At 02:00 AM 2/7/02 -0500, you wrote:
> Been pretty dormant here but with all this talk about imports again
>it got me wondering when I first started collecting imports. So...
>What was your first import game you ever bought (I guess for any
>system)?
I still remember my first non-US video game; it was a knockoff
Famicom Super Mario 2 (lost levels kind), which I picked up at a local
video game shop. $7 with a converter to boot! This was a couple of
years after "Mario All-stars" on the SNES came out, so I thought it
was the neatest thing.
My first ever foreign PC Engine games actually came all in a
big bunch; one day, on the way to the post office, I stopped in at the
local Goodwill and found a Supergrafx machine with a small assortment
of Hucards. Being a long-time Turbo fan, I immediately knew what it
was; I nearly had a heart attack! As I remember, it came with Dead
Moon, Nectaris, and World Beach Volley, plus a few empty cases (I
think some of the Hucards had been stolen). The machine was $15, the
joystick was $5, and the Hucards were $2 each. I still have Dead Moon,
but I've since gotten rid of the others. The Supergrafx, of course,
is not something that's ever going to be sold.
This pretty much kickstarted my PC Engine career - I traded in
my TG16 for a Duo a couple of weeks later, and since I was now able
to play CD games as well as Japanese Hucards on the SGX, I went a bit
nuts.
And now, of course, I have heaps and heaps of games, more than
I know what to do with! I think about 2/3 of them are Japanese, and
the rest are US with a handful of Euro, South American, and Australian
ones thrown in. I'm not really one of those people who thinks that
the Japanese version of everything is instantly superior; I usually
prefer to have the US release of a particular game instead. It's
mostly just due to the fact that the games I tend to like don't get
released here so often (big shooter freak!) or happen to be super-rare
in North America.
Actually, a lot of my Japanese games are just in my collection
because I managed to stumble across the Japanese one before the US
release.
And as people were talking here about finding shrinked games, many
>mentioned I still have new, basically bought not to play but just as
>collectors status. They have to be out there, it just finding them and
>seeing if someone is willing to part them, as for me you'll have to pry
>them from my kung-fu grip ;)
>Adam...
Oy! Not for me, thanks! The only reason I'd ever own a shrinked
game is so I could sell it and buy some used ones. It's not fun having
something you can't even play or read the instruction booklet! I'm not
a big fan of useless shelf clutter.
To each his own, though :) If it makes you happy, then more power
to you!
Matthew