Honest question, but have you ever heard of Flash Carts and ODEs?
If all you car about is playing the game on authentic hardware, there definitely the most economic and practical solution. Instead of just one game or maybe a few if it's a multicart, you can have an entire console's library + demos, + hacks + fan games + more or less everything on one cartridge. Nearly every retro console you can think of has either a flash cart or ODE made for it which will allow you to do this. Sure, most are fairly expensive out the door, but you can buy most of them for the same price was 5 or 6 repros. Just a suggestion if you're not into the collecting aspect of the hobby.
If flash carts had been available back when I started collecting in 2008 I may have never got into the hobby personally. Like you, I was just wanting to play the games I grew up with and maybe a few that flew under my radar back in the day. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was stricken with the collecting bug, and it consumed a large portion of my time, money, and life for the next decade. I didn't start to wind down my collectorism until around 2017 or so. By then, flash carts had come a long way, and compared to now that still seemed like the dark ages a bit when it came to what modern flash carts can do and what systems they can work on.
