Heroes of Time: Meet Christian Defilippi

Good morning everyone, my name is Christian, born in ’79, and I work as a consultant at a financial institution.  

My greatest passions are traveling around Europe in my Volkswagen van, going on nice rides with my road bike, and, of course, collecting and playing video games. 

My adventure in the world of gaming was born thanks to my childhood friend Alex, when one fine day he invited me to his house to show me something amazing: the new Nintendo NES!  

It was love at first sight. We spent hours and hours playing Pro Wrestling, Metroid, Mach Rider, Kid Icarus, Faxanadu, Section Z... Even today I still remember perfectly every stage, every level and every secret of all those games. 

That Christmas, under the tree, I found a brand-new NES with Super Mario Bros., Gun.Smoke and The Legend of Zelda.  

Games that I loved madly and still cherish to this day; I literally wore them out with the number of hours I spent on them. I’m amazed that, after almost forty years, those cartridges still work perfectly, save battery included! 

I remember very well the difficulty of progressing through the various levels, whether it was Mega Man or Zelda. There were no online guides: just trial and error, over and over. Often, when you got stuck, you would go to sleep and during the night you’d have a flash of inspiration on how to get past the next stage. 

Pure magic. Today I own the historic titles of the era and I am recovering all those I longed for while looking at the displays in toy stores.

Since then, for every birthday, school promotion, or Christmas, the gift was always the same: a video game. First for the NES, then for the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo 64, and so on. The collection, of course, really started to take shape once I began working. Throughout my life I have always alternated moments of "real" life, practicing cycling, with sessions of "virtual" experiences with video games, always trying to fully immerse myself in whichever role I was playing at the time.

What were the main reasons why you wanted to grade the title you brought us? Beyond the nostalgic aspects tied to the game, are there other reasons behind your decision to entrust yourself to TGM's grading procedure. 

I have only recently started considering "Grading," not to speculate on it, but to preserve and enhance in the best possible way the titles I am most attached to, focusing exclusively on games that I managed to find new and sealed. I have many titles for 8-bit NES and 16-bit Super Nintendo, strictly in the Italian PAL version or at most European, all complete. 

Every game has its own story, just like its owner; the bond that is formed goes far beyond the simple owner-object relationship. When the title was finally returned to you graded, what did you feel?

The first games I had graded all belong to the The Legend of Zelda series (for DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii U and GameCube) and have just come back... a spectacle! A real feast for the eyes, wonderful to display in a showcase. Of each of these, anyway, I always keep an opened copy with which I play regularly.

To conclude, we can only ask you the classic ritual question: which aspects of our service did you like the most? Thank you not only for giving us your time, but also for choosing to place your trust in us!

At The Games Market I found truly passionate professionals, highly qualified and very willing to provide information about the service and clarify every little doubt. I’m glad I turned to them: they are one of the very few Italian companies to offer such a professional service. I really hope they become increasingly established internationally as well; they deserve it!