Alex Nguyen

I’m asking this question because I heard from others that these joy-cons are more well-built than the typical pair of joy-cons. I’m not sure if this is true, however if it is, would it be worth it to get them?

Now I'm asking this question because before, the Saturn was notorious for being really difficult to emulate. However, in recent years, emulation for the system has improved. I heard of an emulator called Mednafen, which can actually run Saturn games. Now my main question is that is the emulation good enough to the point where I would not need a Saturn anymore to play these games or is it still better to get the physical copies for a much smoother experience?

P.S. I have an HP Computer with an intel Core i5 10th gen processor.

Wii - Muramasa Demon Blade

PS2 - R-Type Final

PS2 - Neo Contra (manual only)

PS1 - Raystorm

9 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I'm sure they don't know or care

Fair enough.

I'm asking this question because most of the Western countries have them. However, Asian countries (like the ones stated above) don't seem to have any.

I can only imagine the Japanese really does not the way GameStop handles their used market because they are all about keeping their games in great condition with a fair trade value while GameStop just throws away or outright destroying any game that doesn't give them a quick profit along with an unfair trade value. Keeping their items in mint condition is part of their culture. I remember hearing that Walmart is really not popular in Japan. I can imagine how the Japanese feel about GameStop's crappy policy.

Now South Korea on the other hand, I do not know much about. However, I do remember that they are into Western culture a lot more than their Japanese neighbor. However, I noticed that when I looked up on Wikipedia the list as to where GameStops are located, South Korea doesn't seem to appear on the list. So I assume that they must really not like GameStop if South Korea doesn't have a location.

I've been to this game store in Singapore called Toy and Game, they are a much better and cleaner store than GameStop.

That's all I have to say. I would just like your thoughts.

We all know that the NA market is pretty bad and the Japanese second hand is pretty good. However, I do not know too much about the European market. What was your experience?

I mean he appears in many crossovers that Ryu appear in, some games he appeared in without Ryu or Chun-Li. Both Sephiroth and Akuma are both villains who antagonize the main heroes. Initially, I thought Chun-Li was the Sephiroth of Street Fighter since she's also a Street Fighter character that appears in almost every crossover Ryu appears in. However, that's just me.

I'm very grateful that you published this list on the forum. I tried to find it online again, however, nowadays, I cannot find that list anymore. I heard Nintendo took it down, which would not be surprising at all, but still very frustrating. However, in volume 270, you forgot to put that Star Fox 64 3D came with a bonus Pokémon DVD. Just to let you know.

1 hour ago, ifightdragons said:

https://www.google.com/search?ei=tp0AYPS1DqjMrgT4_pP4AQ&q=scott+pilgrim+remaster+multiplayer&oq=scott+pilgrim+remaster+multiplayer&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzoICAAQyQMQxAI6AggAOgUIABDEAjoFCCEQoAE6BwghEAoQoAE6BAghEBVQow1Ymxpg4iRoAHAAeAGAAeEDiAGMDpIBCTguMy4xLjAuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXrAAQE&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwj06PezlpzuAhUoposKHXj_BB8Q4dUDCA0&uact=5

If you'd done a quick Google search you'd find this info in the top result from pcgamer.com:
"...the game will support local and online multiplayer for up to four players."

Removing local multiplayer because of Covid seems like an incredibly unlikely move for any developer to make.

Thank you, I'm sorry, some things are hard to Google search.

I was concern about this when the Complete Edition was announced because of the fact that sometimes newer editions of games can sometimes do remove certain content, for example the Ninja Gaiden Sigma series removed the blood from the original Xbox releases, and with COVID-19 being a thing, a lot of people do not want to be near each other. Can you please tell me down below, thank you.

23 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

Would you call Jesus a middle eastern icon?

Sonic is a global icon. Dude has cartoons, comics, a movie, merchandise, the works!

Fun Fact: you can type in “[Your first name] the hedgehog“ on google and shitty sonic fan art will pop up. If you’re lucky, you might even get some Rule 34 on your name...

I think anyone who is familiar with Sonic knows the whole google search "[your name] the hedgehog".

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

Sonic's whole universe and character roster etc. feels very inherently Japanese to me, and so much of it is grounded in their culture. It's pretty hard to ignore that aspect of his character.

True. The Japanese are pretty notorious for hating freedom.

It makes sense that Sonic's character was inherently Japanese, but most of their systems do much better outside of Japan and their mascot is much more popular overseas.

