Before digital downloads, Game Pass subscriptions, and YouTube walkthroughsâŚ
There was Blockbuster.
And its underappreciated cousin: the video game rental aisle.
Back then, getting your hands on a new game didnât mean shelling out $60. It meant convincing your parents to stop at Blockbuster, hoping the game wasnât already rented out, and praying the last kid didnât return it scratched to hell.
Letâs rewind (politely) to a time when renting a game was part gamble, part ritualâand all heart.
đšď¸ The Friday Night Chase
Friday afternoons hit different.
Youâd burst through the school doors and race your parents to the nearest rental store. Your only goal?
Get there before someone else rented your game.
If the box was still on the shelf, with that precious plastic rental case behind itâit felt like destiny. If not?
Cue the grief. And maybe settling for a game youâd never heard of just because it had a ninja on the cover.
đ¤ˇââď¸ Judge by the Cover, Pray for the Best
There were no Metacritic scores.
No demo mode. No livestream previews.
There was box artâand maybe one blurry screenshot on the back of the case that looked nothing like the actual game.
Sometimes, you struck gold.
Other times⌠you spent the weekend with Shaq Fu.
đŽ 2 Days. No Saves. Pure Pressure.
Rental cartridges didn’t always have working batteries. That meant no saving your progress.
Beating a game in one weekend wasnât a flexâit was a requirement. You and your sleep-deprived best friend would power through 12-hour marathons, fueled by Doritos and Capri Sun, hoping to see that sweet, pixelated “THE END.”
And if your mom made you return the game before you finished?
Soul-crushing.
đ The Re-Rent Dilemma
Did youâŚ
- Try to re-rent the game next weekend and hope no one erased your save file?
- Or just admit defeat and wait until maybe you could buy it someday with birthday money?
Either way, the game wasnât yours. It belonged to the cruel gods of VHS shelving.
đ§ The Real MVP: The Instruction Manual
Sometimes, you got lucky and the rental came with the manual still inside.
Sometimes, it was missing. Or⌠worse⌠had weird, sticky pages.
But those little books were pure gold: enemy names, lore, button combos, and those epic hand-drawn illustrations.
They were your guide to surviving a weekend with no internet.
â¤ď¸ The Glory, The Pain, The Rewind
Renting video games in the ’90s wasnât just a way to playâit was a rite of passage.
It taught us about disappointment. About loyalty. About praying to the rental gods for just one more chance to beat Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
And sure, it was sometimes painful.
But when it worked out?
When you found that one perfect game and got just enough time to beat it?
Glory.
đŁď¸ Your Turn: What Was Your Best (or Worst) Rental?
Drop a comment with the one game you always tried to rent⌠or the one you regretted immediately.
And if you ever rewound a game case like a VHS out of pure habit?
Youâre one of us.
đş Follow for more vintage gaming glory
đŹ Share with a friend who never returned the game on time
đŻ Because sometimes the best games werenât the ones we owned. They were the ones we had to give back.
