I remember thinking I had no chance of ever owning a Super Nintendo. After all, as a kid living with your parents and playing it without them finding out is practically impossible. But somehow I managed it when the opportunity simply just presented itself.
During Form Two, one of my classmate had a Super Nintendo system which he bought in the Netherlands when his father was stationed there briefly. This was a PAL system of course when most of the system you could buy locally here were either Japanese or American system. He only had one game that came bundled with the system which was the legendary Super Mario World, quite possibly the best bundled game even till today. So without the means of online shopping back in 1995, owning a Super Nintendo with just one game isn't very entertaining after awhile. He was desperate to sell the whole thing and in this lukewarm market I gladly took it off his hands for $12 if my memory is correct. I remember packing the Super Nintendo into my schoolbag and happily carrying it home that day without my parents noticing.
I'm not sure if everyone would agree with the rationale of paying $12 for a console which you simply have no feasible means of buying games for at that time. But the way I saw it I was plucking $12 down just to play Super Mario World, anything else afterwards would be a bonus. I was definitely not disappointed and managed to finished it numerous times with nothing else left to play. If you were wondering how I did it, I moved an unused television set into my room and waited for my parents to go to bed before playing it late at night.
Many years later, I re-discovered this SNES along with 5 games which I gathered over the course of time. When opening the box which I kept everything, I certainly was surprised because I must have bought these games much later and only played most of them sparingly.
