What's the furthest you have gone to acquire a game?

Like the heading says, what’s the furthest lengths you have personally gone to acquire a game?

Did some of you in your quest to seek out that rare and elusive title resort to unconventional means in order to get it in your grubby little mitts?

Have any of you ever gone so far as to... kill someone for a game?!

-Okay, Ninja. Dial it back a few notches.-

Hey, I’m sure there’s some psychopath out there that has.

-Yeah, Ninja. You see him every day in the mirror.-

All joking aside, this may seem like a minor (and even in some respects, trivial.) question to ask especially when one sits back and considers the bevy of different resources and methods at one’s fingertips these days such as 2 days shipping from services like Amazon or even more convenient digital purchases, but for gamers who didn’t grow up in an era of such convenience and widespread availability sometimes tracking down that rare and elusive game stood out more than the actual game in question.

For myself that special game was none other than Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout for the Playstation.

“What?” You say. “Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout?”

Trust me, I can already hear your scoffs of disapproval but a little background is in order.

-Oh boy, here we go.-

Back in the early to mid 90’s very few people had heard of the term Dragon Ball. Even fewer had heard of the same name with the letter Z tacked on at the end as hard as that is to believe in today’s world where virtually everyone under the age of 40 knows or has heard of it in some capacity.

Back in 1996 (If my memory serves me correctly.) an obscure T.V station was airing a “new” fighting series named Dragon Ball Z early Saturday mornings much to my surprise. I had personally never seen anything quite like it, a super-hero/fighting type cartoon with more heavy themes and plot devices that other “kids” cartoons at the time just weren’t even close to. For the love of Miyamoto, what other cartoon back in the 80’s to 90’s (geared towards kids.) had the main character die off in the first 4 episodes? To say I was watching something unique and different for the time period in question was quite an understatement.

As such, I became quickly enamored with everything Dragon Ball/Z related and spent many a year seeking out further episodes (The station only aired the first saga.) and information on later characters and subsequent story arcs. Bear in mind this is still 1996/1997, a time in which Dragon Ball Z in the West was not the juggernaut it still is today.

I went to painstaking lengths to find out more about later entries in the franchise, even resorting to purchasing foreign VHS tapes (For younger gamers out there that don’t know what those are GOOGLE it, lol.) at $30 each for 2 to 3 episodes all in an attempt to find out what happened next in each saga.

Yeah, I was committed.

-Committed, Ninja? Or do you mean you should have been committed?-

It was only a matter of time before I started seeking out videogame adaptations of my new favorite obsession…err, I mean T.V show.

Unfortunately, back in 1996 (as I eluded to.) Dragon Ball Z was still more of a niche thing. Very few people knew anything about it and the ones that did often confused Z with the original Dragon Ball that had been aired prior to Z (only the first 12 episodes.).

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there was absolutely ZERO in the way of Dragon Ball related games in the West for any of the major video gaming consoles at the time.

It wasn’t until one day I was in a Zellers (remember those?) in the electronics section that I saw my first glimpse of a Dragon Ball game. Back then Zellers would sell what I can only describe as true indie computer games. What I mean by that is someone (literally one person.) would make a kind of crude game and put it on a hard disk (GOOGLE IT!) and sell it for $5. While looking though this pile of unwanted gaming rejects I stumbled upon my first Dragon Ball game.

The image on the front had Goku and Krillin facing off against each other on a crude kind of paper cover. On the back of the hard disc was a simple explanation of what the game was about. The programmer admitted that he had made a simple fighting game based on a manga comic he had seen on a store shelf in China town. He had no idea what it was about but thought it looked interesting so he made a cheap fighter based on the 2 characters he had seen on the cover which he had unknowingly named something to the effect of Bryce Lee (Goku.) and Jackiee chin (krillin.). Those probably aren’t the exact names he used but it was something similar to a rip-off of more well-known martial arts action stars.

Even though this guy clearly had no idea what he was doing (or even the source material for that matter.) I purchased the game without question like a rabid dog. I went home and booted up my Computer and placed the disc in, completely hyped to finally play a video game adaptation of my favorite show.

To say this game was bad is doing a disservice to the word bad. This one of the worst video games (if you could even call it that.) I have ever played in my entire life… EVER!!!! I’m talking on the level of E.T on the Atari. It made games like Superman 64 look and play like Zelda in comparison. Yeah, it really was that bad.

