Retrospelsmässan (Retro Game Gathering/Fair) is an annual event held in Eriksbergshallen on north coast of Göta River in the city of Gothenburg (the best city in Sweden imo). This event gathers true gamers from all over Sweden and lets them to experience the good old days of gaming as well as give a chance to purchase retro games, consoles and all sorts of accessories and collectibles.
This year's RSM had a very special guest: Mario himself, Charles Martinet, who also voiced Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi and Paarthurnax (Skyrim). Everyone had a chance to meet him, get an autograph and take pictures with him.
He also had an amazing speech there he talked about the story behind him as a voice actor and he even answered many questions as well as showing his voices. Luckily we even got a chance to meet him in the hotel, twice. It was really amazing to meet one of the people behind one of my (and many others') beloved characters.
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Bergsala (Nintendo of Sweden) was present on the event too, bringing a whole lot of nostalgia by having all Mario Kart games playable, as well as giving us the chance to have a taste of the upcoming Mario Kart 8. The game is really awesome by the way! Looking forward to May the 30th. Nintendo even had some replicas of Mario's and Luigi's karts. Just a few minutes after entering the hall, me, my sister and some of my friends who moved away to the west coast had a kind of reunion and a reminder of the good old 3DS-meetup times by playing a cup in Mario Kart 7.
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One of the cool aspects was the Demo-room, which had most of the existing consoles that anyone could try out. It was really cool to see everything from the epics like NES to even those lesser known consoles such as Jaguar, Neo Geo and even those famous flops like Virtual Boy and CDi.
And yes, I tried both. As for the Virtual Boy, the flaws are obvious, but I gotta admit that it wasn't as bad as the internet makes it to be. Don't get me wrong, it's bad, but somewhat playable. As for the Zelda CDi games... Yes, they're really bad, but again, not as bad as the internet makes it. Considering that the tea behind had little time and resources, as well as the hardware limitations, it is quite good anyway... Well, except the cutscenes, they're horrible nightmare fuel.
I also tried out other games, including Pong on Magnavox Odessey 2001, Star Fox on SNES and some weird Japanese sidecrolling space-shooter on Famicom. As mentioned before, there were tons of games and consoles to try out, including...
The unholy grail of gaming, the game that was so bad, it is said to be the cause of the Video Game crash of 1983, the game that was buried in the desert. E.T for Atari 2600.
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The big parts of the event is all the things you can buy (after all it's a Retro Game FAIR ;) ). There were tons and tons of games, consoles and other goodies. The new consoles that plays games from 5 different systems, RetroN 5, as well as a book called 8-Bits had their Swedish premieres on the event. Collectors had a chance to buy games for all the systems, some of them were really cheap, some of them were REALLY expensive (up to $800!!!). Personally, I bought the book, a Tankooki Mario Plushie, a huge event poster and a Zelda-themed bag while my sister bought PixelCraft magnets, a Yoshi egg plushie and a cool Super Mario-themed cap.
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Another attraction was making bead sprites. It was completely free and was really fun to do among many other people. I did a Mario sprite and my sister did a Lugia and Yveltal
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Well, let's just shortly mention the other attractions, because I could go on for a long time. You could try out some indie games, including the amazing SteamWorld Dig by Image&Form and even get a free copy if you answered a survey.
Some people were speed-running multiple games, several competitions were held, an art gallery and a small museum were there and just so many awesome things that it really needs to extend to two days instead of just one.
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These kind of events are of course a place where you get many StreetPass hits, and this is no exception. I got over 100 StreetPass hits on a single day, something I didn't manage on either of Gamex events. It is a really amazing feeling to be among this many people with the same interests.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I will write about what made this day so special and why this event was important to me.
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