Logistics of international payment and shipping

This post is part 1 in (at least) a 3-part series on buying lucha masks from Mexico. This post will be dealing with paying for and getting stuff shipped internationally, since there quite a few aspects here that wouldn't be obvious at the outset.

Background and scope
If you're a lucha fan like me who lives nowhere near Mexico, and doesn't (or can't) plan on traveling there any time soon, the Internet is probably your sole venue of getting lucha masks. Though I don't consider myself an expert, I've had some experience buying from different vendors in Mexico over email and the Internet, and what I've learned (especially concerning logistics) may be helpful to other people, so I thought I'd write about it.

I was originally envisioning a gigantic post about this, but it kept growing and growing, and although my target audience is probably not uninitiated to long blog posts, I felt that it'd be better in the long run to talk about a few aspects separately. So instead I'm going to do a series of posts. From this point on in this post, I actually won't be discussing masks or specific sellers at all, although that's probably what most people would be eager to read. You can be patient. :)

I'm going to start off by discussing logistics of paying and shipping, since I learned quite a bit (and ran into a few things that surprised me) along the way. Some of what I write will be specific to having packages shipped from Mexico to the United States, but I'll try to note this where possible. At the same time, many of the caveats here would apply equally as well to other international transactions, so even more reason  to break this out into its own post.

Payment
International payments are tricky. Basically, your viable options are, in decreasing order of preference:

• PayPal
• Direct credit card charge, if the seller can accept these
• Wire transfer service (like Western Union)
• International money order

Ideally, your seller will accept PayPal. That makes things simple for everyone. It's not that hard to get a merchant account. I have one. Even though I don't sell things, I used to do occasional freelance website work, and billing international clients was just so much easier this way.

If you're dealing with a well-established merchant, they may be able to charge a credit card directly. This is fine, but be aware that direct international transactions, at least in my experience, tend to get flagged more readily by credit card companies as suspicious (more so than transactions that go through PayPal), so you may end up calling or getting called by your credit card company to verify the transaction. This can be slightly inconvenient.

In Mexico, it seems to be more common and accepted to use wire transfer services, such as Western Union or perhaps MoneyGram, for payment. These have a stigma in the US because of the potential for fraud. If your seller doesn't have a PayPal account, you should decide whether you trust him/her enough (ideally, you'll be able to see feedback from other buyers) and whether the fees charged by these services are acceptable to you. You'll also need to exchange full legal names, agree on where to send money to, and wait for the money to become available there.

Some of these services (MoneyGram) require you to specify the payment in the originating currency (i.e., yours) -- or at least I had to. Do your seller a favor and round up a bit to make sure that they don't get short-changed by exchange rates. Tell them to keep the change (it'll be a few pesos at most if you did your math right).

I've didn't have a problem with the two sellers whom I had to pay via wire transfer, but, again, do due diligence and check references and/or feedback.  Also, encourage your sellers to get a PayPal account; it'll save them from having to go somewhere to pick up payments. :)

If you can't use PayPal or a credit card, and don't trust a wire transfer service, the last recourse would be an international money order. I've never had to do this, but you'd have to pay for the money order, then pay to ship the order, and wait for it to arrive and clear. This would be expensive by any means, even more so if you actually want the payment to get there in a reasonable amount of time.

Shipping
Always confirm with your seller that they will ship internationally, what they would charge for international shipping and what shipping methods they would offer. Ideally, your seller would be able to ship via a DHL, UPS, or FedEx expedited service at a reasonable cost. Some sellers are able to ship packages under one pound, or half a kilogram, for about US$20-30 from Mexico to the United States. I personally don't know how they get those rates, because international DHL/UPS shipping is more expensive for me, as well as for many other sellers; we seem to be quoted about double that cost. Nevertheless, the cost may be worth it for larger or valuable shipments. Although expensive, these services clear customs quickly, and have accurate tracking. DHL is able to get stuff from Torreón, Mexico to me in Connecticut in less than 24 hours, door to door.

