Where have I been?

Not where I wanted to be, for certain.

With a lot of things going on in my life at the moment, the little time I have left is hardly spent doing other smaller things like updating this blog. My purchases have not been as intense as before. I basically stopped buying retro games and press kits. Hopefully, better days will come in the future and I will be able to get what I'm missing now.

One of my latest purchases came from NISA Europe. Being very short on money basically means I have to make some harsh decisions and I usually end up buying the things I want the most, either because of their rarity or simply because I really like and wish to play them. That's precisely what happened with RPG Maker FES Limited Edition.

Now, I know that the best RPG maker games still come from PC and they're mostly for free, but having this little tool for the 3DS is something unique that I like the most. As such, I immediately had to buy this game when preorders became available and that's exactly what I did. I usually do not open these editions unless I truly want to play them, but I couldn't leave this one sealed.

 I've spent a lot of time making a game already that is far from completion, but I now realize what people look for in these types of games are simple things. And that's exactly what I'm doing. I don't know when it will be finished, but one day it will.

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Nerdgasm!

I usually don't have the habit of buying both PAL and NTSC versions of the same game. I usually just stick with PAL versions unless the NTSC one is very exclusive and important, but those are just a few exceptions I have in my collection.

However, I was forced to open another exception this time. Xenoblade Chronicles is by far my most favourite JRPG in recent years and I just couldn't resist getting the US version of the newest game.

I can easily tell the game has several flaws, including a few major ones, but even with all those flaws it's still am amazing game and I had a blast playing it. Nowadays, despite still buying a lot of stuff, it's not normal for me to spend over 100 hours in a single videogame. Knowing that I already spent about 170 hours playing this game and plan on returning to it some day again, you can probably tell how much I've liked this game. Too bad the ending sucks though...

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And another!

And here's another one from NISA Europe, this time Stella Glow for the Nintendo 3DS. I love these guys, I love these editions and I hope to somehow get the ones I've missed in the future!

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Rodea

Well this took some time to come out, but it eventually did. Too bad it didn't exactly match the expectations, considering the guy behind this is a respectable name behind some older games. Couldn't miss on preordering it due to the fact that it includes the physical version of the original Wii game.

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That epic moment when...

... an epic japanese game gets an epic edition in Europe. I totally missed the first game because I didn't want to spend so much money on its edition. I ended up buying it from scalpers in the end. I thought the same thing could happen with this second game but it seems that I'll probably find it later when the price drops, considering the stupid amount of copies this received...

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Just the same game again...

Was it really necessary? This is the 3rd different version of this game in my collection. First was the Wii version which I actually bought on release day and came close to finish it. Then not too long ago I managed to get a GameCube version. Suddenly this pops up in my collection. There really was no need for this... But it's Zelda, so yeah, it's almost mandatory...

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Some people have nothing better to do...

I'm feeling a little depressed right now. Last Thursday I was engaged in a street fight because one stupid guy decided to punch me instead of sorting the problem with dialogue. I thought I had a bad day, until I heard about the incidents in Paris (France), Baga (Nigeria) and Beirut (Lebanon). Just what the hell is going...

So in order to cheer things up here's a little something. Mario Maker amiibo bundle with the classic coloured, pixelated Mario. Great concept, nice amiibo. That's enough of amiibo, Nintendo. 

There's another ton of them coming soon though...

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Time flies...

Several years ago, when I originally started to become a fan of Japanese games, anime and all that stuff that produces weebos all over the world, I had all sorts of reasons to complain about the treatment Europe and specially this country received with most releases. Europe was and still is a complicated place for international companies to deal with. Unlike the US, Europe is divided in many different countries that greatly vary in sizes, cultures, languages, rules and markets. This obviously makes it harder to localize media in general. To make things worse, some of those countries don't really accept foreign languages very well in their products and almost require them to be translated. As a result, the hassle of localizing videogames in so many languages was a big enough problem that pushed them away from being released here. At that time, even some of the most popular and successful titles from big companies never saw a PAL release in their original format. Other titles that eventually made it here would arrive several months (sometimes years...) later. I believe I have been complaining about these things since I was about 13 or 14 years old.

Nowadays, things are completely different. So different that it's hard to think they were so bad in the past. In just a few years, the videogaming market in Europe suffered some drastic changes. At the moment there is an insane number of  Japanese titles being released for several platforms to the point that it's almost impossible to keep up with them all. The number of limited editions for both western and Japanese games is also insanely high, with certain countries receiving their own exclusive PAL versions. Even small, independent companies are opening stores and releasing limited editions and other exclusive Japanese stuff in their PAL format.

