blah

Later, my brother let my sister and I play by ourselves – this game was seriously addicting – and we created our own characters within the game and formed a two-person band. I don’t recall the name we chose for the band, but we had a logo consisting of a red flag with some weird symbol in the middle. My sister’s character looked like she stepped out of the grunge era of the 90s whilst my character was head-to-toe emo. Think My Chemical Romance.

oh yeah, totally emo

The above photo is of the television when I’d made the character; I only had a digital camera at the time and no other way to preserve the character designs. I took several pictures of my character with the intention of drawing her sometime. I believe I drew two pictures before running out of ideas and inspiration.

kurt kobain called, he wants his ripped-up clothes back

My sister and I played through many, many songs together, with her on drums and me on vocals. We were a bizarre little band, but we had so much fun playing each song and unlocking even more songs. I learnt about several songs I’d never heard of before, such as “Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs and “Time We Had” by The Mother Hips. My sister soon grew tired of slamming the drumsticks on partially unresponsive drums and quit playing.

Before I knew it, I was alone with my brother’s Xbox 360, Rock Band and a USB microphone. I used my emo gal and sang through countless songs, from “Dani California” by Red Hot Chili Peppers to “Go with the Flow” by Queens of the Stone Age to “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer, and more. I learnt to hit exceptionally low notes with “In Bloom” by Nirvana and maintain long-held notes with “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. I even discovered songs that quickly became favourites of mine, including “Vasoline” by Stone Temple Pilots and “Learn to Fly” by Foo Fighters. It was so, so much fun to me, since I was only graded on how well I sang (and I got 100% on most songs on easy and normal modes) and didn’t have to memorise waves of enemy formations, know how to effectively use combo attacks or have hair-trigger responses to unexpected events in other video games. I just sang and sang, nothing else.

Eventually, my brother moved out again and took his 360 with him, along with Rock Band and the instruments. My sister and I later visited him, and we all played Rock Band Beatles, but I didn’t know most of the songs and the trippy backgrounds made it hard to read the lyrics on-screen. It also only lasted about an hour. My brother later sold the instruments and games; I’m not even sure he still owns his 360. Currently, I own Rock Band on several consoles, including the 360, as well as sequels and “track packs” and a microphone, but I don’t play any of them as much as I had in 2008.

I was certain that summer we’d played together would be the only time we’d do so, and I was right. Despite this, it’s still a great memory to think back on and recall all the fun my siblings and I had playing Rock Band.

Misfits

Since I didn’t grow up with video games, I didn’t get much chance to play them – just minimal amounts on rare occasion – until I was an adult. Even then, the idea of collecting them didn’t occur to me till at least 2009 when I’d purchased the SNES and Sega Genesis at the yard sale in Ohio. In addition, the idea of becoming a serious collector didn’t start till roughly 2014. The bulk of my collection was obtained within the past four years when I could afford to spend more money on games and consoles.

Due to this, nearly every system and game I own was purchased used. Even with owning the latest consoles, which were bought new, I will almost never pay full price for a game. Many of them are in new condition – particularly for the Switch – but I don’t pay the typical $60 MSRP. In fact, my PlayStation 4 and Xbox One S were bought at a steep discount, thanks to various sales. My Switch cost the full price, but I didn’t pay it all at once. The same can be said for my recently obtained Xbox Series X, which is currently being paid for via All Access Pass. In terms of my handhelds, only one was bought brand new: my cobalt Game Boy Advance SP, purchased in late 2004. All the other consoles and handhelds I own, which number rather high, were bought used.

With that said, because these systems were purchased second-hand, there are occasional… issues, so to speak, that can arise from searching for older consoles. Let me elaborate. When looking for a used console, say, a Sega Dreamcast, one can look on eBay for the arguably lowest price. However, what’s the first thing to pop up on the listings after cords, controllers and related accessories?

Broken consoles.

Whilst I’ve personally never searched for a Dreamcast on eBay – I bought mine from a used game store in Pennsylvania in 2017 as a sort of congratulations on finishing college – I have looked for different consoles and handhelds and have had to wade through page after page after page of “For Parts or Repair” listings until I find one that actually works. Even then, I’m forced to look through at least another page of “defective” systems until I come across one that doesn’t look like it’s been dropped from a second-story window or doesn’t have dead pixels on the screen.

