I come from a simple time. I was pretty ignorant as a kid. I knew a lot about video games, but I didn't know who actually made my favorite games. When I look back on it, most of my favorite games were Japanese made.

The video games media like Nintendo Power, EGM and Gamepro didn't focus on the behind the scenes to much. I think the first magazines really focused on Japanese development was during Final Fantasy 7's hype train. For a full year, we got previews and massive amounts of coverage for Final Fantasy 7 and it's predecessors. Most notably, they focused some attention on the Final Fantasy games that never made it to America, like Final Fantasy II, III and V.

I'm older, wiser, and have money.  So I can pretty much buy whatever I want, without really risking much.  Back in the day, before the internet handed everything piece of info you ever wanted, it was more risky to buy games.   When I buy a game now, I don't get that rush of excitement I would when I was a kid. 

I'm not sure of the year, but I remember one day I had a butt load of cash.  It was either after my birthday or Christmas.  I went into K-mart, expecting to unload my cash.  Back then, they had a bin full of SNES and Genesis games.   This bin is a lot like the bins you will find in Wal-mart today with $5 DVDs. 

Each game in the bin was marked down from $10 to $20.  While my parents were shopping, I was digging through that bin looking for anything that looked cool.  I remember, for some odd reason, there were  a bunch of copies of Shaq Fu.  Luckily, I never bought Shaq Fu.  I did rent it, but that's a completely different story.

The three games I bought that day was Sunset Riders, Zombies Ate My Neighbors and TMNT: Turtles in Time.



Zombies Ate My Neighbors was a given for me because I was a total Zombie freak at this point in my life.  I rented every zombie movie I could find, and even bought a bunch.  I didn't know anything about Zombies Ate My Neighbors, other than it had zombies in it.  This happened to be one of my favorite games for the SNES.  My cousin and I would play the heck out of it, and it had like 80 or so freaking levels.  The game was massive, the animations were nice and the game was just fun.  I never beat it though.  It just got extremely difficult at the end.



Sunset Riders was an arcade game, but I honestly don't remember it in the arcades.  Even if I would have seen it in an arcade, I probably would have skipped over it for Samuari Showdown or Virtua Fighter.  Anyways, I was shocked how good this game was.  I was never a huge fan of Contra style games, but Sunset Riders was a game with great music, tight action, impressive graphics.  I actually beat this game on my own.  That's pretty crazy just thinking about that now.



TMNT: Turtles in Time was weird for me.  I was a huge TMNT fan when I was young, but by the time Turtles in Time came out, there was Power Rangers and a bunch of other shows that usurped TMNT's popularity.  While TMNT might be retro now, at the time, they were pretty lame to like.  Especially at my age (probably).  I took the risk and bought this "kids game".  Overall, this is probably my favorite TMNT game in the series. 

While I bought these "budget" games on a whim, this turned out to be my favorite gaming purchase I ever made. 

I'm not a system fan boy, and I'm not going to start soothsaying Japanese games.  I just want to make that clear.  I bought my Xbox 360 for the flood of JRPGs that was headed it's way.  So far, I'm fairly disappointed with the performance of these games. 

The first JRPG I bought for the 360 was Blue Dragon.  I wasn't very hyped for the game, since it looked generic from head to toe.  However, I did end up enjoying it to an extent.  I loved the exploration through the massive fields and world map.  I loved the art style and even music.  It did have a ton of problems, mostly the broken battle system that over powered your characters.   I'll give this game a passing grade.  It was good enough, but not earth shattering.

I'm a risk taker when it comes to games.  I love picking up a game with no hype or expectations behind it.  I love that fresh, untainted feeling for a game.  It's hard to get that feeling with so many Blogs, Podcasts, Message Boards and Websites shoving any and all info down your throat.  Sometimes, I'll run into abominations like Unlimited Saga, but other times I'll find a gem like Opoona. 

I played Opoona last January on a whim.  I didn't know what to expect quite honestly.  I was somewhat familiar with the battle system, and even that was off base.  I was expecting something like Phantasy Star II or Vay but with weird motion controls.  Nope.  There is not a single thing that is Wii specific about Opoona.  The whole battle system is used with the analog stick.  You hold it back for power, and let go to unleash your Bon Bon attack.