During the Scott the Woz charity bonanza last year I got the boxes that had a random SNES or Genesis game in them with a new label and a lot of other goodies. Scott previously did these with NES games, and called it "The Mysterious Game of Crypticism" so these are "The Return of the Mysterious game of Crypticism." These were supposed to ship in January or February but they took until very recently to finally get here.

For the longest time I kind of blamed Pixel Empire as the months dragged on and I didn't have any updates or anything, but I looked at the upload dates on the exclusive videos you get (via QR code on some trading cards that were included in there) and some of them were uploaded like... two weeks ago? So the packages were probably delayed by Scott getting really busy and having probably too much on his plate to finish everything. I wish I had known that though, then I'd just have been patient.

The random games I got were Revenge of Shinobi and Super Mario World! I thought I was likely to get a yearly sports game due to how many of those there are flooding the shelves of retro game stores, but I was surprised to see that I didn't. I imagine these are really common games but they're both really well-liked, and I didn't have carts of them before (though I did already have Super Mario World + All-Stars). And I've never played Revenge of Shinobi but I guess I'll have a reason to give it a try now!!

The included fanservice stuff is really good! I'm excited to read the comics later and the soundtrack CDs are great to have (it's nice to have a better quality than I can get from YouTube!) One of the tracks even includes Scott swearing uncensored.

And in a different area for SNES and Genesis stuff, I coincidentally also got the Super Nt and Mega Sg in the mail very recently (and by that I mean today). I ordered it last year since they were having their last run and I realized that if I wanted them later on I'd have to get it secondhand for probably a lot more money. I guess that's how they get you with FOMO haha.

I have a working SNES, Genesis and a CRT, so if I need/want authenticity I'm already covered with the best possible option, and if I'd like to prioritize convenience I've got a Steam Deck. Using authentic carts with an emulator doesn't do anything for me, so these consoles are kind of in an awkward spot where they don't really fill a need?

I feel like the really big advantage for me personally is that I can take them with me and I don't have to worry about a screen getting damaged like I would with a Steam Deck. And I can verify whether the stuff I program works or not, in case other people are interested in that sort of thing.

Obviously what I need to do is put the carts I got in my new FPGA clone consoles.