Looks like the SMT 3 HD remaster is coming out on May 25th in the west for $50. probably won't get it at launch, but I'll look into it.

The PS3 and Vita stores are closing down later (on July 2nd and August 27th respectively), so I might have to quickly grab whatever titles (and DLC) interest me before the deadline.

Cool. I might look into it.

The proper "Christmas self-gift" was Hyrule Warriors Age Of Calamity, i happened to receive some gift money, blew it on that game, and so glad i did, i devoured it
So you literally ate the game? [I'm kidding.]

I'm impressed that the game has already shipped more copies than any other Musou game out there.

But i was able to get Ghost Of Tsushima for 30 bucks new in late november, that one was a pretty good "move", never saw it under 40 used.
You got the game cheaper new than used? was there a sale going on?

yeah, the announcements of the Famicom Detective titles were pretty nifty and unexpected.
Well, they were announced on the Japanese Nintendo Direct for September 2019 [Link] but yeah, I guess you're right about them being unexpected. here's a commercial for the original version of the first game (the sequel didn't get one). [Link]

Here in the US and other NoA-supported territories we have to pay for the two games separately just like in Asia. only people in NoE-supported countries get the games bundled. but NoA territories get a discount for the other game (for the US, it's $10), which doesn't seem to be the case in Asia. $35 is a remake actually isn't bad considering that the original FDS releases were ¥2,600 ($24) and the GBA ports were ¥1,907 ($17), and the remake is ¥3,980 ($36).

One thing I also noticed is that the NoA websites mention that the remakes will include the original PSG soundtracks, but none of the other regional websites mention such a thing. I'm hoping it's not a misprint.

Yeah, i remember that discussion. Not that surprised, given it's Jaleco we're talking about.
Well, it was one of their first in-house developed games...

i mean, we got a good amount of new games as well, ports of Wii U titles that most people didn't play because they don't have a Wii U, some good ports too....
I guess my complaint isn't on the ports themselves but rather that there's not much of a balance. at least, to me.

At this point i just wish they would re-release even Rival Turf
I find it strange how it never came out on the Wii U in PAL regions; especially you guys got the Wii port 6 months before the rest of the world did.

i played all the other ones in the trilogy via the NSO, even if in their western version/releases.
With Brawl Brothers , you can revert to the Japanese version via a code.

Yeah, i guess, you can find some interesting re-releases, but not the big ones people really want like SMRPG
Looking at the recent NSO releases, it seems that Nintendo is focusing more on obscure titles; some of the well-known third-party games that made it to VC but aren't on NSO are already out in the form of collections (Contra, Castlevania, Mega Man, most Namco titles).

On a side note, have you noticed that Fire 'n Ice (AKA Solomon's Key 2) doesn't use its box art, but the title screen? the Famicom app DOES shows its box art, so I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that the box has "highly addicting" on it (given how parents complain about their kids playing games too much). [Link] they did the same with thing Gun-Dec (AKA Vice: Project Doom) on the Famicom app and Super Punch-Out!! on the Super Famicom app in Japan. the latter was digital-only (it was a NP-exclusive) but the former might be because it's main character's likeness was traced over of John Mcclaine from Die Hard 2. [Link]

Surprised they even bothered to try and release it on X-Box One, i mean, why?
Well, the original game was released on the Xbox 360 (and later ported to PS3), and Microsoft more-or-less said that they wouldn't enforce censorship this time (the original 360 game was censored in a patch at Microsoft's request, while the PS3 version was left uncut), so it made sense at the time. it's weird that they'd suddenly pull a 180.

this odd retrograde sentiment against these game is just weird, i mean, if they had the bad taste to revive Leisure Suit Larry, you really can't play "moral high ground", but i guess not
This reminds me of Sony refused to allow BMX XXX to have nudity in it while the other two were okay with it... then they allowed a LSL game which had full nudity and even sex scenes... in the EU version, that is. [the US wasn't as lucky.]

You want to know what's interesting? the ESRB is the only rating board where the 18+ rating (AO) is never really used, unlike every other video game rating board in existence. [while Germany's USK and Australia's ACB used to lack one, they eventually got theirs in 2003 and 2013.] the reason is that retailers and manufacturers refuse to allow AO-rated games, so in the US, Canada, and Mexico (the three countries that use the ESRB), it's equivalent to a ban. you'll only see it on PC games.

Wow, nice, the flash cartridges still work? What do you have on those?
Well... I didn't get the flash cart, just the ROM cart versions; the games I have from this era are Kirby no Kirakira Kids (Kirby's Sparkling Kids; AKA Kirby's Star Stacker) and Wrecking Crew '98. one thing you'll quickly notice upon looking at these cartridges is that they have multiple copyright years; Wrecking Crew 98' is copyrighted 1985 (the year the original game came out on the Famicom in cartridge format), 1989 (the year it came out on the Famicom in disk format), 1997 (the digital NP release), and 1998 (the physical release), while Kirby no Kirakira Kids is copyrighted 1997 (the year the original GB game came out), 1998 (the digital NP release), and 1999 (the physical release). Wrecking Crew is particularly odd in that it didn't get any proper artwork for its box or cartridge art; it's just the title screen!

