Hey Soaring! It's been a while. I see you were also busy with the eShop closure! Hope you got all the games you wanted before the shop closed down. If you saw the Mario movie, let me know what you think!

Oh absolutely, do things above board whenever you can, and I'm always about supporting smaller devs. I'm strictly talking about games you really want that, as of this writing, no longer exist.
I know everyone has chimed in about this already but Arlo has a particularly great explanation of the whole thing: [Link]
(There's a lot to take away but my favourite is that it shouldn't even be CALLED "piracy" at this point. You can't "pirate" an item that doesn't exist. It's just emulation and there shouldn't be a stigma attached to it anymore.)

I wish you luck, then. Zelda II is a beast. If you can make decent progress in that, you can probably knock out a Megaman or similar, and easily beat a Metroid or two. 💪

" With tough games like that, I find it hard to play them after having to deal with stress at work. Haaaa. "

After a while it becomes second nature. To me, something like Megaman X IS relaxing, and not because I've played it a lot (like, 4 times?), but just because fundamental skills carry over from one game to another.
Just gotta give it a chance, persevere.
Though Zelda II is a hell of a game to start with.

same here, so sad...

I'm sad about the eShop going too! It feels so unfair.

Good bye eshop!

Yes I've been chipping away at the Wii U and 3DS eShops in chunks over the last month or so, watching recommendation videos out there and assembling lists. Then I realized the other day that I need to pick up the pace because there's actually a lot more than I thought.

Friendly reminder to filter the eShop by "Updates" and download updates for any games you have or might pick up physically later. You also cannot download DLC from the 3DS eShop (which is absurd), it can only be done from within the game itself, so you'll probably want to comb through your library for those as well if you haven't already.

"Such a shame its all going down in 2 weeks!"

It seems ridiculous to me. I get that maintaining a storefront costs money but like, is it prohibitively expensive to keep what is essentially a website running versus the money coming in from sales? Maybe it is but I'm not convinced.
But hey, even if the means to buy something is lost forever, the means to play it is always there hint-hint nudge-nudge wink-wink.

I see Zelda II on your Now Playing list. Did you lose a bet or something?
Not to say it's terrible, there's a good game in there somewhere. I'm thinking of using an improvement patch when I eventually get around to it.

I'm still not sure when I would get a PS5. I'm sure the companies need sales for new systems, but the bump in graphics hasn't been worth it for me.

I can vouch for the SFC Final Fantasy games being pretty inexpensive on eBay. You'd have to find a translation file and and a Retron for the legit experience, but it was worth it to me for the original Dragon Quest games! Otherwise, I get it. I like collecting on original hardware when possible. I think the price of everything has changed a lot about how I feel toward game collecting (particularly with retro games).

Yeah, we have a few outbreaks right now as we speak. It's coming and going in waves, but nowhere near the intensity we received at first. Still! It was a highly stressful time, to say the very least... I'm glad we're finally making momentum in responding to cases.

I think Stray is on PC. I might try that! I saw a video clip in stores, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Do PS4 games run quicker on PS5? I noticed games such as Assassin's Creed Valhalla are quite slow to load. Nothing I can't deal with, but it seems the new system should be quite powerful by comparison, yeah? That's at least something to look forward to, and I'm quite happy about the backwards compatibility!

I want to get through more FF games but I'm waiting for NSO to possibly get Pixel Remaster, too. I think I still have 5, 6, and 8 to go! I can confirm the NDS version of 4 was really challenging, and I think that's still the only option for 3 (NDS or PC). I might personally go with the GBA games for most of them. I have a retron HD in case I want physical copies of games so it helped cut down a lot of console accumulation. Worth it if you have the space!

That's a valid point. As games increase in price, it's hard to want to dedicate time and money to all of them. I need to at least walk away knowing money is well spent, too.

That's good to hear about PS5. I'm hoping to get one when the new Final Fantasy game drops. I'm a sucker for that series and will likely buy a console just for it, but it sounds like some new interesting games are coming out! I'm glad to see some normality after the horrible pandemic. Just working in healthcare during that period has been really tough.. Need some enjoyment!

I'm really appreciating the emergence of retro games combined with portability. Like... how cute is it to lay in bed and play an RPG on a great screen? X3

Yeah, the prices are so bad. I would just as soon see ports to new systems than to go back and try to rebuy stuff like Fatal Frame or Suikoden. Fortunately, companies are seeing how they can make an easy cash grab. For me, even just minor touch ups are worth it!!!

How hard is it to get a PS5? I'm surprised when I know anybody who has one.