Now, to get to the meat and potatoes of this thing, I’ll point out the systems I’ll be referring to were not purchased on sites like eBay. Only one was an online purchase but it was through a trusted seller on Instagram. I also didn’t notice the pattern right away, but it is a rather interesting one.

What do I mean?

I seem to be a bit of a buyer of “misfit” consoles.

They’re not “broken”, in the simplest form of the word, only that they… work differently, shall we say. The first misfit console I bought was an Xbox 360 S from the used game store in Pennsylvania in January 2017. The owner realised the console had a defective disc drive – it could still play disc-based games, but one would have to take the end of a paperclip, wedge it between the disc tray and console, and jimmy it around whilst pressing the eject button multiple times to get the tray to come out. The owner was dismayed at this discovery, since it meant either a repair he wouldn’t be able to do, or he’d have to pay someone else to do it and wouldn’t make the lost money back.

When he told me about this, I said, “Heck, I’ll buy it. I’ve been wanting a 360.”

He sold it to me at a discount, grateful for the easy sale. I still have to jimmy the disc drive to get the tray to open, as I haven’t looked into repairing it despite owning the console for more than four years. I know it’s not a good idea to keep doing that with the disc drive, and I’ll get it fixed someday, but it’s rather neat having a “misfit” 360 to talk about in the meantime.

The second misfit is my Wii U, purchased from the same place about a month later. The owner’s daughter, who occasionally helped run the store, accepted a trade-in on a Wii U and a few games. She didn’t bother checking over the system or testing it; she just took the customer’s word that it worked and completed the trade-in. The next day, the owner was looking over the Wii U and found a flaw. When I came into the store, he told me about the trade-in (I was there for it, by the way) and expressed frustration over the flaw. I asked him what the flaw was.

A broken HDMI socket.

One or two of the little bits of metal inside the socket – called contacts or pins – were broken, rendering the entire port useless. The AV socket worked, of course, and the console was playable, but not in HD. When the owner explained this to me, I looked him straight in the eye and said, “I don’t give a crap about graphics.” I was mostly used to seeing 16-bit Super Nintendo and Genesis graphics, so a downgrade in graphics quality on the Wii U shouldn’t be a problem, right? (I know it’s not right, please bear with me)

The owner sold the Wii U to me, along with the only game I ever wanted to play on the console: Super Mario Maker. I had the game on my 3DS and had an absolute ball building levels, but I knew the best way to experience the game was to buy the larger, and more powerful, Wii U version. After taking the console and game home, I hooked it all up and got everything set up on my TV, then immediately noticed a problem: the images on my gamepad were sharper and clearer than my television.

That struck me as odd, since my HDTV was a recent purchase. It shouldn’t have blurry graphics on it at all. I had the same problem with my PlayStation 3 slim, as it didn’t come with an HDMI cable and I’d resorted to using an AV cord. It took some time for me to put two and two together:

No HDMI cable = blurry graphics
HDMI cable = sharp, clear graphics

This wasn’t as simple as a downgrade in graphics, this was making the normal graphics blurry on my HDTV when using AV cords. I later bought some HDMI cords and used one on my PS3, noticing an immediate difference. The picture was much clearer, allowing me to see many details in the background. The only problem was the inability to use the cord on my Wii U, since the socket itself was broken. I will eventually have the socket replaced – I’ve read online it’s better to get someone knowledgeable about it to replace the socket – but in the meantime, I primarily play on my gamepad (much like the Switch Lite amirite) and try not to let the blurry graphics on the television screen bother me.

Prior to both consoles, a sort-of “misfit” console is my NES, purchased in December 2016. I also bought it from the same place as the others and was certain it was tested before it was made available for sale. I took it home, plugged it up, and had nothing but problems with getting the games to work. I understand the Nintendo Entertainment System is an old electronic device and games aren’t always going to work the first time you pop it into a console. However, I also know it shouldn’t take fifteen to twenty tries to have the same blinking red light on the system (and a flashing screen on the television) and no gameplay.

I returned the NES to the store and explained the problem. The owner told me to leave the console with him and he’d get the correct parts to have it replaced. I took him at his word and left it at the store.

For weeks.

