Category: Games

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

June 25, 2026

I bought the above on my recent trip: Wizardry V for the PC-98. It’s the second copy of the game I’ve bought in the last six months (and my fifth copy overall), and my first ever PC-98 game. I’ll never be able to play it of course, but I’m happy owning it.

I actually didn’t know a Switch collectors edition of The Five Ordeals existed and when I saw this in a used store I couldn’t hand over my yen fast enough! I bought it without even knowing what was inside. The box is beautiful: faux leather with metallic ink printing in the Wizardry-style.

In addition to the game, a soundtrack, and an acrylic diorama of foes, it comes with an entire set of the cards that are randomly packed into the game and a binder in which to store them. As far as collectors editions go, this is one of the best I own.

Speaking of cards, in Mandarake (Osaka) I saw these in a glass case:

That’s a selection of trading cards that were included in Japanese Wizardry games. The above photo is only about half of what they had, which stretched from one side of the case to the other. They ranged in price from ¥2000 to ¥13000 which I found interesting since I would have assumed they were equal rarity? They were all in immaculate condition.

I’d never seen even a single card for sale so this display astonished me. I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been for the person who sold these to have collected them in the first place.

I purchased one from each of the four games they had cards from: Wizardry (FC), Wizardry III (FC), Legacy of Llylgamyn (PS1?) and Bane Of The Cosmic Forge (SFC). In a perfect world I would have purchased them all, but that would have literally cost me thousands.

These cards are the true rabbit hole of Wizardry collecting. There’s precious little info about them online, and I don’t even know how many Japanese games included them. Completing a collection seems impossible since only one card was randomly included with each copy of the game and some of the series have over 40 cards!

Incidentally I have a few others, including (I think) for Game Boy versions. Maybe I should get them all out one day and blog them?

I bought a few more Wizardry items on the trip – related to the collaboration with Atami castle – including a shirt and a face washer. Unlike the January trip I didn’t see any other Wizardry merchandise in stores, but apparently some more will be available soon. I guess I’ll have to go back 🙂

Japan Extra: Games

June 19, 2026

I’ve spent lots of time in game ships, since even though I sold off most of my collection it’s still a great hobby of mine. I’ve been writing here for years about the continuing rise in retro game prices so I won’t repeat myself. Today I’ll just show some examples.

Here’s one Bernard and I know well! Turtle Bridge was our first (and only) Game & Watch when we were kids and we played it religiously. I clocked it multiple times and recall I could get a pretty good score without even looking. This boxed version is interesting for a few reasons. First you can see the original price tag at lower left (¥2980/$18). Using the current price ($367) and an inflation calculator I determined the value of this has outstripped Japanese inflation by a factor of 18 times! And what makes the even more remarkable is the tag reveals this is damaged and even has LCD leakage (a common problem for old systems). This is truly for maniac collectors only.

Dicing Knight is an infamous Wonderswan game, sold only at certain fan events many years ago. I’ve known of it for many years but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one for sale. This is not surprising: it’s estimated there may have only been under a thousand manufactured. It’s yours for about $3400!

Eliminate Down is a legendary Megadrive shooter for two reasons. Firstly it’s apparently very good, and secondly it’s super rare and very expensive. This damaged version will set you back about $3100 which I believe is the most I’ve ever seen for a Megadrive cartridge. Since you can easily play this via emulation and even buy an official reprint cartridge for 1/40th of this price, this is another one for very wealthy mega collectors.

This is an extremely rare piece of official Nintendo software that – via the Game Boy Colour – controlled an embroidery machine to embroider Nintendo characters. For collectors of Nintendo software, this is one of the holy grails. I’ve never see it before, and was not at all surprised by the $2800 price.

Earlier today in Hirose Game Center I was playing Muchi Muchi Pork – the Cave arcade shooter from 2007 – and I was having so much fun and thinking about how great it would be to have it at home. And then less than half an hour later I find Beep selling the arcade board for $2700. That’s pricey of course, but if you’re a wealthy arcade shooter fan and have a candy cab at home then this would be tempting.

The game here is almost invisible under the tags, but it’s George Foreman: For Real, a boxing game for Game Boy. By all accounts it’s a terrible game, but the Japanese version is extremely rare and this copy – which comes with some sort of postcard that was given away when it first was released – is rarer still. I can’t even speculate who’s going to pay $3500 for this one 🙂

Let’s end with a few Wizardry games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. These are all pricey (none are under $100 and collectively they sum to over $1200) but the second one from left with the tag is by far the most expensive ($550). This is because – as the tag identifies – it comes with a card. Many of the early Japanese Wizardry games came with a randomly packed monster trading card and since most of these were lost the cards now are often worth as much if not more than the game!

Incidentally I have all these Wizardry games, and a few even include their card. I bought them years ago and while I thought they were expensive then the prices were much less than today.

