How renting Story of Thor proved harder than finishing the actual game

Renting games as a kid was frequently the only way I could play many new games. I was lucky that I'd typically receive a game for my birthday and for Christmas, but the rest of the year, games were expensive and out of reach through any other method than renting. It was the 1990s and the idea of cheap digital downloads to stave off the lack of games seemed unfathomable.

The advantage to renting games is I had the opportunity to experience many more games than I ever would have risked asking for as a gift. The disadvantage? The competition involved in acquiring the game I was after.

That was the case with not-quite-Zelda-clone-but-it-is-basically Story of Thor on the Mega Drive. In many ways, competing for a copy of Story of Thor, also known as Beyond Oasis, was harder than actually playing the game. My local Blockbuster (remember those? No? Oh) had two copies. It looked thrilling. It had one of those newer Mega Drive boxes that had a thick blue line down the side of it. On the one hand, that meant that the game would have superior graphics and other bits and pieces. On the other hand, that meant the Mega Drive was getting a bit long in the tooth and my days of owning the latest console were very numbered. To put it into context, in Europe, Story of Thor came out the same year as the PlayStation 1 launched. Change was coming. Fast.

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