I have been a gamer since I was a little kid of around 6-7 years of age, possibly less, with my first console being an old black and white Gameboy (Which I still have to this day) and my first game was Super Mario Land: 6 Golden Coins. My first non-portable console was a Nintendo 64 console with the first game being Mario Kart 64, which we had with one controller (Lots of after-school disagreements about it….. but a hell of a lot of fun!). These are the series which got me into gaming, and they were essentially by just random luck. However, I have thought about why I got into certain series over others and would like to share a few of them with you.
I still consider the .hack franchise to be the series that got me into anime. I remember seeing this in my local video rental store, known as Video Ezy however I continued to pass over the series for various reasons (Boring cover, looked like some cheapo game). However, I was in another store a few months later and saw the .hack//Sign anime on the shelf. I still wasnt into anime back then so I decided to try out the game version. Two days later I had finished .hack//Infection but unfortunately I hit a little problem…. the other three games were either hard to find or impossible to get in Australia at the time. Thanks to the good people at EB Games and Gametraders, I managed to locate parts 3 and 4 the next year, however was still missing 2, which I once again managed to track down out of sheer luck. I have currently completed the entire game and a few items short of 100% item completion.
The Disgaea franchise has been the longest long-term hunt, with me taking a number of years to get my hands on all the games, not including similar series such as the Ar Tonelico Series (Which you cannot get over here) and the Atelier Series (Which proved less of a challenge but still one none-the-less). I fell in love with the concept of Disgaea when I first saw this trailer:
Kick-ass music, interesting graphics concept and seemingly infinite gameplay proved “Very Good” to me. Thus my hunt begun! Over a year later, I had no luck except finding the game Phantom Brave which I really enjoyed and made me want to find this game even more. Over the next year I managed to track down Makai Kingdom (One of the most fun SRPG’s I have played) and the freshly released Disgaea 2 on PS2. Even further down the track, sitting on the pre-owned shelf of a local EB Games store was a copy of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Despite my short funds and the considerable cost, I instantly bought it, went home and crammed at least 15 hours of gameplay on it. Unfortunately, I cannot say that I have actually finished the game yet… believe I am on the 10th chapter at the moment and stuck on a level I havent touched for years. I have continued building my collection however, with the latest addition being Soul Nomad which I bought a few months back.
I consider the Shin Megami Tensei Franchise to be an accidental addition. When I was bored one afternoon with no assignments or anything to do, I went down to a local EB Games and randomly picked up Persona 4 off the shelf. I had never ever heard of the series before, let alone the game and the back cover didnt really describe much about the game. A quick glance on my phone showed this trailer:
That basically sold the game to me and I bought it. After playing Persona 4, I wanted to get the previous versions, namely Persona 3. I managed to get a copy of Persona 3 relatively cheaply only to find a brand new copy of Persona 3 FES on a GameTraders store shelf for a much more costlier price. Unfortunately by then I was addicted and bought it anyway. I do not regret this decision at all, and the extra content in FES warranted the extra price. Over the last year I have managed to track down (Knowing better ways of hunting down now, thus faster), a few different games in the series, however a number still remain missing from my collection.
Now, there is actually a reason for me posting this, even if it would unlikely do anything. These three series all have something in common which unfortunately seems to be quite prevalent in games like this in Australia. They are all relatively hard to find, even when the PS2 console was the current gen console. Australia does seem to get relatively later release dates then everywhere else in the world, however does seem to be improving, with a number of games releasing the same time as the EU Region. But, I would like to see more games like these on the shelves instead of being imported in all the time…. believe it or not, there is a relatively large number of fans out there who enjoy these games!
Just my 5 cents through, and regardless, I actually enjoyed hunting for these games and it was an even greater thrill playing them after all the hard work. At the very least, I hope you enjoyed reading the history of a few of my favorite game series and me.
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