PixlBit

In response to your question on this podcast, yes, there was a Sakura Wars game released in the US: So Long, My Love, which was localized and released in the US at the end of March 2010 by NIS America for the PS2 and Wii. The PS2 version got a deluxe edition which I bought. 

I ordered a sealed copy from ebay after we recorded!

Nice. Glad I could help spread the word, lol. It's a fun, charming game. Not exactly a looker compared to Final Fantasy XII or Dragon Quest VIII, but it gets the job done.

Stage Select:

My biggest gaming regret was asking for Revolution-X for the SNES for my birthday. I got it. It was an awful port. In retrospect the arcade source material wasn't really an enduring classic, but hey, it was Aerosmith. Years later I bought a used copy of the PS1 game for 5 bucks. It was serviceable and I would have been reasonably satisfied with it had I owned a PS1 in early 1996. Knowing then what I know now I probably would have asked for Chrono Trigger. 

Cage Match: 

My vote goes to XCOM. That kind of turn-based strategy agrees well with me as a fan of Valkyria Chronicles and, well, Sakura Wars. Extremely well-done and detailed. I passed HZD over at the time in favor of Breath of the Wild.

Fellow childhood Revolution-X sufferer!  So much wheatgrass... so much wheatgrass... and hair.

STAGE SELECT:

3. Buying games I don't really ever play. It's actually a lower % of my library than you might think, but every time I see one I'm like, "Oh, you idiot. That $2.50 could have been chicken nuggets." 

2. Allowing Electronic Gaming Monthly to make their last issue that awful, zoomed in low-res image of Wolverine. I wasn't a staffer for them, but I still felt guilty by proxy somehow. I regret that they did that to themselves, but I also regret allowing that amount of disrespect in my mailbox that month. 

1. Never beating a turn-based RPG with a strategy guide, cause now I'll have to for Yakuza 7 and have no practice. I kinda want to do this with Phantasy Star IV on my Genesis Mini, cause I do like the vibe of that game from what I've played. Would have been easier to do this with Pokemon or Paper Mario when I played those though. I actually own the strat guide for Paper Mario simply cause I liked the game's story/humor and wanted to see some of the spoiler content. 

VIDEO GAME CAGE MATCH:

Horizon has to win, cause I'll never beat it. But yeah, Aloy just comes up with the right arrow combo for whoever is in XCOM and bam, Aloy wins. If she can take down a Thunderjaw, she can take down an alien horde or whatever. 

EDIT: It has come to my attention that this is a VERY unpopular opinion on Pixlbit, so I would like to triple down and say Aloy defeats the first enemy horde with arrows, then hides from and traps all the other ones in an extremely elaborate network of electrified fences. It's a very short cage match.

... Fuck XCOM. 

Stage Select:

3. Not buying Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (GC) with the bongos for $3- Since this game will never get a proper rerelease

2. Playing Mass Effect Andromeda- My face is tired

1. Playing Assassin's Creed 3 for 8 hours straight- I saw that I would get more money if I traded it in before Black Friday. I needed to see how the series would end Desmond's arc even though I hated that character because I spent 5 games with the guy. And after enduring the game's awful missions, buggy world, and unsatisfying mechanics, Connor's story ends with him sharing a beer with a villain in the middle of the woods before stabbing him and Desmond's given a moral choice in a series that has never had them before then the character picks to let the villain win for you.

Cage Match: X-Com, because many people beat Horizon with no issues but no one beats X-Com on their first save file. Or can ever see a 95% statistic without getting triggered ever again.

Stage Select: I think one of my greatest gaming regrets would have to be buying Pokemon Snap brand new.  I actually like the game a fair bit but in 2 hours (aka that afternoon) I had beaten everything and then about an hour after that the next morning I 100%ed it.  At what I believe was full MSRP that hurt poor, young Booky a lot.  I'm not sure if that was the only game I got that year but it very well could have been.  Ouch.

Cage Match: Did... did you two summon a new XCOM game with your podcast?  I'm not messing with whatever witchcraft you guys called forth, go with that.

Been so busy lately but wanted to get my comment in. You guys are doing a great job and I really appreciate you guys making this podcast. It really makes my day when I have a podcast to look forward to when I work. Same goes for Clickbait. 

Stage Select: 

3. Not getting an SNES: I was given a Sega when I was around 5. I never ventured into SNES but I wish I had. I have always taken good care of my stuff so still have all my Genesis games. I wish I had a collection of amazing SNES games in my collection also. That said I loved my Sega days and am glad I had one.

2. Over Buying: I'm extremely guilty of buying more games than I'll ever play. I have gotten better as I get older in that I dont buy as many games Day 1 unless I KNOW I will play them. The others I get I wait for sales on. But I've learned that if I don't buy it Day 1 then it probably means I dont really, really want to play it and it sits there for months, then years, then maybe I pop it in for 1 day and never again. It's nice having a decent collection but I need to stop buying things just because they are less than $10.

1. Not taking pictures in Minecraft: I'm not a photo mode person but I regret not taking pictures in Minecraft. I made an underground bunker after months of playing. I had never played Minecraft but was getting hooked. My tiny bed and workshop in a cave became a bonafide bunker that would make any crazy doom prepper satisfied. It isnt amazing compared to some of those Minecraft experts but I'm still extremely proud of what I accomplished. I wish I had catalogued the transition along the way so I could remember exactly where I started and look back at each step along the way. 

Cage Match: I've never played XCOM but its always seemed intriguing. I'm pretty sure that Aloy would have a hard time facing thousands of aliens. Then she's also fighting robot dinosaurs. Sure she has an awesome array of weapons but that don't impress them much since they got probably got nukes. Winner Captain of the XCOM force Shania Twain!

Stage Select:

Back in 2013, My wife and I were about to move to a smaller space and I needed to drastically scale back my collection. Not only did I sell off most of my game systems, but in most cases, I also sold ALL the games for those systems too. This would lead to me making 3 mistakes that some part of me will regret forever:

1- MUSHA (Sega Genesis)- I originally purchased a loose cartridge of this game sometime in the early or mid 2000's from a mom & pop used game store for only $3. Looking back on it now, I suppose the store owner wasn't aware of how much the game was acutally worth, and neither was I. You can imagine how much I kicked myself when I decided to try and repurchase it a couple of years later after I decided to purchase a Sega Genesis again. I didnt know just what a treasure I had.

2- Dragon Warrior III (NES)- Okay, this one is going to hurt. Part of the hull I sold off was complete boxed copy of this game, which also included the additional world map and original packaging. Everything was in like-new condition. Originally I only paid like $20 or so. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

3- Sharp Twin Famicom- It’s a Nintendo Famicom and Famicom Disk System all-in-one system I imported from a game store in Japan back in 2004. I got the red/black color and it was beautiful. Man, I wish I never sold that thing.

I’ve never cared about hanging on to retro games in hopes of selling them for a high price later. What bothers me is that I didn’t think I’d repurchase some of the systems I sold later down the road. Which meant that I’d want to replay some of those games I gave up that are now too expensive for me to acquire again.

There’s a lesson here, kids. Don’t make my mistakes.