Jimmy Hapa

Hey everyone, it's been a while since I've posted, uploaded or interacted with anything here. I am indeed among the living. It's a long story, but I've been so busy with work in the past few months, doing a lot of overtime and six day weeks, that I haven't had the necessary time or opportunities to work on new videos. And that sucks, because this is my favorite hobby. I wrote a nearly complete script for one and had all gameplay captured back in April (Ganbare Goemon 2 for Famicom), but it's been so long that I will probably just work on something else from scratch soon. In the next month, I will do some work for a collaboration with a friend here on YouTube, so I share that when it's out! It's covering something I know anyone who follows this channel will be interested in, so stay tuned!

Anyway, as the image for this post states, I am currently in the United States--my first time back since 2019. It's been a long time and a nice change of pace. I am at my parent's home for the next couple of weeks spending time with them, but also going through my old belongings and trying to ease them of the unnecessary clutter in their home...which is why I am selling off a majority of my old video game stuff I left here. I have a spreadsheet of the things I would like to sell that I will share at the end of this post, as well as a thread on Twitter with pictures of all those items. If you are interested in buying anything from me while I am here in the U.S. (and can ship to North America easily), I hope you'll check out the links. Send me a message on Twitter (if you have an account), and if you need more descriptions/pics, no problem! Also, prices can be negotiated, especially for multiple item bundles.

Aside from de-cluttering my parents' home, I want to invest some or most of the sale profits into this channel...currently I need a Windows PC that I can edit and capture gameplay with, and related to the latter, I would like to purchase a RetroTink 4K for better captures, not only of video games but for VHS/DVD rips I upload on the 2nd channel. Anyway, apologies for the lack of videos and this long post, please check out the links below, hope you'll find something you like, and please be a little more patient as I do plan on making more videos before the year ends. Thank you!

Spreadsheet of items for sale: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14zOHr1iMiM5bpWOODY…
Twitter thread with pictures of items: x.com/ImportGamingFTW/status/1952438642720592185

2 months ago | [YT] | 93

Jimmy Hapa

Video: https://youtu.be/PYfBogem8dc

Rejoice, for Milano no Arbeit Collection is now getting an English translation/localization...and it's an official release for all modern platforms coming out this year! Wild how I just talked about the game in January--I had no idea such a project was already in the works, otherwise I would have mentioned it in the video. Anyway, I posted the link above in case you missed the video review and want to know more about this (once hidden) gem.

Also, a bit of an update since it's been a while and I haven't been active here on YouTube or anywhere lately--just no real time to work on videos, play games, have any sort of enjoyment...any "free time" I've had has been mostly dedicated to selling off large amounts of my games and other possessions, and work has ramped up so much lately that I feel that's all there is to my life at the moment. I was working on a video for Ganbare Goemon 2 on Famicom, but stopped for the above reasons. I am honestly at a loss for what to do with this channel...do I keep going, or do I start fresh with a new one? Do I take a long break or just quit completely? It's something I've been mulling over for a while now. The "rebranding" didn't work, and somehow I now get worse daily views than I did last year at the same time...and they're comparable to those from ten years ago...and all my videos pretty much stop getting any views after a few weeks. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, honestly. I can't blame YouTube and The Algorithm™, it's on me to figure it out and decide the best path forward soon. Thank you to those who have stuck by for so long...and hopefully I'll be back soon with a new video or two before the start of summer.

4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 128

Jimmy Hapa

Video: https://youtu.be/RCxrXbL3e2Y

A lot more people than I expected watched/enjoyed the Working Designs Lunar 1 video I uploaded the other day on my 2nd channel, so I decided to upload the 2nd game's "Making of" video as well. Hope you enjoy it as well as the remastered collection if that's on your wishlist!

5 months ago | [YT] | 30

Jimmy Hapa

https://youtu.be/kIJGHHf7g_Q
Anyone out there looking forward to the new Lunar 1 & 2 Remasters coming out on April 18th? In case you are, maybe you'd be interested in watching this 1999 documentary from Working Designs about the making of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for the PS1, aptly titled "The Making of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete." It includes interviews from the Japanese dev team as well as Working Designs staff, with some interesting looks into how the game was created, updated and localized for the PS1 in Japan and North America.

I recorded this to get some footage of Victor Ireland to use for 3 seconds on my video about Mystical Ninja Goemon Zero and figured I might as well upload the whole video on my other channel. I scaled it to 4K, and while it still has that PS1 compressed look, I think it's decent enough. Hope you enjoy! And consider subscribing to the other channel, I have a bunch of stuff I plan on uploading there in the coming months...VHS tapes, commercials/trailers, and some gameplay videos (including full playthroughs) that I record for my reviews here.

