Share your video game rental stories

[SolVanderlyn]

Ah, Blockbuster. A symbol of the 90s now, as seen in Captain Marvel. But to me, it was a very real part of my childhood. The most exciting part of my childhood existence was having my folks drive me to Blockbuster to rent a new game.

Let me tell you a story of Super Mario RPG.

I was looking for Harvest Moon (as usual), which the Blockbuster never had. My holy grail. Being a child, despite it NEVER being there, I always hoped it would some day magically appear. The hope never diminished! Alas, it never did appear.

The holy grail remaining the myth it was, I instead began to look for another game. I wandered into a section of Mario games, where I saw two titles: Super Mario RPG and Mario is Missing.

Now, the back of the box was everything. It was up to that little square of info to sell you on a game. So I picked up both and looked at their little squares intensively.

One looked more like the Mario I knew. It even starred my favorite Mario brother, Luigi! But the back of the box clued me in that something was wrong. The graphics looked off. Luigi was in the real world. And it looked... educational? Oh no. That wouldn't do.

So I picked up the game I knew nothing about. What was an RPG, anyway?

I fell in love with this game instantly. I didn't realize it until I played SMRPG, but I had always valued the world and story in games above all else. This game focused on those things. It was a grand, sweeping journey starring my favorite game character. The music was amazing. It completely captivated me from beginning to end.

Choosing it over Mario is Missing sparked my love of storytelling in games, my love of RPGs, and introduced me to a little company by the name of Squaresoft.

I never would have picked it up in an era where you can choose whatever you want from a digital e-shop.

Any rental store stories you have?

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Your exact story but I chose Mario Is Missing.

 

[Jesse_and_the_rippers]

I remember getting Milon's Secret Castle from Russ' Video and being extremely disappointed. I can still smell the store though.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

I remember being very excited when NES/SMS rentals arrived. I had never encountered rentals for pre-NES consoles or 8-bit computers so it was an amazing new way for me to try out games.

My best rental memory was beating Snatcher on Sega CD. I played it for seven hours straight.

And speaking of Super Mario RPG, that's another one I played through with a rental copy.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

As a child I tried renting some 3D Sonic the Hedgehog game (might have been Sonic '06) from 3 different places because the X and O functions were swapped and I thought that meant that specific copy of the game was "broken".

 

[Type VII]

I remember the rental shop having no more copies of Sonic & Knuckles available one Saturday not long after it came out and waiting for what felt like hours for a mate to return his copy so I could then book it out.

Streets of Rage always comes to mind when I think of rentals because I think it was the one I took out the most. Still one of my all time favourites.

Renting a Playstation one weekend was a highlight too. I knew I was getting one for Christmas and in the excitement, had to get my hands on one for myself. Tomb Raider completely blew my mind as a 13 year old who was still on the Mega Drive at that point.

I do remember a friend of my dads having a shop that solely rented Sega stuff - Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive, in the early 90's. Always blew me away when I'd go in every Saturday - I vividly remember there being Sonic and Sega merch absolutely everywhere and to a 9/10 year old Sonic/Mega Drive obsessive it was even more impressive. The guy would always recommend something every week, so I got to experience quite a bit of the library of those consoles, more that I would have just going off of box art alone. On a related note I found out years after that it was this guy that convinced my parents to buy an Asian (Hong Kong) Mega Drive for me when I got one, because it would play Genesis games as well. It meant I got the likes of Sonic 3 and Ecco earlier than any of my school mates which was nice.

 

[Lockheartilly9799]

My local grocery store, Giant Eagle, had a rental place called Iggle Video. My former step-dad got a credit card, rented like 15 SNES games, and never returned them. He didn't care about his own credit nor did he care that he stole video games. I played them though. WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game was one I played the most in the bunch.

 

[Vonocourt]

I rented Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for GBC, turned it on and was greeted with some Power Ranger's title screen.

Someone had swapped the sticker on the cart.

 

[MonsterJail]

Renting Dragon's lair on the NES and choosing to go play outside not long after instead

Think we got 2 steps into the second screen once or twice

 

[Raza]

I was 15 when Final Fantasy 7 came out. I had always been a Nintendo console person before then, minus my Atari, and I didn't have a Playstation.Due to a developing love of RPGs I desperately wanted to play Final Fantasy 7. My parents were nice enough to allow me to go to Blockbuster and rent a Playstation system and FF7.

Now, keep in mind this didn't include memory cards. So I had to leave the game and the system on the entire weekend. I was having a blast, the N64 was really starved for RPGs early on in its life so I hadn't played a new one in a long time. I got all the way to Barrett's village, I forget the name but it's the desert town. It was Sunday around noon and I would have to return it soon. I remember I loaded a screen that had a fence and a building and the screen went dark. Then the Playstation sputtered and I heard failing load sounds coming from the game. Well, I knew it had to end sometime, but I was really sad to see it come. There went hours and hours of progress.

Year or two later I finally bought a Playstation, and although FF7 wasn't the first game I bought (that was Alundra and Parasite Eve), it was the 3rd or 4th and I FINALLY got to progress past the point I was at before, albeit not before starting the game over.

 

[RF Switch]

I will never forget Bill Laimbeers Combat Basketball on Snes. Picking a bad game on a Friday really ruined the weekend

 

[Nahbac]

I rented Modern Warfare 2019 from Redbox and it was a CD with a paper cutout of the disc art on top. Guess it's a pretty widespread scam tactic, the previous owner would do it to keep the game and it ended up making Redbox stop stocking games.

