I am SURE I am not the only person in this boat lol…so it would be fun to hear others “holy grail” items they just can’t manage to find! Especially because a lot of times the hunt is as much fun, if not more, than the item itself.
I’ll start
Fighting Bujutsu on the Konami Cobra Arcade board. Been looking for near to two years…zero results. One sold and was broken and I missed it
Poly-Net Warriors. Also a Konami arcade game running on their Polygonet arcade board. Real early Model 1 style graphics. Been looking for over a year…no results!
D2/Clayfighter assets or betas for the 3DO M2. Been looking for 5+ years…found one SPECK of D2 and nothing for ClayFighter.
Dolphin demo disc for the 3DO M2. I know one collector who has it…will not part with/dump it…not for any money offer. So trying to find a second source
Some real holy grail stuff but I am surprised the two Konami arcade games, which did release are so damn hard to find.
But what’s your grail item? Plus if we all know each others wants if we see it we can give each other a heads up lol
Panzer Dragoon Saga - I don’t think this needs much explanation.
Metal Slug 6 on Atomiswave - finding a genuine cart is near impossible. They’re mostly bootlegs. It almost makes me just want to burn the new Dreamcast port that guy made. And the version released in the anthology is just not good enough. It’s the only Metal Slug game on original hardware that I’m missing (that I care about at least - that PS2 3D game is a hard pass from me).
A decent super gun- every time a new one comes out that people recommend, it’s sold out indefinitely. I just can’t keep up with this stuff.
PS5 and XBOX Series X - pretty sure I won’t be able to find one until holiday season 2022 or something.
Do you know if the stand alone release is different from the one included in the anthology collection?
I’m a big fan of Toshio Iwai so for me it’s Tenori-On for the wonderswan, 15 years of sporadic searching and nothing. 120 copies produced, only sold at a couple of his events in Japan. Although given what the only auction I know of (and missed yay) sold for by now it will be far too expensive even if I do find it.
I’ve been trying to find a good copy of Power Strike and Golden Axe Warrior for the Master System for years, and haven’t managed to see a single copy of either with manual.
I’ve seen Power Strike with cart only and without manual, but never complete.
First one I can think of is a 20" BVM. The D24 or D32 is the real holy grail, but even a 4:3 20" BVM is getting up there now. Prices have gotten absolutely insane over the last couple of years. Anytime I manage to spot one for sale they’re asking primo ebay prices and they’re usually beat to death with a million hours on the tube.
Yeah, you aren’t kidding. I got my 20" PVM 20M2U for $300 and the dude threw in the PVM-2030 for FREE because he couldn’t get it to work. I soldered a bad joint in the connector and it worked just
$40 for a 14" is incredible anyway you slice it! I’m kind of kicking myself for not just snatching up a sub 1K 20" BVM a couple years back. At the time I thought $600 for a BVM was just too much.
Shou has a copy of Fighting Bujitsu, it seems as if the rarity comes down to the hardware being so prone to failure.
“Most of these boards are dead and have been thrown away as it has 2 major failure points: a suicide battery and hard drive. Most people do not know how to resurrect the game so unfortunately, it has become extremely hard to find. I have not seen any arcade in Tokyo with this game in the last decade.”
I forgot to mention my hadware grail, aside from the obvious desirable cabs like a Mini Cute, SC14-2 or Pony Mark III have always loved how the Taito MT-8 looks with the awesome SNK style hood and lighting, such a beautiful machine and a genuine rarity.
Got it - so Panzer Dragoon Saga wouldn’t fit this thread. In that case - in the North East of the US, I struggle to find a single decent candy cab to buy. I’m not sure I even have the room for one or would pull the trigger. But it would be nice to at least be tempted to grab one. They basically don’t exist in these parts.
Yeah I saw ShouTime has one. I know of one other board in existence and that was cobbled together from two separate broken boards with different issues.
The RTC I can fix if the board is dead. I’ve learned enough about Konami and their damned battery backed clock chips to work around it lol
But even finding one in the first place is maddening
