Colin drove and put on good tunes, I played and took notes. In almost too short a time, we had arrived at the store and headed in. Right by the door, in a huge display case BOOM! Two GBAs (one blue, one white) and stacks of launch titles. Specifically, GT Advance, FirePro Ace, Mario Advance, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Rock Man Battle Network EXE, Dungeon Dice Monsters and Napoleon. Colin is not a F-Zero fan and Dungeon Dice & Napoleon are heavy on the Japanese… The new Mega Man is just… weird.

So, Colin was contemplating buying Castlevania and following a very small period of deliberation actually went to purchase it. It turned out that it was the most expensive game in the store, retailing at $70 instead of $60 (which is what all the other games cost). Colin said "eff it. That's too much."

Visions of playing Castlevania on the way home crashed and burned and my heart sunk. Still, knowing Colin better than to leave empty handed, we proceeded to browse around the store. Colin browsed the store, I tried the Record of Lodoss War game on Dreamcast (snore! Too bad it doesn't live up to the anime, save in the cinemas!) Occasionally, we'd wander back near the GBA case to look at the titles, or chat with the employees about the games.

The employees at the store were all very informed about the Game Boy Advance and were very excited. They reported that they should be getting more games, as there were several other launch titles (like Wai Wai Racing). They said they probably wouldn't carry the more quirky games. Many of the customers in the store were either told about the GBA or asked about it themselves. The store was literally buzzing though, making it hard not to overhear what some of the people were saying.

One guy with two kids was talking loud enough to spoil several upcoming episodes of Dragon Ball Z for me by telling his friend about him. I guess the kids weren't his (apparently his girlfriend's? None of my business, he was just hard not to overhear) but he was taking 'em game shopping. Before long, I saw him checking out the GBA with the storeowner telling him all about it.

"What's so special about it? It's in color, right?" asked the man, as the two boys eagerly peaked over the counter at the new system.

"And it connects to the Cube, Nintendo's next system," replied the owner.

"Oh really? Wow."

Being in earshot, I couldn't help but interject.

"And it's backward compatible and it's region free," I added.

"That's right!" beamed the storeowner.

I don't think I helped sell the system though.