Recent Gaming Purchases #2

Again, since I rarely have original ideas of my own, I'll continue to rip-off Funktastic and show off my recent game purchases. I realize that acknowledging you're ripping someone off doesn't make it any better, but I figured I'd say it anyways. We have a bunch of really significant ones this time around, so let's get on with it!



Starting off we have Fire Emblem, Phoenix Wright Justice for All, and Trace Memory. The back of the Fire Emblem box has a somewhat large tear in it, but it's such a perfect tear that I wasn't able to spot it until I got home, even after carefully looking it over in the store. Getting Justice for All has finally completed my collection of the five Ace Attorney games released in North America, though I must say it's my least favourite in the series. Trace Memory I don't know anything about the story, but I have heard it's entirely possible to get the bad ending without really knowing what caused it, so I'll be following a spoiler free walk through for that one.

By the way, Lyn is by far the most attractive woman in Nintendo's library of characters. Just thought I'd throw that out there.



Just because I've found two awesome game stores doesn't mean I should stop going to the thrift shops, because I would miss out on incredible finds like these two items. A brand new, SEALED Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer! How much did they cost? 10 dollars each. This is why thrift shops are so great. You can occasionally find really rare shit there, and they don't take collector's value into account when they price things. Oh, and that weird part on the left side of the Game Boy Printer box isn't the box being banged up. It looks like a rip from this angle, but that's just part of the picture on the side that overlaps to the top a bit.



Both the top and bottom of both boxes have that little Nintendo seal sticker, which shows they have never been opened. I've been wanting a Game Boy Printer for a long time to play with my Game Boy Camera and Link's Awakening DX, but I guess I'll have to keep waiting since the one I finally ended up getting was brand new in the box. Is this a blessing, or a curse? Either way, I'm absolutely thrilled with these purchases, and they were one of the best deals I ever got at a thrift shop, if not THE best.



Speaking of the thrift shop, I found these two games at the thrift shop just the other day for 8 bucks each. I had played through most of Sonic 3 before and didn't really see what people found so great about it, but I heard it gets better with the Sonic and Knuckles cart attached to it, as it gives you the full game. Seeing both of these side by side gave me the perfect oppurtunity to give it a second chance. Plus now I can play Sonic 2 as Knuckles! Not to mention they're great to have as an addition to the final thing in this post.



While not so much a "gaming" purchase, it is something game related I've wanted to get back for a long time. When I was younger I collected the Gym Heroes set of Pokemon cards, and I still have them to this day. I'm only a handful of cards away from having a complete set actually. I had this Misty card when I was younger, but when I kicked yet another kid's ass with my incredible Gym Heroes decks in a duel, the jerk grabbed a bunch of my cards and ripped them up. Thankfully the Misty card was the only really rare one he got a hold of, but I never spoke the guy again, and that's when I stopped playing the card game. Now I finally have the card again, and I'm not letting this one get into the hands of some dumb kid.



I took the INCREDIBLY long transit trip to Gamedeals' other location in Gastown, and while it wasn't as good of a store as the New Westminster location, I did walk away with two of the holy grails of handheld game systems. The first of which is this one, the highly sought after Game Boy Light.

The Game Boy Light was only released in Japan, and it's pretty much just a Game Boy Pocket with a backlight. It's a pretty good machine though, and the screen is in REALLY good shape. The Game Boy itself is a bit banged up at places, but I don't really care since it's such an elusive item. The backlight is quite good, though it gives it a green tint that makes it look like an original Game Boy Wonder Brick. It's in black and white like the Game Boy Pocket, and is slightly taller than a Game Boy Pocket. It runs on two AA batteries rather than the Pocket's AAA batteries, and I might be spewing nonsense when I say this, but I think even without the backlight, the screen technology is a tad better than a Game Boy Pocket.



The backlight is brighter in person, and the green tint is more vibrant in person, but you can get the jist of it in this picture that I took in a pitch dark room. It works really well, and I would have LOVED to have one of these as a kid to play Pokemon under the covers without that stupid glow worm. While these days it's very much just a novelty system, it's still a pretty cool device that I'm definitely going to play around with a bit more.



Here's the big one. The thing I've been searching for over SIX YEARS to find. The Sega Nomad. I've wanted one of these ever since I first heard about it, and I finally saw one in person for the first time when I went to Gamedeals in Gastown. It cost me a hefty 75 bucks, but in my eyes it was worth it. You see, the Nomad makes the Genesis completely obsolete. If you own a Nomad, you can throw out your Genesis because unless you absolutely NEED to play your Sega CD and 32X games, there's nothing the Genesis can do that the Nomad can't do. (except let you finish the X-Men Genesis game cause there's no reset button, but frankly who gives a shit.)

Anyways, what I mean by this is not only can you play your Genesis games on the handheld itself, but you can also use a cable to hook your Nomad to a TV, and play the Genesis games on the TV, using the Nomad as the controller. To add to that, you can plug a Genesis controller into the bottom of the Nomad, and a second person can use that controller to play as player two. So you see, you can use the Nomad as a regular Genesis, even with two players. To add to that, using the Nomad like that doesn't cause any extra framerate dips, or input lag. It's just as good as a Genesis, if not better due to the Nomad's superior D-Pad.



Also, the screen technology for the time is absolutely outstanding as it looks just about as clear as it would look on a TV, and the sound quality is also really amazing, and with headphones it's one of the best quality sounding handhelds ever. All in all, it was well worth the painfully long wait to find one, and it's one of my new favourite handhelds.

Now the only question is do I put my Genesis games on my shelf dedicated to handheld games? Because that's essentially what Genesis games are now.



Hardcore.

See ya next time!