Category: Games

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

June 20, 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)

June 13, 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

June 12, 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 🙂

Robot Claw