Random Gaming Thoughts

[ZRofel]

Holy crap. I just pulled mine out of a drawer the other day and blew the dust off. lol

I got my PSTV in the value pack for like $80 back when it was still in stores. Are they finally popular now that you can mod them? I still have my system for whenever I want to finally beat Soul Sacrifice.

Don't freak out too much. eBay still has them selling regularly for around $100. I think the ones this store is selling have just been wildly inflated.

[Gucci]

Totally agree! If you look hard enough, you can find one for a decent price: roughly $100 for the unit itself.

The crazy thing is that opa and I got our value pack one that came with a PS3 controller, 8GB memory card, and a game for $80.

I know that pricing of niche crap like that goes up. Very natural but still unfortunate.

That store is very well known to overcharge. The nature of being in a tourist spot. J&L in midtown is even worse with some items.

When I went, you had a tourist buying some GBA games that were locked up behind glass. Locked up = big money if you’re familiar with the layout of that place. RB main site has a video up from many years ago.

[ZRofel]

Totally agree! If you look hard enough, you can find one for a decent price: roughly $100 for the unit itself.

The crazy thing is that opa and I got our value pack one that came with a PS3 controller, 8GB memory card, and a game for $80.

I know that pricing of niche crap like that goes up. Very natural but still unfortunate.

That store is very well known to overcharge. The nature of being in a tourist spot. J&L in midtown is even worse with some items.

When I went, you had a tourist buying some GBA games that were locked up behind glass. Locked up = big money if you’re familiar with the layout of that place. RB main site has a video up from many years ago.

I remember seeing those bundles when they were really remaindered and passing on them at the time. As a handheld enthusiast, I couldn't think of a reason I'd want to play Vita games on a TV. Well, fast forward a number of years, and I would love to have one of those so I could output Vita games to my recording software for my YouTube show. Such is life...

Retro price gouging is definitely something that's really been annoying me lately. It's fine to charge a hefty price for something that's highly sought after or genuinely rare, but the way certain retro games have become weird status symbols, or the way less reputable stores just jack up the price to catch the unwary, seems really unethical to me.

[Gucci]

Pokémon comes to mind. Not rare due to the millions of copies sold but highly sought after. Games like HeartGold and Soul Silver sold almost 13 million copies and the prices on that for cart only is very high. A complete copy with Pokewalker is hysterically priced.

The new pricing king in that “sphere” are Pokémon Black and White (15 million sold) and Black 2/White 2 (8.5 million sold).

People got them but doesn’t want to sell them and the few that hit the market go for a lot of money at varying conditions.

[pierrot]

I kind of can't believe this trailer might have made me into a day-one purchaser of the new Mana game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCWfFNbn2F4 (I imagine there's an English language trailer out there; This is just what popped into my recommendations.)

Looks like they modeled this after SD III, with a bunch of nods to Legend of Mana, and added what appears to be a pretty fancy combat system. Since those two are unequivocally the best games in the series, I'm surprised to say it, but I feel like they may have been making this game for me--. Wild times. Perhaps I can't toss SE into the bin just yet.

[marurun]

I kind of can't believe this trailer might have made me into a day-one purchaser of the new Mana game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCWfFNbn2F4 (I imagine there's an English language trailer out there; This is just what popped into my recommendations.)

Looks like they modeled this after SD III, with a bunch of nods to Legend of Mana, and added what appears to be a pretty fancy combat system. Since those two are unequivocally the best games in the series, I'm surprised to say it, but I feel like they may have been making this game for me--. Wild times. Perhaps I can't toss SE into the bin just yet.

Did you play their 3D remake of SD3?

[pierrot]

Did you play their 3D remake of SD3?

----

I didn't. I've watched some people play through parts of it, and it looks pretty good, but I don't generally prefer remakes. I was waiting for it to be on sale for under $15, but it's gonna need to hit a couple price cuts before that can happen, with how SE does discounts. (Let me pay pennies for the SaGa HD releases, and the pixel remasters of FF1, 3 and 5!)

I may have talked myself out of the day-one on Visions of Mana, also: $60 on release; Kouichi and Tanaka basically aren't involved, even though Kikuta came back to do some of the music; The game in action kind of makes me think of Genshin. I probably do want to play it, but I think I'll wait for it to go on sale.

[Syndicate]

...with convention season in full swing has anyone had a chance to hit any cons yet or make ant intersting pickups while there? I plan on going to TooManyGames and SEGE this year, I'm hoping SEGE is cool and hopefully a little more chill than TooManyGames. I've got a stretch goal of sorts of checking out PRGE this year as well but would be very happy just checking out TooManyGames and SEGE.

[bmoc]

...with convention season in full swing has anyone had a chance to hit any cons yet or make ant intersting pickups while there? I plan on going to TooManyGames and SEGE this year, I'm hoping SEGE is cool and hopefully a little more chill than TooManyGames. I've got a stretch goal of sorts of checking out PRGE this year as well but would be very happy just checking out TooManyGames and SEGE.

I'll be at SEGE this year. From what I can gather online, it seems to be the best one for buying retro games that is a reasonable driving distance from my location. I found out about GameJamSouth a little too late to attend but maybe I can check it out next year. I also considered going to Limited Run Games' scratch & dent sale last month but opted to save my money for SEGE since there weren't going to be any other sellers at the LRG event. I did Southern Fried Gaming Expo last year and while it was a blast, I think I will skip it this year.

Let me know if you want to meet up at SEGE. I should be there both days though I'm not sure how long I will stay on Sunday because I also plan to make the 4 hour drive back home.

[Note]

I haven't had a chance to check out any conventions, but I'm aiming to go to the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo in mid-August, as it appears to be a weekend that works for me. If anyone is planning to go to that, let me know. Would be great to meet up with other RB members there.

I've heard good things about SEGE, I'd like to check it out at some point, but early July is usually tough for me due to family things. Hopefully I'll make it down there eventually! Overall, I'd like to make an effort to check out these types of shows and meet some like minded gamers.