Archive for the ‘Games’ Category

My Very Own Famicom

Friday, August 23rd, 2024

41 years ago Nintendo released the Family Computer (commonly known as the Famicom) in Japan. This home console introduced the world to Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Dragon Quest and a wealth of other landmark series that continue to this day:

I never owned a Famicom, and indeed few outside of Japan did, for Nintendo redesigned it and released it worldwide as the NES. I’ve seen Famicoms for sale in Japan every time I’ve visited and since they’re not very expensive I once or twice considered getting one ‘for the collection’. I never did.

This Japanese magazine came out a couple of months ago, and I picked it up in NYC when I was last there. It’s a commemorative special to celebrate 40 years of Famicom (albeit a year late) and if you look closely at the photo on the cover you’ll notice the console is a bit unusual…

It’s made of paper!

The magazine came with (and was probably printed exclusively for) a detailed life-sized papercraft model of a Famicom! Needless to say I had to have it, and while the $47 price tag was exorbitant (and a 360% increase over the ¥ price) in retrospect I may have got a deal since these are highly collectible now and the price is climbing much higher on eBay.

In addition to eight cardstock sheets of pieces, the magazine came with a box of additional parts including an electronic controller that makes authentic Super Mario Brothers sounds. It also had a few other bonuses, such as a sticker sheet, a guide book showcasing weird glitches in Famicom games, and a cute Famicom notebook.

I was surprised to see how in depth the instructions were. Happily the pieces were mostly cut already and punched out easily, but the actual assembly wasn’t trivial and certainly more challenging than I expected. I had to use the translator and read the steps carefully. While most of the pieces go together using tabs and slots, there are also steps requiring glue (or tape, which I used) but they are designed so the adhered tabs are mostly invisible.

That’s the model before I put the case on, and at that stage I’ve assembled about fifteen pieces. Note the rubber band on the right side: this is because the ‘eject button’ actually ‘works’ (it slides and returns as in the original hardware).

Assembly took me a few hours over three careful sessions. The above photo shows the finished unit, with controllers stored in their little slots (a feature removed from the NES redesign) and the cartridge waiting to be inserted. The power button moves as well.

And there is the system with the cartridge in ready to be played. The controller at the very front has a working d-pad and buttons, and makes all sort of sound effects when you use it.

This is a fantastic model, and certainly worth the original Japanese magazine price (¥1900). At $47 I was robbed, although I don’t regret it since I enjoyed making it.

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

Thursday, June 20th, 2024

Once again I made a few additions to my Wizardry collection this past trip, although for the first time in many years of Japan trips I didn’t add any actual games. Here’s what I got:

These are guides for the 6th and 7th Wizardry games, and as with typical Japanese game guides they’re in depth and comprehensive. One of the Dark Savant guides seems to be a transition of a western guide written by the developers (SirTech) but the other is Japan specific and written by a self-proclaimed ‘Wizardry Expert’! It’s worth nothing that I already have other Japanese guides for both games, and it’s quite possible others may exist!

This is a collection of three short stories set in the Wizardry game world. While I can’t read this, I’m guessing they’re all set in the world of the first five games, since things got a bit weird after that. This is yet another in a growing list of Japanese Wizardry novels I own, which now also includes…

This is an absolutely beautiful set of four more Wizardry novels, each by a different author and published in 1992. They share the trade dress of the first three games, and based on the extensive English on the front and back covers, seem to tell stories influenced by the games.

Each of these small hardcovers features a few colour art pages at the start, and have wonderful black and white illustrations throughout:

This is a lovely set of four books, and I dearly wish I could read them! For their quality they were extremely inexpensive as well.

Incidentally there have so far been two English-language Wizardry novels, one released decades ago and one only last year (by the write of Goblin Slayer no less)! I own both and have read the first, which was better than I expected.

My last pickup this trip was something I’d been hunting for a while: Wiz Ball, the Wizardry baseball card game (yes you read that correctly). This is actually the expansion to the original release, which still eludes me…

This contains additional magic and item cards to expand the main game. It seems as crazy as it sounds, and translations of the cards show that the various items improve things like batting strength or running speed and (as with the RPG) can only be used by specific characters. The magic cards utilize the same names as the game, but where Mahalito is an explosive damage spell in Wizardry, here it ‘increases ball speed by 2’!

Why does this product exist?!? Who ever thought to pair a technical and complicated computer RPG with a baseball card game? I’ll never know, but I’m glad I finally own it 🙂

Lunatics Only: Handhelds (Again)

Thursday, June 13th, 2024

When I did the post about handhelds in game shops the other day I didn’t think I’d see enough to make a followup, but here we are!

We own this game, and it’s Kristin’s since childhood. Unfortunately we don’t have the box. I wonder how much of the ~$1500 price tag on the above is due to the box?

The Zelda Game & Watch used to be my holy grail, and the times I used to see it during Japan trips I’d often seriously debate buying it. In those days it was $200+ but the one I saw yesterday was almost ten times more expensive. Also note the Mickey Mouse in back for over $2000.

A couple of lovely boxed games.

And two more. There’s a difference of about ¥4000 ($25) between the two Puck Mans, but neither is in perfect condition so I’d say they’re more or less equivalent.

This is a curiosity: a colour VFD Mr Do machine! It’s ‘damaged’ and ‘dirty’ but works and I think as a child I would have found this irresistible! As an adult I think $1000 is eye-opening.

