Category: Games

The Fabulous Owlbear

May 22, 2015

First, read this post Adam did on his blog.

I’ve found a similar example. Here is the owlbear (an owl-bear hybrid monster) as illustrated in the first ever AD&D Monster Manual from 1978:

I have a copy of this book. It’s the 6th printing, from 1980, and was owned by KLS long before I met her. The owlbear in this version of the monster manual looks like this:

Fabulous isn’t it! It’s the only monster in the book that has been coloured in, but we can only dream she had done more as a child 🙂

Speaking of the owlbear… what’s this picture?

Interesting isn’t it? A few years ago it was revealed that some of the unusual monsters in AD&D were based on plastic toys. You can read the full story here (with more wonderful pictures). Based on the toy, and the supposition (which seems reasonable) that the toys were bootleg Ultraman monster toys, it’s obvious the owlbear is nothing more than… a kappa!

The kappa is a japanese water spirit which has a very rich mythology. Here’s an illustration done by Hokusai (famous for his The Great Wave Off Kanagawa) in the early 1800’s:

You can see the resemblance to the toy.

So what of the Ultraman connection? Japanese sentai shows often base their monsters on mythology, and it’s almost certain there is an early Kappa-based foe in one of the first few Ultraman series. I did a search and could only find one before 1978, a kappa-influenced alien named Tepeto in an episode of Ultraseven from 1967:

Not very owlbear-like is he?

So my guess is the original kappa designs (such as Hokusai’s) influenced the chinese toy which influenced the owlbear in AD&D.

What of the owlbear today? Here’s the latest illustration:

A bit literal isn’t it?

Sniper Girl

April 26, 2015

I’m a big fan of the Etrian Odyssey game series. Not only are the games fine examples of the first-person dungeon crawl genre, but they have wonderful graphics, due in no small part to the character designs of artist Yuji Himukai.

Here is his design for the female ‘sniper’ character from the first game in the series:

Therefore you can imagine my delight when Kotobukiya released this model kit:

Figure kits are rare, so I eagerly bought this one when it came out. Last week I assembled it. Here’s what was in the box:

So many colors of plastic! So much detail on the pieces! Even before I pulled the runners out of the bags I was impressed.

Very quickly it was clear this was a god-tier kit. The engineering of the pieces was superb, and almost no trimming or sanding was required. Everything snapped together tightly, but articulation of the joints was perfect. The balance was also incredible, quite an achievement considering her tiny feet!

She was very easy to put together, and on top of the ease was a lot of fun. It took me maybe 2 hours only to finish her. Although she’s on the base in these shots, she can actually stand unsupported:

There is some customization decisions to be made. She can have her goggles on or around her neck, she can hold the bow by her side or in a firing position with arrow cocked, and she can have one of four faces:

Here’s the face I chose:

She looks a little tsundere 🙂

Another shot of my finished ‘sniper girl’:

And here she is in her new home on the shelf:

This is a very impressive kit. It’s inexpensive (about $30), easy and fun to make, and she looks great. Highly recommended.

(She also has a sister kit – the ‘Imperial Girl’ – which I also bought and will make one day)

My Collection: Pokemon Mini

April 23, 2015

It’s been over a year since the last post of this type showcasing a part of my game collection, so I thought it was about time I returned to this topic. Today I’ll introduce a game system many of you have likely never heard of: Pokemon Mini!

The Pokemon Mini was released by Nintendo back in 2001. It’s one of the smallest game systems ever released that uses cartridges. All the games were Pokemon themed, simplistic and somewhat ugly due to the 96×64 LCD display (which is not backlit). The device includes a startling amount of features, such as an accelerometer, IR communication, force feedback (via an internal motor), an internal clock and battery backup. It only weighs about 50g (!!) excluding the single AAA battery used for power.

It was released in the US first, then Japan and eventually Europe, and while specific details are hard to find, it seems to have been a collossal failure. 2001 wasn’t exactly the game dark ages, so it didn’t compete too well against other devices of the time for serious gamers, and was probably a bit too niche for children, who were presumably the intended audience.

There’s a lot to like about the device. It’s smartly designed, doesn’t feel at all like a toy, and the screen is very sharp with a fast refresh rate. The speakers are tiny but the sound is good, and the controls (d-pad, 2 buttons, right trigger and shake function) all work well. I also like that the cartridges are so tiny, and that they have the name of the system written directly on the back of the PCB!

The games though… well they aren’t good. Incredible simplistic, most of them are versions of traditional parlour games (such as tangrams seen above) or sub-NES quality arcade games. The other problem was that there were only four released in the USA (including the pack-in)! There were a total of 0 games released after launch, which shows this device was pretty much DOA. I few additional games were released in Japan and Europe, but in it’s lifetime the system saw under 10 games in total.

Of course this means that my collection is complete (as far as the US version is concerned):

According to my records, I purchased the handheld and the three additional games on May 25, 2003 – about 18 months after it had been released. I pid $29.99 for the system and $9.99 for each additional game. These days it’s worth quite a bit more – especially the games. Were I to sell it on ebay I could expect to easily triple what I paid, and perhaps make even more (since listings for the games are scant).

But I won’t sell it. It’s a tiny but curious part of my collection, and happily sits in a box with the other two unusual handhelds I have… both of which I’ll feature here within the next few weeks 😉

Robot Claw