I always hold out hope of finding my priced out games in the wild for cheap. While very rare these days, it does happen occasionally. I've also had other collectors hook me up with hard to find, expensive gems I've been after for a while. Given, they aren't selling them to me for $2, but rather 50-75% of ebay which can make a huge difference depending on the game. But here are my priced out games I've essentially given up on with how stupidly expensive they've become.
Rule of Rose (PS2) - I'm not super upset about potentially never being able to own this one, but it's still one I'd have loved to at least tried out. I've had two opportunities to buy this for well under what it goes for now; once about 10-years ago for round $90 and again about 6 years ago for $250. Both times seemed too expensive, but had I known it was going to be like $1000 or whatever it goes for now I'd have happily bit the bullet.
Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn) - the sad thing is that I did own this one once, but sold it since I didn't feel like the quality of the game matched up with its price. I've since regretted doing this, but now of course the game goes for double what I paid for it several years ago. I'd like to own this one again, but really only if it goes back down to triple digits.
Gigawing 2 (Dreamcast) - another one I owned at one point, sold it during the great medical expense purge of 2017, and have since wanted it back again. Unfortunately it goes for 5x what I paid for it originally and while it's a fun game it's nowhere near that valuable to me.
Burning Rangers/Magic Knight Rayearth (Saturn) - The Saturn is one of the last consoles I actually have a desire to collect for, but unfortunately it's more overpriced than ever. Both of these grail games are ones I'd love to have, but they have always been too rich for my blood. It's like no matter how much extra money I make, the price of both these games will go up accordingly to where they're still out of my price range. These ones I might consider buying someday, but it would be a very touch sell.
Gotcha Force (GC) - I found this game for like $5 at a flea market a lot time ago, but unfortunately the disc looked like it was used as a drink coaster for a decade. I had little hope it would work and sure enough it didn't. I had it professionally buffed several times, but could not get it to work to save my life so I sold it on ebay as is. I've since come across it a handful of times at game stores and it's always insanely expensive. I'd love to actually play and own this game, but I'm not even remotely a big enough Gamecube fan to ever justify what it's going for now, not even half that.
Syberia Collection (PS3) - I remember when this game could be bought brand new on Amazon for like $40 and I stupidly said I'd get it some other time. Well, some other time didn't come until I was finally ready and it was no longer available to purchase new, at least from a distributor. Nope, it was going for like $200+ which considering I own these games on PC and XBOX already was way, way higher than I was willing to pay. This is one game that firmly fits into that category of I'm content never owning unless I happen upon a copy for under $100.
