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Games that are impossible to find or absurdly rare?

cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
When I say rare, I don't mean 'expensive' like most Saturn games(namely Panzer Dragoon Saga), or Suikoden II or a boxed Earthbound. You can find those if you want to pay for it.

I mean games that you can't even find for sale at all. They're all in someone's possession who won't part with it, or if one shows up, it'll sell for astronomical value or just disappear in minutes.

There's two that I know of for sure:

http://www.ghostlight.uk.com/games/sony-psp/elminage-original-limited-edition.html

The Elminage Original LE for PSP.

The EU release. 300 copies exist.

elminage_glam_shot_1.jpg


I have never seen this go for sale.

When they said limited, they meant it.


Elemental Gearbolt Assassin's Case

These include a gold-plated Guncon. They were only given to winners of a contest that Working Designs started. They're understandably impossible to find.

40 of these exist.


tumblr_m5ef7j7h3J1rppy76o1_1280.png



So yeah, think of ultra low print runs, not high priced LEs that are a dime a dozen.
 
Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Resident Evil 1.5?
 
GuyKazama

GuyKazama

Member
It took me a couple of years on ebay to find a floppy disk copy of the graphical version of MECC's The Market Place for IBM PCs.
 
M

momshotdad

Member
Star Fox Weekend/Donkey Kong Tournament carts for the SNES. Hardly ever for sale and when they do it's for minimum $500
 
G

GKFinns

Member
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Fortune Hunter edition.

Only around 1,500 were made (I think) and they were only given away as contest prizes or for being randomly selected during the multiplayer beta.


1261.fortunehunter.jpg
 
L

Lagamorph

Member
King of Fighters 2000 for the Neo Geo.

Only 100 copies were ever released.


There are also 10 copies of Tetris for the Mega Drive floating around in the world.
 
eXistor

eXistor

Member
Darius Alpha on PC Engine.

You had to buy essentially the same game twice; both on Hucard (Darius Plus) and CD-Rom (Super Darius). Then, you had to send in the two coupons that were in those games' manuals and you could get Darius Alpha (basically a Boss rush game) if you're lucky. Apparently about 800 exist.

Btw, I have that Elminage in the OP. Got lucky with that one I guess, I ordered it from their website when it was announced.
 
M

MrT-Tar

Member
It's hardware, but I remember back in 2004/05, Nintendo of Europe advertised a competition to win a 24-carat gold Gameboy Advance SP (same design as the gold coloured Minish Cap special editions iirc). I've honestly never heard of any of the winners, or any being sold/auctioned off. I've always considered that a bit strange given some of the very rare gaming items that have been put on Ebay.

EDIT: Found this: http://www.retrocollect.com/Article...ated-legend-of-zelda-game-boy-advance-sp.html

Apparently as of 2011, there have been no auctions or even confirmation of winners. Strange
 
D

DecoReturns

Member
There was a Minish Cap special edition that had 300 copies. Someone even made a thread about it.

Sometimes I wonder if any games I have will become super rare. Right now maybe the triple Fire Emblem cart and Bayo 1 on Wii U?
 
M

Mendrox

Member
DecoReturns said:
There was a Minish Cap special edition that had 300 copies. Someone even made a thread about it.

Sometimes I wonder if any games I have will become super rare. Right now maybe the triple Fire Emblem cart and Bayo 1 on Wii U?
Click to expand...

Bayo 1 on Wii U is really common.
 
P

Phediuk

Member
Tetris for the Mega Drive; apparently only like 6 copies are known to exist because it was pulled fro shelves pretty much instantly (or maybe never even made it to shelves.)
 
P

PastorOfMuppets

Banned
I'm gonna change the criteria a bit because I think it's cheating if you consider:

  • Unreleased games
  • Games that were recalled (ie: Stadium Events) for any reason
  • Collectors or Limited Edition. I mean, if we're gonan do this one, Saints Row 3 had a special $100,000 dollar "edition" that came with a sports car. Functionally, the game itself is the same as any regular copy you can get off Amazon. Though
  • Promotional games that were never released to the public (NES Gold Cart)

In that respect, I would imagine that one of the rarest games ever made would be to be a working copy of Akalabeth by Richard Garriot (Ultima fame). The original game was released in a ziplock bag. Due to the historical relevance of it and the rate at which floppy disks degrade over time, a working copy of such a game would likely be the rarest game in existence. It's coming up on it's 40th anniversary soon (2019). It would be unbelievable if found a copy of such a game in it's original packaging and still working. You're talking about a 40 year old 5.25 inch floppy disk here.
 
P

Phediuk

Member
Also, pretty much every game from the early days of home computers is rare as fuck. That was the era when publishing a game meant you put a few floppy disks and photocopied instructions in Ziploc bags and gave them to your local computer store.

So games like the original edition of Akalabeth are stupidly valuable now.
 
