Holiday Family Fun in Sacramento, CA and Gaming Finds

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to my followers, fans, and lovers of all things gaming, anime, and cool. I hope y’all had a fantastic holiday spending time with loved ones and friends alike.

It was a very nice time myself with my girlfriend’s family and finally seeing my family for the first time in 2 years like pre-COVID so very enjoyable and relaxing. I also caught up on many of my favorite shows and anime alike.

The games is what you came for am I right? So with my holiday time shared let’s transition into what you came to read about and learn from my travels.

I visited five different gaming stores in Sacramento. It was to my surprise that I came across so many quality stores with retro and current (modern) games. It ranged from Atari to the Xbox Series C/One X to PS4/PS5 so quite the spread. It was lacking in niches like the Neo-Geo or Atari Jaguar. This is not uncommon tho as these systems tend to be highly collectible and more obscure and rare. The pandemic as we know has risen the prices of gaming like inflation to unorthodox levels and I’ve been doing this myself for over 20+ years. It amazes me how much it has changed over the years.

The first store on my journey in Sacramento was Fair Game Retro Games. This store was my favorite of the five I visited. I was sold on first impressions from the overall store layout, customer service, and prices where hit or miss but many of the more pricer games didn’t surprise me. Overall, the prices were pretty decent given where market and trends are currently moving in this economic cycle.

It has toys and games lots of merch and memorabilia. It had plenty of GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and classics on NES, Genesis, Game Gear, Game Boy, and much more. I have more coverage on my Tiktok Channel of these stores and my pickups as well if you want to see the store inside and more of an overview. I can be followed @life_leveler on TikTok. My rating on this one is to Level Up it’s worth it whether your looking for toys to fill your game room, starting to collect or even a seasoned collector such as myself, and lastly a great vibe just enjoying the passion of gaming that we all love to play and enjoy.

The second store I visited was 1-Up Retro Games. This store from the sign gives you a good feeling the moment you walk into the store. It is very spacious and like the last one has a solid mix of retro and current. It lacked a bit on toys and merch but didn’t change my overall rating or experience. The store owner was also nice and knew his craft. I would recommend this store and leveling up. It is great like the previous one I mentioned but more for modern gamers with a little less retro but overall not bad either.

The third store I visited was Game Trader. This was seated outside of downtown unlike the previous two stores. It was located in a little shopping mall strip or parking lot area. My first glance or impressions are that it looked like a GameStop equivalent. However, upon walking into the store I was surprised to be greeted by an awesome store employee who is a collector such as myself and knows his stuff. It was great to have that synergy and one of the qualities I look for when making additional visits or purchases combed with the overall customer service experience. It had a solid spread of games modern and retro. The system standouts here are the Genesis and Master System. It didn’t have anything rare or uncommon but great if your just starting out as a collector. The spread was solid and mixed with some DVD/Blu-Rays as well as some electronics like iPads and iPhones etc. I would recommend this store as well to Level Up and check this one out if your in the area.

The fourth store on my journey is Legacy Toys and Games. This one is a bit short and will tell you I was disappointed in this one I would De-Level and skip it. The only appeal I saw was if your into collecting old vintage figurines such as Star Wars it’s a great deal but for gaming was a lot of scraps and leftovers aka sports games and nothing to stand out.

Alrighty, onto the fifth and final stop. I ended up doing this store the next day as it was getting late and needed to call it a day. The last one takes place at Game N’ Trade. This store was meh okay but I would recommend maybe between Level Up and De-Level to get some experience it might be worthwhile might not but I can’t truly recommend it one way or the other. It did have a bunch of retro systems and store owner was pleasant to work with and had some solid knowledge of the games business. It also had a splash of PS2/GC/Xbox and some older titles on the PlayStation, NES, and Nintendo 64. It could be a great place to start if your not looking for anything in particular but still get some experience as your mileage may vary.

That is all folks on this episode of game hunting! I have big plans for 2022 expanding my e-commerce business and platform on Shopify with more blog posts, additional inventory, and much more.

I will be doing some as a sneak peek game hunting in Brazil next Spring. I will also in January/February be visiting Houston, TX to check out the stores there as well.

You can check me out on the following platforms for more content, streaming, and gaming fun:

YouTube.com/Dakinggamer

TikTok.tv/life_leveler

Facebook.com/life_leveler

Enjoy the holidays and I’ll see you in the New Year. God Bless and Take Care Y’all!! Thank you for your support and everything you do!!

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