So, after an ginormous amount of research and consultations from
top men, I decided to buy a state of the art console along with the latest and greatest game available.
The only issue is that it comes in some weird, unknown language so I am currently attempting to contact aliens to see if I can learn more about this language
In all seriousness though, I got this a couple of weeks ago. It all started off with the reveal of this handheld PC/gaming device that is due soon
I was kind of enamored by this machine because I really do love this dual screen form factor and there are still a bunch of DS and 3DS games I want to play. The company making this machine
started pre-orders for it and it's fairly reasonably priced too. I'd want to get the $350 variant if possible. The problem is that my country charges upwards of 40% import duties on cost + shipping for any item that gets imported. So $350 plus let's say $50 shipping would mean the whole thing would cost me $550 and now that's very, very expensive. So I got to thinking about what I can do about it. Russ from RGC had a video up a few weeks ago where he listed all his favourite modern hardware to emulate every old gaming system and for some reason, his preferred devices to play DS and 3DS games were... original DS and 3DS machines. That was actually surprising because I feel that surely playing those games with higher power hardware and better screens through emulation would be a better experience but hey, subjective opinions. It got me thinking about getting another 3DS. I actually have one which has custom firmware on it but I always sort of regretted not getting a second one while they were available.
Now, most of you reading this wall of text probably live in a country with a large gaming market so you can buy a (new or used) 3DS if you wanted from ebay or something similar. Unfortunately, there is no such secondary market in my country (that isn't full of scammers anyway) and I live in a relatively smaller city so there isn't even a CEX here. So my only option to get a device like this was to import it, which again means 40% taxes. Anyway there aren't even a lot of options for importing but luckily Amazon Japan does ship some stuff here. I went looking there and they didn't have new 3DS devices for sale at all. They did have a handful of 2DS devices and I ended up buying one of them. This was not my preferred colour (I would have chosen black and blue) but it was the cheap and from a reliable seller. In the end it cost me 47000 yen shipped. Which is actually a fairly reasonable price these days for a brand new 2DS/3DS device even though it's roughly twice what the thing used to cost back when it was actually available.
The plan is to put custom firmware on it and change it to a US region device. The process of installing of custom firmware is super easy and idiot proof, but having to navigate the console in Japanese during the process is going to cause a lot of problems especially since you need to connect to the internet through the device during the hacking process. I'll get around to it at some point. I picked up the Pokemon game because for some reason I feel like getting 1-2 of these for both the 3DS and Switch. It's just a matter of figuring out which ones to get and finding them at a reasonable price. For 3DS I got Ultra Moon and I'm hoping to find a copy of X/Y at a decent price somehow. For Switch I got Arceus and I'm hoping to get Violet by the end of the year. Anyone here have any suggestions for any other Pokemon game I should consider? All the Switch games are available but unfortunately they're all expensive and Nintendo stuff never goes down in price here so it has to be a carefully thought out decision to buy those games.
On an unrelated note, I'm not far into Donkey Kong Bananza but I really liked what I've played so far. I just feel like I have a goofy grin while playing the game and discovering secrets and hidden bananas and stuff. Just a joyful game honestly.