Senran Kagura Burst 2 Shinobi Edition is one of the greatest examples of Europe's current status when it comes to limited editions and exclusive items. 15 years ago, it was absolutely unthinkable to see such an "odd" title being released in PAL format, let alone a limited edition of this caliber. It's quite amazing and it makes me happy to see that the gap between Europe and Japan/US is much, much shorter.

I really don't have anything against NTSC versions. I prefer PAL versons simply because I grew up with them and became attached to them. I didn't have access to NTSC exclusive titles and my tiny childhood collection was made of PAL games only. At a certain point, when buying things online started to become a trend and I finally had access to an enormous amount of items that were previously near impossible to get, I would still be focused on just getting PAL stuff. My monetary limitations wouldn't allow me to collect everything from every region as you can imagine, so focusing on PAL games was a way to narrow down my already extensive whishlists. Sadly, this basically meant that I was leaving many masterpieces out of my collection. I just couldn't buy everything from every region as you can imagine. 

As my collection started to grow over the years, I slowly started to buy a few NTSC exclusive titles and there are still many others I expect to buy in the future. However, with so much stuff being released in Europe like I never imagined before, I have some very strong, brand new reasons to continue to focus my attention on PAL releases. 

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Krillin dies

I don't know how many times I tried to buy this game in the past. I always considered these DBZ games on the SNES to be a little overpriced. Now that the newest Butoden game came out for the 3DS (and I still don't have that one yet...) and the new series started not too long ago, I had this urge to get the SNES games I was still missing. Hyper Dimension was my priority and I'm glad it was the first I scored. Getting the other 3 however till be a different story. I can't keep up with everything coming out recently so retro games also need to wait. 

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Everything is Amiibo

Now that I've lost even more readers by bashing Splatoon a tiny bit (but I still bought the game... -_-), it's time to talk about the newly released Yoshi game. I like this game, even though it's not exactly top stuff like Tropical Freeze. And the Amiibo that comes with it is pretty cute. So cute even my mother bought one for herself and took it out of its box. Taking an Amiibo out if its box is something so ordinary that I almost feel like a weirdo for keeping them all sealed. I am tempted to open them all though, who knows what's going to happen in the future... They certainly look nicer out of their boxes.

My only complaint is that Nintendo is taking this Amiibo business too far... way too far. It's enough of Amiibo already. In a little over half a year, there's about 60 or more already on sale or soon to be available. Most of them were a nightmare to get, not to mention those Skylanders Superchargers pack that are getting ready to hit stores soon enough. Damn Nintendo, please just take a break!

Fortunately, now there's enough stock for almost every Amiibo released so far - except Yarn Yoshis and Inkling Squids. ON YOUR FACE, SCALPERS! But on my face too because I've bought some doubles to trade in the future and now I don't need any -_-

Poor Yoshi was so badly framed in this picture that I will probably update it some time later...

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Boring...

I don't know why this became so popular. I assume it's because it's made by Nintendo, the most annoying videogame company since 2014. 

Saying I dislike this game is just me being nice. The truth is... this game means nothing to me. And it has an exclusive amiibo with it, which makes me hate it even more because that basically made me buy it. I'm not a fan of shooters in general but, for some reason, every now and then I have this urge to play them once in a while. This, however is not an ordinary shooter.

I really don't understand what's so funny about shooting everything with paint. That's basically what this game is about: a lousy attempt at making a shooter that can be played by everyone without the slightest hint of realistic violence involved. I guess that's a Nintendo trademark: "it's not just for kids, it's for everyone". In fact, almost everything suitable for kids is suitable for everyone. Ah, I guess that as much as people have fun with it, that's ok. To me, that's just boring. But I still bought it anyway, so screw logic...

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Let me hate on Nintendo a little more.

No, I'm not collecting faceplates and I hate Nintendo for doing this. I've been hating Nintendo a lot lately. They are more concerned about making money in microtransactions with Pokemon Shuffle and Pokémon Rumble, selling 3DS wallpapers for 2 euros, making useless but addicting cool figurines called Amiibo and releasing a ton of faceplates. Now they announced a ton of new Amiibos and they will keep doing the same sh!t again of releasing them in very low quantities. The nightmare for Amiibo collectors will resume shortly. Thanks for being an ass, Nintendo. 

