Japan Retro Direct - A service you may not know about, but should!

Importing video games from Japan seems to be catching on with more and more gamers around the world, but especially here in the US. There are many retro games that now sell for ungodly amounts on the secondary market that are relatively affordable in Japan. However obtaining those games without having to pay a huge mark up can be difficult.

In the past I used a proxy service to acquire games from Yahoo! Japan Auctions with mixed results. While I did score Chip Chan Kick for my PC-FX for cheaper than eBay prices, it still wasn't cheap with all of the additional fees and essentially having to pay for shipping twice. So the question remains where can gamers go these days for imports that are reasonably priced?

If you aren't familiar with Japan Retro Direct, you should be. Vinnk (from Famicom Dojo fame) runs a nice little business on the side and does a wonderful job with his store. One of the best things about his listings is that most of them contain a good description about the gameplay and also feature a YouTube video embedded in the listing w/ actual gameplay. Being a gamer/collector himself living in Japan, he finds a lot of great games and passes them on for a fair price. I can also be confident that he's not selling me junk either as he tests each game thoroughly before he lists them. Sometimes he gets so hung up "testing" games that there is a small delay in new stock being listed for sale!

If you use Facebook, best thing to do is Like his page so you can stay up to date with his store updates and news announcements. Or just bookmark the actual store...whichever floats your boat. Lately he's added a "frequent shopper" program where purchases of $20 or more (shipping excluded) will earn you 1 point. Points act as store credit on future purchases. By the way, a $20 order will generally net you several games because that's how generous his pricing can be.

My latest haul from Japan Retro Direct contained 4 games...all from different platforms. First up is a loose cart of Wave Race 64 Shindo Pak Taio. This is the re-release of the game with added Rumble Pak support. I also believe some sound and music were altered in this version.

Next up is Pinobee for the Game Boy Advance. This was a game I remember seeing in the past that I wanted to try out. I first purchased this game on the Playstation, but how could I pass up on a complete, boxed copy for just a few bucks? It's a fun Hudson Soft platformer that I rarely see mentioned by fellow gamers.

I've never been a huge fan of fighting games, but the Guilty Gear series is a lot of fun. The first Guilty Gear game I played was on the original Xbox, but so many titles in the series exist that I was unaware of. GG XX Midnight Carnival #Reloaded is one of those. I have a Japanese PS2 and could use a few additional games and it was priced right. Just need to get a good fighting pad for my PS2 now.

Lastly we have Bomberman World for the Japanese Playstation. My experience with Bomberman is very limited, but this game looked fun and I needed something to bring me up to that $20 threshold to earn a point on my order. What little I've played of this game has been fun...but I'm sooo bad at it and I think I blew myself up more than I killed my enemies!

Vinnk has a good thing going here and while I'm not being paid or compensated to spread the word of his game store/service, I feel obligated to spread the news just because he's doing such a wonderful job. There are a lot of websites that specialize in importing games from Japan, but nothing like Japan Retro Direct.