Rakuten thread

[nintendodork]

How much is it normally worth?...

[mobiusclimber]

Mobius, as long as you buy from gamepara, you will never pay more than 2500 yen for shipping. That's basically what it boils down to. Most other stores seem to use the weight guide for shipping.

I kind of had to use the store I did b/c I was looking for a special order for a customer (Shining Force 3 scenario 2) and I found them at that particular shop. Weird thing is, the search engine doesn't seem to work too well b/c I don't get ANY results when typing in Shining Force even tho there are a lot of listings for the various SF games. I've found that w/ many games I'm looking for. Not sure if there's any work around for it either.

[nensondubois]

How much is it normally worth?...

Not a clue. It is rare in line with Nekketsu Beach volleyball.

[Yukima]

I kind of had to use the store I did b/c I was looking for a special order for a customer (Shining Force 3 scenario 2) and I found them at that particular shop. Weird thing is, the search engine doesn't seem to work too well b/c I don't get ANY results when typing in Shining Force even tho there are a lot of listings for the various SF games. I've found that w/ many games I'm looking for. Not sure if there's any work around for it either.

Try typing in the names of the games in kanji/hiragana/katakana.  You're more likely to get exact results that way even though the site's in English, weirdly enough...  I actually look up the wikipedia articles on the games I'm looking for and/or Google them, and then copy/paste the kanji into the Rakuten search (since I can't figure out how to type any Japanese at all)

[botulismo]

Yeah, I've found that 99% of the time if you use hiragana or katakana or kanji, you can get what you're looking for. Do exactly what Yukima said. It didn't work on doki doki panic. Thankfully, typing in famicom disk finds all the famicom disk system games. Even typing out the romanized version of the japanese game is likely to work too!

One thing I have noticed is that the translation often times automatically translates game titles into the actual American release title. Akumajou Dorakyura? No. Castlevania. Dragon Quest? No. Dragon Warrior! Even Famicom becomes NES.

This site is an amazing find, in my opinion. So much awesome stuff that you often can't find on Ebay. Maybe we should keep it a secret,... or else they might run out of games or raise prices. 

[mobiusclimber]

One thing I have noticed is that the translation often times automatically translates game titles into the actual American release title. Akumajou Dorakyura? No. Castlevania. Dragon Quest? No. Dragon Warrior! Even Famicom becomes NES.

I think that's b/c they use Google translate, which gets "better" as more people suggest "proper" translations for things, to the point where games get the Americanized version of their names. (Noticed this when using it to navigate a pirate Famicom game list, it would translate into the American title instead of an actual translation of the words, 9 times out of 10. Only a couple weren't exact and that's probably b/c of pirate game company mistranslation.)

[botulismo]

I just got a message from gamepara. Apparently the restriction does affect their shipment to the USA, unfortunately.

This is a sad sad day. 

[Yukima]

*headdesk*

So... how many Famicom carts does 16 ounces add up to? 

[Kiddo]

*headdesk*

So... how many Famicom carts does 16 ounces add up to? 

Not sure how much an ounce is but I weighed my pirates before ordering and came to the conclusion that the average famicom cart weight is around 50 grams. But then some carts are more heavier than others, especially if they have internal batteries to support a save mode and such.

[mobiusclimber]

They can always break your order up into smaller shipments.

[botulismo]

I made an order and am attempting to get them to ship via Seamail. They initially said they were cancelling my order but I sent a request for seamail and they said they are looking into it. They will still ship things under 454 grams via EMS, too. This is just to the US, so don't be afraid if you live anywhere else. We shall see how this proceeds.

It sort of sucks that Rakuten doesn't allow for shipment to a third party. I would ship it to a friend in Canada if I could.

[Kiddo]

A small update on the batch I bought a few weeks ago.

I reported that 3 of the games came broken and unplayable. After cleaning them with an alcahol solution and q-tips, 2 of them started working! Those were Astro Boy and Arkanoid II, but I get no signal from the third one, not even glitches.

Also my SMB3 game seems to be a little glitchy and tends to freeze up. Which is too bad cause it was one of the more "expensive" carts I bought and also because it's the only game (so far) that I've gotten my girlfriend to play with me.

Just wanted to add this to the thread in case some one will use it as a guide to shop from Rakuten.

[mobiusclimber]

The store I put in (two!) orders with is having problems billing my credit card. I'm going to have to go to the bank and see if I can figure out what's going on. I'm getting 35~40 for a little over $200 shipped. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[Yukima]

The store I put in (two!) orders with is having problems billing my credit card. I'm going to have to go to the bank and see if I can figure out what's going on. I'm getting 35~40 for a little over $200 shipped. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

I had a somewhat similar experience recently when I put in an order from a Rakuten shop (first time order!) using my debit card... and ended up with a call from my bank saying that my card was charged twice.    Seems that Rakuten shops charge debit cards twice in order to check for the card's validity, and the second charge ends up getting dropped after a few days/weeks.  I don't know if the same thing happens with credit cards... but in my case, I think I'll stick with using PayPal the next time I buy something from Rakuten shops... 

[MicroGenuis]

I'll buy SM USA