But I'm definitely not collecting these faceplates. Overall, they're annoyingly expensive, tagged at 14.99 euros each, not counting that wooden-like cover that goes for... 24.99 for no particular reason. Not to mention scubag stores that sell these for a higher price, such as Fnac. And I truly hate that store for charging more cash than things are worth and for being the only place where you can actually preorder these over here. The rest of the stores seem to be absolutely clueless about these things until they finally arrive, if they ever arrive.

I only buy a couple that I like the most, such as the Pokemon ORAS, Xenoblade, the two Zelda ones and that's all for the moment. Most of them are ugly as well and almost none goes well with the white New 3DS console, which is exactly the one I have because it's the only colour available for the Ambassador Edition. I wanted a black one and life sucks because I don't have a black one. It's already stupid enough to own a New 3DS because that thing is basically the same sh!t as before with a few extras nobody cares about. And the only game available is Xenoblade, which happens to be one of my favourite games ever created... And I still didn't buy it because the only store where I found it for sale is Fnac, which is asking 5 euros more than in most other places, as usual...

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It's Mario Party time!

Yay, Mario Party 10 just came out and thanks to the Amiibo I already hate the game. You know that really hard to get figurine called Rosalina, right? Then you probably heard by now that the figurine unlocks an entire board in this game, right? So, you weren't expecting to see Nintendo pull a nasty trick on costumers by not producing more stock of Rosalinas, right?

Wrong. It was just leaked not too long ago that Rosalina will have its own wave release for the Super Mario series. So if you were actually thinking of finally completing the 3 first Smash Bros. waves with that character you're missing, Nintendo says "no". At least for now. In fact, Nintendo has a lot of trouble to comunicate. Mr. Iwata is trying hard to speak English in order to provide you with the latest information on Nintendo Directs, but he's unable to tell us the future of the Amiibo...

A difference of only 5 euros in price is reason enough for me to get the Amiibo Box Set instead of the regular game. In fact, I'm not even sure if I've seen any regular game available for sale separately in stores. 5 euros is as much as those figurines should be worth in the first place, let alone 30 or 50 euros like the annoying scalpers are asking...

If anyone wants to get rid of a boxed Gold Mario, I'm accepting gifts. Half the people who bought it want to get rid of it anyway (for cash...).

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The Enemiibo...

Good thing to know a friend of mine called Ivan just posted some weird study on Facebook saying that bad humour is a sign of intelligence. Looking at all the rants I've been writing in this blog, I must be a f***ing genius.

One thing is certain: I'm stupid. Another thing is certain: so is Nintendo. This has to be the worst collector's nightmare in recent times, seriously. What the heck, Nintendo? I originally bought a couple of these figurines called the Amiibo, but I promised myself that I would not buy all of them. GG Nintendo, I fell for your trap and I'm pretty sure plenty of other people out there can relate... Now what?

I started with Link, Marth and Pikachu because they were cool. I didn't have plans to buy the rest of the 1st wave because I thought I would be able to buy them later after a price drop or something. I certainly am not a genius, but at the time I didn't realize that expecting a price drop for most of these figurines was something even those guys from Criminal Minds would miss. 

Things became more serious when they officially announced that three figurines from the first wave would be discontinued, confirming those rumours that were lurking around in doubtful articles on the internet. I already had Marth, but I still needed to get the two retarded ones: Wii Fit Trainer and the Villager. Well, honestly, sorry if I offended you guys who are fans of any of these two, but even still you have to recognize they are the most random characters to ever make it to the Smash Bros roost. Seriously, what the heck are those characters? It makes more sense to release a "Mii version of Mr. Potato" Amiibo than those two characters. They could even call it Miister Potato as far as I'm concerned. Then they would allow you to customize your own Amiibo with accessories that were sold separately. Oh no, don't give them more ideas... Anyway, I only bought the weird couple to avoid regrets later.

So, by the time I had 5 figurines, I noticed I was missing the interesting ones, such as Kirby (cute and gay), Samus and Fox. Obviously, by the time I bought those, I was only missing two to complete the first wave. I was determined to buy them all at this point. Thank you Nintendo, for ruining my sanity.