 

[AndrewDean84]

When I worked at blockbuster, I'd make sure I worked on the day we received new games and rent it before it went out on the shelf.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Picking up Mario Is Missing from the local grocery store and bringing it home for maximum disappointment. It's the only rental story I remember because that game was so painfully trash, the memory stuck with me forever.

 

[TigerBrownie]

One time at a Blockbuster I rented Shrek 2 for Gamecube fully expecting it to be trash. I bought it.

 

[spad3]

I rented the Van Helsing movie tie in for the PS2 and I ended up buying it because it wasn't half bad.

 

[ignata]

Being sick from school (a rare occasion for me actually) and my mom renting me Zelda II. I couldn't get past the first palace but I was really into it so I asked for it for some holiday and over the course of a year+ finished that damn game. Still one of my favorites.

Asking to rent Mega Man 3 on Christmas Eve and was denied, only to find out the next day that it was cause that was my Christmas gift. Which was good cause that one took me a long time.

Renting Populous for the SNES, not having any clue what to do and then subsequently leaving it under the seat in our car for a week past it's due date. I remember finding it there on my way to school. Oops.

During high school we got a Blockbuster in the next town over and by that point my stories are all went to Blockbuster, rented a PS1 game, went home, and yada yada yada, I'd take the game back the same day.

 

[chairhome]

I rented Lunar the Silver Star Story and got pretty far in the few days that we had it. When my parents bought the game for us, I saw our save data was still there, and not knowing how disc based media worked, I thought we got a used copy somehow.

Also, one time my brothers and I got really excited cause my parents had rented SF2 Turbo on SNES, which we had been waiting forever to play, but it turned out to be a promotional free rental video for the game.

 

[Foltzie]

I rented Star Tropics for a weekend. . .

 

[Calamari41]

Ecco the Dolphin was the mythical white whale game for me and my friends that was always rented out. When we finally had a chance to play it, it still managed to beat our expectations.

The death of rental places is such a huge blow. Some of my fondest gaming related memories involved going to rent NES, SNES, and Genesis games based on the box art with friends as a 5-10 year old.

 

[Gunny T Highway]

I remember being sick one time and my mom renting me Mega Man X2. It was a great time.

 

[halfjoey]

I spent weeks trying to rent Clay Fighter for the SNES from Blockbuster. Every Friday I would call multiple times, then i would ask the employees when it was due back, then I would call on that day. I convinced my mom to let me rent on a weeknight if I was available.
After a month or so I finally rented it on a Thursday played it with my friends Friday night and we didn't care for it.

 

[Devilgunman]

I used to rent games from Hastings when I was in college. They had an online coupon for a free game rental. It's limited to 1 ip per coupon. Not many people know this perhaps. I didn't have my own computer back then so I went around campus and used all public PC to generate a coupon, took screenshot and saved to my thumb drive. I ended up with dozens coupon or so lol. I was the worst.

 

[whiteninja]

My friend and I would alternate renting Chrono Trigger and every time I got it, i would change the name of the Epoch to "Fuck". His parents were kinda strict so he would change it back to epoch or something else just for me to change it back to fuck when I rented it again.

"Do you want to board the Fuck?"

 

[Seaneko]

The one that I remember most was renting Paper Mario 64 several times over because someone (either the store owner or another player) kept deleting my save file, even though mine was usually the only file among the four available slots so there was never any need to. One time I got lucky and found my save intact, which was parked at Shiver City, so I took that chance to power through the rest of the story in two days, and finishing it at long last was the most rewarding feeling ever.

I rented PM64 so many times that I probably should have asked my folks to buy me the game and we might have saved a few dollars, hah. I did end up buying a fully boxed copy years later in my adulthood though. One of my favorite and most treasured games.

 

[Skulldead]

I remember renting Strider 2, came with 2 CD. The CD 1 didn't work.... so tried the second CD then the game start, i was like heee it look like the original on the genesis, nothing like the back cover.... scratch my head. What the fuck its wrote strider 2 on the top of the CD

And years later i understood what happen......

But i remember renting Chrono Trigger for 10 days strait to make sure i finish it, still one of my best gaming experience of all time.

Lufia 1 and 2 are probably the game I've rent the most, probably dozen of time each.

 

[SonicRift]

I remember renting Genesis games from my local Jumbo Video, and the games were almost always defective. Like, you'd look at the bottom of the game and there'd be no teeth. As if someone was renting games, popping out the innards, and returning them. It was enough of a pain in the ass that I wouldn't leave the place without opening the box and checking for teeth in the cartridge.

Of course the staff didn't know anything about the "Nintendo tapes", so they didn't really sympathize with some pre-pubescent kid who, as they saw it, changed his mind about what he wanted to rent right after checking out. So if I got an empty cart for a rental and the employee didn't know how videogames work, I'd pretty much have to go back later with my parents.

Then that game ends up right back on the shelf. So if there's 2 copies of Mortal Kombat 3, and you know one of them is empty, there's a 50% chance you're going to lose out on
1.) A few precious hours of Friday Freedom playing it, and
2.) You'd have to wait for your mom to have time to go back and go Super Saiyan Karen to fight a bullshit battle for you

The other option was a Blockbuster which was like a dollar more expensive, harder to walk to, and surrounded by cemeteries and therefore ghosts.

 

[Deleted member 18407]

Mario Is Missing is good but Mario's Time Machine is better.

 

[Nida]

I occasionally have dreams that I have overdue rentals at a random video store. It's quite strange.

I'll forever miss rental places, particularly smaller chains like Hollywood Video and mom and pop places that were combo video stores/tanning salons. Always smelled like sunscreen.