With that fun adventure out of the way, it’s time for me to return home. But first, I’ve got some unfinished business to take care of. I usually put “bonus” in the title of blog posts that I feel don’t directly relate to the subject matter of this blog, but it ended up being related enough to merit being here.
Before we get to that, I want to know what the hell’s in here. Look at this place. It has to be pretty impressive with a structure like that. They probably won’t let me take pictures either, so let me take a quick peek inside…
…oh god, was that a mistake. When you first get in, there’s a one-way escalator going up, and the only way to get to the down escalator is to walk through this maze of showrooms and an eating place that looks like a showroom. Then when you get to the down escalator, you need to walk through the entire BOTTOM maze to get out. The bottom floor is some unholy combination of a swap meet, Macy’s, and Home Depot. I don’t know if this is the case with every Ikea store, but I’m sure not going in this one again soon.
With the Ikea cornfield maze behind me, I return to the metro light rail. This train is located in Mall of America and goes directly to where I live, so getting to and from MoA is simple. It’s the main reason I used to come by so often when I had nothing better to do.
This is the stop I mentioned earlier, not the Ikea store. I don’t remember how I found this particular stop, but it’s one of my favorites. Don’t let the glaring lights fool you; this is a run-down ghetto part of town. I’m amazed I’ve never been robbed here, to be honest.
This is my jam right here. It’s Friday, so there won’t be much, but this place is a bloody gold mine on a good day. Nobody working here knows the value of anything, and this area is dangerous enough to deter most of the college “thrifting” kids (unlike most of the local Goodwills). I’ve found so much great stuff here. My best find was a copy of Pokemon HeartGold for 3 dollars when it goes for 50+ nowadays. It’s also a great place to find PS2s, Gamecubes, and Xboxes for about ten bucks each. Let’s see what I can find today.
A DDR Gamecube pad and DDR (PS3) are in the box with the pad. I don’t own a PS3 or Gamecube DDR pad, so these were quite a find. This is a rare chance to talk about the differences between DDR on home consoles, so I’m damn well going to. Each console has its unique series of games:
Playstation – The original PSX games, in Japan at least, had straight arcade ports. While none of them had returning songs (since you could play the older games), they were otherwise about as close to the arcade versions as you could expect. In the US, we got a couple of half-hearted attempts to bring DDR over without any licensed music.
Playstation 2 – This was when America started getting its shit together. While Japan continued doing what they were doing, America began to bringing the Japanese games over with modified song lists. While they were far from perfect, they at least tried to get the more popular licensed songs from the arcade.
Xbox/360 – Unlike the Playstation games, these things didn’t bother trying to adhere to the arcade releases and just did whatever they wanted. They’re a bizarre mix of licensed western music, new stuff from indie artists, new remixes of old DDR songs (Max 300 Super Max Me mix is the most well-known example), songs from other Bemani titles that hadn’t found their way into DDR before, and random-ass songs from the arcade including older stuff that wouldn’t have seen the light of day in America otherwise. Do you know Butterfly? The most iconic DDR song? This series is the only US home release to have it (although DDRX for PS2 has a different cut of it). Many songs from this series later found their way into the arcade.
Gamecube – lol Mario Mix
Wii – Unlike the Xbox and Playstation series, the Wii games decided almost entirely to divorce themselves from the arcade and do their own thing. The only arcade songs to find their way into these games were a handful of English covers of Japanese songs like Love Shine. These games are primarily bad covers of English pop music but also have a lot of new stuff from the main game artists. Songs like Super Samurai and the EVOLVED boss songs came out of these games. But for every good thing to come out of these games, you also had some crap, like the first game not having speed modifiers or none of them having doubles mode. There’s also some Wiimote option or something.
PS3 – By this point, Japan was sick of DDR, so these games were mainly a US thing. They’re exactly what you’d expect from a DDR game aimed at the Just Dance crowd. They do sorta-kinda correspond to the arcade releases of X2 and X3, though. The Wii also got these games after the Hottest Party series finished, so there’s no real point in having a PS3 dance pad just for these games.
And that long-winded explanation is why I didn’t buy either of these. God the PS3 pad was tempting, though…
Look, manga. There’s a surprising amount of it in stock today. I tried looking up information about those original printings of Slam Dunk, but I couldn’t find enough information about them to tell if they’re rare or not. Hopefully, they’re not worth a few hundred dollars or something. There’s also some YYH, Buson Renkin, Eyeshield 21, and Bleach if you’re into that kind of thing. There was also an unusual amount of Shojo manga today. Shame I don’t collect manga.