The game comprised of 2 buttons for attacks and moving from left to right. If you moved too far left a line would come down the center of the screen to symbolize the distance between the 2 combatants.

Yeah, it was bad. Scratch that, it was terrible. But I played it to death. Now I know what you might be thinking. “Oh, Ninja. Let us guess. You loved it. You have a sentimental place for it in your heart.”

…

NOT AT ALL!

I absolutely loathed playing that horrid piece of garbage. When I say that I played it to death I meant that I played it for a few days and that was it. The truth is the game in question would probably only hold most people’s attention for 2 minutes. Yeah, it was that BAD! Combined with the fact that it was just a 1 on 1 fighter that had matches that only lasted about 5 seconds (Yeah, that’s right. 5 seconds!) and it just made my extended play-time with it that much more impressive.

But what kept me going back for more like a battered wife (-That was totally unnecessary, Ninja.-) was that it was ALL I HAD.

Fast forward about a year. I had given up on finding anything dragon Ball related in regards to video games seeing as how nothing existed at the time so like many I just busied myself with the regular big name mainstream games that were making headlines in the video gaming world at the time.

It wasn’t until I saw an advertisement in the back of one of my gaming magazines (GAMEFAN.) that it was revealed to me that “real” Dragon Ball games did in fact exist despite my minor setback earlier in the year.

Thanks to these magazines I was now introduced to the world of import gaming. I know many of you were probably screaming at the top of your lungs earlier “NINJA! There have been tons of Dragon Ball Games available before 1997” and guess what? You would all be right, but once again remember the time period and the context.

This was during the infancy of the internet, as such when it came to video gaming all of our news as gamers came from limited sources like the magazines. People went to places like Toy’s R’ Us, Walmart, or other such stores that had video games (as games were still seen of during those days as kids products.) and whatever they had was whatever they had. The whole idea of Importing games was such a foreign concept (-I see what you did there, Ninja-) that only a select few even had it on their radar.

Well, that all changed that fateful day my eyes landed on that advertisement in the back of that GAMEFAN magazine. There was a whole section devoted to Japanese/Import titles, everything from Rockman (Wait… isn’t that, Megaman!) to the latest King of Fighters game. But what my eyes gravitated to was something they had yearned for for what had felt like a small eternity.

-Eternity, Ninja? Like the length of this post?-

At the very top of the page were a series of words that at that time made me hold my breath.

DRAGON BALL GT: FINAL BOUT

At that moment I knew I had to have it.

I followed the description down the page to a place called GAME CAVE, a store located in California that specialized in major videogame releases as well as more of the rare and hard to find titles. It also came as no surprise that they had quite the selection of import titles, titles fans of mangas, animes, and the likes would give their left thumb to get a hold of.

Living in a different country at the time it wasn’t as easy as just picking up the phone and dialing, especially when you consider I was a young Ninja at this period in time. As such I had to convince my parents that I simply HAD to have this obscure game from an obscure store using an even more obscure method of delivery.

“Don’t they have this game at the store?” my parents asked. “Why can’t you just get it there?” For many weeks I had to constantly convince them that this game would probably never come to a local store (little did I know it would be released in the U.S at a much later date, lol.) and that I had been waiting my whole life (despite just finding out about Dragon Ball a year prior, lol.) for this game.

Whether it was out of pity or just plain annoyance (-Knowing you, Ninja. Definitely the last one.-) my parents folded. They phoned up the GAMECAVE and asked about getting their young Ninja this rare and obscure game that he just had to have.

Unfortunately, they were all completely sold out of it.

:(

Just my luck. However, they did inform my parents that they did have one copy left. A demo copy they had on one of their displays for customers strolling in the store to play and check out. I didn’t even hesitate for a second. “YES!” I pleaded. And the rest, as they say, is history.

There have been very few times I have ever been so excited as I was the day that game arrived. I ripped it out of the package looking at all the Japanese lettering on the front and back. I didn’t understand a word of what it said (-But we thought you were a Ninja, Ninja?-) but it didn’t matter.

I had finally gotten hold of a real Dragon Ball game!