Remember the broken pachinko game from the other days post? Remember how I said I would have paid ‘several times’ ¥500 if it had been working? I found another one, and it’s ‘only’ ¥3400. So why didn’t I buy it? It’s also not working 🙂

I’ll end this this little thing, which is only about two inches wide and has only a tiny LCD screen. This is a device to train your button press speed in order to make you a better video-gamer. The bee on this is the logo for a game company called Hudson, and this tells me this particular device was linked to the saga of a man called Takahasi Meijin, the fastest button presser of all time. In fact it’s remotely possible this is the very same device he used when he set his immortal 16-times-in-one-second record. Wouldn’t that be special?

Also, I have a dim memory I own one of these. If I do, I’ll follow up when I get home.

Lunatics Only: Games

Wednesday, June 12th, 2024

As with virtually every Japan trip, I’m spending a lot of time in the many retro game stores. Unlike previous trips, I haven’t yet purchased anything! I will since my Wizardry collection is nearly complete and the few remaining games I don’t have are very elusive. It’s still fun to look:

When I purchased the above Wizardry Empire game over five years ago (on 1/13/19 to be precise) I paid ¥2700. It’s now over ten times more expensive! This is just one of many examples of how retro game prices have skyrocketed in recent years.

It used to be notable to see even a single game in a shop over ¥100000 (about $630 in today’s money) and now they are common. The above shelf for instance contains seven Famicom (NES) games, none of which are under $1000. And then I saw this yesterday:

As someone who has made good money selling his collection during this market, and turning around and spending some of that money on Wizardry games, these prices astonish me. This Battle Formula game is about $3600, which is probably more than the cost of the entire vacation of most people walking into the store. Who’s paying these prices?

It’s definitely not to play the games. These days you can play them all for ‘free’ via emulation. Those buying them are doing so because their collections are as deep as their pockets, and owning them makes them happy. Or perhaps they’re buying them as investments (which I think is unwise since surely this market will drop?). Either way, retro games are the new antiques.

The prices of game consoles is continually rising as well, and $400 for an unboxed Game Boy micro without a power cable would have been silly a few years back. I have the boxed version of the above. I bet it’s worth a lot more 🙂

Enough with prices, let’s look at some rare stuff. The red and white keyboard in the above pic is for the Famicom and came with a basic cartridge that Nintendo released over 40 years ago now. The keyboard is apparently very rare these days, and the above wasn’t for sale. (The other item is an MSX computer, also not for sale.)

Here’s a lovely boxed game for the X68000 computer. Largely known for its near-perfect arcade game conversions it was also a full-featured home computer with ports of a few western games including the first Might & Magic. I was strangely tempted to buy this but controlled myself.

And here we have all three boxed Brandish games for the PC88 (another Japanese home computer). These are large boxes with beautiful cover art by Jun Suemi and these will be treasures in someone’s collection. I wish it was mine 🙂

Here’s a curiosity: a Japanese hint guide for an NES port of the old Firebird computer game Druid (a fun Gauntlet clone). This is such a weirdly specific and unusual item, and just the sort of thing I love seeing in the retro shops.

And to end this post, how about an ultimate retro game collectible: an original Galaga arcade board! It’s ‘only’ about $300, but it is original to 1981 and is a piece of video game history 🙂

Lunatics Only: Handhelds

Monday, June 10th, 2024

In the last few years I’ve noticed an increase in the amount of LCD and VFD handhelds appearing in Japanese retro game stores. Where once these were overlooked by most retro gamers, they’ve now become sought after amongst collectors of my vintage and prices continue to rise.

The kings of this category are of course Nintendo Game & Watches. We all had them in the 1980s, but most were tossed away. Very rare are surviving boxes, which is why the Flag Man (second from left) in the above pic is over $750. I recall many years ago seeing a full set of these in a store window in Mandarake. These days a full set would be worth tens of thousands of dollars!

I own a few of these, and they’re in great condition. Seeing these prices today for poor condition examples was a bit eye-opening!

The game on the right is one of several licensed LCD games, this time based on the anime Aura Battler Dunbine. It’s very likely a poor game – Nintendo cornered this market for a reason – but its high price (~$260) would be all about the license. Some of the licensed Bandai LCD games sell for almost as much as the rarest Game & Watches, especially the old Gundam and Ultraman games.

Here’s a shelf of old VFD games. They’re not very expensive (~$30 each) but I’d wager many have screen or capacitor issues and of course they all lack boxes, which would likely at least triple the price. If I had space I would have taken a risk on at least one of these.

We used to own the Scramble machine on the right (and I bet Bernard can remember the tune as well as I can) and we played it like mad baboons. It was one of the best selling VFD games worldwide, which is probably why even boxed the unit I saw today was only ¥6600. Had I the space, I would have purchased it in an instant. (Also check out that so-bad-it’s-good art on the Lupin box!)

The above is the sort of thing I love seeing in the retro game shops of Akihabara and Nakano: an amazing looking VFD I’d never heard of but absolutely would have wanted as a child. The theme is Ancient Greece with monsters, the box art is beautiful, and the game graphics are very detailed for its time (you can watch the original Japanese advert here). The price was about $300 which is obviously too high for me but there’s some Japanese guy my age who had this as a kid that’s going to buy this without hesitation 🙂

I don’t think I’ve ever blogged something like the above before: a ‘junk’ item. These are common in the retro game shops, and the term is used to describe something that is known to be broken but can also be put on items that simply are not tested (which often means presumed to not work).

This one is an LCD pachinko game – or rather was a pachinko game. If it had worked, I probably would have bought it for several times the ~$5 they were asking.