WillyFourEyes/Waltzoid's Journal

This year's TooManyGames experience was...weird for me.

I had to cancel a planned three-day weekend with sarajayechan and my sister due to personal circumstances (but we hope to gather again in the fall when Animate! comes to the same convention center as TMG), and then I was worried about the weather being too stormy for bus travel.

Fortunately, the rain and thunder are holding off this evening, so I was able to get there about 15 minutes after opening.

About a thousand others, by my estimate, had the same idea.

The line to the front entrance was so long that it wrapped all the way around to the back of the building, so it took me 45 minutes after arriving to get my badge.

After that, though, things went more smoothly. I didn't buy any convention or booth merch other than the customary event T-Shirt (this year's themes were R.O.B the Robot and the Power Glove), but I did pick up several old games at decent prices:

• NES: Mickey Mousecapade. This was one I played as a kid but never "officially" finished. The farthest I made it was stage 3, where you had to navigate through a forest with trees that changed color according to the seasons. I used a level select code to view the other two levels and found out that finishing a level this way kicked you back to the title screen after completing it. Boo!
• Genesis: Sub-Terrania, a late-era shoot-'em-up I expected to be expensive, but found a copy selling at only $8. Can't say no to that!
• PlayStation: Battle Arena Toshinden 3. Toshinden 2 was one of the first PS1 games I ever played. It hasn't held up as well in hindsight compared to Tekken 2, and I never liked that it didn't support memory card saves, leading me to have to input codes to unlock the bosses every time I played. Now, Toshinden 3 is no Tekken 3 or even Soul Edge/Blade, but having that card save function is a godsend since you can unlock a lot of characters in that game (mostly evil versions of the main roster, as well as the bosses).
• Wii: Endless Ocean. I played its sequel, Blue World, but not the original. I remember these games being the premier "chill underwater exploration" games before Abzu came out.
• Nintendo Switch: Miitopia and The Wonderful 101 Remastered.
  • The Miitopia character editor in the Switch version gives you a lot more freedom to create than its 3DS counterpart. Since you can't access 3DS' online functions anymore, you don't get all the weird and random Miis that players much more creative than me can create.
  • W101 was one of those games that begged to be detached from the Wii U Game Pad, so I'm surprised it got remastered and rereleased on newer systems despite its initial poor sales.

Speaking of the 3DS, it turns out that StreetPass collection is still viable even after Nintendo shut off its online servers. I even saw several people playing with them, as well as a few Switch 2's in the wild.

Oh, and I met Michelle Ruff and she autographed a print of one of her characters, Yoko from Gurren Lagann. I didn't ask for a photo this time around since she was wearing a mask and I wasn't, and I didn't want her to get sick.