No problem, I tend to be late with replies too. Been getting back to messages that are 2 months old. D:

3DS modding is pretty straightforward. There are many guides out there but "Damnit Jeff" has the best one I've seen, because it points you to where you can get up-to-date information instead of being out of date a week after it was posted. It's comprehensive yet easy to follow, and is just entertaining in its own right: [Link]

Oh the barrel sections in Snow Barrel Blast can go f_____ _ _______ _____. They're not so bad now but I still get PTSD thinking of my first time through way back when.
Hey there's no shame in using save states, as long as they're used responsibly, like wherever you think a checkpoint could/should have been placed. I only use them in dire situations, but not everyone is stubborn intense like that, and that's fine.
If I was you though, Zelda II would be an endgame (no pun intended) goal rather than the roadblock. That is, Adventures of Lank would be one of my "final boss" games to tackle after defeating some others. I think that would be a more enjoyable way to go about it, rather than it being a constant thorn in your side (if I'm reading this right).
When I get around to Zelda II, I'm probably going to use one of the improvement patches out there to make it less player-hostile. (And that's coming from someone who d the Japanese Mario 2 in a day.)

I got everything I wanted from the store! If anything, I bought too much. Not sure when I'll have time to play them but I did buy spare 3DS batteries so I don't mind waiting.
I love the Mario movie! I just saw it for at least the seventh time today and I plan to keep seeing it. Can't wait for all the DVDs to arrive. I nearly passed out when I saw they revived the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! theme, that's something I thought I'd never live to see. I adore the SMBSS and some of my favorite Mario content is outside of the games, so I'm excited for the future! The movie was really good; I thought the characters of Luigi and Bowser were portrayed with near perfection. Mario and Toad were pretty good, I really liked Spike, and wasn't crazy about Princess Peach—she came across as less elegant/dainty and more feminist, which is not her character. It's so passé and trite when they overcompensate for female characters like this. I'm hoping they mellow her out and Peach her up for the sequel. Overall, it met my high expectations and I hope the sequel gives more screen time to Mario and Luigi together, as those were my favorite moments in the film.

Hey Soaring! It's been a while. I see you were also busy with the eShop closure! Hope you got all the games you wanted before the shop closed down. If you saw the Mario movie, let me know what you think!

Oh absolutely, do things above board whenever you can, and I'm always about supporting smaller devs. I'm strictly talking about games you really want that, as of this writing, no longer exist.
I know everyone has chimed in about this already but Arlo has a particularly great explanation of the whole thing: [Link]
(There's a lot to take away but my favourite is that it shouldn't even be CALLED "piracy" at this point. You can't "pirate" an item that doesn't exist. It's just emulation and there shouldn't be a stigma attached to it anymore.)

I wish you luck, then. Zelda II is a beast. If you can make decent progress in that, you can probably knock out a Megaman or similar, and easily beat a Metroid or two. 💪

" With tough games like that, I find it hard to play them after having to deal with stress at work. Haaaa. "

After a while it becomes second nature. To me, something like Megaman X IS relaxing, and not because I've played it a lot (like, 4 times?), but just because fundamental skills carry over from one game to another.
Just gotta give it a chance, persevere.
Though Zelda II is a hell of a game to start with.

same here, so sad...

I'm sad about the eShop going too! It feels so unfair.

Good bye eshop!

Yes I've been chipping away at the Wii U and 3DS eShops in chunks over the last month or so, watching recommendation videos out there and assembling lists. Then I realized the other day that I need to pick up the pace because there's actually a lot more than I thought.

Friendly reminder to filter the eShop by "Updates" and download updates for any games you have or might pick up physically later. You also cannot download DLC from the 3DS eShop (which is absurd), it can only be done from within the game itself, so you'll probably want to comb through your library for those as well if you haven't already.

"Such a shame its all going down in 2 weeks!"

It seems ridiculous to me. I get that maintaining a storefront costs money but like, is it prohibitively expensive to keep what is essentially a website running versus the money coming in from sales? Maybe it is but I'm not convinced.
But hey, even if the means to buy something is lost forever, the means to play it is always there hint-hint nudge-nudge wink-wink.

I see Zelda II on your Now Playing list. Did you lose a bet or something?
Not to say it's terrible, there's a good game in there somewhere. I'm thinking of using an improvement patch when I eventually get around to it.

I'm still not sure when I would get a PS5. I'm sure the companies need sales for new systems, but the bump in graphics hasn't been worth it for me.

I can vouch for the SFC Final Fantasy games being pretty inexpensive on eBay. You'd have to find a translation file and and a Retron for the legit experience, but it was worth it to me for the original Dragon Quest games! Otherwise, I get it. I like collecting on original hardware when possible. I think the price of everything has changed a lot about how I feel toward game collecting (particularly with retro games).

Yeah, we have a few outbreaks right now as we speak. It's coming and going in waves, but nowhere near the intensity we received at first. Still! It was a highly stressful time, to say the very least... I'm glad we're finally making momentum in responding to cases.

I think Stray is on PC. I might try that! I saw a video clip in stores, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Do PS4 games run quicker on PS5? I noticed games such as Assassin's Creed Valhalla are quite slow to load. Nothing I can't deal with, but it seems the new system should be quite powerful by comparison, yeah? That's at least something to look forward to, and I'm quite happy about the backwards compatibility!

I want to get through more FF games but I'm waiting for NSO to possibly get Pixel Remaster, too. I think I still have 5, 6, and 8 to go! I can confirm the NDS version of 4 was really challenging, and I think that's still the only option for 3 (NDS or PC). I might personally go with the GBA games for most of them. I have a retron HD in case I want physical copies of games so it helped cut down a lot of console accumulation. Worth it if you have the space!