Thanks a lot, I'll tip well for the cleaning of the cartridges!
Why are you doing 8-12 hour day? My shameful record is something like 75 days straight of work (including weekends) and I think that included 70 hour weeks for 2 months straight. I won't do that again, it wasn't worth the money based on basically not doing anything else in life for 2.5 months that I can't get back.
It did prove I can basically do anything (career wise) though, so I was glad I learned that lesson. Now when faced with a challenge I know I can do it, even if it needs 24+ hours straight.
I definitely want DKC2. Were there many differences in All Stars than the original SMB1/2/3? Would be interesting to note. Some came with mario world IIRC, any differences between that and the original?
I did pick up Pilotwings.
I got FF2/FF3/Chrono Trigger/Super Mario RPG today and their conditions are stellar (label/cartridge wise). I'm happy with those. The SNES bit boxes don't seem to have as much of an appeal to me as theN ES for some reason, not sure why yet, I know my printer is running out of ink though. I might have StoneAgeGamer print the SNES ones out for me or see if I can get FedEx/Kinkos to get a reasonable print out.
That's my regular shift but my off days are randomized and it just so happens that I'm on a long stretch. The other guy can't work more than 28 hours a week so they dump the rest on me. The days were actually much longer until January 2nd (it's retail... open to closed).
My record is open to closed 7-days a week for over a year. From Spring 2013 to Summer 2014 I pretty much got Thanksgiving, Christmas, two days after Christmas, and one other day off (think it was the day after Black Friday). I had to take extended lunch breaks just to get my hair cut since I was always at work during business hours. It was double frustrating that every place was closed on the only days I had off because they were holidays.
The changes in SMA*S+SMW:
It's pretty much all improvements. It set the benchmark for how classics should be handled when updating them. Though I can point out a few difference I don't have any real complaints. The play control is 100% identical to the originals. I wouldn't be surprised if they are literally running patched versions of the original game code.
Super Mario All*Stars + Super Mario World has a different title screen from standard SMA*S and an extra entry in the menu for SMW, of course.
For SMW I believe it adds a quit option to return to the title screen/multi-game menu. It also integrated SMW's file select and management into the game select menu so you can now copy progress from one file over another and I believe you get more save files. The Luigi sprite in SMW was changed to look more like Luigi instead of a pallet-swapped differently-colored version of Mario but I can't recall if they fixed the ending where the game calls Luigi "Mario" if you happen to beat the game with him. I only wish they added a way to toggle the game-wide effect that beating the Star Road has always had!
Super Mario Bros. 2 has a color ending scene now and they fixed the Ostro/Birdo mix-up during the enemy listing. Almost all of my time with SMB2 has been with the All*Stars version so this one is a bit tough for me to compare. The roulette bonus game is much better with spinning/scrolling sprites instead of flashing/cycling but it plays identically.
There were errors in the original SMB3 that were fixed on later game paks even for the original NES and those changes persist in the SMA*S version. For example, the princess uses the English names for Goomba and Lakitu ("Kuribo" and "Jugem" confused the heck out of me as a kid). IIRC, the outline of her included in the letter after each world is now a full-color animated sprite... which makes no sense. A talking letter?! Some of the animal forms of the 7 kings have been replaced with sprites from other games on the cart. For example, one is an Albatoss from SMB2. There was a tiny notch at the end of the first ship in World 8 that made it easy to jump back up from the water in the US version. That's gone now, which makes it like the Japanese version always was. This isn't a change for you, but the original Japanese version would always revert to small Mario when the player was hit with a suit, fire power, or as Raccoon Mario. They now return to Super Mario like the US versions have always done. I think they changed all the World/Land names at the end to be more consistent (they were always flip-flopping on what to call some of them). There might be an extra layout or two in the card flipping/matching game but it has all the originals for sure. An expanded 2p Mario Bros. arcade-style bonus game can be selected from the title screen. It's more like the arcade and not the same as the one you could access in-game on the original version where you could steal each other's cards. A SMB3-style remix of the underwater music from the original SMB has been added to the title screen much like SMB2 has always had an SMB2-style mix of the same track on it's title screen. It's just as well done!
SMB1 and SMB: The Lost Levels also have a piano version of their own underwater theme on the title screen. Luigi's Sprite was changed again. Some glitches were fixed while others were retained. For example, you no longer get "Game Over" if you die with more than 127 extra lives. The minus world is gone, though going through the wall still works. The harder quest can now be accessed from the SMA*S game select menu after you have beaten the game, but that's really thanks to the save feature they added to all of the original games. Well, SMW already had one and Lost Levels was a Famicom Disk System game so it might have already had one too (I dunno).
So, the improvements to all of the games are:
Fully-implemented progress save feature
Parallax-scrolling backgrounds
MUCH improved colors and sprite details
MUCH improved music fidelity and composition
You can now play 2p with one controller (game detects and removes 2p simultaneous stuff to compensate)
I'm sure I'm missing some things.