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@mr_benn I bought a TV for my arcade room just for this thing. In hindsight, never had I been more happy to see an unexpected bill take away my ability to buy something before.

I heard this was "coming soon", bought a TV, had a bill pop up that needed paid, held off on buying, heard the reviews, was happy I missed out after all.

Ooh. I know the same excitement I felt when I first got my hands on my GBA on June 11th, inside Funcoland. I got the games a week early, so I poured over every manual and stared in awe at the size difference of the cartridge compared to the original GameBoy.

As we're checking out with my preorder (that I sold so many N64 games to get a hold of), I get the box, open it in the store, and pop THPS2 inside. I couldn't believe I almost canceled my preorder months prior.

If it wasn't for a little GBA kiosk that was inside Funcoland the day I went to cancel to get more N64 games instead, I don't think I would've changed my mind like I did.

Also, Lik-sang! I got my Black GBASP from them in February 2003 because North America only got blue and silver at launch, and I wasn't sure if black was going to come here. (spoiler, totally did in September that year)

We've reached a point where Duke Nukem Forever's release date to today is actually longer than it was in development...

@Guru_Larry hmm that's odd. Does this work?

https://postimg.cc/0rFNCWzX

A month ago, I decided we should use our Arcade1ups as a backdrop to our Christmas tree this year. I thought it was kinda neat.

https://imgur.com/a/yBp9w0E

Just sucks I might not get to do a bigger version of this in the future.

For the Americans, 3m is about roughly two Snookis.

@rob7979

First time I played those versions were in 2000 on the Game Gear, long after playing the original arcade and home console versions years prior. I spent so much time just being marveled at how well the game looked and played... They held up really well. Definitely was punching a bit above it's weight.

I played through 1 and 2 a few years ago again on the Game Gear and still was impressed by the games.

@Moroboshi876 I'm 5'11. With a riser (an add-on that boosts height which were sold separately), I can use mine comfortably. My pinball is the only one without a riser, and that's simply because they made it tall enough from the start.

We're closer to the year this game takes place than when it was released...

@RupeeClock the EXT port on the e-Reader is just a passthrough for the older model. It allows there to be a connection to the GameCube with the GBA-GCN Cable while having the e-Reader plugged in.

The e-Reader had 100% compatibility with the SP, as it didn't need to be plugged in. The original model had the port obscured which is what the EXT connector was for in the first place.

Would absolutely love it if they include FFB wheel support in this version. It doesn't even register a wheel being connected in Like a Dragon Gaiden's arcade games. (Which I mean, I guess I understand.. Would still be neat though...)

Song 5 was pretty much my go-to pretty much every time I booted this game up. None of the other songs really stuck for me like this one did as a kid. The crunchy guitar going chug chug on a power riff just amped me up.

Also, yeah. I 100% bought Aggressive Inline for the GBA just for the fact it had (albeit, compressed and cut) the soundtrack from the console games.

Back to this... I honestly didn't know this game pretty much used the code itself from the Playstation game. That's insane, but makes sense as I couldn't figure out how it felt so much like the game I poured hours into but didn't look quite the part.

Literally was super excited for this game when it came out, and still remains the only game I busted open while still in the store.

@slider1983 Oh man. WWF WarZone. A game I would see being advertised on the back of my GamePro magazine. I had pretty much zero interest in wrestling as a whole but was waaay into fighting games at the time. I would see this being advertised, and pretty much avoided it until I saw one of the "selling points" on the ad.

"Create your own wrestler!"

For months, I'd been trying to rent a game from Hollywood Video called "Deadly Arts", which immediately sold me on the premise of creating your own fighter, but the game was never available to rent. Just the box sitting there, taunting me. But right there, I knew I wanted to create my own fighter in these games, and the itch was getting worse.

So, after seeing that ad, I knew I wanted to play this. It was more well known over "Deadly Arts", which wasn't even at Blockbuster or the grocery store, so I thought I had a better chance of renting this. And I did. For weeks before renting, I started watching the content to understand what I was about to play, hiding it just in case my parents would get mad. They were more confused I was watching it all of a sudden after years of not caring about it.

Well, the day came, and that's literally all I did. Filled up every slot I could making anyone and everyone. Including multiple versions of myself. I was in heaven. Every "fighter" I had on screen was of my terrible creation. It was glorious.

Yeah, I became a fan in the process, cooling off around 2008 (but still lightly following, oddly enough) until getting back into it strong a couple years before covid. I've always kept a soft spot for the games though, at least waiting until there's a great sale.

Still haven't touched Deadly Arts to this day. I heard it was bad. Haha.

Tldr: WWF WarZone is the reason I became a fan. And it's solely because of Create-A-Wrestler. If a worse video game was available, I doubt I become a fan.

The Spark Mandrill music from Mega Man X certainly is a choice...