Second wave comes out, and brought us plenty of cool characters. I visited one store that had them all, but there was only a single figurine of my favourite character from that wave: Little Mac. I didn't buy any because I didn't feel like wasting money at that moment. I waited a few days before deciding to get some of them but then I noticed I could no longer find Little Mac at the local stores. I travelled a few km to different stores and I eventually realized that Little Mac was only available in extremely low quantities. I started to worry at first, but I eventually found a few here and there, so I bought one. I warned a couple of friends of how limited that figurine seemed to be but they didn't seem to care until it was too late. I was completely unaware of what was happening in the rest of the world.

Third wave comes out and this was by far the easiest to get. Stores over here don't give a crap about figurines. If they have too many on the shelves, they don't put up more for sale, even if they are new ones just released. They don't care about release dates either. Several days before 3rd wave came out, I randomly entered a local store that had all the new figurines available. Plenty of them actually, not less than about ten of each, including Rosalinas. I bought Rosalina, Ike, Toon Link, Lucario... At this point I thought that getting the full collection was not a problem. I heard Rosalinas were rare, so I checked eBay, saw their values and a couple of weeks later I returned to the same store that still had about 7 left and I decided to buy a couple to make some spare money. Yeah I know, I was such a scalper and I kinda feel bad for that.

So I bought a couple of Rosalinas and placed them on eBay with the lowest buy it now and free postage. In a matter of minutes I received a message from another guy in this country asking how much I would sell that figurine for... I thought to myself "hummm this is weird, this must be super common as that store alone had about 10 of them for almost 3 weeks... This guy will probably find it easily if he visits a few stores". I told him that and I never heard from him again. I hope he didn't die or something... 

The Rosalinas I placed on eBay sold ridiculously fast. Some time later I realized Rosalina was nowhere to be found in any other store around this area (and, believe me, there are plenty of stores in a 20km radius...). I even got a few just to help other people who needed it, without making any profit. That's when I understood how scarce these were, and I have a few close friends who wanted one but couldn't get it. Damn, the feels...

Okay, so I was still expecting to easily collect all the figurines... until the 2nd set of the 4th wave comes out. You know, the one that includes Shulk, Meta Knight, King Dedede, Mega Man and Sonic... I didn't even bother looking at release dates, since all I had to do up to this point was walk into that store and get them. Or so I thought.... Shulk was by far my most wanted character and for a second I thought I had missed it for good. Nintendo had the absolutely brilliant idea of releasing just two figurines per store, and only a bunch of stores got them and they were already reserved for scalpers, one guy in particular. Yeah, I know who you are, I know you've been to three different Worten stores reserving almost the entire stock. Oh, but you're such a nice guy, because you left one Sonic and one Megaman for another guy!!! Now die alone.

And now the 4th wave is sold out everywhere, except in the local stores who don't even know what they are selling. I don't know if I will be able to get the 4th wave figurines. Stores over here know nothing until they receive it. Last time I made a phone call asking for the Nintendo figurines called Amiibo and the guy on the phone said "hum I've no idea what they are". So I told him about the Skylanders, and he didn't know what Skylanders are. Seriously???? You work in a Multimedia store and you don't know what Skylanders are? Damn, I hope that guy has some short term plans for your future...

I'm done with the Amiibo as soon as the Smash Bros. Series ends. I don't even care about the new ones from Super Mario. Nintendo is making fans give all the money to scalpers just because they had the stupid idea of not releasing enough figurines. There's a billion of super marios from wave 1, then there are like 39 Shulks all over the world. What's the point??? Is Nintendo dumb? Don't they want more money? Do they prefer to piss their costumers and drive them insane looking for these stupid figurines? I like to walk in a store and get the ones I like when I feel like buying them. I don't want to look like a crazy guy constantly refreshing the amiibo page on websites that still didn't put them for sale, FFS...

Well done Nintendo, I hope you enjoy burying your unsold 1st wave Super Mario Amiibo in the Nevada Desert while you watch the rest of the World killing each other just to get a Ness figurine.

Here it is, the full collection of Smash Bros. Amiibo up to number 29, in risk of never going beyond that number now that I've lost the preorders for the next wave. Even the background is a nightmare to edit on this one, so please just enjoy a regular, crappy, unedited picture showing all my Amiibo in their current habitat. This collection is driving me nuts to the point I've considered selling the whole thing and make a profit just to buy other editions coming out soon.