Assuming that you can't get a good rate on third-party carriers, your next best bet is Express Mail (or EMS). This should cost about US$15-20 for a small package (again, from Mexico to the United States) and goes through the postal system. Expect this to take at least a week, and probably more realistically two weeks: 2-5 days to get out of Mexico (depending on how close they are to Mexico City), 2-7 days for customs clearance inbound into the US, and 2-3 days from customs to you. Customs shouldn't pose a problem unless you have a big order; I've never had to pay any duties or had an issue. Your mileage may vary if you are buying from other countries or live outside the US.

A third option, which would be even less expensive (about US$10) would be Registered Mail (the name is similar in Spanish, if I recall: correo registrado). This is supposed to be the most secure shipping method, but, because of the security, you cannot track the package in the USPS system until/unless an inquiry is lodged, and that can't happen until the allotted 21 days permitted for delivery (after the package enters the United States) have elapsed. Suffice it to say that your package will probably get to you, but you had better be a patient person. I don't recommend using this, because the loss of tracking information is extremely annoying, and EMS has been reliable enough for me, even though I do complain about its variability in delivery time.

If you do use the postal system (either EMS or Registered Mail), be aware that the same tracking number should work in both the originating country's tracking system and in the USPS' system, once the shipment reaches the US. This may seem perhaps obvious, but it wasn't immediately clear to me the first time that I had something shipped internationally (via Registered Mail).

One last quirk: If you have goods shipped from Mexico, the Mexican tracking system uses the confusing status «Depositado en Valija» ("Deposited in Mailbag" -- i.e., more or less "out for delivery") to signify that it has handed the package over to the receiving country. At this point, you should continue to track the package in the receiving country's tracking system.

In summary: use a third-party delivery service (DHL, UPS, or FedEx) if you can afford to do so; otherwise use EMS (which translates to Express Mail International on the USPS side).

Addressing
Mexico's postal addressing system that is rather different from the one used in the US. Mexico uses postal codes, cities, and states, but within cities in Mexico, there are "colonias" (roughly, "neighborhoods") that are a vital part of the address (e.g., you may be familiar with the Colonia Doctores in which Arena México lies). Also important to the address are the intersecting streets in between which an address is located.

Some vendors unfamiliar with US addresses will try to fit your address into Mexico's postal addressing system, and thus will ask for colonia or intersecting streets (often designated in a form as simply the entre field). Neither of these components make sense in a US address, so politely insist that they write the address as you've given it. (I have my packages delivered to work, whose street-level address is simply a building name and floor. I've had to explain how this is impossible to fit into a form that asks for número exterior, número interior, calle, and colonia.)

On the other hand, postal code (or ZIP code in the US) and city are universally recognized and useful, regardless of country, and some carriers will want them noted separately to help them route (and perhaps price) the package. You may need to point these out separately to the shipper.

The Sword of Hope II

I finished The Sword of Hope II recently. It's a 1992 GameBoy game by Kemco that tries to cross an adventure game like Shadowgate with a JRPG, without being great at either. (It may be worth noting that Kemco had actually published Shadowgate.) I had played and beaten the original Sword of Hope growing up, and, while the original had the same general defect of underwhelmingly trying to mix genres, it was a decent enough game, so I was interested to see what had changed in the sequel.

Story
You play Prince Theo, who, in the original Sword of Hope had resealed an evil dragon who had controlled your father, the King of Riccar. Years afterward, troubles begin brewing again in the kingdom, and you must journey to stop them. As luck tends to have it in these types of stories, one thing leads to another.

Mechanics
There are two main modes of gameplay: field and battle. As with Shadowgate and games of that nature, the field is divided into distinct screen, and you navigate from one screen to another. Each screen may have one or more objects with which you can interact (Look, Open, or Hit). Unlike Shadowgate, The Sword of Hope II (as well as the original) list out these objects for you; you don't have to (and can't) click on the view of the area to try to find things. It's a simpler and more limited system.

Both Sword of Hope games lack the really sinister, deadly traps for which Shadowgate was famous. At practically any point in Shadowgate, you could easily unwittingly do something that meant Game Over. In The Sword of Hope games, a trap generally means a mild loss of progress or a few hit points or an extra random battle, nothing too serious. This makes the adventuring aspect less frustrating.

