Game Collecting Stories - My White Whale, The Lunar Games

I think most collectors have that one game, console or peripheral that has eluded them for a while to the point where it becomes something of an obsession. To the point where you feel like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick trying to kill that damned white whale. For some, it might be a big name collector's item like Earthbound, for others, a no name game that they really want like Spider-Man: Web of Fire on the 32X in an effort to complete their 32X collection (and why wouldn't you? It's such a great console, and Web of Fire isn't infamous for being one of the worst games on the 32X... Oh, wait. ) For my white whale, there's more to it than "I WANT THIS." It wasn't even a specific item I wanted, and the reasons for my obsession wasn't that it was a rare, expensive item, but that it kept slipping through my grasps.

It was Lunar 2: Eternal Blue for the Playstation. I saw a complete boxed copy for sale on eBay with all the cool stuff that came with it, the game, the soundtrack CD, the cool collectors items... all of it. Usually, that goes for about $100, easy. I didn't have that kind of money to spend, but I did have about $70. I figured I'd just keep the game on my watch list just out of curiosity to see how much it would go for. I was betting at least $120. I checked back the next day, and it was something like $55. I was pissed. I could have gotten it. There's a very good chance that the final bidder had a much higher bid than that, but it was worth a try. I might have a really kick ass collectors item and what's supposedly one of the best RPGs on the PS1 in my collection for about half the typical market value.

That's when it started. After another lost auction for the game (just the game itself in the standard double jewel case - none of the bells and whistles) it got worse. Then I saw a copy of Lunar: The Silver Star, the first game in the series at a thrift store. I was elated. I was about to get one of the Lunar games for a few bucks. I opened the case, and there was nothing inside. I asked the people who worked there if they kept the discs separate, but they didn't. They just had the empty case.

I will own you some day... You bastard.

That's the moment when it got personal. I went to GameStop and found the PSP game, Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for $15. I didn't hesitate. I grabbed it, put it on the counter and laid down my money. I finally had one of those games. I didn't know if it was a port of the first game, the second, another game in the series I didn't know about or an entirely new game, but I didn't care. I owned a damn Lunar game. Anything else is irrelevant.

I got home, popped it in my PSP and turned it on and... giant ass crack on the screen. The PSP still worked, but I couldn't see a damn thing. I looked online to see if I could connect it to my PS3 and play it that way, but I couldn't figure out how to do it.

This was the point that I gave up. This was probably almost a year ago and I had put it out of my mind. Until now.

I just bought myself another PSP. I can now at long last play Lunar: Silver Star Harmony.

I just paid over $60 for a handheld console that I don't particularly care for, passing over a replacement for my long lost Nintendo DS that was roughly the same price

If this game isn't amazing, I'm going to be pissed.