Archive for the ‘Gamebooks’ Category

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

Friday, June 27th, 2025

It was a good Japan trip as far as my gamebook collection goes, with both old and new products found. This post lists everything I bought.

I’ve got a lot of Japanese Fighting Fantasy gamebooks (about 2/3rds of the original run) but somehow the third book – Forest Of Doom – had eluded me. I was surprised to find a copy for very cheap (¥1000) at Mandarake.

According to the publication history, this is the 17th edition from March 1986. For a nearly 40-year-old book it’s in astonishingly good condition, as if it just came off the press.

Japanese FF books included pull-out adventure sheets and this is perhaps the best example I have yet seen. I don’t think this book was ever opened, much less read, and it’s now got a permanent home in my collection.

I also bought the book on the left, which shares the cover art of Dungoneer, the first rulebook for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG. The Japanese book has a different title (Advanced Fighting Fantasy volume 1) and is slightly shorter, with some material removed. It seems Japan compressed the three AFF volumes into two, but there’s detail here I have yet to discover. Again this book was extremely inexpensive (¥500!) which shocked me since I wouldn’t have hesitated to pay twenty or more times as much.

I finally found the 4th Group SNE FF reprint box set, which allegedly published early in 2024 but I had never seen in my previous three trips. This collects the Sorcery! set and Secrets Of Salamonis, which receives its first Japanese printing here.

These trade-sized reprints continue to be definitive, with beautiful presentation, paper quality and reproduction. The bonus book in this set is unsurprisingly the Sorcery Spell Book.

Even though I already owned five (!) complete sets of the Sorcery series (including the Japanese versions from 1985 and 2004) I’m happy to add this new set to my collection.

To my surprise there was also a fifth reprint box set available! I later learned this one was only just released, which explains why I saw it in many bookstores. It contains a collection of five books, including two new to Japan: Howl Of The Werewolf and Crystal Of Storms.

Two of these are particular interesting. Starship Traveler hasn’t been reprinted in over two decades, and it’s long been rumoured the reason was due both the cover and internal art. This reprint seems to confirm both, with a new cover and new internal art:

The copyright page reveals the art was taken from the TinMan digital version of the book, and while the style is different from the line art common to the series, the reproduction is excellent and overall I think it suits the book well.

Scorpion Swamp has never been reprinted (in any language), and there have been a few theories as to why including art or the author not allowing it. And yet here it is, with a new cover and internal art:

The above picture contains the original art on the left and the art from this reprint on the right. As you can see the artist (who also did the art for Secret Of Salamonis) has drawn new versions of all the old pieces, and his style matches the series perfectly. The art is copyrighted 2025 to Ian Livingstone and I suspect this was done to enable future reprints, possibly including in the new American Steve Jackson Games versions? Let’s hope this means the other books that have never been reprinted will see new versions as well.

Moving away from Fighting Fantasy, to my surprise I found this:

This is a gamebook based on the Xevious arcade game! I would have thought this was somewhat well-known amongst hardcore gamebook collectors (how many exist?) and therefore I was surprised it only cost me ¥1000.

Flipping through it is most definitely a robust gamebook with inventory and systems, almost certainly modeled after a FF book. Even though it’s a different publisher, the back of the book even includes ads for other gamebooks including FF and the Back To The Future one I bought a few years ago.

What a strange beast this book is! The art inside shows almost no space battles, instead seeming like a standard adventure with fights against monsters and villains. Xevious also had some novels written about it, but I don’t know if there’s any connection between those and this gamebook.

Speaking of space-themed Gamebooks, the above was almost inadvertently found in a bargain bin at BookOff and cost a mere ¥100! I thought it was Star Wars related at first, and was shocked to realize it was a gamebook.

This is an interesting CYOA style book where each section has at least a half-page illustration. The text seems simple enough that I think this will be playable with a translator. While it’s not licensed item, the Star Wars ‘homages’ are obvious, from the cover to the hero’s robot which looks exactly like R2. Based on an add on the final page, this seems to be the first in a series of two books; I’ll be looking out for the other on future trips!

And lastly we have a Queen’s Blade book, Alicia the Dark User of Wonderland. I’ve got a lot of these two-player books which sprung from a US series called Lost World but took on a life of its own when rebranded with anime girls in Japan. I see these occasionally in Japan but often skip them since they’re a bit heavy and I don’t want to fill my suitcases with them 🙂

Japan Pickups: Games

Wednesday, January 15th, 2025

I’m using ‘games’ here to describe video games and ‘TRPGs’ (as tabletop games are called in Japan). This is the category in which I’m always hunting for items on my trips and this time I was very happy with my finds…

It’s been a while since I’ve found a new Japanese Fighting Fantasy book for my collection, so I was pleased to see this JP version of ‘Out Of The Pit‘, the FF Monster Manual. Unlike the western version, it’s published at the same size as a normal FF book and is therefore a chunky little volume. The cover is a little tattered, but it’s in otherwise excellent condition and included its obi and even an advertisement for the Japanese Warlock magazine.

