Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection. The numbered Final Fantasy games are non-sequiturial* so you don't have to worry about not knowing any backstory. And if you do find that you enjoy it, the sequel (Final Fantasy IV:After Years) is right there on the same disc. *The Roman numbered games in the series are not directly related to each other, so Final Fantasy IV is not a sequel to Final Fantasy III. In Transformers terms, think of each FF title being like the different television series with occassional off-shoots. For example, Headmasters is a off-shoot to the 84 series the way Final Fantasy X-2 is a sequel to Final Fantasy X. Likewise, Transformers: Prime is related to Beast Wars the same way that Final Fantasy XIV is related to Final Fantasy IV.
It's too bad that time has been a little more cruel to it than it deserves. A lot of the games are actually not bad; Jack Bros, Mario Clash, Bomberman, Wario Land. Maybe another year or two in development might've made a much bigger difference in the display but they had a dead zone before the N64 and the Playstation/Saturn were already out so politics/profit ruled over common sense. One of their mistakes was calling it portable but it definitely wasn't a Gameboy, considering it needed a table to stand on. Plus, as you say, eye-strain, to the point where they said children under 7 shouldn't play it (but the 3DS had a similar warning for kids). I'd love to see a VB compilation for the 3DS. I have the Sharp Famicom Twin as it was a good price, the seller had put a new belt in it and it combined the cartridge and disk slots. Plus it was in great condition and most Famicoms nowadays look like they were chewed on by a dog. It's worn pretty good over the last 7 years.
The Twin did look in really good condition now you mention it, so maybe i'm wrong about it's durability. Either way though, I love the design and it's the coolest looking system in the FC/NES family IMO. Virtual Boy emulation is going to be one of my first stops when I get a VR headset at some point, i've always put off giving the games a go since it'd be kind of missing the point of the experience playing them without the depth effect. It's a shame they didn't collect the games on 3DS since that was probably the best opportunity to get those games back out there officially, at least until VR is mature and cheap enough for Nintendo to get on board.
It's made by Sharp so I have to assume it's of good quality. And considering Nintendo's draconic rules when it came to third companies back in the day I also have to assume they made sure it was up to snuff (which is ironic considering the original Famicoms were prone to failure due to a bad chipset and needed to be repaired at a huge loss to Nintendo). It's pretty damn sexy looking too (I have the black one, AN-505 with the built-in turbo buttons), plus RCA output and extra controller slot. Maybe the black and red colors resisted the sun a little better than the original. A Virtual Boy compilation was ripe for the 3DS but Nintendo doesn't like revisiting what they consider a failure so I doubt they'd ever considered it. Which sucks, because I would've been all over that.
If you do go the emulation route (and you can emulate it with a phone VR set as well), make sure that the emulator you use can do black and white emulation. If you trust me on nothing else, trust me on that.
DS game prices seem to be going up, now that the new 2DS is coming out. I got Order of Ecclesia for 36, but Amazon has it for 50.
I think it has less to do with the 2DS coming out and more to do with the kids that grew up on the DS (for whom this may have likely been their first game system) reaching their 20s and finding themselves with disposable income.
Good lord almighty, "growing up on the DS." It still seems so "new" to me, even though I know it's pretty old in terms of years. I was working in the video game section at Toys R Us when it came out, and that was 13 years ago. We had a demo DS out and it didn't take long for the screen to get horribly scratched up by kids pressing on it too hard with the stylus. WOW. I am frickin' ancient. I grew up in ARCADES. And not the resurgence of the 90's, I mean during the time of Pac-mania, Donkey Kong cereal, and Saturday Supercade.
Your comment made me realize that I've now been out of retail ('91-'04) for just as long as I was ever in it. Getting fired from my last retail job (KB Toys) is in hindsight the best thing that could have happened to me.
My first job was as an attendant at the local mall arcade (sounds cooler than it really was), but I guess that doesn't count as retail. It was neat seeing the new games come in, though; I was there when games like Mortal Kombat 3, Killer Instinct, and Daytona USA were new. The next year, I had my first of 2 stints at Software Etc. They actually had a cool policy where you could take a game home to sample it, then bring it back and re-shrink-wrap it. My second stint there was when the Dreamcast came out. It was a midnight launch and the store had a line snaking through the mall. Toys R Us was much more tolerable when I was moved to the video game section. I was more in my element, I didn't have to deal with the customers at the regular registers and I got to do inventory counts every day, which broke up the monotony. I only took that job out of desperation; I had 2 college degrees and couldn't get a job After a year, I got a whopping nickel raise to my already menial paycheck, and knew I needed to get out of there. If you don't mind my asking, how did you get fired from KB?
Performance. It was shortly after they filed for bankruptcy protection for the first time. The company was doing everything it could to save money which also meant rolling back payroll hours. (Plus I believe that our District Manager was also hoarding payroll hours.) As a salaried employee I found myself doing more and more hours in the store while they just threw one bad idea at us after another. ("Let's mark down all the video games on December 22nd! But we're not going to advertise the sale at all!" "That didn't work; Remove all the sale stickers before opening tomorrow!" "We got sued by several State Attorneys for claiming to mark down merchandise that was never marked down. Change the prices of all these items in a fully stocked store in November!" "Okay, change all prices back two days before Thanksgiving to the original prices so we can legally say we marked them down!" "We're going to install new registers in your store this week and your annual inventory was rescheduled for next week now that we decided that your store isn't closing so you need to complete the pre-inventory this week and we're trying to empty the warehouses so you're getting a Christmas sized shipment in April. But we've added 4 hours of training on the new software for your 6 cashiers!" "Hey good news, you don't need to worry about that extra 200 cases on top of your normal 200 cases; We're just going to send you 600 cases the day after your inventory next week.") Needless to say, the burnout showed in my performance. The final straw was when a Hot Wheels collector got into an argument with my head cashier one morning while they were waiting for me to open the store. (I was in the restroom.) He complained to the mall that we opened two minutes late. (While the Electronics Boutique across the hall was opening at friggin' noon every day.) I walked in one day, they gave me two write-ups then explained that because I had three strikes I was out. I don't get why they didn't just fire me when I walked in instead of making me clock in and sit through that whole reprimand meeting. But clearly thinking things through wasn't their strength as evidence by their eventual dissolution.
Oh it was released, it just disappeared in little over a year when sales were dismal and reaction was luke-warm at best. I think there was about 15 games or so, 13 released in N.A. maybe. In fact, it's rumored Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo because he felt bad about it's poor performance, which sucks, because he's basically the father of the Gameboy and has left a huge mark on the video game industry.
I've read somewhere recently that it was quite the opposite in fact, that Yokoi had already been planning on leaving but was asked to stay on longer so that neither party would lose face over the appearance that he was being driven out of the company because of the poor performance of the Virtual Boy.
Yeah, it was just bad timing but he did stay on to help complete the Gameboy Pocket as a "parting gift".
