J & L Game

Beware this greedy overpriced place pretty much everything in this store is overpriced by 30% or more. They have a nice selection for a reason most collectors like me know rip off prices when we see them! $ 170 for a fire emblem path of radiance that averages $ 100 on eBay and they even charge $ 40 for Nintendo select games that are supposed to be $ 20 are just a couple of examples on their greediness and I saw foreign bills given to them by naïve tourists from around the world that have a lot of money to throw away carelessly anyway taped to their display cases of unfairly priced games. I’ve been to other retro game stores that charge fair prices based on the average eBay price not this elitist excuse of a money hungry establishment.

I want to address all the ²⁄₃ stars based solely on pricing. Everyone who is complaining about the prices, this is a brick and mortar store in Midtown-​Manhattan in New York City. Everything here is expensive i.e.; Rent, utilities, cost of goods, tax, etc. You’re also speaking to real humans who love gaming as much as you do if not more and thus there is allot more overhead than simply sitting on your couch browsing E Bay for that Secret of Mana cart that you MAY save $ 10 on. Or if you really wanted that cart, have a great conversation with any of the super helpful guys there, pay the $ 60 for Secret of Mana, get it that day and SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESS. I don’t expect anyone to be sprinting there to buy the $ 275 Earthbound cart but go on Ebay and you cannot get that game for less than $ 175 – 200 now. So you pay just a bit more, get it that day and you know that cart has been cleaned, tested and ready to play today as good as it did over 20 years ago when it was released.
That being said, this is one of the very few gems in NYC you can physically go to, browse every console ever released, talk to the no-​pressure and super friendly, knowledgeable staff and hopefully find something great you were looking for. For me, I’m currently on a big GBA kick and they have an amazing selection of GBA carts that are very inline with pricing.
Great store, awesome staff and a must if you come to NYC and are a gamer of any type.

I’ve been a loyal customer since it open in the basement of Elizabeth center, moved across Elizabeth street and thier second store in Broadway in flushing queens. Since their recent move near Bryant park, it’s been very difficult for me to visit. Parking is actually harder to find since it’s all commercial parking only till 7pm and free parking on sunday… if you can. Taking train is the best possible solution. But since I left the city and moved upstate, this wasn’t an option. I can’t even find my train or bus in my town of middle of nowhere. But I digress. As you enter, like it’s previous locations, the store is divided up by its gaming system. I still have all my systems from colecovision till ps4. Yes I kept all of them and still works. Just got rid of majority of the games to get newer games, Ala funcoland aka engages aka gamestop. Now Tha
t I’m older I’ve been on a quest to get not all of the games I traded in but the ones I love or miss playing. JNL has a big selection of retro games. Mind you that this place knows the value of thier games and which is rare and hard to find (Ie:earthbound at 300 and Castle Vania x at 200, cartridge only). So don’t expect to find bubble bobble 2, a 400 dollar game at 19.99. All though some games are a bit affordable. Not only do they carry retro. They have recent and the import stuff. Like a 600 dollar ps4 limited edition signed metal gear with hideo kojima creator. So if you are looking for it… they probably might have it. They also do repairs and sell refurbished retro machines if your I to playing genesis or nes, etc. So come on in and take a look around. The people here were very friendly and spent an hour with me to help find what I was looking for with no gripes. I gave it a 3 because of the difficulty of getting there for non and former city folks who have to pay 13 or 10 dollar toll from the g.w. bridge to get there. As to when I lived in the city where a 2 to 3 train transfers from queens would’ve made it simpler.

They really do have almost any game that you can imagine. Even the classics that collectors are looking for. However the $$$$ rating is extremely accurate. I saw a copy of the original MegaMan for NES and it’s was $ 100. They even had a printer for the original GameBoy, I didn’t even know they made a printer for a GameBoy. The staff were helpful and courteous and took the time to answer questions, but then again they also were not busy at the time.

This store is great for trading in your old games, as they give you a good price. They also have a large selection of Japanese imports for a reasonable price.

Friendly people, but definitely out of most people’s budget range. They have a vast selection; every amiibo out there is in here and so many special edition 3DS XL… They’ve got plenty of imports too. It’s a fun place to look through but I would do the research first before shelling out so much money on something that you can get for much less online.

This place is fantastic! They restored my Nintendo NES and even helped me clean a few of my games. I highly suggest checking out this place for any and all of your gaming needs. Excellent customer service.

Friendly but quite expensive, you’ll find what you’re looking for but dont be surprised with high cost.

Staff was fine and selection was actually quite good. J&L is getting 2 stars from me because it might as well be a museum. The prices are worse than eBay with shipping. Their «Special» of the month or week that was advertised was an SNES for $ 90. That’s absurd. The high end of eBay prices (the standard that you should expect to be the highest price in the realm of reasonable) is $ 60 with free shipping. So their «Special» was 150% of what it would cost you to get one shipped to your home, usually including a game.
The NES cart prices were horrific as well. Nothing under $ 10. Top Gun, one of the most common and least collectible games for $ 10. You can easily find 5 – 10 NES cart lots on eBay that include Top Gun for $ 10 – 15. Why would you ever buy Top Gun and 4 other games for the same price.
Finally, the most egregious that I saw before leaving was a Metroid gray label for $ 40. That game is available all day long on eBay for $ 10. That’s a 400% price increase over something you can buy tomorrow and get shipped to your home.
It might be a fun place to look at games you haven’t seen in a long time, but you’d be an absolute fool to buy anything from this retailer.