Seeing as how my Playstation was a domestic unit it was not meant to play Import games. GAMECAVE had sent a little pamphlet with instructions on how to “fool” the domestic Playstation so that it would read the import game. In addition to the pamphlet they gave me a small coil spring to put in the inside of the Playstation (Where I'm pointing in the pic below.) to somehow trick it into thinking it was really a domestic game. They also sent with my game a kind of adaptor to be placed on the back of the console. Once again, this was all done in an attempt to fool the device into reading and subsequently playing the disc. Well, it worked. And yes, I’m happy to say I was finally able to play my beloved Dragon Ball game.

I’m going to be honest. This game was terrible. Not as bad as that terrible indie programmer hard disc but this was definitely nowhere near as good as many of the Dragon Ball titles out today; or even for that matter the titles released in the early 2000’s. Yeah, I was disappointed. But y’know what? I was finally playing Dragon Ball. And even though I knew deep down that it wasn’t a good game for that short window of time I was content.

Despite the Dragon Ball games having gotten a lot better from those early beginnings (Budokai, Burst Limit, Xenoverse, etc…) a part of me was always holding out for the hope that one day I would finally see that perfect marriage of Dragon Ball and Fighting game that I knew was possible.

Playing games like X-men vs Street fighter or Marvel vs Capcom during those very same years only made the disparity between those early Dragon ball games and the aforementioned titles even more jarring and subsequently the desire for a true tournament level Dragon Ball fighting game became all the more pronounced in my mind.

This is personally part of the reason why I am so impressed with the latest Dragon Ball Fighter Z game. For that young Ninja almost 20 years ago it was the game he was hoping to first place his grubby little ninja mitts on and even though it took nearly a quarter of a century to finally do so it was better late than never.

So, Gamespot community, what was the furthest lengths or the most effort you had to go to acquire a game? Also, was it worth it in the end?

-DRAGON BALLED NINJA APPROVED-

I didn’t read any of that.

But the furthest I’ve gone would be importing NTSC N64 games from the adverts in magazines. PAL N64 games were awful so it was worth it though.

I failed to find a GC game about pirates in the sky..... Skies of Arcadia. That's the one. I had an online friend who was super sweet, played games just like I did and she was all head over heels for Skies of Arcade, so I had to have it too. In my mind we were both playing it and we could talk about it and all that... I was looking in stores throughout the entire city by bike including the scary parts (most stores didn't have a website let alone a visible assortment and on the phone they would often not know and not care). I called stores in nearby cities, and eventually tried to find a store in the UK, willing to go there by train to find a copy (like my family would ever let me do that) but I couldn't find it anywhere. It was impossible to find. Half the shops never had a copy and the other half were sold out within minutes of the truck arriving.

I bet I could get a copy now but I don't have a GC anymore, and I feel kind of burned so I'm not sure I still want to play it.

It's an amazing game. Definitely worth seeking out today and owning. I'm not a hardcore traditional turn based RPG fan by any stretch of the imagination but Skies of Arcadia/Legends is one of the best games let alone RPG's I have ever played.

If you do track it down I don't think you will be disappointed.

-VYSE NINJA APPROVED-

There’s been a few rare occasions where I’ve actually had to go to an EBGames, the GameStop of Canada, to purchase a game. Ewww. :P

Probably only GameStop... My area is littered with them so if you don't find it at one GameStop you simply go to the next closest one.

Back in my console peasant days, I bought a game for $60, at Gamestop to make matters worse.

Driving around for hours going from one gaming store to another looking for that obscure game. I remember doing that with Street Fighter Anniversary(the OG Xbox game that was playable on the 360) and I did find it eventually, so the search was not in vain.

I did it for Mario Kart 8 to get it at midnight, took me 4 stores had to go to Walmart (ewww).

One time, I had to go upstairs and purchase a game on the living room PC since my gaming rig was updating.

I once went from mall to mall looking for Final Fantasy 7 in the year 2006-7 and eventually found it by the end of the day brand new. Totally worth it:) 2nd fave game ever behind a tie between San Andreas and FFX

Interesting story. I have a lot of memories with the Dragonball games myself. I actually got into the series through Budokai 3 back in the Toonami hype years. I didn't have cable back then so it was only with Dragonball Kai that I got around to watching the episodes. Anyway, to answer the question, the most I've ever done to get a game was import it from Amazon or Ebay. If I had to pick one game I'd go with Punch Out Wii. I looked in all my local game shops for a copy of that before settling on a brand new copy from Amazon. It only cost something like $20 so I wasn't too mad.

