Games Bought Thread 3

[A Black Falcon]

So, several parts here.

First, I got some final titles from that closing Gamestop.
Xbox 360
--
Enemy Front - $0.60, disc only
Quantum Theory - $0.30, disc only

Wii
--
Punch-Out!! - $2.50, disc only

PS Vita
--
Lego Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin - $1, card only

Xbox One
--
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - $1.30, disc only


After that, yesterday I got some games from a couple other places.

Xbox One
--
Bladestorm Nightmare - free in a B2G1 (would have been $15)

Nintendo DS
--
Chrono Trigger - $35, card only

Wii
--
Mario Super Sluggers - $15, complete

Game Boy
--
Terminator 2: Judgment Day - $4, card only

Nintendo Switch
--
Astral Chain - $40, complete


Also... I've gotten back into buying older import Japanese games. I have spent quite a bit now so I should stop, but some stuff has arrived so I'll list some here.

First I got two new consoles -- an original black and white WonderSwan for $24 (clear green color), and a SwanCrystal for $87 (bluish top, white bottom). Both are in great condition. The Swancrystal is the second model of Wonderswan Color, with an improved screen that's much better at reflecting light. I got the b&w one first, then the crystal a few days later. I don't regret getting both of them because the SwanCrystal's definitely better, with a much less blurry screen, but it is interesting to also have one of the original ones, to see how the games look on the original system. The Wonderswan is an okay little handheld, emphasis on "little" -- the thing is TINY! Too small in fact, probably; had the thing released here, I think it'd have gotten criticism for being so tiny. The tiny little buttons are not as comfortable as Game Boy Color buttons either, much less an original GB or Neo Geo Pocket Color. Also the absence of a headphone jack (without a quite rare accessory I don't have) or backlight are unfortunate; I've taken to clipping my booklight to the WS/SC.

The graphics are kind of nice, though -- the system is 16-bit, and the B&W system has 8 shades of grey, twice as many as a GB. It can do sprite scaling too, it seems, though very very few games make use of that. The B&W WS released in March '99 and was competing against the color GBC and NGPC so it had to sell based on something other than just its low price and numerous licensed anime titles from first party Bandai, and things like the nicely animated 16-bit graphics and scaling racing games show some of that. It is neat that you can use the system horizontally or vertically also, and some games make use of that well.

As for the Wonderswan Color, or the SwanCrystal in this case, the WSC released in late 2000, only six months before the Game Boy Advance. It's pretty much the same thing as the Wonderswan but in color, s to the graphics are nice but not quite on the GBA's level (though the gap in 2d graphics is not that huge, it is there), and the audio is far behind it -- GBA audio is not the best, but this is much more GBC than GBA, it's the same as the B&W Wonderswan. I can understand how the WS Color/Crystal failed pretty badly compared to the GBA; the WS is better competition to the GBC, despite its lack of color, than the WSC is to the GBA. This is reflected in the libraries -- the B&W WS had 120 games release for it in a year and a half, while the WSC had 87 in the three years after that (20 of them backwards compatible with a B&W Wonderswan). The B&W system has better genre variety too; the WSC library is VERY heavy on anime adventure, RPG, and strategy games, and is largely devoid of action games apart from some not-so-great licensed fighting games (Digimon, One Piece, Guilty Gear) and ONE, yes ONE, platformer -- the Rockman EXE platformer (I don't have it). At least the B&W system has five platformers, which is a little better. The color system does have a few shmups though. Then Square reunited with Nintendo in '03 and the Wonderswan was dead. Oh well. The things have some nice design elements, but overall... they're just okay -- the buttons are tiny, no headphone jack or backlight option, games (particularly on the WS Color) are mostly anime license titles and Bandai is not exactly the best developer or publisher regardless, and such. Still, it is a kind of cool thing to have and I do like some of the games.

As for games, here's what I've gotten so far.

WonderSwan (B&W, run on either system in B&W)
--
Densha de Go! - $12, complete
Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousen Sha - $65, complete (sadly, while the box is nice, this game lives down to its poor reputation.)
Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum - $20, cart only. (This one, however, lives up to its good reputation. This is easily the best WS game I have.)
Ochan no Oekaki Logic - part of a lot of 3 games for $16 (this is a decent Picross knockoff.)
Gunpey - part of that 3 game lot, cart only. (you've got to have this one if you get a Wonderswan! The later DS version is better, but this is good.)
Bistro Recipe - complete, ~$12. An RPG with a cooking theme and timing-style battles.
Chocobo no Fushigi Dungeon for WonderSwan ("Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon") - $5.60, cart only. This is a Wonderswan port of the PS1 game of the same name, but portable. It's a decent, if a bit buggy, little Mysterious Dungeon game.
Chaos Gear: Michibi Kareshi Mono - complete, $14. This is a strategy game with cards.
Sennou Millenium - complete, $17. This is a logic puzzle game. Looks tricky but maybe good.

Wonderswan Color (for the SwanCrystal)
--
XI [sai] Little - part of that 3 game lot, cart only (the PS1 version of this puzzle game was known as Devil Dice in the US.)
One Piece Grand Battle: Swan Colosseum - complete, $14. This is a mediocre, and simple, fighting game - it uses one attack button and one jump button, with button combinations for moves. They clearly were somewhat inspired by Smash, but while this is okay it's nowhere near Smash's level. The graphics are nice though.
Uchuu Senkan Yamato - $23.50, complete. This game is a strategy game based on the classic anime of the same name. It looks like it could be good. There is also a decent little 3-level shmup mini-mode present which is alright. The strategy game also works on a B&W Wonderswan, but the shmup is color-only.
Inuyasha: Fuun Emaki - complete, $6. I liked the Inuyasha anime so I decided to get the WSC games (well, two of the three of them, so far). This one's part story and part action-RPG.
Inuyasha: Kagome no Yume Nikki ("Kagome's Dream Diary") - $14, complete. This one is part story adventure and part more traditional RPG, though there is a lot more adventure than combat. It follows the story of part of the anime. Pretty nice visuals.
I also got a bundle, for $26, of four cart-only Digimon games for the WSC: Digimon Tamers: Battle Spirit (a fighting game, much like the One Piece one above but with Digimon; this is the first of three games in this series on the WS.) and three traditional RPGs - Digital Monster D Project, Digimon Adventure 02: D1 Tamers, and Digimon Tamers: Digimon Medley. D1 Tamers is B&W-compatible, the others are not.

That's what I have for Wonderswan so far; I've gotten these 17 games for it since late last month. I think that's about enough for now, I'll play these more before eventually getting more WS games sometime later.

I have also gotten games for other classic consoles, most notably the TG16/CD and Saturn, but I'll list those another time.