Complete: Magnavox Odyssey 2 Software Library (North America)

Started: December 25, 1981 with Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!
Finished: Fall 2019 with Nimble Numbers NED!

It all began here for me as on Christmas morning of 1981, the Atari 2600 I had asked for ended up being a Magnavox Odyssey 2, I suspect thanks to a shady salesman at the O’Neils store at the Richland Mall in Mansfield. As I always say, I made the best of it and thankfully Odyssey cranked out a lot of great titles before the crash of 1983.

As a teen with negligible income, I was at my folks mercy in terms of software acquisition for it, getting new releases for good grades and birthdays, and for larger chores. It worked out well as new Odyssey 2 releases were months apart. I managed to pick up a few older games as well when they became discounted. Christmas of 1982 brought my last big roundup of Odyssey 2 games, as well as the Voice, the add-on voice synthesis peripheral.

By early 1983, the Odyssey 2 was at least fifth place in the market, but the last few games were stellar, including Killer Bees and a port of Demon Attack. As the great crash of 1983 took hold and consoles went down, I managed to talk mom and dad into a computer with the Commodore VIC 20, and the Odyssey 2 started gathering dust. In the fall of 1984 I picked up one last discount game in Volleyball and considered my collection done at that point.

Pictured above is my first inventory of any video game system, with prices. Some of the games - Freedom Fighters, Pick Axe Pete, and K.C’s Krazy Chase - were release day prices. I moved on to the Commodore 64 for the rest of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s I had started picking up older games at the same stores I was buying new games.

In addition, those early eighties consoles started popping up in flea markets and thrift stores and I was cleaning up. In an age before eBay, where few of us were thinking to preserve the games of yesteryear, I had my run of a major metropolitan area for years. Additional Odyssey 2 games were certainly picked up then, along with extra consoles and controllers.

In the early 2000s I turned to eBay to pick off a few rare Odyssey 2 games I had missed. Atlantis was the only other third party release for the Odyssey 2, again by Imagic.  Power Lords, the last Odyssey 2 game from Magnavox/NAP , was a weird tie in to a comic book/toy line or something. I also picked up a few amazing homebrew titles during this decade as that scene exploded, but they are outside the scope of this collection.

Of course the Odyssey 2 survived the Purge I did on eBay around 2007-2008, and in 2019 I decided to track down the relatively cheap remaining titles to round out the set. It didn’t take long as none of them were very rare, but it took a while to find SID the Spellbinder and Nimble Numbers NED with  the extra documents they contained.

Thirty eight years after obtaining my first piece of video game software ever, I have completed my first complete collection of every commercially released title for a system. Say what you will about Odyssey, they fought hard in the face of Atari’s market dominance, with inferior hardware and virtually no third party support.

You never forget your first love, and I’m glad I’ve held onto mine, and completed the software library for it. Decades from now I hope to still be playing U.F.O. or getting my retired friends to sit down for a session of Quest for the Rings. The Magnavox Odyssey 2 was my first video game system, and if it ends up being my last one, I’d be okay with that.

Beaten: Ys Book 2 - Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter (Turbografx 16 CD via Turbografx 16 Mini)

Whew, that was close. Again.

Pictured above is my stunning defeat of the final boss of Ys Book 2, the Turbografx 16 CD classic that took me 30 years to get around to playing. Ys Book 2 is actually Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter, originally released on Japanese computers in 1989 before getting bundled with the first Ys game for the Turbografx 16 CD. 

Fantastic music, cutscenes, and polished gameplay shine through this straightforward masterpiece of its time. You start Ys Book 2 bereft of your armor, weapons, and most items  from Ys Book 1, but levelling continues from the first. Pacing is perfect and you level as you explore with no need for grinding, but occasionally you’ll find a sweet spot and go for it anyway.

The major addition in Book 2 is magic wands and MP to power their effects. Since the first wand was fire, and shot fireballs, I assumed the others would be also elemental themed effects, but Ys is a little offbeat in its design. Instead, the other magic included useful effects like teleportation back to any town, shield, and disguise as a monster. 

While disguised as a monster, you get access to monster only areas and converse with the enemies, who sometimes offer useful clues regarding your next step. It added an unexpected and wholly delightful twist on the normal gameplay.

Most boss fights were epic challenges worthy of song with insane attacks and razor edge margins for error. Hell yes I used the save anywhere feature of the Turbografx 16 Mini to save optimal gameplay runs on a few of them. If I started out good in a boss fight, I’d save that point and start subsequent attempts from there. Again, don’t judge, I’m middle-aged.

Some of the boss fights were pushovers, but I’ll take it. 

I previously stated that back in the day I was not convinced that Ys Book 1 &  2 was the killer app that would make me take the plunge and get the Turbografx 16 CD. I was wrong and I know that this game would have been a favorite of mine back then. Here in 2020 hindsight is still 20/20, but at least I got to play it now thanks to the current wave of 90s retro gaming nostalgia and the good-enough-for-now Turbografx 16 Mini.