Nintendo Quest (2015) Reviews

• An almost entirely irritating viewing experience

  Falion2017-01-05

  I wanted to like Nintendo Quest - the Kickstarter documentary about a man traveling through North America in order to collect every NES game - I really did. Unfortunately, it is crippled by an inherently unlikable subject/lead (Jay) and seemingly arbitrary rules and decisions that make the majority of the film an utterly confusing and aggravating experience. Jay is a man of indiscernible character who, with the help of his friend Rob (the writer/editor/director of the documentary), decides to pay tribute to his lifelong passion of 8-bit gaming by setting out on a road trip and collecting the entire NES library from scratch. The two friends decide that Jay will have 30 days and a set budget to meet this goal, and he will be unable to use Internet sites such as eBay to purchase any game. Overall, the idea is promising, although if this is truly a passion project, then it seems silly to discount the games that Jay already owns in his personal collection, which is only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the film. Early on, Nintendo Quest's sizable cracks begin to form. Jay coerces kind and enthusiastic independent game store owners into selling rare games for far lower prices than they were originally asking for, with an obnoxious "it's for the cause" plea. I think it's important to get across the idea of haggling with store owners to get a bargain, but it's obvious that many of the sellers shown in Nintendo Quest don't want to look bad within the documentary, and are therefore willing to part with more expensive games at a far lower than average price. Such "haggling" situations are often capped with Jay mumbling about feeling bad for taking advantage of the owners' kindness - which he should. On the flip side, Jay rants and raves about the rigidity of store employees and owners who refuge to budge on the price of a game, "punishing" them by not buying other, more reasonably-priced games within the same store. Jay shows zero empathy for people trying to make a living by selling the games he claims to be so passionate about, as well as for private collectors who are willing to go out on a limb to help him out. So much for being relatable! Jay's character, or lack thereof, really is the biggest problem with Nintendo Quest. At one point, we are forced to watch as Jay, adorned in one of his many Halloween costume-like "nostalgia" outfits, negotiates over the phone with a private seller over the price of an incredibly rare NES game while standing between two human-sized Star Wars figures in his home. It's infuriating to watch this spoiled man-child deal with people who are bending over backward to help him, whining about how he needs each purchase to be a memorable story. There is some validity to Jay's point, but the film does a poor job of showing any joy associated with 99% of the purchases shown, which calls into question the entire purpose of the documentary. Ultimately, Jay does not even meet his goal, and ends up buying the remaining games on eBay months later. Not that this matters much since the rules of "Nintendo Quest" were so arbitrary to begin with, and there is absolutely nothing at stake. How are viewers supposed to relate to this guy? It would have been nice to know what his NES collection was like prior to the road trip, or the actual amount of his budget. Being given more than a glimpse into his actual life and how he earns a living would have made this better as well. At one point, Jay talks about the spirit of the true collector, and how sacrifice plays a part in completing a collection. He is absolutely correct, but no sacrifice or compromise is shown in this movie whatsoever. The possibility of Jay having to sell, for example, some of his coveted Star Wars merchandise in order to get enough money to buy Stadium Events would have been compelling, but nothing like this ever happens. As it is, we are left to view Jay as a spoiled and immature man with too much time and money on his hands. I feel bad for people who donated money to this documentary on Kickstarter, but I feel even worse for the private collectors who seem to be unaware of the nature of Jay's "quest." While I disliked Nintendo Quest as a whole, there are some worthwhile moments sprinkled in. These scenes highlight other collectors, competitive gamers, and fans with actual passion, whose stories are quite touching. Perhaps the filmmaker should have focused entirely on these stories instead of helping his friend get a bunch of games. Judging by the content of this documentary, the only way to truly help Jay is to take him to a professional therapist.

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• Boring and pretentious documentary

  koryco2016-01-03

  *CONTAINS SPOILERS* To be brief, this documentary really tries to crack itself up to be some great adventure but in reality it's just a spoiled brat with a lot of money going "around the country" having uncomfortable encounters, pressuring retailers into giving him deals, complaining when they won't, and finally (and completely inappropriately) talking about hating his dad and being happy he died... REALLY. In the middle of the movie, for no obviously good reason, he talks about how he hates his dad, and then explains how happy he was when he died. It made me feel really uncomfortable watching. like, way more uncomfortable than I was prepared for in a documentary about NES games. That aside, he starts the show by saying he is going to attempt to get every retail NES game release in person without the use of the internet within 30-days. Well, spoiler, he doesn't. He gets close, but after the last day was up he just went ahead and bought them on ebay. Talk about an anti-climactic ending. The fans would have probably appreciated the film more if he'd extended the time frame to just go out and find them somewhere. Further, and this may be nitpicking too much, but he does say he's not going to used the internet in "any way," yet the whole time he's price matching shops against ebay. This movie also takes itself way to seriously, coming off extremely pretentious. Game collecting should be fun. Games are designed for the sole purpose of having fun (although this has changed in the modern era). Not once did I ever think that Jay was having fun. He treated every deal like he was negotiating with terrorists, he griped about a lot of prices, the movie just gets depressing at parts. This makes them seem like they're trying to accomplish something super important. Sorry folks, you're not landing on the moon, you're buying video games. Game collectors can be passionate, myself included, but if you're not enjoying yourself then why waste your time? why waste our time for that matter? My last gripe with this movie is that he encourages a kind of behavior that gives local businesses trouble. He wants to match everything with online prices, and he feels entitled to discounts because he's buying in bulk. As a former small business employee, I can not begin to tell you how annoying people like him are. Just because they're not walmart or best buy does not at all mean that you're entitled to thousands of discounts, the retailers have sticker prices for a reason, and most of the time those sticker prices are well researched to give the customer the best value. Small businesses have to offer low prices to stay competitive. And you really can't expect every price to be better than ebay. Ebay sellers aren't paying for employees, rent, electricity, etc. It costs money to run a business! I digress. However, Jay exhibits this kind of behavior a lot during the film, and it rubs me the wrong way. Looking for a diamond in the rough? They do go to some really neat local shops and display some very impressive personal collections. Plus, for those of us who don't particularly care to collect NES games, the movie does a really good job relaying the current state of the NES collectors game. You'll know what games are sought after, you get some history behind the really hard to find ones, and you'll feel like getting your own full NES set is not entirely impossible. That much, I think they did well on. However, pile all the other pointless, boring, and pretentious baggage on top of it and I hardly think anything about the movie can be seen as redemptive.