The other one is Animorphs. Animorphs are good stuff. I’ve always told myself I’d start a collection from used bookstores since they’re so easy to find, but the later volumes only turn up once in a blue moon. Back when I still had stuff, I found the relatively rare “Megamorphs 1 volume 2” (when Megamorphs 1 was first released, it had a pretty limited 2-part release alongside the average complete book) for two bucks at one of these places and kept it in my trunk, with no idea what the hell to do with it. I mean, nobody will be impressed by half of a young adult book.
I always wanted one of those Domino sets as a kid. At one point, my grandparents got me one from a swap meet, then returned it the next day because they couldn’t wrap their heads around it and thought it was defective. But that’s not the main focal point of this picture. On the right is the 3D Mystery Jigsaw Puzzle. The gimmick was that a frame went around the outside of the box, and you built the sides of the building over it. The catch was that EVERY window was interchangeable once assembled. Using clues in the dialog boxes, you had to figure out where each window went. Once you got them all in place, you could use the other characters’ dialog to figure out the murderer by their placement. It was involved for a jigsaw puzzle and deserved more love.
A dinosaur franchise that long outstayed its welcome can now be yours on VHS format if Cartoon Network’s constantly playing them in the late 2000s didn’t give you your fill. None of them merit watching beyond the first one, but the second is almost worth it to hear Jeff Bennett trying his damnedest to make a terrible song about eggs sound good.
Can you guess which movie is about Littlefoot meeting aliens?
…
(it’s VII)
This was with the board games. Is it okay to be selling five-year-old microwavable cake powder? Isn’t there a shelf life on this kind of thing?
Anyway, that’s all the fun we’re going to get out of a Savers on a Friday. Let’s go someplace more exciting, like the laundromat.
I wasn’t kidding about skimming the local laundromats for arcade games. Usually, it’s just something like Tekken or Golden Tee, but I got lucky with this one. This place is decked out by laundry standards.
Look at all of this weak nonsense. If you’re one of the fortunate ones, you can grab some Starbursts or Skittles. You’re much more likely to accidentally grab one tiny Tootsie Roll from the sea of them. The Dots are just there to create the illusion of something besides Tootsie Rolls. Nobody wants Dots; they’re just filler.
Oh boy, those Mario Pad things again, except this time they’re in an impossible position to grab, so you’re forced to go for lesser prizes like a stuffed bottle of Tabasco or GIR from some short-lived Nickelodeon cartoon that hasn’t been relevant since the 2000s. Look at that smug Batman, sitting there taunting you while you’re forced to fish for plush condiments.
It looks like Ms. Pac-man, but it’s one of those unofficial 60-games-in-one deals. I could have sworn I had a quarter on me. Otherwise, I’d have gone through the list to see if there was anything worth mentioning. It looks like pretty standard fare, though. At the very least, it’s in working condition, which is more than I can say about most laundromat arcade games I’ve encountered.
Hmm…
I made a mistake in my previous post. This isn’t Marvel vs. Capcom. No, this is a much harder-to-find game these days. Before Ryu and Cyclops dragged everyone else into the fray, it was a much more personal conflict between the X-men and Street Fighter cast.
One day, someone at Capcom went, “Hey, X-men Children of the Atom looks and plays a lot like Street Fighter. What if we combined both games?” and the VS series was born. Each entry in the series drew sprites from more games until it reached the point where Marvel VS Capcom 2 had a ridiculous 50-character roster of almost nothing but recycled assets. Whoever came up with this low-effort franchise was brilliant.
One last stop before I head home for the night; you don’t have to read this anymore. Even though I admit this is one of my weaker entries, I wanted to show off this area at least once. That shitty Water Park of America arcade was the perfect opportunity to get it done finally.
This is such an awful part of town. I wonder if Little Caesars was always the pizza equivalent of the Dollar Store or if they just went to hell after the 5-dollar pizza thing. My memories from that period aren’t without bias. Back when I was a kid, it was the go-to Pizza place when you had company over, unless it was my relatives and their bizarre Papa John’s fixation. I’ll never understand the appeal of that place.
The Little Caesars edition of the Sports Zone gumball machine. You’ve seen these before, I’m sure. Put a coin in and get one gumball; knock it in a hole to get two. I love that Little Caesars is dedicated enough to its brand to have a custom gumball machine at about half of its locations. This is a slightly older and easier model than the ones I’m used to, having only two holes and no obstacles.
And so, this ends not with a bang but with a gumball machine. At least I can rest easy knowing I finally got some pictures of Lake Street Plaza. Maybe next time I can go to an actual arcade?
