Support NeoGAF

[DarkShadowXI]

The Bubsy 4D thread got me thinking: We've all had that one game we begged for as kids and never got. We would get a substitute game, instead.

Either our parents or grandparents didn't understand what we meant, couldn't find it, or some dude at the store talked them into something "similar."

What I Wanted

What I Got

This was my birthday gift. I smiled and said "thank you," but inside I was dying.

Yo! Noid was awful. It had weird mechanics, random difficulty spikes, and just…why was the Noid even a thing?

I'd fire it up when friends came over, hoping it would somehow be better, and it never was. We'd last 10 minutes before switching to literally anything else.

You know, I never got Royal Rumble. Still mad about it. Goddamnit.

What substitute game or toy crushed your dreams as a kid?

 

[amigastar]

I wanted this

And to my big surprise i got it on the Amiga 500 plus from my parents.

 

[Sooner]

Wanted

Got

 

[IAmRei]

i want rockman 4, but got mario instead, still like it, but not much like rockman / megaman. it is the best looking game from my side back then, but when i got rockman 4 for real, it's hard as hell. and ended finished mario first : ))

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I always really enjoyed Yo! Noid.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

I wanted a NES for Christmas but got a Sega Master System with Operation Wolf and the light gun . It's a cool console however my older brother was the one who dominated that process and despite not being his gift, had the say jn such matters basically influencing my parents. I spent Christmas Day having to watch him play it for the majority of the time.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I wanted a NES for Christmas but got a Sega Master System with Operation Wolf and the light gun . It's a cool console however my older brother was the one who dominated that process and despite not being his gift, had the say jn such matters basically influencing my parents. I spent Christmas Day having to watch him play it for the majority of the time.

Oh man, having to watch your brother play your Christmas gift that he persuaded your parents to buy is absolutely brutal. That's straight out of an 80's coming of age movie lol

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I have a brutal one and it's 100% true.

Wanted:

Got:

My older sister was present at the purchase and told me way later that my mom couldn't afford Street Fighter and asked for a cheaper game just like it. Rise was on sale.

Rekt.

 

[MrJangles]

1995. Wanted Mortal Kombat 3 (snes), got Doom (snes) instead.

Thanks Santa

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I have a brutal one and it's 100% true.

Wanted:

Got:

My older sister was present at the purchase and told me way later that my mom couldn't afford Street Fighter and asked for a cheaper game just like it. Rise was on sale.

Rekt.

Oof! Man, that's rough I feel your pain with getting "games on sale".

I got this instead of Street Fighter II because it was on sale. I talked my dad into returning it and getting SF instead.

It's the main reason why I never got into Fatal Fury. As I got older, I realized just how good that series is, too. I need to play the newest one.

 

[cireza]

I wanted this, a SEGA MegaDrive with Sonic 2 :

I got this, a Master System 2 with Sonic 1 included :

And you know what ? I was super happy and loved every minute of it. In the end, I still consider today that Sonic 1 and 2 on Master System were awesome games, even better than their MegaDrive counterparts (that I still love a ton as well).

But the Master System overall was a blessing, as the MegaDrive given its price tag would have never made it home. My parents could eventually afford it in late 1994, when they bought me the console with Sonic & Knuckles as a pack in. They bought me later the 32X used at an incredibly low price, I bought the Saturn used myself for the most part (sold many MegaDrive games), and finally caught up with the Dreamcast, getting the console new for Christmas 1999 with Soul Calibur. Wonderful times.

 

[Rran]

Wanted:

Got:

NES prices tended to vary by game...

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I wanted this, a SEGA MegaDrive with Sonic 2 :

I got this, a Master System 2 with Sonic 1 included :

And you know what ? I was super happy and loved every minute of it. In the end, I still consider today that Sonic 1 and 2 on Master System were awesome games, even better than their MegaDrive counterparts (that I still love a ton as well).

But the Master System overall was a blessing, as the MegaDrive given its price tag would have never made it home. My parents could eventually afford it in late 1994, when they bought me the console with Sonic & Knuckles as a pack in. Wonderful times.

And what's crazy is that these days a lot of us would go crazy getting either of those as a gift!

That's such a cool turn of events.

 

[deriks]

Asked for a really great Halo, and 343 delivered Infinite

For real I never got what I didn't want since all the games my parents bought was with myself going in the store to select. Sometimes I would change my mind in the spot, like when I was going to buy Harmony of Dissonance and didn't find it, and I choose Metal Gear for the GBC instead, but was my choice

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Wanted:

Got:

NES prices tended to vary by game...

You actually lucked out. Mario 3 did NOT have video-flipper aktion.

 

[Holammer]

I checked my database, there's some bad sectors and checksums but I can't recall any big disappointments.
I always got to chose myself and games cost too much for mom to take any chances.

If a game disappointed it was on me.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Oh man, having to watch your brother play your Christmas gift that he persuaded your parents to buy is absolutely brutal. That's straight out of an 80's coming of age movie lol

Yeah , he did it a year earlier too, we received a ZX Spectrum and a ton of games, a gift for both us, I ended up going to sleep early that night.

 

[begotten]

I remember when the Gameboy Advance SP came out where I was - Link To The Past + Four Swords collection was also dropping.

SP comes out - I ask my mother to go and get the console and game for me (using my savings).

I get home later that night, reach into the bag and pull the console out: Awesome

I pull the game out: Oh no

She had bought some fucking Shrek game instead.

