Retro saturdays and funcoland

Sure gamestop is still around but it pales in comparison to funcoland simply because of it's used games selection and this is where my funcoland nostalgia kicks in. It opened up near me(whittier quad) some time in the late 90's and one day i convinced my dad to let me go in to check things out. I was amazed at all the video games and the display cases of the systems. Something about seeing a playstation and n64 and gameboy pocket under a glass makes it more enticing. I don't remember much about this visit only that I took an interest in the final fantasy legend games for gameboy. I picked the 1st one because it had the coolest box art. Yes this is how people bought games back then

It was hard especially for someone that isn't experienced with rpgs but it still has a soft sport in my heart today. Ok now onto the store. My memories of it are from a time period of 1999 to 2002 as that was when I would go there the most then I stopped going and it turned into a gamestop(where ironically I hope to get employment so it would be a nice circle of life thing) I got my used playstation there in late 1999 and it's pretty much where I got most of my ps1 games. I found some nes games someone threw out in the trash(they weren't that good or valuable now) and I traded them in for store credit then got hydro thunder and king of fighters 99 and a controller and memory card

The used games is what I miss, sure gamestop does have used games but they are from this generation and the previous one. Funcoland had nes,snes,gameboy and color,ps1, genesis and whatever random niche system someone would trade in like a 3DO or a an atari jaguar. When I got my snes, it's where I got super mario rpg for $19.99(back then snes games were cheaper and more common as resellers didn't exist as much) I also got a gameboy camera and bugs bunny in carrot crazy and wario land 3 and wwf attitude and super mario land 2(again) and wwf no mercy and banjo kazooie($10) and banjo tooie(also $10) and mario party 3($20)  and wcw/nwo revenge(brand new $2) and super mario 64($7) and mario kart 64($6). There are a lot more games I bought that I am forgetting but I think you get the gist of it. I spent a lot of time inside too, playing the n64 and playstation games. Oh I got my used ps2 there in march 2002 and I got dynasty warriors 2 as my 1st ps2 game. More memories, I also got tmnt turtles in time($5) for the snes and mortal kombat 3($4). It was a unique time period in video games as now it would be hard to find those games for those prices

I stopped going well I'm not sure why I stopped going to funco land. I think it was because I played my ps2 a lot and I found games for it at swap meets for cheap. I would give anything to walk into the gamestop it is today and find out I'm in funcoland 2001. One last thing, it was and still is employee procedure to offer you a subscription to game informer magazine for a low price. Yes I took them up on the offer and for most of 2001 to 2003 I had a subscription to game informer and I still have the discount card