I’ll end with Athena for Famicom. I can’t believe I’m saying $500 isn’t that expensive, but that’s the reality of high-end game collecting in 2026. I’ve put this one on the blog before because I think it’s the quintessential example of a game with a high price for reasons other than playability. In this case, it’s all about the art, which many feel is the best for any Famicom game package. This is a complete example that includes a cassette version of the song that plays in the arcade version. I expect this one will sell quickly!

Trading Cards Purchased From Bootleggers

May 27, 2026

We drove back to Newcastle yesterday, and I’m now at mum’s. I won’t blog as frequently here, but right now I’m going to showcase some exclusively Australian trading cards games I obtained from reputable sellers at a location in Sydney. I won’t tell to exactly where this market is, but it rhymes with ‘Paddy’s Markets’ 😉

Let’s begin with Lilo & Stitch. This trading card game – which isn’t a real product and only the product of smugglers – labels itself as ‘new’ and seems to be based around a larger Lilo universe that I have no knowledge or indeed interest of.

The pack – which cost me $3 – contained 8 cards, each featuring a loveable character from the franchise. All cards have attack and defense values and a rock/paper/scissors mark so this can be played multiple ways by even imbeciles. Amusingly the statistics are ludicrously inflated: with most in the high hundreds of thousands.

The front of each card is foiled with a nifty starburst effect, but the backs (see the first pic) are matte and uncoated and I imagine if you got these wet they’d ruin quickly. Quite a risky feature considering these would have been shipped to Australia on galleons from the far east!

This is of course a worthless product as a game, but intriguing for hardcore Stitch fans. My analytical brain tells me this is probably influenced by Lorcana, but I think that may be giving the bootleggers too much credit.

I’m not a fan of Demon Slayer – I found the characters insipid – but in the interests of research I had to buy this illicit card pack. Much like the above, this cost $3 at the blackest of markets.

Were I a betting man I’d suggest these were produced at the very same factory the previous cards were (and these in fact) since the size, card stock, print quality and foil effect are identical. That is except for one card – top left in the above photo – which mysteriously has a different foiling from all the others.

The pack contained seven cards, and as a game this seems even simpler than Stitch since each card only has attack and defense values. There’s some flavour text in the form of attack names (“Breath of Rain in Love with Cats“?) but this has no bearing on play. A worthless game therefore, albeit about a very popular series.

It’s worth noting these are in English – not Japanese – and I do wonder if the audience for this game is as large in occidental ports? Maybe the bootleggers miscalculated spending their valuable production time on this one?

Now this is a more marketable ~~illegal~~ product! Everyone loves Spider-Man, and who wouldn’t want a pack of game cards for a film the sequel of which seems like it’s been delayed forever?

Once again we have the same type of cards produced at the same factory using the same materials. However these ones are all slightly bent, and some of them were dirty! This suggests the factory was in somewhere like Tortuga, and indeed I can almost smell the rum on the cards.

Gamewise (I know, I know…) these adhere closely to the system introduced by Stitch and I think I can confidently say they have the same game system and can therefore be played together as one weird multiversal TCG.

Players that attempt this should be careful: with the exception of Ultimate Spider-Man all the cards in this pack had much lower atk/def values and would be effortlessly defeated by any of the Stitch cards!

While this is another worthless product, it’s also Spider-Man which means of interest to collectors. I don’t doubt they would like a pack or two for amusement value.

One of the hottest brands out there right now is undoubtedly K-Pop Demon Hunters and in a shocking upset the first to market with a TCG are the same pirates that produced everything else I’ve shown today!

It’s all the same again as Stitch and Spider-Man, only the statistics on these cards have a wider variance, with some weaker than any in Spider-Man and others so strong to be able to defeat anything from any previous pack.

I know you’ll be shocked to hear that (unlike all the others I’ve opened so far) the QC on these cards is atrocious! Not only is the foil layer lifting on a couple of them, but three had serious damage to the edges. Not only would this make them illegal in a sanctioned tournament, but it would greatly reduce their value if sent for grading. Shame on you, pirate TCG bootleggers!

And that’s all I’ve found (so far) in the category of bootleg trading card games… but I do have this other mysterious box:

This was found in a cavernous dollar store in Orange and purchased from a lady whose face had never known a smile. It’s about as big as a box of cigarettes, and this is what was inside:

The box label was correct: it contained exactly 60 cards and 36 stickers. This isn’t a game, so the cards are just pictures, but they’re all different and the print quality is excellent:

There’s no foil effect and the backs (the top left card above) are matte, but if you’re a fan I think these would be a good buy for the price.

However if you’re a Saja Boys stan, step back! These are the Huntrix girls only, which makes me wonder if there was another pack with the boys in it?

And as for the stickers… watch your postcards 🙂

Robot Claw