I finally approached him about it again – he’d previously given me the run-around about how long it was taking to get new parts – and he gave up and gave me a different console. Grateful, I took it home, plugged it up… and had the exact same problem. I was quite angry about the whole affair, as it meant I’d have to return the NES to the store AGAIN, wait for weeks and weeks, get another defective system, etc.

I turned on the console again.

The title screen of the game appeared.

“Hooray!” I cheered, happily playing the game. (actually, I believe I said something more like, “It’s about ******* time” but you get the idea)

I kept the NES with me for a few years, dealing with its ornery ways. I’d tried replacing the pins myself – I’d looked up the problem online and identified it as the source of the issue – and had the same trouble. I took it to the video game store in Oklahoma in 2018 and had the pins replaced again, but still had the exact same problem. This NES was giving me nothing but trouble. I later bought a Retron HD, which played NES games on HDTVs, and it gave me a reprieve from the hassle of the “misfit” NES. I also obtained two NES consoles from yard sales – a complete rarity in this area – and finally sold the ornery NES at a yard sale in 2020. I warned the buyer about the system’s pickiness on playing games, but they still bought it anyway.

The last “misfit” isn’t a console at all – it’s a handheld. This DS Lite was bought in May 2018 from a trusted seller on Instagram. They’d mentioned wanting to sell it at a discount because the hinges were broken on it. I knew it would make for a tough sell since it’s quite difficult repairing broken hinges; there’s a different person on Instagram who takes these very same broken DS Lites and transforms them into Game Boy Advance handhelds with added speaker to enhance sound and customised buttons to make them look colourful and pleasing to the eye. That person doesn’t do them for a living, nor do they take people’s broken DS Lites and customises them to the GBA. No, they usually happen to find the defective handhelds online in lots or comes across them at boot sales – they live in England – and works on them occasionally as a hobby.

That said, I knew this red and black DS Lite wouldn’t get that sort of transformation or customisation. A lot of people don’t wish to buy a defective handheld, despite the system itself functioning normally. So I bought it. When I received it in the mail, I carefully opened it, put in a game and turned it on. It worked perfectly.

I wish I could say more about it, but all I’ve done since then is ensure it’s safely stored with all my other handhelds. Since the hinge is broken, there’s really nothing more I can do, and I honestly don’t know who would be willing to fix it at a reasonable cost. At the very least, the DS Lite has a loving home where it’s well-cared for.

A sort of honorary mention is my Magnavox Odyssey 2, which was obtained at the end of July 2020 at the used video game store in Oklahoma. I’d frequented the place as a sales rep since I was constantly in the area for work. When I was there one day, the owner was talking about previously having an Odyssey 2 for sale, but had sold it a few days before I’d come in. I was disappointed, as I’d hoped to buy it myself. I’d read about the console through several retro gaming books and magazines and wanted to try it out myself.

When I mentioned this to the owner, he told me he had a couple of Odyssey systems in the back, though one wasn’t working properly. I asked for clarification and he told me when he plugged in the console and turned it on, the red “Power” light turned on, but that was it. He didn’t have the time, money or resources to sink into repairing the console, so he’d planned to take it to the local recycling centre if no one took it off his hands.

You guessed it: I told him, “I’ll take it off your hands.”

He was incredibly grateful and put everything into a couple plastic bags for me, even throwing in a free game (I think it’s a baseball game) to use whenever I was ready to test the system. The woman who also worked there and had talked to me about the Odyssey 2 asked me to let her know if I ever got it working. I told her – and the owner – that I would, and happily left with the console and my other purchase. This would be a big project that I’d have to look up videos online to figure out what to do, and I was looking forward to tackling that project once I got the chance.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to get that chance. In early October 2020, I got a different job working for a big-box retailer full-time and have been far too busy with it to get much of anything done on my two days off. As a sales rep, I didn’t work long hours and had plenty of free time even on workdays, but with my current job, I’m there forty hours a week (technically forty-five, as I also get an hour-long lunch break each day) and working a very physically demanding job. When I get a day off, I’m so exhausted, I usually spend most of the day sleeping and taking it easy.

Because of this, the Odyssey 2 isn’t really a “misfit” console so much as it’s a console that needs serious repair. This is why I’ve said it’s an honorary mention. I will repair it someday and will hopefully get it up and running. If I don’t, it’ll be a nice decoration until I get a working Odyssey 2 console.