Saturday, January 18, 2025

Christmas 2024

This post is a little late, but I only recently received the last item being shown here, so I suppose that's fine.

I haven't been an import gamer before (unless you count owning the Wii Virtual Console versions of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Sin and Punishment), so this is my first time owning a physical release of a Japan-only game.


The Aleste Collection has multiple Japan-only shmups for the Game Gear, and even the Master System.  The Game Gear surprisingly had some excellent vertical-scrolling shooters, which I'm definitely into.  Sadly, none of the Game Gear shmups made it to 3DS Virtual Console.

This collection includes the Aleste games, as well as a brand new title made just for the Game Gear in 2020.  While this compilation didn't get a U.S. release, the Switch is region free, and the menu screens aren't too difficult to navigate either.  I hope to post playthroughs in the near future (how many times have I promised that before?).

Next up, Keet gave me a nice copy of Kirby's Adventure for the NES, which really caught me off guard.


He also gave me Resident Evil Revelations for the Wii U, but the online multiplayer doesn't work anymore since the Wii U servers got shut down, plus the game is dual analog only, so maybe I'll need to trade it for the Switch version.

I also received a new Switch carrying case with a Tears of the Kingdom theme.  This is my actually third carrying case.  I already have a Breath of the Wild carrying case that came with the special edition, so I should probably keep this one to complement the other.


That wasn't the only Tears of the Kingdom merchandise I received though.  I also got a Japan-only Hawaiian shirt.


And a really cool coffee mug.


My friend Drew (featured in some of my multiplayer videos such as Super Mario World and Conker's Bad Fur Day) gave me this awesome Super Mario Bros. collector's box.  This one also caught me off guard.



I almost feel bad taking these items out of the box, but I might as well use them.  That's what they're for.

I'm hoping to visit Florida again later this year and record a ton of multiplayer footage, but we'll see what happens.  In the mean time, I'll work on posting new recordings on Youtube, Rumble and Odysee.  Don't forget that you can find me on all of those video platforms.