What was weird is she never said anything about it or even prefaced with letting me know the game wasn't there (despite us having this buying arrangment for ages and this was her only mistake).

I never let her know and sadly played it for like 10 minutes before trying out my old shit.

 

[Mr Hyde]

What I wanted:

What I got instead:

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I remember when the Gameboy Advance SP came out where I was - Link To The Past + Four Swords collection was also dropping.

SP comes out - I ask my mother to go and get the console and game for me (using my savings).

I get home later that night, reach into the bag and pull the console out: Awesome

I pull the game out: Oh no

She had bought some fucking Shrek game instead.

What was weird is she never said anything about it or even prefaced with letting me know the game wasn't there (despite us having this buying arrangment for ages and this was her only mistake).

I never let her know and sadly played it for like 10 minutes before trying out my old shit.

Somewhere in this world, there's someone that wanted some fucking Shrek game on GBA for Christmas, but got a Link to the Past + Four Swords, instead…

 

[PlayStaytion]

It's about your age, I've got the chance to buy every game I wanted besides Rockstar games. I bought the ps2 in mid school cause I liked the psone and also less expensive than Xbox. I made that decision so my friends and I will play the same games.

 

[Hohenheim]

Mine are pretty mild.

Wanted: Wolfenstein 3D, got Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge.

After a initial disapointment I really got to appreciate and like Snake's Revenge, but it was hard to get into as a young kid.


Also: Really loved Final Fight in the arcades, and finally got it, but the NES version... that was a completely different game.

 

[Sintoid]

No one ever bought me a Videogame

 

[Mahnmut]

Mine are pretty mild.

Wanted: Wolfenstein 3D, got Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge.

After a initial disapointment I really got to appreciate and like Snake's Revenge, but it was hard to get into as a young kid.


Also: Really loved Final Fight in the arcades, and finally got it, but the NES version... that was a completely different game.

I hope you've kept it because it's worth a fortune these days. And it's a very cool "demake".

 

[Fbh]

My uncle said he'd take me to the store and buy me any gameboy game I wanted
I wanted this one:

But on the way to the store my mom told me I'd be polite to pick something from the clearance section instead of a more expensive game.
So I ended up getting this:

To be fair as a kid I really liked it, despite the game kinda sucking.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Probably didn't help that something like this was used for some Christmas lists lol

"Highlight the games you want…"

 

[mdkirby]

Not quite the point of the post, but I wanted a sequel to or remaster of the soul reaver / legacy of kain franchise…instead we got Nosgoth, a free to play GAAS multiplayer game…which also bombed and made a single player game all the less likely.

 

[RAIDEN1]

I wanted this

And to my big surprise i got it on the Amiga 500 plus from my parents.

I remember the biggest "omission" from this game which you would never get in any of the Amiga versions was the 1st person viewpoint of actually being on one of the rollercoasters, which I think was present in the PC version...

 

[poppabk]

I wanted this

And to my big surprise i got it on the Amiga 500 plus from my parents.

Nobel prize winning game designer.

 

[Shifty1897]

Oh man, I have a good one for this.

My parents turned very anti-video game for a while in my teenage years. I could only ask for one video game for Christmas.

I asked for Metal Gear Solid.
I got Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions.

When I told my mom it was the wrong game, she was cool about it and offered to take me to exchange it for the right game, but I spent all Christmas day just staring at an unopened VR Missions game and having nothing new to play on Christmas Day.

Edit I just remembered when I was like 5 or 6 my dad took me to Toys R Us to get a game. I picked the original Zelda (I had played it at my cousin's house earlier) but the store associate told my dad it was too "advanced" for me and my dad sided with the guy and got me Kung Fu instead. Fuck that guy, I hope he stayed at that Toys R Us until it went out of business.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

What I Got

 

[8BiTw0LF]

Wanted:

Got:

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Oh man, I have a good one for this.

My parents turned very anti-video game for a while in my teenage years. I could only ask for one video game for Christmas.

I asked for Metal Gear Solid.
I got Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions.

When I told my mom it was the wrong game, she was cool about it and offered to take me to exchange it for the right game, but I spent all Christmas day just staring at an unopened VR Missions game and having nothing new to play on Christmas Day.

Edit I just remembered when I was like 5 or 6 my dad took me to Toys R Us to get a game. I picked the original Zelda (I had played it at my cousin's house earlier) but the store associate told my dad it was too "advanced" for me and my dad sided with the guy and got me Kung Fu instead. Fuck that guy, I hope he stayed at that Toys R Us until it went out of business.

Nothing worse than staring at a Christmas present you can't do anything with!

When I got the original PlayStation for Christmas, we couldn't connect it to the TV.

We needed an RF adapter like this and the stores around us were closed the day.

I remember spending the rest of the day looking at the back of the box and the game manuals lol

 

[TwiztidElf]

What I wanted:

What I got:

My parents clearly knew me better than I knew myself and were way ahead of their time. Good parenting right here.


What I wanted: Absolutely can't remember.
What I got:

And you know what, ^ That game is not too bad as far as 2600 games go.

 

[Bernardougf]

I asked for an The Last of Us sequel ...

Oh boy... how I regret.

 

[saintjules]

Wanted

What I got

Did I do it right?

 

[Mayar]

In my days, games were rarely bought, they were mostly rented. So, it's not really a game, but it's a traumatic part of my childhood... I'll just leave these two pictures...

P.S - I got my Game Boy, but it was much later, as a New Year's gift, and it was a Game Boy Color. So, story has a happy ending.