Did you have a modded console? Without modification, the 10NES lockout chip prevents PAL cartridges from running on NTSC or vice versa. But it is possible to disable the chip to get around this.
I don't think that's had much of an impact when Nintendo sold more Switch 2s at launch than Valve has manufactured Steam Decks over its entire lifespan. The Steam Deck is still an enthusiast product for a niche crowd, and will likely never be in direct competition with the big three.
NES and SNES were region-locked. In addition to an actual lockout chip, they even had different cartridge shapes so you couldn't physically fit Famicom or Super Famicom games.
Handhelds were not (until DSi and 3DS), but I specifically said home consoles.
It's early and there aren't a lot of heavy hitters yet. But for me, Kirby Air Riders alone was well worth it, I waited 22 years for this sequel and it delivered.
That was always the case for Nintendo's home consoles, not like it was a new thing that started with the Wii. Switch was the first one to be region-free.
You should be safe. There were banwaves in the past that resulted in players getting blocked from online play, but those were tied to the console, not the account, and there is no 3DS online play to ban people from anymore. And after those banwaves happened, CFW started getting smarter about covering its tracks so Nintendo likely can't detect you as long as everything's up to date.
Given that the 3DS has been long discontinued, Nintendo's not going to bother cracking down on anyone now.
It sounds like you're upset that a game that clearly put a lot of focus on PvP in its design, has PvP in it. I'm not sure it's fair to blame the game because you expected something else.
I think this just a sign of changing times regarding how games are made. We've come a long way from the days when one programmer added multiplayer into Goldeneye at the very end of development, that could never happen today. And those are the footsteps Halo 1 followed in, they didn't even have Xbox Live until the sequel.
Today, I think trying to make a game do a little bit of everything may risk struggling to stand out against titles that focus all of their development resources on just doing one thing really really well. You do have a point that having solo content to fall back on is at least a safety net, but does the opportunity cost of implementing that solo content make it even harder to succeed as a multiplayer game in such a competitive market?
It's a purely narrative game, the original version (this is now a remake of a remake in a new engine) was made in RPG Maker but without any RPG elements. Walk around, talk to NPCs, watch the story unfold.
The one big thing it has in common with Undertale is that the less you know going in, the better. If the art style and vibe is enough to get your attention, go ahead and give it a shot, go in blind.
Physical copies, yes. If it's a game I absolutely know I'm definitely buying and I want it badly enough to spend full price and I want to play it on day 1, I'll preorder to ensure it ships on day 1. Because if I actually ordered it on release day, it'd take a few more days to ship. Last game I preordered was Kirby Air Riders, and I'm very happy with that purchase.
As for Early Access, my criteria is to just evaluate the game in its current state - if it offers enough to be worth buying now, I'll buy it now.