Do you remember your first Import game? Where did you get it?

Nice to see my recent topics getting some good discussion. Trying to end my reputation as the forum asshole. Anywho I wanted to make a topic about Imports and really couldn't think of one until just now. Alot of us are pretty hardcore and have imported, but do you remember your first imported game and more so where you got it from? For me it was a twofer. I bought my Dreamcast my original one, with Marvel VS Capcom 2 and Street Fighter III W Impact. Those were my first Imports. I ordered them for Buy Rite games who had a horrible reputation it turned out amongst the early online communities. They only gave me problems maybe once or twice with shipping games late. Since then my imports come from either Amazon sellers/middle men in Japan, NCSX if I need a game that week, or Play asia if I'm willing to wait. How about you guys?

 

Panzer Dragoon & Zwei, got them off eBay for about $25 combined. Either game would be more than that for the US release.

 

I tried to import custom robo for N64 but my local import shop specialized in PSX so they didn't have a supplier. It's REALLY hard for me to say, I played my friends Japanese copies of DBZ for PSX, and I also played Yoshi Story in Japanese. And I played a lot of Japanese GB games via emulator before hand, and I had a ton of Japanese Dreamcast ISOs. I think my very first import game that was MINE and legitimate was Jump Super Stars for the Nintendo DS, I got that with my graduation money and then I started working and now I have a huge collection and all my consoles can play imports...

 

Oh, actually, if you count it, I got a Mega Drive copy of Winter Games 94 with my Nomad (works on the Genesis with no mods though)

 

My very first import game ever was probably Castle of Illusion for the Mega Drive. I had the Japanese version months if not a year before my school mates had their UK versions

 

X-Men vs Street Fighter from eBay. I spend £50 on a switched console, £25 on the game and £400 on a TV just to play the damn thing, I went all out and boy was it worth it. The game looks so nice in RGB and has some of the loudest and sharpest sound effects of any game I've ever played, for my first import experience I don't think there could have been any better way to do it.

 

I'm just going to focus on ones that I've owned. I'm not certain about which one was first, but I can narrow it down to 3. One of them is a PAL copy of Shenmue II that I bought at an EB Games in Nashville. If I remember correctly, it was $38, which seemed like a lot at the time (this was around 2003-2004, I think). But it was worth it to me, because I really wanted that game.

I think that was the first import game I owned. If it was not that, it was either NTSC-J copies of Earthworm Jim 2 or Dead or Alive for Saturn. I bought both of those off of eBay. I remember one of those (not sure which one) came with a spine card, but I put it somewhere else because I didn't see the point of it (idiot), and eventually it was lost. So that was stupid, but I keep very good care of my spine cards now.

So it had to be one of those 3 games. Most likely it was Shenmue II, but I'm not totally certain. Also, I later got another PAL copy of Shenmue II.

 

Mother 1+2, from Play Asia.

 

My first copy of Zelda: Link's Awakening for GB was the English UK version, which we got because it might've been cheaper than the German one as it was in a different language...? Got that in a small game shop in a nearby town, in the mid to late 90s. Don't have that one anymore.

That aside, the next imports I'm pretty sure were the Japanese Sonic Adventure 2 Birthday Pack for DC, and a SwanCrystal with Digimon Adventure 02: D-1 Tamers, not sure which was first. Those were 2003/2004-ish; SA2 via eBay, the SwanCrystal from Lik-Sang (RIP) and the Digimon game from some German online shop. Can't remember what the shop was called, but I think it closed down a year or so afterwards... Do still have them to this day, too. SA2's box got slightly warped, tho - if I remember correctly, there's been heavy rain the day it was delivered, and some must've gotten into the mailbox or something.

 

My first import was a GameBoy Light. As it was region free I didn't get games though.

It's possible the first game was the US gold Zelda:OoT but I think it was probably Grandia on the Saturn.

 

I got Policenauts on ebay when that psx english translation patch came out.

 

My first import was a white Saturn modded with a region switch on the back, if I remember correctly, from NCSX. And a copy of Panzer Dragoon.

 

I used to get my stuff from play asia, mostly because a website a used to go to at the time had an affiliate link set up with them. I'm sure it was some fighting game... can't remember which one, but those are the ps2 games I used to import. I got a lot of DS & gba games too.

 

My first import was Rockman & Bass for Super Famicom. I ordered from some mail order company that used to advertise in EGM or one of those other mid-90's era magazines, cant recall the name of them right now. Cost me a little bit, but was well worth it - that game kicked ass!

 

My first import was a Saturn and 5 games. Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Kinght, J-League Victory Goal, Gale Racer, and Mansion of Hidden Souls. I got them in March of 95 from a little independent game shop in town. The first thing I had imported was a 2nd Saturn controller and the first game I had imported was Daytona USA.

A week later it all got stolen...

 

Well i had not really imported any games before BUT, back in the day i did in fact my older brother got me a Japanese (or was it chinese) mini looking magazine that looked like a Manga back around mid-late 2000 and this was during Christmas when i was staying at my cousin's house and he came over and brought me that! And once i'd opened the book, I couldn't believe my eyes!! it was like a whole different world of gaming been introduced to me like shit i've never would experience in my life that day. Man i miss reading awesome magazines before the internet took over!

 

I remember in the back of EGM and Gamefan there were shit tons of import companies. I miss those days.

 

Fighting Vipers, had to get the Japanese version for PEPSI MANNNNNNNNNNNNN

 

You and me both

 

Ore no ryouri for the PS1. Was either eBay, lik-sang, or Amazon jp? Guessing eBay.
Unless you wanna count the Dreamcast. Got a Japanese one off Craigslist right near it's release.