Alder

Finishing up Tears of the Kingdom now. Loved it.

I'm 100+ hours into Mario's Picross on the Switch, on stage 9 of the Wario side, so I think I'm almost done! Been playing it on and off for a year or so, the puzzles are starting to take a while now.

I've played a few of them for the platinum coins. Magikarp Jump was so stupid but I played it for months. Super Mario Run is fun but forgettable.

I enjoyed Pokemon Go but it's kind of shocking how BAD the app is in so many ways. You'd think with that revenue they'd be able to optimize it but no, it's still laggy, the audio's crackly, and managing your collection of pokemon is a pain. It could be so much better than it is.

A year or so back I spent like ten bucks on some event that only lasted part of a day - I ended up not being able to play at the time so I wasted my money. Ever since then, the game has a bit of a bad taste for me. I'd probably still play it if it didn't hog my phone's storage and battery life... plus I don't have unlimited data which is a bit of a problem.

I facepalmed when they announced Pikmin Bloom, but I will probably check it out.

I've made it a tradition to beat Castlevania every Halloween since 2015. Not stopping now!

Bump - looks like that UK one is in stock again, but would be $55 shipped :S 

Looks great! There's just something about that color of yellow plastic that hits me with nostalgia, haha.

What kind of printer/cardstock did you use to make the box and dust cover?

I think the black shell is pretty cool. I like the uniformity of NES carts, but I wish we got a bunch of different colors like the Famicom did, instead of just grey for everything. I wish the same was true for SFC carts though. And Switch end labels.

$120 sounds like a good price to me though. If you regret the purchase I don't think you'll have trouble making your money back.

6 hours ago, LaC said:

Seriously though Howard is writing a book: 

Oh shoot. Thanks for the heads up! I just preordered a signed copy. I always find out about these things when it's too late.

Welcome to the site! Worldwide N64 set is a nice goal. I picked up some Japanese N64 games recently and it's crazy how cheap some stuff still is. Are you going for all regional releases (e.g. the same game in different languages) or just one copy per game?

3 hours ago, fcgamer said:

I more or less completed a Famicom full set a few years ago, with there being only one or two variants and a couple "disputable" titles that I am missing; for the latter, I'd definitely be interested in grabbing them at some point, should they appear for a decent price, but I honestly see them as being akin to having a NES full set (yes, with Stadium Events) but not having a Game Genie.

So, Space School? lol. What's the Stadium Events equivalent on the Famicom? Just Spartan X / Kung Fu?

I'm not actively going for any full sets, but other than NES, Game Boy Color loose is a weird one I'd like to complete. I think I'm a little over halfway done with it.

On 5/16/2022 at 11:39 AM, LaC said:

I'm sure it is interesting, but Arakawa is the one who needs to write a book.  That is a story I want to read.

And Howard Phillips. Honestly I'd love a deep dive book into Miyamoto, Tezuka, and other early Nintendo R&D members.

Have you read Ask Iwata? 

48 minutes ago, A_Feisty_Pickle said:

I still follow r/gamecollecting even though it's a cesspool just so I can get an idea of the collecting market. I would say 90% of the posts on there are casual collectors with somewhat modest collections, and from peoples attitude over there I assume most of them are < 16 years old.  From what I've seen, a lot of the newer collectors are targeting more modern consoles that they probably grew up with, which for the most part are still cheap enough to build a collection for. I doubt there are many people newly getting into pre N64 though for collecting purposes. 

I generally enjoy Reddit, but it makes me feel old now. I'm only 30 but it's really weird seeing people show off their latest find for what I instinctively want to value at like $100, but they're psyched to have gotten it for $300, and I look it up and it goes for $400. Like, damn. I personally have a hard time feeling good about finding something for 20% under market value when I know it was 300% under market value just a year ago... It's even weirder with newer stuff, especially 3DS. And I think there are probably plenty of newer collectors getting into pre N64 stuff, just maybe not interested in full set collecting. 

I got her first album when I was a kid, back in like 5th grade or so. I liked the music but until then I had only heard my parents playing country music, or Britney Spears / Backstreet Boys on the radio. Had a bit of a crush on her going into my preteens, lol. I still like the first album but I've tried listening to her subsequent stuff and it just doesn't work for me. So it might be nostalgia for the first album, but I gave her a 7/10. When her second album came out I had no interest in it since I was listening to metal, punk, and some emo stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0982YG2V2

Has anyone read it yet? I usually like nonfiction so I'll probably pick this up. 

36 minutes ago, dogbowl said:

How about this comic. Anyone seen this before?

The title roughly translates to "How to use the official guide map - manga" It looks like it was part of a guide for Super Mario USA (The US version of SMB2, on Famicom). Here are some links I found:

https://twitter.com/blacktangent/status/1145294913589825537

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w408820689

https://twitter.com/Arc_Hound/status/1439150667558494208

That residue doesn't look like any sticker residue I've seen. If they're removing the sticker though, you'd think they'd also clean that before encasing it forever. Did you ask them to remove the sticker or do they do that without you asking? 

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

I enjoyed them both a lot. Portal 2 has Stephen Merchant which is obviously a win, but I did feel like it went on just a bit too long. 

One thing I always loved with SMB, maybe more than any other 2D Mario game, is holding right + B and just timing my jumps to get through the level. Maybe out of impatience? I'm not a speedrunner but I always have fun playing through SMB for that reason. It's a good platformer, but what I've always liked about Mario that I don't get from many other platformers is the high skill ceiling of precisely timing your jumps. It feels really good to run through 8-1, 8-2, and 8-3, and jumping up the staircase before the flagpole without losing your running speed  

I remember reading somewhere that Sonic was inspired by people playing Mario fast? I grew up playing Sonic, but it doesn't scratch the same itch at all. I can play through a Mario level blind and still run and plan my jumps, but with Sonic, at full speed I'm slamming into a wall 3 screens ahead of me unless I've already memorized the level.