5 months ago | [YT] | 57

Jimmy Hapa

https://youtu.be/trNPRJ580iw
Hope you all are having a nice weekend--yesterday I posted a new video to the channel, just reposting here in case you missed it. It's on the 2000 PS2 action RPG Bouken Jidai Katsugeki Goemon, the 1st attempted "reboot" of Ganbare Goemon which had an English prototype from Working Designs that was released on the Internet in 2021. This video looks at the game itself as well as the background and changes of the prototype. I originally intended on doing this video back in 2014 and later in 2016/17, however the frequent changes in video resolution when traveling between areas would wreck my capture cards and upscalers. No longer a problem with the RetroTink-5x, and I'm glad I waited, since I could talk about the doomed North American release in way more depth.

5 months ago | [YT] | 97

Jimmy Hapa

Hey there, sorry guys, no new video this past weekend--I tried, but too much of the real world got in the way. Also, the next video is going to end up being more than twice as long as I initially expected/hoped for. Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing, depends on your preference for videos on YouTube. Anyway, if all goes well, expect it to drop on Saturday at around 12 p.m. EST. Enjoy this teaser picture. Hope to see you there!

6 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 77

Jimmy Hapa

In cased you missed the switch, Import Gaming FTW is now Region Unlocked JAPAN, and I've been putting in the extra effort the past couple of months working on four new videos that you may have missed about some cool Japanese exclusive PS1 games (links below). Working on the next one now for a different system, though it's related to the video I put out last week, Goemon: Shin Sedai Shuumei. If you liked that one, I'm sure you'll be interested in the next. Anyway, check them out, and I hope you guys get used to the new channel name/look soon.

Goemon: Shin Sedai Shuumei: https://youtu.be/ey1XRjLXxEk
Pop'n Tanks: https://youtu.be/oIY0MGzal7w
Robbit Mon Dieu: https://youtu.be/tqQDsgUBKWI
Milano's Arbeit Collection: https://youtu.be/PYfBogem8dc

Take care.
-Jimmy

6 months ago | [YT] | 170

Jimmy Hapa

CLICK -> https://youtu.be/ey1XRjLXxEk

Hey there, I'm back with a brand new Region Unlocked episode on another Japanese exclusive for the PlayStation--Konami's (failed) attempt to modernize the Ganbare Goemon series, Goemon: Shin Sedai Shuumei. While it lacks a lot of the humor and charm that characterize other games in the series, Shin Sedai Shuumei is a fun action platformer that Goemon and PS1 fans should give a try. And good news, this one has an English translation patch, too! Hope you guys enjoy!

Support/Social Links:
Channel membership: youtube.com/channel/UCujG7dnHqZyZwOpFm0JDaCg/join
Patreon: www.patreon.com/importgamingftw
X: www.x.com/importgamingftw

6 months ago | [YT] | 76

Jimmy Hapa

Hey there, just posting to first apologize as I have not been able to check and reply to comments on my last video on Pop'n Tanks, I will get to that later today. I also must inform you that unfortunately I won't have a new video out this weekend. Regretfully, I had a bad stomach flu last weekend when I planned on doing a majority of the work on the it, and that entire time went to waste just like a lot of other things in my body, too. What sucks is that I didn't have work on the weekend, either, and the illness kicked in almost immediately after work on Friday, so the timing was especially "perfect." I'll have that video done hopefully by next weekend or (most likely) the weekend after that and I think it's one that many long-time viewers of the channel will be interested in. It's on yet another game I meant to make a video on in 2014, much like Robbit mon Dieu and Pop'n Tanks.

In the meantime, I'm uploading a compilation of the first ten episodes of my old series Import Gaming FTW just to keep the flow of new videos flowing to hopefully appease the YouTube Algorithm Gods. They are among the very first videos I ever scripted and edited, starting all the way back in the year 2013, so they're pretty rough. I played around in Davinci Resolve to improve the video quality (originally 720p!) and fix some audio balancing issues, and while it's not a major overhaul, these old videos now look and sound a little better than before. So if you're interested in taking a trip down memory lane with me and seeing just how bad my old videos were...ahem, I mean how much I've improved over the years, I hope you'll take a look. Apologies for recycling the old stuff, but I assure you there will be new videos on the way.

7 months ago | [YT] | 116

Jimmy Hapa

Latest Video -> https://youtu.be/oIY0MGzal7w

It's Pop'n Tanks from Enix, a cute and colorful PS1 tank combat game with character designs from Mine Yoshizaki!

Like the last video on Robbit Mon Dieu (Jumping Flash 3), this is a game I planned on talking about way back in 2014 but never got around to it. I hope you guys are interested in this one--if you see it in your feed, click on it! Last video "bombed" pretty hard because subscriber click-through-rate was really low, and it seems YouTube stopped sharing the previous video altogether because of it (views basically came to a complete stop a couple of days after the last upload).

7 months ago | [YT] | 96