As for how the games play, the Kirby game has you two try to sandwich Star Blocks between 2 or more identical friend blocks. it is basically a colorized remake of the original 1997 game except it has a story mode, where you battle against other characters from the kirby series. the latter is a competitive puzzle game where you destroy walls so that three of the same color will match. unlike other puzzle games that have you use a cursor, you actually move the character around. it also includes the original Wrecking Crew.

The only drawback is that you can only play games that didn't use enhancement chips.

There also exists official GB flash carts, but they didn't came out until March 2000. SMB DX and Balloon Kid were only released this way in Japan.

i vaguely remember this being mentioned in a review of the cartoon series.
Yep... And now Sonic is going to be on his fourth English (video game) VA, since the last one stepped down from the role a while ago.

Since most people here in Italy are more... "loyal" isn't the word, but out of habit they tend to prefer the PS consoles, so it's cheap right, nobody really cares too much or its killing themselves to get one, it's not a sought after item, let's put it that way.
Ah. it should be pretty easy to get an Xbox One, then.

The games also came out over two years later (almost 3 in Europe), so any excitement this is likely had outside of Japan had long vanished. this is likely why Yokai Watch 3 became an all-in-one game in the west instead of the three separate games it was in Japan... and being aware of the below-average sales of the previous games, they gave it a very limited print run. which is a shame. I heard that the Yokai Watch series did slightly better in Europe than it did in America, so that might explain the lower prices; in the US, PS still hovers around its launch price (of $40), while 3 goes for over $100. I'd snap up Yokai Watch 3 for $40 in a heartbeat if I would.

I noticed of the Etrian games the only one that is relatively easy and cheap to find is the Etrian Mystery Dungeon crossover, Nexus here isn't still that hard and pricey, but it's gonna, especially since i've heard no news of Atlus porting them to Switch.
Atlus is probably too busy working on SMT 5 to focus on porting their older stuff.

Well, got my hands on LBX and Transformers: RotDS for $12 each.

If you can, i recommended checking the NIS official store as well, you never know, might have them in stock for cheap, it's how i got the first Mugen Souls and Arcana Heart 3 Love Max.
Tried that... they don't have 3DS games in stock now.

The 3DS Shinobi game is an odd duck, because it was really cheap a couple of years ago, but also never saw a digital eShop release, cart only, for whatever reason. It's pricey now?
It's not, at least not in America. you can find it for around $15 or so. I got it for $11. just the cart, but I'm planning on getting a case for it.

Also, i managed to snatch the last Dillon Rolling Western game for the 3DS in a retail cart for 12 bucks, still looking for a Majora Mask 3D copy under 60 bucks, eventually i'll find one. Maybe.
The Dead Heat Breakers? cool. over here, it's digital-only and still $40. Majora's Mask 3D is a lot cheaper here, though (eBay has it for around $20).

makes more sense to try and make the people interested in your new big console.
I think another possible reason for the NP service being a thing was because Japan was slow to adopt to the N64 since it wasn't anywhere near as successful there compared to America; even the European sales outdid the Japanese sales.

Yeah, but they could have remade the graphics and do away with the red-and-black color combo that indeed caused problem with your eyes. Not even touch the gameplay, just redo the graphics so people's retinas wouldn't burn after 2 minutes.
Retouching the graphics would be preferable, now that you've mentioned it.

Yeah, it's pretty damn poultry every way you slice, poor Captain Rainbow. With this in mind, in retrospect i wonder how the hell we got the first Tingle In Rupeeland game at all, with all his weirdness and all, it was a Zelda game, technically, so there's that, but still....
I might be wrong, but I've heard that Tingle wasn't quite as badly hated in Europe as he was here in the US, so NoE likely felt that they could take a chance with the game. NoA, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as hopeful; reportedly, they did a poll asking US gamers if they are keen to like to play the Tingle spinoff, and most people voted no, so NoA took the decision to heart and decided not to bring it over.

Also, it's very much possible that Rupeeland started off as a different game before being reworked into a Zelda spinoff; the game's combat system (where you go into a dust cloud) is similar to that of Kaeru no Tane ni Kane wa Naru, a much earlier game Nintendo co-developed on the Game Boy in 1992.

Yeah, i genuinely don't know why they haven't already done so, but i guess they're waiting for when they don't have much else new to announce, as to fill some release windows. I can wait, NIS is strangely putting out a lot of new IPs in these years, can't fault them for just squeezing Disgaea dry and don't bother with anything else.
They JUST announced that they're going to re-release Soul Nomad and Phantom Brave as a compilation release... as part of Vol 1. so there might be more re-releases of NIS's other games in the pipeline...

Oddly, i accidentally started collecting the Yokai Watch games because i found them for uber cheap, like i found YK2 Bony Spirits for 20, Fleshy Souls for 20 as well, and Psychic Spectres for 10, i'm just missing Yokai Watch 3, but it's really dang rare and i haven't seen a copy under 40 bucks minimum , i get you.
They're probably cheaper nowadays because Nintendo was banking on them to be as much of a success in the west as they were in Japan, and once it became clear that they weren't going to sell, sellers reduced the prices just to clear stock. the same happened with Codename STEAM and Sushi Striker.