It’s true that missed opportunities can come at any time in life. We can sometimes regret not taking that chance to experience one fine moment which we either decided to pass on or worse, weren’t even aware of to begin with.
What if it happened a lot more than we were actually aware of?
Well if your any sort of DS fan I guess you’ll know that this to be true. Too many games from a mass Asian market don’t make it here to our retailers because maybe they are considered too “unique” or a well dressed man thinks that he won’t make much of his money publishing a game outside of Japan (a valid point, but not the one of this blog). This in turn, makes the DS fan lose out on what could be possibly a great puzzler or the next Pokemon craze to hit the Western shore.
One example of this is Taiko no Tatsujin. This a basically Donkey Konga but miniaturised for the DS Market. This is nothing short of an addiction. Catchy tunes from classical to j-rock and pop, I can’t get enough of it. Yet, the only reason I was able to get my hands on it is because I have access to Indie stores that will import games from time to time. Europe was left out of the launch list.
One game that was lucky to make it over here was Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. Though heavily localised, Elite Beat Agents (to give it it’s English name) kept its core gameplay and its charm to give us a fresh outlook to how DS games could be played. Not to mention is was popular with many people despite its tough gameplay.
I can’t help feeling that there are many more games to played out there that will sadley never reach my DS. For this, I have had a missed opportunity and my DS sheds a small tear.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Too true here. Jump Ultimate Stars being one such fine game that will sadly never jump shores commercially :’(
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Even the US sometimes gets games that Europe never sees. I was afraid Professor Layton was never going to come out here.
Being a DS owner though I’m totally with you on missed opportunities. I wish I had better access to Japanese games.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Though the DS does bring the oddest rays of hope at times…Chrono Trigger for instance is out for it now, something that Snes owners missed out on way back. I think we were lucky to finally get Animal Crossing on the GameCube after years…shame it didn’t arrive a little sooner really – it may have boosted the Cube the way it did the DS.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Have you noticed that if you cut off the left hand most third of the bottom picture, you get a surprisingly Nazi-ish pic?
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Luckily shops like play-asia.com makes importing pretty easy, it is a pain though.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Will perhaps be a little easier though now with the customs limit raised.