Edit: I forgot to mention but when I was getting the Punch Out game from Gamestop, I had to have a used copy ordered in from their warehouse and it didn't work so I ended up returning it.

I imported SFII and an adaptor for the Famicom from Japan when I was a teen. Had my parents do it actually as I couldn’t afford it on my own, under the agreement I’d pay them back through yard work first before getting it. They tried to hide it up in their closet until I paid my debt, but after some searching I found it and would stay up nights secretly playing as I worked it off.

Eventually got caught and had some extra work put on as they took it away and hid it very well, but don’t regret it a bit. Good memories.

I just emulate old games and buy new ones digitally.

I slept with an ugly chick to get a copy of NHL 94. She wasnt great looking but she was fun to smoke and hang with back then. That's about all.

@cainetao11: you stole it from her?

Hmm. Well I see there is an alternative method now with which I can access the game on a platform that I own. I may try that out sometime. It could make for a nice summer vacation game.

A TL:DR would be nice not a lot of people will read that or even skim it.

I wanted Ocarina of Time right away when it launched and I could not get it locally. I skipped school and drove to the next closest town where I was the first in line at Zellers to purchase it. I drove back home and played it all day. It was so worth it. :)

I had a Japanese friend pick up a launch Dreamcast and virtual fighter 3 in Japan for me.

@Archangel3371: lol me too! I literally only had to go to ebgames to get secret of mana since amazon wasn't selling it.

As for the topic I'm sorry I know you put a lot of work into this but I only read the title :p, my reply to the title is no. Amazon pretty much has everything when it comes to video games

NFS Underground 2 for PS2 - just bought it recently - had to look at several different stores.

Oddly enough - having a hard time finding MGS 5 for PS4 - I could get it off amazon but I want a new copy and only want to pay $20.

Furthest I've gone is to my keyboard

Before amazon? To the mall down the street. Not going out of my way for a game

SSSSHHHHHH!

Dude?!

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence Limited Edition

I live in Canada and it was nowhere to be found in my city. Multiple stores(Futureshop/walmart/ebgames etc) straight up told me I wouldn't be able to buy it in Canada. I took their word for it. This is back in 2006 and luckily by some miracle, I was going on a trip to Florida the same week it came out which happened to be around March Break.

Drove to minniapolis(where I checked several stores, still could not find it), flew to florida(where I searched for hours at a dozen stores). BOOM! FOUND IT! They only had 1 copy. I screamed like a little school girl and bought it.

The End.

@videogameninja: That was an interesting story, Ninja. You must've been one of the first Dragonball Z fans in the US. I remember when I was a kid they showed the first couple of Dragonball episodes on one of the stations, but at that time I was too young to really understand it. I actually understood Monkey Magic first. o.o

Still to this day haven't really played a Dragonball fighting game. I got to play Budokai for like 10 minutes in 2006, but that's it. I want to get Fighter Z, did you play it yet?

LMAO!!!

-GAMER PROBLEMS NINJA APPROVED-

@videogameninja:

I walked from my house to Best Buy in a blizzard to buy Tomb Raider Underworld. I nearly collapsed at the entrance.

tl;dr

Drag my balls 5 miles through broken glass uphill in a snowstorm to call gamestop to check on the status of my battletoads preorder

I stood in line at Walmart for an hour to get the NES Classic and 3 hours to get the SNES Classic. I will do the same for N64

Well I never went far for any, but there are two games in particular that I remember being very hype for me compared to pretty much everything ever.

Pokemon Colosseum and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. I would come to the store every few days to see if it released or not. Honestly I don't remember if I knew when they were releasing or not, nor do I know if I ever checked. I got the games and actually really liked Crystal Chronicles especially but both were actually worth the hype somehow to me back then.

Overall it was a weird hype moment that I never had again, at least not to that degree. I would love to play another modern game like Crystal Chronicles...

Hi Ninja. Did you post this at IGN too? Havent been there for a while...

As to getting a game, I did once order a game from England. Which was pretty rad, as it was, well, England, and we all know what those brits are like.

Making deals with the parents. I'm pretty sure most gamers at some point in their life had to resort to something of this nature in order to get some kind of game or console.

