I just felt like I had to talk about this. For a good while now, I've been looking for the game Tales of the Abyss. I would always check Walmart, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they had a copy. They never did of course. But let me back up a tad.

I live in a smallish town out in the middle of mountain country or something. Well, small to most of you. You who live in those big cities and such... I grew up in an even smaller town, but that's besides the point. Being that I live in a small town, there are very few places I can buy a game at. Any gamestop-like place had shut down years ago (except one, and I'll touch on that in a minute), leaving me with places like Walmart, Kmart, pawn shops, and thankfully a Hastings. Ooooh how I love my local Hastings...

Anyway, since getting my 3DS, I've bought and sold off nearly all 3DS games I came in contact with. Super Mario 3D Land? Didn't enjoy it and sold it off. Kid Icarus? Didn't enjoy it and sold it off. Tetris Axis? REALLY didn't enjoy it and sold it off. Basically, all I had was Zelda OOT 3D, Mario Kart 7, and Starfox 64 3D. I've played those games to death... So my 3DS has basically been sitting idle, just gathering those play coins 'n such as I took it with me to work. I figured what I needed was a game I could really enjoy for months at a time. Or at least weeks with short breaks, or whatever...

I decided that would have to be Skyrim. I mean... wait... No, I decided that would have to be Tales of the Abyss. I love RPGs, open world ones more so, but I've been known to sit down and play a JRPG. Sadly, I don't recall this game ever selling terribly well, though I can imagine that having something to do with retailers never even considering it... If it's hard enough for me to find it locally, how the heck will most people find it?

Anyway, like I said, no one around here had it. I have been looking off and on for months. I know I could have avoided it all together and just bought something online, but I try to support local business when I can. I consider paying tax to be the tax of getting it now rather then a few days from now. I looked over at Walmart, Kmart, Hastings, I looked at pawn shops to see if anyone did have it in this area... Then, I decided to look in the one place I didn't want to go.

A place so horrible... you will never find a more wretched hive of... ok, you guys know THAT line. And really, I'm being overly cruel. I feel like they price their used stuff too high, more so with accessories and old memory cards. Anyway, this is a recently opened game store. Not a name brand, just a small regional chain I believe. Not unlike Gamestop, though I don't recall Gamestop having a stock of games from all major systems from the past and present. NES games, Dreamcast, xbox, PS2... All the old greats were there...

Why am I sounding like an advertisement, you already know the end of the story. I found it there, I now like that place a whole lot more, will support that place more often, bla bla bla.

Really, this whole thing was me going "Boo small towns suck, yay small time game stores rock!"

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen the game at the GameStop two minutes down the road from me.

That was a while ago, but yeah I've heard it's hard to find. I have no interest in the game, so didn't pick it up.

 

Whoa, I may be tripping balls here son but I just discovered this rather magical thing called AMAZON. Actually, I'm sorry. I put that in a rude way, what I ment is why not order it off the web?

DOUCHE BAG RECOVERY!

 

If you read my post, you see i did talk about simply buying it online, but out of some local pride i have for some reason (and a fact i didnt go into, that for some reason, it was actually cheaper locally by a couple bucks, for me at least), and because i wanted an adventure, I decided against it. At least for this one.

 

wow kinda feel srry for you my places all have Tales of Abyss(Bestbuy,walmart,toys r us, eb games,the source)

 

You think your town is small? I need to travel 30 odd miles if I want to buy a game at a store. I don't really care as people have said that's what amazon is for. Tales of abyss is hard to find anywhere though, Well it was when I was looking for it in the UK I think a new batch has been released though. I paid £50 for my copy though , £20 more than it should have been! As I couldn't get it.

 

Took forever for my Game Stop to get it, even though they had huge posters advertising it. It was only after they stopped advertising it, that they actually got it in stock.

 

I live pretty close to London, and I struggled to find Tales. As we are still in the 7th- 8th transitional period shops are unwilling to replace DS game shelf space with 3DS (though more willing than they are to put Vita games out due to PSP games never having room) unless they KNOW a game will sell.

 

why is this not in the blogs section? anyways.

TotA was difficult to find when it first came out in NA. People on eBay were charging outrageous prices (over $60!) Luckily I found someone only charging $45 shipped, brand new. Which is only five more bucks than it would have been bought at a store, and maybe not even that if you include taxes.

I live in a small mountain town too, no game store or anything, besides Kmart. But they mostly depend on PS3/360 sales and don't care about new 3/DS games at all.