Geno Breaker

Geno Breaker

Banned
MrT-Tar said:
It's hardware, but I remember back in 2004/05, Nintendo of Europe advertised a competition to win a 24-carat gold Gameboy Advance SP (same design as the gold coloured Minish Cap special editions iirc). I've honestly never heard of any of the winners, or any being sold/auctioned off. I've always considered that a bit strange given some of the very rare gaming items that have been put on Ebay.

EDIT: Found this: http://www.retrocollect.com/Article...ated-legend-of-zelda-game-boy-advance-sp.html

Apparently as of 2011, there have been no auctions or even confirmation of winners. Strange
Click to expand...
Weird, have there been any other situations like this?
 
P

PastorOfMuppets

Banned
Phediuk said:
Also, pretty much every game from the early days of home computers is rare as fuck. That was the era when publishing a game meant you put a few floppy disks and photocopied instructions in Ziploc bags and gave them to your local computer store.

So games like the original edition of Akalabeth are stupidly valuable now.
Click to expand...

Incidentally, John Romero (yes, that one) is a collector of that era of PC games. He has an ebay account and he sometimes puts parts of his collection up for sale. There's been some absolutely incredible things he's sold.
 
Z

Zero315

Banned
Lord of Ostia said:
That's not that rare, every Limited Run Games release is less than half that, and those aren't even that rare
Click to expand...
The games that Limited Run release are also available digitally so the two aren't really comparable.

Came to post the Uncharted 2 Fortune Hunter edition but I see it's already been posted. I wanted one of those so bad.
 
E

eyeball_kid

Member
What about that indie game from a few years ago that has only one physical copy? And I think it modifies its own code over time or something?

I think there's probably a lot of early PC and Mac games that fall into the "extremely rare" category though.
 
J

JeremyEtcetera

Unconfirmed Member
Ctrl + F: Panzer Dragoon _____

Yep OP got it. Especially the Saturn ones.
 
M

Man God

Non-Canon Member
Zero315 said:
The games that Limited Run release are also available digitally so the two aren't really comparable.

Came to post the Uncharted 2 Fortune Hunter edition but I see it's already been posted. I wanted one of those so bad.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. They haven't released a truly hard to find game in about a decade for that reason unless you count limited editions as their own thing.
 
G

Glowsquid

Member
It's certainly not the rarest, but the PC english release of Gundam 0079: The War For Earth is so obscure and rare (as in, "two copies sold on ebay over a 12-month period" kind of rare) that a few databases incorrectly state it was never released outside Japan.
 
1

13ruce

Banned
Some region versions of Twin Snakes, A thousand year door and Smash Melee are 100+ bucks or euro's.

Twilight Princess also was but the HD version sliced the price.

Oh and metroid Prime trilogy still is 99+ despite a eshop version.

Edit: well for super rare dunno that super rare Zelda cartridge i guess?
 
F

Fury451

Banned
Rule of Rose is nigh impossible to find for a reasonable price.

Haunting Ground and Kuon too- in fact most PS2-era horror/niche Japanese games are like this.

Oh, I see, you have incredibly specific rules for your criteria. Well, I don't know that if that's a widepsread thing, but any limited print ones is probably as close to that as you get outside of super special cases.
 
N

NinjaCoachZ

Member
Is Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core Plus on Wii rare? There's only one person selling it secondhand on Amazon or eBay and it's going for $100. I actually have the game and I'm shitting my pants seeing that. I had no idea it got such a seemingly small print run compared to the vanilla version.
 
S

ShroudOfFate

Member
Never Forget to Nausicaa on the MSX. For the longest time people couldn't even verify if it was real and I've only ever seen one loose cart on eBay go for $800.

It's apparently terrible, but with Nausicaa being my favorite manga/Ghibli movie it's my most wanted game.
 
F

Finale Fireworker

Member
I was under the impression that English copies of Epic Mickey 2 for Vita were enormously difficult to find and worth a fortune, but I checked eBay and found a few of them for $150-$300.

That's kind of disappointing. I thought I had a good one. A couple years ago I checked eBay all the time and never saw one go up. It seems like they're readily available now, just expensive.

This thread is cool!
 
ThatStupidLion

ThatStupidLion

Member
More than shining force 3 or panzar dragoon saga i think magic knight ray earth is very rare since it was tr last satrn release i believe.

I waited and waited to buy it when it released but i think i got distracted once i bought a 64 and the new gens came out
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
eXistor said:
Darius Alpha on PC Engine.

You had to buy essentially the same game twice; both on Hucard (Darius Plus) and CD-Rom (Super Darius). Then, you had to send in the two coupons that were in those games' manuals and you could get Darius Alpha (basically a Boss rush game) if you're lucky. Apparently about 800 exist.

Btw, I have that Elminage in the OP. Got lucky with that one I guess, I ordered it from their website when it was announced.
Click to expand...
You know who to sell it to when you get bored of it. ;)
 
C

CannonFodder52

Member
Rule of Rose UK.

Pretty sure that game got recalled and very few English copies got out. Feel free to correct me if I'm completely wrong on this. I bought the way more affordable NA version.
 
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