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• Awful! Depressing movie!

  nintendobulldog2016-02-03

  At the start of the film you meet Jay and his best friend. Jay has loved Nintendo since a child and wants to travel across North America in hopes to collect all Nintendo cartridges produced for the system. The film has Jay's best friend as a narrator, explaining the quest and a little history of Nintendo and games (best part of film). The rest of the film follows jay slumping about retail stores, collectors and rummage sales trying to find and complete the collection. At no point in the movie does Jay seem happy about this quest or that he is enjoying himself. He picks up game after game with a little number tally of the games acumulated in the corner of the screen. He does not give any feedback what games are his favourite, why he has this passion or show any emotion when he does get a rare or good game. Half way threw the film the subject switches to Jay's fathers passing. He tells the audience how he is happy he is dead, and how he was a tyrant. The only explanation given for his father being such a awful individual was that he did not like Video games? It was really hard not to turn the film off after this point! After researching this film I found out it was a Kickstarter project which was donated around $40,000. Essentially people donated this money so a little spoiled brat could have a complete Nintendo collection and received a subpar movie with no passion or substance

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• Strangely depressing

  corner_cut2015-10-26

  Nintendo quest is not an all encompassing documentary about Nintendo, the NES, or gaming in general. The description is misleading. There have been many gaming docs, but none specifically about the history of the company Nintendo, so needless to say I was really excited. Even after I realized that it was rather about a guy building an NES collection from scratch with a few fun facts thrown in here and there, I still kept on watching it, because I do have some old games and still buy them often at flea markets and such, so it was still right up my alley. This movie is based on an interesting idea that somehow along the way became devoid of fun. So much that in the end I kinda felt sorry for the guy. I have tremendous respect for his dedication and drive to succeed, however collecting should be fun, and as it is mentioned in the movie, collecting takes a long time if you're doing it right and don't have access to tens of thousands of dollars. You WILL get it done, it'll just take a few years. The ridiculous project of building a complete NES collection from scratch in 30 days without using the internet is the driving force of Nintendo Quest. That's 678 games in total. What started out as a dare ended up being a 90 minutes romp across north America, hunting down NES games, following a taciturn collector blowing money in retail stores and on games sold by a few private collectors. It's more or less an hour and a half episode of game chasers with more pressure, less smiles, and more actual drama. While video games revolve around having a good time, I felt strangely sad watching Jay progressively sink into the depths of everything I hate about video game collecting as a cultural phenomenon : Display queens, overblown prices, and the underlying obsession about the rarity and value of extremely bad games. The most disturbing thing about Nintendo Quest is that Jay doesn't seem to be particularly enjoying himself throughout his seemingly excruciating adventure. He stumbles from store to store trying to deal with the pressure of failure and trying to work a way around the cost of absolute stinkers like Stadium events and others. It's not all bad, as the high point of the movie for me was still how Jay repeatedly says that the games he get should have a story attached to them, which is my opinion as well, it's just that those stories shouldn't come from a place of extreme pressure. There are quite a few superb private collections displayed throughout the quest. Another high point for the movie. If I was looking to start collecting retro games after all the hype, Nintendo Quest would've been sure to sober me up real fast about the real essence of the chase : Fun. Still, R.I.P. Spencer, and Jay man, I hope this ridiculous ordeal didn't completely burn you out on gaming, because it sure looked like you had enough of it at the end and was ready to snap. Wish you well.

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• It'll make you want to dust off the NES, but that's about it

  Mr-Fusion2016-06-29

  "Nintendo Quest" had promise, but the execution is way off. The idea itself is cool: you've got 30 days to hunt down every last official NES title in existence (no online purchases). That means road trip, and already we're talking great movie, right? Game over, man. It's not that this is a bad movie, but it suffers from reality TV production methods and it doesn't give us all of the relevant information. We never know the budget for this quest or how the majority of these games cost. And the negotiating scenes are painfully drawn out. Why spend screen time listening to an awful speakerphone or listening to someone read aloud text messages when this could be better conveyed through a graphic? When all else fails, let the director insert himself into the thing and scream plot information. The odd thing of it is that it actually becomes a downer after awhile. Jay spends his time in one store after another, getting depressed over the price-gouging and cynicism that collecting can engender. There's good to be had, but it's primarily in the opening; an examination of the console's enduring longevity and appeal. That sequence gets into the gamer in all of us. If only the rest of it weren't so morose. 4/10

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