Speaking of which, I bought ten more issues of Warlock, which I found once again at Mandarake in Akihabara (where do they keep getting these from?). These weren’t cheap, but with this addition I now have 75% of the entire run of this magazine, including the first and last (#63) issues.

Moving onto one of my other collections, I found the above three Wizardry games. The leftmost had eluded me for years and was surprisingly inexpensive (about $30) but I didn’t even know Summoner had a PS2 version and didn’t hesitate to pay through the nose for it (~$100) when I found it in Nagano on Christmas Day. The last is the JP physical edition of the recent Wizardry 1 remake. Alas I was unable to find the special edition of this release, which comes with a lot of bonuses. One day I will…

This is a remarkable guidebook for all three Game Boy Color remakes of Wizardry 1 – 3. I’ve got many Japanese Wizardry game guides in my collection now, but this may be the best I’ve yet seen.

It starts with some lovely colour pages detailing the history of each game…

And then goes into detail about the specifics of the GBC versions of each title, including monsters, items and maps. Most of the book is in colour as well.

Each game gets its own section and as a result the book is fairly lengthy. The GBC versions of these games are rare and (very) expensive these days, so this book would have a limited audience. But I have all three games and will one day play them again and when I do this ‘bible’ will be extremely useful!

The above is the 1991 revised edition of the Wizardry TRPG rules for the tabletop game based on the video game series. I have read that the Wizardry TRPG was immensely popular back in Japan back in the day – competing even with D&D – but this is the first time I’d found a basic rule book for sale.

It’s got all the usual sections common to RPG rulebooks, and I like that the character sheet resembles those in the video games. I wonder what this game is like to play?

Speaking of the TRPG, I also bought the above. The two on the left are adventures, and on the right is a gamesmasters screen! These date to a few years before the rulebook above, which suggest they were intended for the first edition rules (which I’ve never seen). These were expensive, and only a maniac would buy them if he couldn’t even read them…

The above was an incredible find, not only because I’d never heard of it but also because I have since read it is ‘extremely rare’! It’s a Wizardry card game named after the ultimate wizard spell ‘Tiltowait’!

The description said it was ‘opened but never played’ and while the flimsy cardboard box had seen better days the cards themselves don’t show any evidence of use so I’m guessing the description was accurate.

Amusingly this is a reskin of Uno using monsters and spells from Wizardry as card art. From the included rules it seems ‘Tiltowait’ is the Draw 4 equivalent and other spells (‘Haman’ etc.) correspond to the other effect cards in Uno, with a few additions such as counter and discard spells.

The last game pickups from the trip were the above Switch titles. All of these are compilations of arcade games – mostly shooters. Taito Milestones 3 was purchased not just because it includes Cadash but also all three Rastan games and both Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. It’s one of the very best arcade compilations I’ve seen! The game on the right is the special edition of Mushihimesama, the insect-themed Cave shooter.

Lots of treasures here, but alas my grails once again eluded me. The hunt will continue in future trips…

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

Friday, June 21st, 2024

For the first time in years I didn’t find any Fighting Fantasy gamebooks for my collection this past Japan trip. This is perhaps not surprising since I already own 70% of the Japanese imprints, but you can bet my search will continue.

So what did I find?

I bought two more issues of the Japanese Warlock magazine, including #5. I now have 72% of all the issues, which is surely impressive considering I don’t even live in Japan? Maybe I should start trying to actually read some!

I was surprised to see two brand new rulebooks for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG, and although I don’t actively collect this I couldn’t resist picking both up. I wonder how many people play this RPG in Japan?

As for actual Gamebooks, I picked up the above motley trio. The one on the left translates to (approximately) ‘Find The Great Heritage‘ and seems to be a systemless time traveling book with a female protagonist and terrible art:

The middle book is the first in the 2012 Japanese Grailquest reprint series, which I now have three of. As with the others I own this seems to be an enhancement of the original 1980s versions, with an expanded game and additional content at the end. It’s also got brand new – often creepy – art:

I wish these enhanced versions were released in English.

The last of the three gamebooks is a Japanese version of the first Fatemaster book (‘Treachery in Drakenwood’), which is further evidence that just about every gamebook series seemed to find its way to Japan. It’s mostly identical to the UK version, but includes a nice pull-out character sheet and map:

Lastly, I picked up the two Queen’s Blade The Live gamebooks that I didn’t yet own:

An explanation of exactly what these are is probably beyond the scope of this post, but let’s just say I find it hard to imagine anyone heading to their game store to play Lost Worlds/Queen’s Blade with one of them!

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

Tuesday, January 16th, 2024

As always I was on the hunt for books for my gamebook collection during the recent trip, and I’ve become better at finding them in the various collectors and used book shops I visit. I bought some interesting items this trip!

