It was 1996 when I then got my Sega Saturn.
I used to be a member of the Sega Club over here, and as such I would receive the leaflets at home, announcing new products. One of those products was the Sega Saturn. As you would expect, seeing those images of a brand new Sega console was something amazing and I instantly wanted to get one. Well, at least until I heard about the price. I didn't even ask my parents to buy me that. They wouldn't buy me a Mega Drive, it had to be my Grandmother to offer me the Master System II, let alone a Sega Saturn that was so expensive when it came out... So there I was. My master System was gathering dust because I didn't have more games for it and I had finished everything several times, not missing a single thing on any of the games I owned. I was almost 13 by that time.
Some time after Saturn's release, when the model 2 was about to come out, the day finally came when I managed to get it. That console came to my hands out of nothing. I used to visit a music store that also sold videogames. It was called Strauss. Unfortunately, that store went bankrupt many years ago but it was one of the places I loved to visit and where I'd buy some of my games. As I was walking by the showcase, I noticed the Saturn console. Suddenly I checked the price. It had dropped to less than half and that dau June 1st, Children's day (I didn't even know what that day meant, but as much as it meant gifts, I didn't even care!). I immediately called my parents and made a huge fuss about the price drop and everything. My mother was reluctant to buy the console and we went away from the store. She then left me and my father waiting for a couple of minutes to make a phone call and when she came back she said something like "okay you won't be receiving anything on your next birthday if we buy you that console now, if you really want us to buy it". Needless to say I was speechless. Out of NOTHING they bought me the Sega Saturn. WOAH!
However, my awesome mother bought the console, but forgot about the games. That cheaper console didn't come with a single game. It was just the console alone. I actually had to suffer for weeks, just watching the airship from the audio player because I had no games. Even to this day, I still tell my mother how bad that was. Eventually, she gave me the money to buy one game before my birthday - THANK GOD. I decided to get BUG! The game was awesome. Then, on my birthday, a friend of mine lent me a copy of Virtua Fighter 1. I've had that game for a couple of weeks before returning it and had GREAT FUN playing.
The next Christmas something completely changed my mother - well, not completely, but substantially. She was actually a videogaming fan but she didn't want me to play games all the time and that's the main reason why she tried to keep me away from them. She used to play Prince of Persia when I was younger on the PC at her work with her mates during breaks. She would come home telling stories about how good that game was. On that Xmas - 1996 I believe - Dragonball Z The Legend came out. At that point I didn't care about how good or bad that game was - it was BDZ, 'nuff said! Grandma got it for me. Then, when I was walking on yet another shopping center, I had the chance to play a game that had just come out very recently. It was called Tomb Raider. Nobody was playing in on the kiosk, so I gave it a shot. I was wowed. My mother came while I was playing and even she was amazed by the game as it reminded her of a much better version of Prince of Persia. She bought me the game several days later and she liked that game so much that she only allowed me to play while she could be watching, mostly during rainy weekends. Over the years that has to be the game I finished the most number of times: 21 times only in my Saturn. Later on I also played the PS1 version.
Several months later, I managed to save enough money to buy another game. I saw some awesome videos about Guardian Heroes, Shining Force III, Shining The Holy Ark and Dragon Force on a TV show. Guardian Heroes was the one I wanted the most. I was also so close to enter the RPG world, a world I never tried before... I wanted to buy one of those games, so the next time I went to a shopping center I searched for them. But... unfortunately, none of those games were there because they were kind of scarce. As you can probably guess, an impatient kid like me with enough money for a new game after several months without anything new to play had to get SOMETHING and couldn't wait. It's been a while but I can remember that I was quite disappointed to see none of those titles I've wanted the most were available. So I had to pick something else instead of looking elsewhere. And I got Nights. I loved the game, but honestly I'd rather have played one of the other games instead of paying good cash for a second hand copy many years later...
And finally, the last two games I bought for the Saturn were thanks to João Hugo, one of my best childhood friends. I wanted to buy Bug Too! because I loved the first game, but at that time classic games like Virtua Cop 2 and Daytona USA CCE had already dropped to half their original price. As a result, he convinced me to get those two games for the price of one instead of getting Bug Too! Best decision ever! I played those two to exhaustion.
In the end, my collection was limited to seven games, again, like the Sega Master System:
Bug!
Tomb Raider
Dragon Ball Z The Legend
Nights into Dreams
Virtua Cop 2
Daytona USA CCE
Sonic 3D (I remember buying this one, I just don't remember when and I didn't like it that much, unfortunately...)
I still have the console with everything including the box (it's the one pictured in the first post of this blog) and all the seven games, but over the years I replaced Dragon Ball Z with a better copy because mine had a few scratches.
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