We just traded in our 17 year old Subaru for a 2022 Kia Niro plug in hybrid. First new car, first EV, but we love it. Plug it in a standard outlet overnight for a 100% battery lasting ~30 miles. For most trips around town that means we don't use any gas. When I have to commute for work (~40 minutes) I've been getting 110 mpg on the trip to work and 55 mpg on the trip home, so my average mpg for the commute has roughly tripled. Now to come full circle we just need some solar panels on the house

I've never owned a prototype, but I love the idea of dumping any unreleased builds, just from a game design perspective. Yeah, sometimes that's just updating copyright information or fixing a typo, which is pretty boring. But I like seeing how bugs were fixed in later revisions, and prototypes are like going backwards on that timescale. It's a snapshot into the game's development history. Even as a kid, I always liked using a cheat device or glitch or something to look at unused levels and other content.

8 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Quick learn, quick reward? Python, React.js, C++

This, but swap out C++ for Java or C#.

21 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

Basement level hallway and a second one in breakfast nook. Not the most ideal places, but it inspires me to keep up with them often. 

I also discovered these and can not live without them. They are super rugged and have no issues with my cats tearing them while burying their poops. Just pull the drawstring up and drop into another garbage bag. Then sweep underneath and white vinegar in a spray bottle to neutralize the smell. 

May have to try that. We got a different kind that was also tear resistant and they scratch right through them. But our cats love scratching until they get to the bottom, sometimes scratching for minutes at a time.

On 5/1/2022 at 2:48 PM, CasualCart said:

Action RPGs definitely aren't to my taste, but I remember having a lot of fun with A Link to the Past when I played it back in high school.
But I got stuck and abandoned it shortly after finding the dark-world, which might be barely scratching the surface of the game for all I know.

In any case, if an RPG can hold my attention for more than a few hours it must have its merits...

-CasualCart

The light world / dark world mechanic blew my mind as a kid. I can see how it might be a bit tropey to new players today, but man, to say it captivated me would be an understatement. Calling Zelda an RPG is a whole can of worms though, haha.

I'd like to do LttP justice though and recount some of my memories of it. It's one of the first games I played, some time in the early/mid 90s when I was around 3 or 4 years old, at my aunt's house down the road. Every time we'd visit, I would play the game and get a bit further. At that age, I was probably just going around exploring, dying over and over. I'd have dreams at night about finding things in the game, and I remember having to get my older brother to help me when I was stuck in a cave. But a few years in, I remember finally making it to the dark world. That same night, my mom was getting mad that I wouldn't turn the game off, so she unplugged it and my save was erased. Absolute 5-year-old despair. I was so upset. But I eventually made it back to where I was, and next year, got my own SNES for Christmas. My uncle let me borrow LttP, and I played it for a couple of years. Fast forward to 3rd grade: I was stuck on the final dungeon and couldn't find a key and spent weeks looking all over the overworld. I eventually found it in the dungeon (duh) and beat the game the next day. Then went to my friend's house, and we pulled an all-nighter beating his copy.

I remember drawing out maps of the dungeons and transcribing the text from the important parts of the game. I let the game run so I could listen to the music because it was so good. I played every Zelda game from then on, considered myself a fan/collector, and became an admin on a Zelda forum back in high school. A few years later I found NintendoAge and broadened my gaming interests. I played plenty of other games growing up, but none struck me as hard as LttP did, and I consider those early memories to have shaped my interests and even my career as an adult.

So yeah, I have the thickest nostalgia goggles in the world for this game, since I basically grew up with it. I would love to have that original cartridge, or save file, or footage or pictures of some gameplay back then, but all I have are my memories, and that's good enough. I think even without the nostalgia factor it's still a 10/10 for me, but I understand it not being everyone's cup of tea.

On 4/30/2022 at 2:58 PM, Sumez said:

Never played it, never will

Really? Why?

1 hour ago, Deadeye said:

Charm incoming @Alder

Out of that treasure trove, which game were you most excited to acquire or which is your favorite one?

Thanks for the charm! There's no particular one I can call my favorite, but I had been looking for a copy of Pinobee & Phoebee on GBA for a while. I played the original as a kid and always wanted to play the sequel. One finally popped up on ebay, but the shipping was only worth it if I filled my cart with other things, and well... yeah. I think I had over 100 imports before, just never all in one spot for a picture

As for Famicom, I've been wanting to play Super Star Force ever since playing the first one on NES. The game even mentions the sequel, we just never got it. I also picked up Parodius and Macross. Also stoked to get Devil World, Goonies 1, Circus Charlie, Mother, and Binary Land!

Hiding in the left box are Zelda 1, Mario 2, and Kid Icarus for the Disk System. I also recently picked up loose JP copies of Link's Awakening, Mario's Picross 2, and Kaeru no tame ni kane wa naru (the frog for whom the bell tolls). Always wanted to play that one since I learned about its relationship to Link's Awakening. And on Super Famicom I got Mario's Picross, a handful of cheap boxed Super Famicom RPGs including Mother 2, and loose copies of Rockman X2, X3, and Rockman & Forte. Been wanting to own Mario's Picross ever since sinking over 100 hours into it on the Switch SNES app, lol.

38 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Probably the red one.

I mean, Mother's in there, so you're kinda not wrong.