LVL Up Expo 2022

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa yeah, an all video game convention (mostly), my first LVL Up Expo, and sure not to be my last. Had a awesome time hunting, and found alot of great stuff and great deals.

 For the original Nintedo Entertainment System, got four off my want list. 1942 by Capcom, probably my all time favorite bullet hell shooter that started my love for the genre. Had to get Double Dragon III to complete the trilogy, and Pinball, and Alpha Mission are both checks for Nintendo Black Box and SNK sub-sets respectively. 

Surprisingly my only Super Nintendo grab was the near the top of my list of long time wants; Spawn: The Video Game. Snagged two excellent titles to increase my small but slowly growing Sega Genesis library, Toxic Crusaders, beat'em-up based the 90's cartoon, and VR Troopers, a fighting game of Saban's failed 2nd attempt at adapting Sentai footage. Sega CD doesn't have a huge catalog of games, and many of those aren't exactly great must haves, but I felt AH3 Thunderstrike was worthy of being a fun playable title, bringing my total number of Sega CD games to 2.

Nintendo 64 was a system I skipped out on in favor of the original Playstation, so now I'm trying to grow my collection of 64 cartridges as quickly as possible to catch up with my other much larger libraries, which is now up to 36. The two N64 acquisitions being Bust-A-Move 2, love me some puzzle games, and my most expensive purchase of the day for a single game being Gauntlet Legends, a super clean copy I got for the current going loose price.

Another small lot I'm always trying to add more to is the Gamecube, and I managed to get two system exclusive Star Wars greats, the Rogue Squadron sequels of Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike. Manage to re-acquire Colony Wars: Vengeance, and Star Trek: Invasion, two PS1 3D space shooters I use to have, but stupidly traded in long ago. Last buy of the convention on the way out was the cool PS2 shooting game Vampire Night, now really need a Gun-Con 2.

I picked up a couple toys and a couple t-shirts at the convention, but then after I went to a mall and found some more of each at a Hot Topic and a toy store called The Pop Shack. Ninja Spawn and The Curse for my growing re-collecting of 90's Spawn figures. Found an exclusive Lord Drakkon Funko Pop for a great price, and the Eaglemoss die-cast D-7 Klingon Cruiser was clearance for only $10 bucks.

 Street Fighter and S.T.A.R.S. was from a vendor at the convention. Then the Peacemaker Dove of Peace symbol and Ecto-1 shirts were on the clearance rack at Hot Topic. Finally acquired The Bad Batch for only $5 at the Five Below store.

 

So other then video game hunting, my #1 reason for really going to this expo was to meet Johnny Young Bosch, popular actor and voice actor, who I first saw, and always know him as Adam Park the 2nd Black Mighy Morphin' Power Ranger. I told him how I didn't realize my favorite voice actor of such great anime characters of Vash from Trigun, and Ichigo from Bleach was also the Power Ranger from my childhood, he got a good laugh out of that. For those keeping track, he brings me up to five actors from Mighty Morphin Powr Rangers.

Then the cherry on top of a super awesome day was a mind-blowing find of all finds, I never thought I'd ever lay my hands on. At my very last stop of the day at a Wal-Mart I finally came across the NECA Ninja Turtles movie figure two-packs. Now I can start getting the other beautifully detailed allies and villains I have been denying myself 'til I the Turtles in hand first.