That's why while Westerners wished that they lived in Japan, I would much rather live in Eastern European countries like Poland because I assume that they would believe in freedom.

7 hours ago, phart010 said:

Which Sonic are we talking about?

I was thinking of the character as a whole. However, I do like the left one better.

5 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

None of Sega's consoles ever really gained a strong foothold in Japan, so why on earth would you think Sonic would be a Japanese "icon"???

Well the Saturn did well in Japan. However without a huge Sonic title.

The character Sonic was obviously created by the Japanese, however I feel like the character is more popular in the West than its home country since it was designed to be popular in both territories, marketed as a freedom fighter, which Westerners can relate to, and even had a Sonic float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. I was thinking about how Japan has so many iconic fictional characters that could represent Japan, such as: Mario, Goku, Pikachu, Kenshiro, Hatsune Miku, Kirito, Saber, RX-78-2 Gundam, etc. Sonic is a popular character for sure, but not sure if he would fit as a Japanese icon like his peers. What do you think?

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

Lul, wat?

You want to go to Japan to trade imports into the game stores so they will be kept in good condition?

I thought you said you don't have any imports yet? So what would you be trading in? And if you wanted to keep them in mint condition, why trade them in at all, why not just hold onto them and look after them yourself?!

This thread makes very little of what we humans call 'sense'!

Sorry for being unclear. I bought some imports, but just for Switch and PS4, and that's just to play the games, not to have a collection. I do not have any Japanese retro games. Now, I would rather trade if I happen to go to Japan, not go to there just to trade.

I'm just asking because games that run on PS4 tend to look better than their Switch counterparts. I'm asking in terms of framerate, resolution, textures, changes, added content etc. However, if they look the exact same, like God Eater 3, then there's no point. I would like some feedback, thank you.

On 11/10/2020 at 9:15 AM, TheGreatBlackCat said:

It's an entirely different culture. I love historical Japanese culture, art, food, etc., and I went to Japan last year. You're kind of hitting at multiple points here, but I'll try to break them down:

1.) The Japanese have a much different worldview than The West. As far as retro game stores dying out or a large corporation moving in, it's highly unlikely for that to happen. Japan is relatively small and chains, while they exist, are nowhere near as large as their enormous American counterparts. The Tokyo area has something like 50% of Japan's population living in it much like Seoul in South Korea. The chains are relegated to cities and even then there aren't tens of thousands of locations. Somebody mentioned Super Potato and that's not as large as Americans would like to make out, store-wise or location-wise. Super Potato even closed a few locations recently. Prices are high as hell and the workers looked miserable there during cherry blossom season (therefore, not that great of a place to shop or to work at). Retro games could be had for substantially less in smaller shops than from Super Potato. There's a Super Potato tax of upwards of 25% on games just to shop there and a place like Super Potato likely over expanded with the few locations that they have. So, no, I doubt any chain would do well. I live in Philadelphia and by virtue of living in a city large corporate chains have difficulty maintaining traffic. There are many more alternatives to chains when one lives in a city.

2.) The Japanese have a much better secondhand market. They take much better care of their possessions and often use, reuse, and resell all the time. There's a huge difference between the American secondhand market and the Japanese used market. Americans take much worse care of their possessions than the Japanese. The sense of ownership and care that the Japanese generally have still persists to this day. The secondhand market there will always remain strong because of this.

3.) As much as I hate to admit it physical media is dying. We can all debate that fact here, that there will always be a market, but the amount of gamers who want physical media are eclipsed by those who don't care. The majors recently releasing essentially consolized PCs without optical drives says how present this fact is. GameStop will die one day within this next decade. I am confident when I say that GameStop will not be around in 2030 unless it can majorly reimagine its business model in some significant way. GameStop is in no way in a position to jump into a foreign business venture and to open new stores in a market that doesn't want or need them there.

Thanks, I have been thinking of getting into Japanese game collecting because I realized that the Western (specifically the US market) in general is a complete farce, people licking the Switch carts and COVID-19 prices were where I draw the line. The only good that US games are that they're good money if you get the right games at the right prices. However, I made an oath to not collect Japanese imports until I move to Asia because that makes more sense to me.

However, my main question is that is there a way to trade-in any import to any JP game store as a foreigner? Now I do not want to trade-in the game for the money, but to keep those Japanese imports in mint condition so they would not be ruined by the American market. I heard that you can't trade-in that country unless you have a Japanese ID. The only thing I can think of maybe renting a Japanese girlfriend/friend/family member to trade-in for me, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea.

