I went to my local game importer to get some information about the Nintendo Wii, a home console that I’ll likely be buying sometime in the next year or so. I wanted to see when they would get some import models in, when some of the games would arrive, the general price, and how much such a device might cost me in Korea. In generally, the shop owners didn’t know a thing beyond the date of the Japanese launch.
The problem was they didn’t know any real details and what was included in the bundles they were getting pushed to sell. According to what I think I understand, if you purchase a Wii in the next month or so, it will be a bundled with a separate second game and a second controller and run around 400,000 won. This is a fairly reasonable price considering the console itself is around 240,000 won itself, and comes with a controller and a packed in game already. Unless what I thought was the "additional" control and unnamed game was actually what was in the box in the first place. Then they are trying to sell the system at a huge premium, which, when I think about it, makes a hell of a lot more sense considering the demand. I’m not paying a 60% markup on a game console.
The only other information about the Wii is that there will be a Korean 220 volt model coming out sometime next year, but I’ll need to find out what region games it plays before I make any plans on purchasing it. The Wii was rumored to be region free, like the Playstation 3, but that got shot down later as the European Nintendo group realized no one would wait around for months for game translations at inflated prices when they could just import from the United States. As of now, the word is that publishers can decide to lock down games to different regions. If this turns into a huge problem for me, I’ll skip the Wii entirely unless games are widely available in English in Korea. I won’t get involved in importing games on my own. It’s too expensive.
Anyway, one of the main reasons I am interested in the Wii is the next installment of the Legend of Zelda series: Twilight Princess is available on the platform. It will also be released to the Gamecube in a few weeks after a tremendously long delay. Since I own a Gamecube, and I plan on holding off on a Wii until things are a little more solidified in Korea, I wondered when I would get to play this series again. I noticed there was an abandoned Gamecube in the corner of the store that had long since started gathering dust. Since all the store managed to get in were Disney movie tie in games, the poor Gamecube had been resigned to a window display.
In one corner of the display was a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master’s Quest for the Gamecube. The manual and everything is entirely in Korean, but the game itself is in English. I picked this game up for cheap with a used memory card. I plan to play this game to hold me over until Twilight Princess is released. I don’t do much sit at home gaming since my wife watches her dramas on television and I play portable games on the go or at home most of the time. As such, if I even finish this game I’ll be surprised. It’s yet another reason to hold off on the Wii until I know I can spend some time actually being able to afford and enjoy my purchase.
I fired up the game, and after reformating my cheap used memory card, got to play a game I haven’t thought about in years. I remember the Christmas holiday of 1998. I spent my time watching my brother play this game while I was home from college. We had a great time discovering secrets and opening up new parts of the game. When I went to college I actually got to see a friend beat the game as well. The disk contains the "Master’s Quest" version, which is something of a remix with harder dungeons and whatnot. I’ll try to get through the first game before I beat the Master’s Quest edition.