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There are more games of Pokémon than Pokémon in the games

This game isn't particularly interesting, at least to me, but it comes with a very nice accessory. A Nintendo DS Bluetooth keyboard, which is definitely nice. I had to wait for a major price drop in a UK store I could trust. It's just too bad Amazon doesn't protect everything as well as it should. At this point, I'm pretty sure the only Pokémon games I'm still missing are basically Rush and Conquest. Pokémon Rush is such an interesting game that I am still waiting for a bargain deal just to complete the series.

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Limited Edition Zelda Wind Waker Slipcase ('cause this title will get me more views than any other)

This is another one of those things that took me a pretty long time to get. Basically, this is a limited edition copy of the Wind Waker for the Gamecube that comes with this unique slipcase. I assume this is a HMV thingy, I'm not too sure. I've known this for many years now but, for some reason, I never really felt like buying it. Once in a while I still remembered I was missing this in my collection. Too bad its price was nearly twice as much as it was worth some years ago, but with so much stuff to buy all the time it's pretty hard to guess what to leave behind. Now that the Majora's Mask came out for the 3DS, I suddenly had the urge to get this slipcase. I'm sure many people can relate to this feeling because whenever a new game for an old franchise gets released, the general interest in other things related to that particular franchise seems to receive a small boost, even when it's Zelda.Yeah, because Zelda stuff never gets unsold-

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No comments...

I was one of the first persons to complain about this new model when it was announced, and now I have both the regular console and the Limited Edition Majora's Mask XL model (that one will be posted later). I'm such a weirdo, I know. All I'm missing now is the Spirit Tracks model of the DS lite console in order to have all the Zelda-related models released in Europe (or so I think...). This is bothering me a bit, but the truth is that model is out of my price range and it's particularly rare. It's not something I can buy just like that, unfortunately. And since I'm complaining about Nintendo models I'd like to get, I'd love to find the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire Limited Edition Paks too...

This move from Nintendo was unnecessary to be honest. They could wait to release a brand new, better console instead of adding just a couple of improvements that don't really affect the gaming experience. At least that's what I think, but then I'm stupid enough to actually support their decisions by buying two of these models as soon as they become available. What's pictured here is the Ambassador Edition, the model that's only available to a few selected Nintendo Ambassadors. Just in case you're clueless about what these Nintendo Ambassadors are, they're the people that bought a 3DS console in the early dates before the major price drop. In order to compensate those who paid a lot more cash for the console before the price drop, Nintendo created the Ambassador program, giving some bonuses such as free games and exclusive news. In order to enter the Ambassador program, all you had to do was access the internet with a 3DS model during a certain date before the price drop. The original compensation consisted of 20 Virtual Console games from NES and GBA I believe. It's been years since that happened and I thought that the Ambassador program was now useless, but I guess it was not. A few randomly selected ambassadors were  given the early chance to buy this exclusive New 3DS Ambassador Edition a few weeks before the official release date. I was not one those persons though, but someone gave me his chance to get this and I took it.

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Instantly worth it just because it's Zelda

Yeah, Majora's Mask for the 3DS arrived and so did this little Special Edition that I obviously had to get. It reminds me of the moment when I originally bought the Limited Edition Adventure Set for the N64, the first huge purchase that made it to my collection back in 2005 or 2006 I believe. It's been around 10 years!

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Hagane means Steel

This is proof of how some uncommon older titles became hell on earth to buy within just a few years, after the recent retrogaming boom. I've known this game for quite a while but I never really paid much attention to it. At that time, I noticed it was an uncommon title but not that amazingly expensive compared to most SNES rarities. My interest for this game only grew a couple of years ago. For some time it became my number one SNES priority. However, this game was far harder to track down than I originally imagined. I've seen complete copies of this game going for less than 100 euros many times in the past but once I've decided to buy it it seems the price more than tripled. Eventually, one opportunity popped up and I've decided that it was now or never. Best decision ever, because this copy of the game is as good as new.

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And yet another thing I wasn't expecting to buy...

After all that talk about the PS4, I've decided to post a pic of the GameCube Smash Bros controller. Then I posted a picture of the PS4. Now I resume the talk about Smash Bros. This is just not satisfying. But that's okay.

This is another thing I certainly wasn't expecting to buy at this moment. I never imagined the demand for these controller adapters would be so high. This thing is sold out and selling for absurd prices. I completely missed it, even though I had several copies on my hands. Thanks to a friend, I managed to get one copy of this bundle, which now happily lives in my house.

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