Great selection and they have every ammibo. Great price on used equipment as well. Staff was also friendly and they had a good number of retro consoles.

Very friendly staff! That earns them the three stars. The guy greeted me when I walked in and asked if I needed help. This is good service for New York, where staff are usually gruff or disinterested, and it’s good service for a game store, where many are reclusive or distracted. Being close to Times Square and Bryant Park means they have to be tourist-​friendly, and that means courtesy.
Selection is fairly deep but not particularly broad. For instance on the N64 they had Donkey Kong, GoldenEye, Banjo-​Kazooie, and Banjo-​Tooie (the last is on the distinctively Rare side — note the pun — so it’s a nice surprise to find). They also offer an excellent selection of special edition 3DS consoles.
They’ve got a good selection of imports and JRPGs. The owners are Asian (maybe Japanese).
There’s a recency bias at play. They don’t have many games for the likes of NES or Atari, and they don’t seem to have many retro consoles. If you want a selection of true retro games you’ll need to go elsewhere (if oh want reasonable prices that means out of the city or on eBay).
Prices are pretty high — for instance, they offered an original Game Boy for a ridiculous $ 100. For an unsuspecting tourist this might seem reasonable, but it’s about double the fair price. The biggest absurdity was the $ 500 Majora’s Mask 3DS XL console. These were scalped upon release, but they’re worth $ 200 to $ 250 now. I’m not sure if they’ve crossed the line between trying to make a profit and cheating people. They seem nice though, so I wouldn’t assume the worst.
I respect the gist of what they’re doing; they’re running a niche business in an expensive tourist zone, and they’re doing it with a friendly face. The games are simply too expensive.

Great place but everything is over priced wish they where back in Chinatown they use to give good deals those days are over just like me going to this store.

Never let me down since I came here for the first time in Chinatown. After years of not playing any nintendo game systems, I decided to go for the new nintendo 3ds xl. Well they charge tax now which I’m sad about but the people there made me feel comfortable. One of the guys knew that I could speak Cantonese and came straight forward and started speaking Cantonese to me. We had a good conversation and I ended up buying the 3ds including 2 games. There are japanese imports as well so its worth to check it out. The people there also recommend products that you need with the console or accessories or anything that they think you should have with it. Looking forward to come back again for Pokemon collection.

Really??? Way overpriced, the thing that was sad is that we were there for ten minutes and every game that my son wanted, they had, only it was at least 20 bucks over priced. Price-​charting tells us the street cost and they were WAY over those prices.

This place has a wonderful collection of the most overpriced retro gaming merchandise I’ve ever seen in person. I really don’t understand how anyone looks at a gameboy colour at the prices they have listed and says «screw eBay or any other store that carries the same thing for less, I’ll take it!»

The first time I went here was back on Elizabeth. Place reopened in a much better location with a much bigger store, with way more things there now. What’s not to like.
Excellent store for old school video games/​controllers. Nice people here. I might give this place a 4 instead of a 5 but for the area, it really deserves it’s rating for how low the prices are.
Only thing left to do for them is to get some import games/​controllers, hint hint.

Superb as always! I’ve always got most of my games and equipment when they were in Chinatown. I still do now! They are very helpful and friendly, and their service is excellent! Earlier this week, I’ve bought a use Nintendo 3DS from them. I had some problems with it and they have replaced it with no problems at all! I will continue to get my games here! Awesome place!

–Legendary staff, keeping the old Elizabeth Street swag and style from downtown all the way to Midtown with a BANG!
–Retro, classic, vintage to the present games are at your disposal, visible in properly cleaned glass cases for all to see. Each console name has a seperate visible glass case, showing detail and professional at the highest degree.
–Rasonable prices for newly released games as well as games you missed months ago up for sale. Give them a game you want plus extra, and manager can give you a deal you can’t refuse.
–Store is SUPER. DUPER. CLEAN! This is what separates the mom and pop stores of yore, to the Mom and Pop stores who keep tradition, pride, and enjoyment of business in a clean place. It shows the people who work her they love what they do, and they’ll do everything to keep it that way.
–Buy/​Sell/​Trade. Need i say more? Even trade for credit and/​or cash. Bear in mind, your games/​consoles/​equipment must be in good condition to be considered working and must not look like your pets or little ones took a bite out of them for no reason.
— Updates of all games, both old and new, are at the staff’s disposal. If you don’t see any game at the store, you can request a special order, and place a reserve deposit for it.
–Already a veteran customer for these guys for YEARS. Have helped me out in finding games for any system needed. Plus they also have fighting sticks for sell. Dig THAT if you dare!
Highly recommend fan of any genre of gaming to check this place out. Support your game store and keep this place ALIVE!

I knew them when they were in Chinatown. Couple of them are my friends that work there and they were very helpful when I needed help looking for new games, need information about games and reviews. They have a bunch of games and consoles either new or used and I think they are the best place to look for old classic games because they have a whole selection of old games for each system and if you ask them for a certain game they could probably even help you get it. Now since they moved to midtown the place overall look similar but the bad thing is they are a little inconvenient from Chinatown where it used to be but still a great place to go to check out games and get all the Japanese imports that won’t be released in the US

Amazing little gem of a store in mid-​town Manhattan. Any game store like this is love at first sight for hardcore gamers. Store is simple, not cluttered and they have everything from current game systems all the way back to some really neat vintage systems.
Current game systems pricing is in line with the market but since I’m no vintage collector I’m not sure if prices for vintage pieces are good or bad. From what I saw I thought prices weren’t bad at all considering they had a good amount of old school stuff from games to hardware.