;)

-LETS MAKE A DEAL NINJA APPROVED-

@videogameninja: You da man, Ninja! I don't think I even know anyone else who has heard of Dragonball GT, let alone play or own it! It's such an obscure game that most gamers and most Dragonball fans have never heard of it. I hold that game in such a high regard, simply out of nostalgia, and for the same reasons you listed. You have me beat, though. I could never purchasing a copy of it (I had rented i a couple of times). The few times I got close to grabbing the game, it was at 5-6 times the MSRP of a brand new game.

OT: No where near as far as OP, nor as interesting, but I recall buying MGS4 before I ever got a PS3. My wife asked why would I buy a game (collector edition) w/o being able to play it. It was stupid reasoning, but I just had to have it. The next week she rented a PS3 for me. I eventually bought a PS3 afterwards, but it was great she made the effort to support me.

My local gamestop lol

Got into a bidding war with someone on eBay when I was trying to buy Panzer Dragoon Saga. Ended up paying 150 for it.

Imported Shenmue 2 on Dreamcast from Europe for a pretty penny when I found out it was cancelled on US Dreamcast. Which also meant I had to buy a DC-X import disc to play it on my US console.

@JustPlainLucas: when was this? I finally got PDS a couple years ago for $500 and that was a pretty good deal. I remember wanting to buy it around 1998, 1999 but making $5.15 an hour back then made it difficult to pay the $100 or so. Boy, do I wish I got it then, lol. But, hey, I have one now and proud of it.

Walked 2.6 miles to Gamestop

Roughly 2002-2003.

The furthest I've gone to acquire a game is to buy it online. Or to trade for it with a friend back in the 90s

I threatened my bully and stole his games.

I still have his Sapphire version of Pokemon.

Yes. If you are a fan of Dragon Ball or 2d fighting games for the love of all that is holy go out and buy it now! In my personal opinion it is easily the best Dragon Ball game ever made. Imagine the cast and crew of the Dragon Ball series thrown in a type of Marvel vs Capcom 2 backdrop. Simply amazing!

Come to think of it, I believe it is the highest reviewed Dragon Ball game ever ever made. There's a reason for that.

-DRAGON BALL FIGHTER Z NINJA APPROVED-

ordered Manic Mansion:DOTT overseas When I was 12, I paid with pocket money. Still got it. They remastered it but its no longer a puzzle so i never got it again

When I was in the military and stationed in Okinawa, Japan, I had to go to this spot off-base that was like a 30 min drive in order to get Zelda:OoT when it came out.

OMG, LOL!

How the heck did I miss seeing this post?

What was better? The game or...

-INDECENT PROPOSAL NINJA APPROVED-

On the night when Super Smash Bros. Brawk was releaded in the U.S., I decided to make the unpreceded decision to drive to my local GameStop where I made a down payment for game. It was nearly one AM in the morning when I arrived, but was able to get my copy before ths store closed.

OMG, lol.

Yeah, I can validate you story. I was living in Canada at the time and I too remember trying to track down MGS 3: Subsistence. I went to every brick and mortar place but apparently "the game didn't exist". I had the original MGS 3: Snake Eater so I wasn't willing to go to the lengths you eventually had to in order to get the game. Would have been nice but, oh well. Glad you were able to snag a copy.

-SSSSNNNAAAKKKEEE EEEAATTEEERRRR NINJA APPROVED-

Hopefully you do get your hands on a copy of Dragon Ball GT, if not anything else to quell that burning nostalgia and curiousity.

As for MGS4, I've done the same thing myself in the past with a myriad of different consoles. I should mention that it was definitely in my younger ninja days; times when I had limited funds.

If I recall correctly I purchased full games before the launch date of the N64 and the original X box. While it probably was uncommon do something like this around the time of the X box launch and thereafter I do recall many people doing the same thing around the time of the N64. Multiple people I knew had bought Mario 64 and I want to say Pilot wings 64 (?) well before the console even dropped.

I'm not sure if it was due to all the hype the N64 was getting pre-launch or whether it was somehow tied to the fact that people didn't really know much about pre-ordering back then. Either way I remember having these games on my shelf and no system to play them on. I also remember my parents thinking I was crazy... I mean, more-so than they already did/do.

-OLD-SCHOOL PRE-ORDER NINJA APPROVED-

Huh? What?

-NOT A VERY GOOD BULLY NINJA APPROVED-