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

First import game would be a Famicom copy of Castlevania 2 I got with a gender adapter, from a flea market owned by a friend of my mothers, around 1992.

My mother collected Royal Doulton figurines then and we went there a couple times. Ajay, the owner, gave me the game after noticing that I was playing it on a NES display nearby.

That day was also my first crack at a decent computer game, at another stall. The game was Duke Nukem.

My first real import (that I imported myself) would be my GP32 console, from Lik Sang in 2001.

 

hmm..good question.

If I consider NTSC-US as imports (we in fact use NTSC-US games but they are made (assembled in case of cartridges) here) it's probably V-Rally '99 for N64. And what a crappy game it is. No music and the cars "jump". They really jump. And don't take the "replay" serious. It's some kind of real time "re-run" of the race. And sometimes it fails to "replay" the race it is attempting to "replay". Damn.

But for a japanese game, it was Wonder Project J2. And what a beautiful game it is! ^.^

 

Yeah, Japan seemed to get better artwork consistently than the US. And don't get me started on the Sega CD/Saturn cases. Why did SOA think those huge, brittle things were a great idea?

 

I think it was just a continuation of the Sega CD case design to compete with Sony's longbox design, and when Sony dropped it, Sega kept the longbox to differentiate their games on the store shelves.

I agree that it was a terrible idea to keep them, but if uniqueness was the reason for them staying, they definitely accomplished that. I can usually spot a US Saturn game from far away. Its a shame they didn't make them half sized though, like a double cd case even. as usual, the Japanese always had the right idea.

Even now this kind of nonsense takes place, after 2000, pretty much all consoles except the PS3, XB-ONE & PS4, use standard size DVD cases, which are larger than CD cases. Even the newer cases are smaller DVD cases. They really don't need to be any larger than a cd, but there's always that need to differentiate.

 

Simple answer is because Sega had a large amount of leftover stock from the Sega CD and decided to use it rather then waste money. Sony used the longbox design in the beginning because they purchased their original supply of them from Sega.

 

Only reason long box was used was because they were afraid consumers in the U.S. would confuse the games for music CDs.

Sony and other 3rd parties also used variants of the longbox cardboard which I actually liked a lot. They switched back to cd after brand strength as the figured consumers wouldn't be confused by then.

 

The first import game I owned was Super f1 circus for snes (epic game) my sisters boyfriend gave me it in 92

The first game I imported myself was jet set radio, I got it when gamestation did imports and it cost me £70...was worth it just for the box art imho

 

My first import game was Goldeneye 64 for the N64. Also my very first home console game ever. The reason for the import was that in Germany the game was not sold and any advertising was prohibited because of the violence in the game.

And thats why my Goldeneye 64 has a spanish box ... thinking of that I should have imported it from the UK instead since I don't even speak spanish xD

 

I remember I was so into Dreamcast I ordered a Japanese model before it even came out in the U.S. with Godzilla!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Metal Slug collection and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd for the PSP

 

Grandia for the Sega Saturn. Sega America would not release the English version. Working Designs who translated the previous Game Arts RPGs, Lunar series, had stop working on any Sega platform because Sega had hired Bernie Stolar after he was let go from Sony. While at Sony, Bernie Stolar had a no RPG policy and would not let Sony or any 3th party release JRPG in the US. He personally piss off Working Designs by saying none of the their games help the SegaCD and TGCD.

Anyway went pretty far into the game with neither me nor my brother had little understanding of Japanese at that time. But didn't finish it. Never got the US Playstation version when it was release years later. Should pickup a copy of that and finally finish it.

 

My first import was Christmas NiGHTS for the Sega Saturn, I was about 13 (I'm 22 now) at the time, and I wasn't even aware of this thing called "Region Lock". I got the game in the mail, was ridiculously excited cause I wanted to play the Sonic the Hedgehog mini-game, and it wouldn't operate unless I put in this "weird black cartridge" that came with the Saturn.

I still use that Saturn, cart and game to this day. I never understood why the "black cart" would make the Japanese games play but I was fine with it. Winded up buying all other Sega Saturn games that I wanted at the time as Japanese imports because of the enormous price difference.

EDIT: I understand now why the "black cart" works, is because it's a AR 5in1 with the label ripped off. Didn't want to sound like I had no clue to this day why the magical cartridge would remove region lock.

 

Great thread. My first import game was Megaman X-2 for the SNES, along a NTSC to PAL adapter. It must be around 1995. Megaman wasn't released yet in PAL territories so I had to beg one of my uncles in the states to bring it as a christmas present back then. Good old days!

 

first import i remember properly was mystical ninja for the snes, it was japanese, my dad picked it up from the market.....i know we had other American games and stuff as we had the converter, but they the first i remember specifically..

i also used to like going into a import shop in the city center to look at the very expensive(but not released yet) games which i would never be able to afford XD

 

I can't remember which one it was but it was a SNES game. Maybe Bubsy. I remember renting some from our video store and seeing my first US SNES cart. Then I found the name of the place they bought it from on a sticker they'd left on one of the display boxes. Went and got a US game and the "stick a local cart in the back" adaptor to go with it. Still got it all somewhere!

 

In fact I think I tell a lie, my first import game wasn't X-Men vs Street Fighter was in fact Pokemon Yellow and I bought it from a local game shop. I had lent my Pokemon Blue to my cousin who took it away with him to school, but the game got stolen so his parents bought me a new one, but the shop where I'm at happened to have a few US copies of Pokemon Yellow in so I got that game instead. It was actually pretty cool playing a game before everyone else, it was something I'd never experienced at the time, my cousin got the game too so we were battling each other. Fun times...

 

Pokemon Blue and Red were for the weak, with their MISSINGNO. True trainers had Yellow

 

Pokemon blue

 

My first import game was Chrono Trigger US for the SNES 1995. I order it over a local gameshop i found in the Video Games mag. I think it was "Order in time" for 169DM. Was much money for me (12years), but of corse it was CT!

 

At some point I traded for a Pokemon Green cart, or whatever happened. To think even the trading card game was once hot enough for Japanese cards to appear around here.