The NES Era Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

Two hundred pages in and I'm still finding screenshots of games I'd completely forgotten existed. The paper stock is thick enough that the images don't bleed through, which matters when you're flipping back and forth constantly. Glad I grabbed it before the pre-order window closed.

Didn't expect a coffee-table book about 1985-1987 console games to be this thorough, but the page-by-page breakdowns of box art and regional releases kept me reading way past bedtime. Hardcover feels solid too, so it'll survive being flipped through repeatedly.

The screenshots of those early NES manuals and cart labels are printed so crisp it's like flipping through the originals. Jeremy Parish's writeups on the 1985-87 launch lineup go way deeper than the usual nostalgia stuff, and the hardcover feels solid enough to actually leave out on the coffee table