As I mentioned though, interaction with the environment is relatively limited, and even more so in The Sword of Hope II, where, in later dungeons, several rooms offer nothing with which to interact. This was not the case in the first game, whose final dungeons were interesting to explore; it's almost as if the developers ran out of time in the sequel.

Each time you move to a new area, you have a chance of a random battle. The battle mechanics are fairly standard JRPG fare, involving attacking, magic, fleeing, items, etc. Unlike the first game, which was a solo adventure, The Sword of Hope II has additional playable characters, and the maximum party size is 3. These additional characters join and leave at fixed points in the game and have different strengths.

The second game did revise the spell selection heavily. Support spells are now more prominent (and in some cases, essential). There are no direct attack spells that could end up backfiring and hurting you.

The weapon/armor selection is broader than the first game, and there are some weapons later on that can target a group of enemies, or all enemies. All allies can equip all weapons and armor, but your mage's base strength will limit his attacking ability throughout part, but not all, of the game.

One interesting element is that you have a good chance (1/3 to 1/2) of winning a "coin" after each battle. This allows you to play a casino side game in which you can win useful items (and some of which can be sold for roughly 10 or even 80 times the value of the coin).

Pacing/Difficulty
This is where I have problems with the game. There are very pronounced level/equipment "checkpoints", meaning that an area will be very often be difficult to impossible without having gotten certain levels, spells, and equipment, but then usually become an absolute cakewalk once the checkpoint is attained. True, to some extent, many JRPGs have these, but there's very little of a difficulty curve in this game; it's more like a series of huge valleys with steep mountains in between.

In and of itself, I could forgive this, because, as I said, it's a common trait of many games. I think, though, that the epitome, and most ridiculous occurrence, of the problem is the last checkpoint. After you've maxed out your equipment and are in the final dungeon, the final floors contain enemies that will almost one-hit-kill you at level 25 (out of 32). However, at level 25, you learn a spell called Empower, which doubles your entire party's attack, defense, and agility for the duration of the battle, for a mere cost of 2MP (the character who learns it has 56MP or so at this point in the game, and you have the ability to buy way more MP-restoring items than you need). A 80-100 HP attack suddenly becomes 1-5 HP. You can steamroll through the boss rush at the end until you reach the final boss, and even he isn't a threat as long as you're at all mildly careful with watching HP. This was quite comically absurd.

The other problem with the checkpoints is that, when they involve equipment, you'll almost certainly need to spend a lot of time there racking up the requisite money. Because you can save the game at any point, you can (ab)use this to make the money-gaining process somewhat faster perhaps, but you'll still have play the casino a lot unless you want to spend inordinate amounts of time on weaker enemies. I am one who usually doesn't mind "grinding" for levels or money, but doing this was too mind-numbing in this game, due to my perception that battles seem slower-paced than in many RPGs. I have to think that the casino route was the one intended by the developers, given the frequency at which coins are dropped.

Music, Graphics, and Text
The music was merely okay at points and quite awful at others. This is subjective of course, but I thought that it was too repetitive and not nearly compelling enough, even for 8-bit standards. I actually think that the original, though musically unremarkable, was decidedly better in this regard.

The graphics are actually fairly well-done for a GameBoy game. They're more detailed than in the original, but there's still generally little in the way of actual animation, given the nature of the field view.

The dialogue is grammatically correct, if a bit simple. Limited menu screen space leads to some slightly obscure abbreviations (though not as bad or inconsistent as those in Paladin's Quest).

Conclusion
Overall, The Sword of Hope II has some elements that sound interesting on paper, but the execution was lacking. The battle mechanics themselves were significantly improved from the first game. The elements borrowed from Shadowgate would have been more interesting if they bothered to use them more than occasionally in the last third of the game. The casino would have been nice if it weren't a necessary money supply. And reliance on a single overpowered, cheap-to-cast support spell to get through the final dungeon and bosses is ridiculous. It's a sign that the designers didn't put much thought into game balance.

This game is skippable. If you liked the first Sword of Hope game, I'd say to leave well enough alone unless you're an absolute stubborn JRPG nut like me. :) There's a possibility you might like the second, but the second is in some ways more flawed, and sometimes significantly so.