The above are the standard gamebook finds. Only one original Fighting Fantasy book is fewer than the last few times I was in Japan, but my collection of Japanese versions is becoming quite complete now and it’s not easy finding ones I don’t already have!

The middle book is the Japanese imprint of volume one of Cretan Chronicles and the rightmost is the Japanese version of the Maelstrom RPG written by a gamebook author and released to the same market in the 1980s.

To my great surprise – and happiness – I also found a brand new copy of the first box set of FF reprints from 2020. As I understand this was only available via a Japanese crowdfunding campaign and I assumed I’d never get a set. Now I have one! I already owned the second and third box sets, and the fourth is out in a few months. I’ll look for that one on future trips 🙂

Amazingly, after my great surprise finding a single issue back in June, I found thirty-one issues of Japanese Warlock magazine. This was not an impulse buy – both weight and cost were considerable – and I deliberated for a few days. Lunacy won out though, and they’re now in my house!

I now have about half of the 63-issue run of this magazine. This is a collection that merits more attention, and I’ll probably feature it in a future blog post one day.

The above were a surprise since I didn’t even know they existed. They’re AD&D modules based on FF books! Eight were printed in english (and they’re quite expensive now!) but the numbering on these Japanese ones (the above are 1, 6 and 7) don’t match the english versions and it’s hard to find information about them online.

They’re impressively designed with lots of nice art, and they make me want to try and get one of the English versions….

The last – and by far weirdest – item I found was this gamebook based on the 1980s horror film House. As you can see it was called Goblin in Japan, probably because there was a famous Japanese fantasy-horror film called House already.

This book is super strange. I though the Back To The Future gamebook I bought on a previous trip was weird but of all the films to based a book on why on earth was this one chosen?

It seems like a fully featured book with hundreds of entries, but it’s also very puzzle heavy, possibly in lieu of a normal combat system. Art is stills from the film. I’ve seen the film somewhat recently so I may have to get the translator and give this one a play through just to try and understand what the story could be?

Incidentally the publisher is the same that released the video game licensed gamebooks in Japan, including the two Wizardry ones I showed in the last post. And yet this is from a different series. As you can see it’s number 4 in the series. What were the others? Unfortunately finding info online about these is almost impossible, so for now I can only wonder.

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

Friday, January 12th, 2024

My Wizardry game collection ever-increases, and with the acquisition of the above three on this recent trip there’s now only two games in the series I don’t own. While neither seem especially rare or expensive, the fact remains I’ve never seen a copy of either in years of looking so the search continues!

I was very happy to find the above on this recent trip: a beautiful boxed copy of Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord for the MSX2! Note that the original (1987) price was 9800 Yen – about $65 – which was about two or three times more expensive than a computer game cost in the west in those days.

The game is on a cartridge, and from what I read only works on expanded versions of Japanese MSX computers. I daresay there’s not many of them left working, so there’s no question I’ll ever be able to play this. The box contains all sorts of goodies, but notably the miniature metal dragon statue that was originally included is missing.

The above are three hints guides for various Wizardry games. I found these in Osaka which was good because at about $15 each they were considerably less expensive than they would have been in Tokyo.

As with others I’ve previously shown here, the guides are beautiful books, packed with art and maps and lots of colour. It’s clear the authors of these books loved the games!

This small hardcover book is an oddity! Titled Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Wizardry it seems to be a sort of lore book of items and equipment from the first six games. Almost every entry also features a nice piece of line art. It seems to have very limited (if any) use as an actual game guide, but could perhaps serve as a RPG manual of sorts. While I love it, it’s hard to see why this was even published!

Speaking of RPG manuals, the above was an exciting pickup for me: it’s the monster manual for the original Wizardry RPG from the 1980s. It’s a small-sized paperback with a lovely cover by Jun Suemi, and I dearly wish I could read it since the machine-translations suggest it’s very lore-heavy on the monsters from the games.

As you know I also collect gamebooks, so I was extremely happy to find the above two for sale. Both are from the Futabasha Famicom Gamebook Series and are based on the first and third Wizardry games.

These are very traditional one-player gamebooks in the Fighting Fantasy mold featuring manga-style art and what appears to be a complex system based on the size of the adventure sheet! There’s almost 80 (!) books in this gamebook series including two other Wizardry ones; I wonder if I’ll ever find them?

Lets end with a story about ‘one that got away’. The above pic was taken in Osaka a few weeks ago, and shows me holding one of my holy grails: one of the two Jun Suemi Wizardry artbooks. This is the older and more expensive of the two, and the sticker price on this used book was about $170.

Normally I would have thrown my money at the cashier but I had already bought the book on Amazon a month earlier. The amazon order – coming from Japan – was to arrive while we were away but never did. A followup with the seller led to a refund, and no book. So I held one of my grails in my hand and didn’t buy it, and still don’t own it. 🙂