But yeah, even though the imports have gone a bit more expensive, they still seem cheaper and cleaner than their North American counterparts. Which yeah figures. They also have some really cool boxarts. Which is also one of the reasons to get into JP game collecting.

Speaking of GameStop, I remember they had some stores in Sweden of all places, however, they close their stores over there a few years back. Yeah I can only imagine GameStop wanting to buy Asian stores like Hard-Off, Super Potato, Surugaya, Toy or Game (Singapore game store), etc., just to keep themselves relevant, like how they bought stores like EB Games, Funcoland, and Micromania-Zing (game store retailer in France), however, I can only imagine all of the Asian stores saying "no".

4 hours ago, phart010 said:

With few exceptions, I think Nintendo is looking for several criteria: 

1. Mass appeal

2. Iconic as a video game character

3. Legacy - Has had a series of games across multiple Nintendo consoles.

4. Diverse enough attacks to make a good move set.

Many of these characters, while very cool, are probably lacking in mass appeal. By mass appeal, I mean huge following, like Minecraft for example. I think Minecraft fails in all the other criteria, but it’s mass appeal was substantial enough to get Nintendo to overlook the other things. 

I’ve thought about this for some time. Iconic and having a Nintendo legacy (but lacking diverse move-sets):

Bubble Bobble, Contra, Master Higgins, Billy/Jimmy Lee

 

These characters could realistically be made into Smash characters. I think they have relatively widespread appeal, are pretty iconic, they’re associated with Nintendo, and could have some good movesets:

Ryo Hayabusa, Ninja Turtles, Shantae, Zero, Rayman, Toad (male and female), maybe Battletoads (if they would just port the new game to Switch..)

 

Crash Bandicoot and Sora are unfortunately more iconic to Sony than Nintendo. But you never know, Nintendo is always up for surprises.

 

Don’t forget #5, a game that is about to come out.

I like thinking about who gets to be in Smash Bros., which is why I made this poll.

13 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

I also forgot Namcot Collection and Ninja Jajamaru Collection. 

If I had to make a list of hidden gems worldwide it would be pretty long! 

I mean Japanese games that were released worldwide (including the North America). Plus, you can just give me your favorites.

On 11/27/2020 at 6:20 PM, MiamiSlice said:

Do you mean Japanese region? The ones I went for importing: Fight Crab, Mantis Burn Racing, Super Cane Magic Zero, Block Quest Maker, Ace Angler, Esp Ra De Psi, Kero Blaster, Capcom Belt Action Collection, and Moon. 

Well I mean ones that are released in Japan and worldwide.

The kind of hidden gems I'm looking for are the Japanese kind of variety, I'm not as interested in the Western kind and I want to get physical versions because I would like to have a physical copy just in case I want to lend it to someone or sell it in comparison to owning the digital copy. I'm more into platformers or arcade style games like beat em' ups, shmups, or fighters. It can be games that are released on other platforms, but exclusives are what I'm a little more interested in. What do you guys think? It doesn't have to be limited to those 2 genres, it can be any genre. Thank you.

I'm interested to hear thoughts between the two because from the videos I saw about Japanese game stores, they seem to take better care of their games than most GameStops, I live in the USA btw. I don't really see too many comparison videos on the subject, but videos and articles of Japanese vs Western media comparisons are incredibly easy to find. The closest to getting those kinds of videos is a video from a YouTube channel called jcontra making a video about American game stores. Maybe Adam Koralik made some comparisons since he went to a lot of Japanese game stores, but I haven't seen all of those videos yet. Now some might say that Japan might go the way of backwards degeneracy like the West, but that's like saying stores like Book-Off and Super Potato might go to the route of GameStop, which doesn't seem to be the case.  Even though parts of their culture are weird also, but in different ways.

Speaking of which, since GameStop is struggling so much, so imagine how funny it would be if they try to buy Asian store chains like Book-Off, Super Potato, Mandarake, Toy and Game (Singapore game store), Halo Shop, and Mimigame (both are Vietnamese game stores), and they all reject GameStop without hesitation. 

I would like to know.

I was in Akihabara one time, and all I cared about was the arcades, I didn't care too much about buying retro games. Now I'm not too familiar with Super Potato until after I left Japan, which I'm kind of angry about since it's a huge attraction in Japan. What do you guys think?