Retro Station

As a connoisseur of Nintendo I often seek out retro game shops in the towns and cities I visit looking for a bargain. Many offer a handful of battered cartridges and leave me feeling like Nintendo poster boy Link, having solved an elaborate puzzle expecting to get the boomerang only to be rewarded with 5 rupees. Retro station is a rare exception, tucked away in Sutton’s In Shops and offering old school gamers a huge array of well organised stock, lovingly presented in the best condition possible.
Staff are helpful and talkative and will point you in the right direction if you can’t find something. Prices are well thought out and compete with the likes of ebay, some gamers will be puzzled that 100 coins won’t get you an extra life, although it will get you an N64 and a host of games! Those with a Golden-​eye for detail will find sections of imported Japanese or USA games. Once you’ve finished, return the game, whilst you won’t get a Medal of Honour you will get a good price, and then you can use the cash to buy… Call of Duty. So if you need a SNES with Streetfighter 2 Turbo, head down to Retro Station, what are Ryu waiting for? (Fed up of the video game based puns, apologies I’ll Pac it in now)

It’s a bittersweet thing when you see that new, exciting products with which you grew up become formally retro. Bitter because you feel creaky; sweet because something once commonplace yet dear to you has become romanticised by others. That, and you get to see it all over again.
Retro Station deals in an eight-​bit version of the Proustian rush. Here, games consoles from the 80s and 90s are sold; their grey, chunky forms making an Xbox look positively svelte. An original gameboy looks like a housebrick. Better yet, the cartridges themselves are a delight, looking like dirty, frozen jiffy bags from a dystopian future, save for a sticker featuring a cartoon ape.
Of course, the resultant gaming experience may be lacking for little Jimmy… but for little Jimmy’s dad, it’s a lively mix and entire weekends may be lost. It’s not to say that these games can’t be enjoyed via other means — there’s a lively online trade in digi versions of classics. But there’s something to be said for the old-​fashioned analogue experience, not to mention the sheer collectibility factor.
In such small quarters, you really have to admire the shop’s layout — perfectly formed, its cabinets are stocked with some truly dreamy stuff. Go on reacquaint yourself with a little Italian plumber who knows mushrooms and that. Eight-​bit, sixteen-​bit and a solid four stars.