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Gamebook Update

Friday, June 14th, 2019

Late last year, motivated by the blog post I had made referencing it, I bought this:

It wasn’t too expensive (~$30) but took about 3 months to arrive from Japan. It’s the third of three Fighting Fantasy reprints from a decade ago, and since I had the other two I naturally had to own this one as well. This is now my fifth different imprint of House Of Hell!

As with the others the player character is now a young girl and the art (and text?) showcases this. House of Hell is a notably grim gamebook – inspired by the darker elements of 1970s gothic horror – and our poor protagonist gets herself into some tight spots in this book. I bet in the Japanese it’s a good read.

The adverts in the back suggest that Hobby Japan also printed Dungeons & Dragons manuals with an ‘anime girl’ makeover. I’ll keep my eyes open for one of them in the future…

The above is an ‘Esper Gamebook’ published by the same publishers of FF books in Japan. It’s very similar in design and style, but seems to be more of a choose-your-own-adventure than a system-based RPG book.

I can find very little about this online (it’s not on Demians for instance) and there’s no adverts or listings of any other titles at the back so maybe it was a one-off? Based strictly on the art I’m guessing the story is Akira inspired, although it contains androids and aliens as well. I bet it’s crazy!

The above is a real treasure, and I paid about $40 for it. It’s called The Four Kings and is the fourth of four ‘original gamebooks’ published by the Japanese licensor. It uses the standard Fighting Fantasy system and character sheet, and probably plays the same as well. Aside from the fact it’s not one of the original series titles, it’s essentially an FF book.

Much like the other Japanese releases from that time (this book was published in 1990, just after Sky Lord came out in Japan) it uses the Japanese numbering and writing (vertical text) system throughout and even google translate has trouble with it. I doubt therefore I’ll ever be reading it. But as a curio it’s as good as they get, and I’d love one day to find the earlier three.

It’s also loaded with advertisements for other books at the end, including all preceding 32 FF titles, all the Advanced FF books, various related titles (such as Maelstrom) and something quite unusual:

Look at the ad on the left. Google translate tells me the book is called ‘Cube of Tantalon‘ and is a JP-exclusive Advanced FF module! Here’s the translated synopsis:

“Shimomura House Keiko & Group SNE’s first fantasy RPG scenario! The Kingdom of Galantria has been repeatedly attacked by militant neighbors, and now the flag color of the front line has become worse and depressed. According to the court magistrate, if you get the “cube of equilibrium”, a mysterious item that is described in the book left by the former King Tantalon, you might save the kingdom of Galantria.”

King Tantalon, famous for his tasks perhaps?!? Sounds fascinating! This book is probably impossible to find these days, especially since it’s also seemingly nonexistent online, but it’ll go on my ‘list’ just in case I stumble upon it on a future trip to Japan 🙂

Posted in Books, Collecting, Gamebooks, Miscellaneous, Otaku | Comments Closed

My Collection: Virtual Boy

Friday, May 24th, 2019

In 1995 Nintendo released their Virtual Boy console. It utilized monochrome red stereoscopic 3D graphics and became a legendary failure, being pulled from the market in under a year. The launch price was $180; eight months after launch I bought mine – an ex-rental – for $30.

When assembled for use it looks like this:

And is played like this:

While playing you view two screens – one each eye – which form a 3D image via parallax. It’s very effective – ‘true’ 3D – and almost impossible to photograph. But I tried:

While the 3D effect is convincing, there are three significant problems with the device:
1) The games are poor.
2) The posture required to actually play it is painful.
3) Playing hurts the eyes and for most people (myself included) causes headaches in only minutes.

It’s incredible this was ever released since these serious issues are obvious after even casual use. I remember after it launched I knew it would fail, and was never seriously interested in buying one even after the first price cut (this is an advert I kept from a late 1995 comic):

Only 14 games were released in the USA (22 worldwide) and I own four:

All of these were purchased brand new for $10 apiece (games were $30 at launch). I got Red Alarm the day I got the system, and the others about six months later. I recall playing the Wario game to completion but barely played the others.

The cartridges are large but very thin, and quite collectible today. The game shown above may be my priciest single game, with boxed copies on eBay right now for $900 (yes, nine hundred). It’s notable for being the last and rarest game for the system and for being linked to the Persona series.

I only paid $70 for my system and games. I could probably sell it all for $1000+ today. Not bad for one of the biggest failures in video game history.

Posted in Collecting, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech | Comments Closed

Two Ptimo Kits

Sunday, May 12th, 2019

While in Japan back in January I picked this up:

It’s a weird superdeformed Hatsune Miku model kit that I previously didn’t even know existed. Even better it was only about $20! Today I made it.

So far so good, lots of pieces in many colours. However I immediately noticed that the runners were all single colour, that the plastic was somewhat brittle and that there was a frankly unacceptable amount of flash on many pieces:

I usually make kits by Bandai (Gundam) or Kotobukiya (ZOIDS, Frame Arm Girls) and the QC on those kits is so high that I can’t recall ever seeing flash. Furthermore they have multicoloured runners, pieces made of all sorts of plastic (or even rubber or metal) and everything goes together perfectly.

Here, not so much. Assembly was tricky and at times difficult, seams were often visible and due to the brittle plastic a few pins even broke off when I tried to attach pieces. But I soldiered on and in a couple of hours had mostly finished:

Look at those tiny legs! The kit didn’t come with a stand and while I initially assumed the hair would function as some sort of standing mechanism this wasn’t the case. In short, she can’t stand at all and even though she looks ok complete she’s definitely supported by the books in this photo:

Yes she’s cute, even unpainted. But it was a frustrating build, and not half as good as the other Miku kit I made a while ago. But I have to say assembly was fun, if only because I had a helper…

So Ptimo was a bit second-rate compared to the (admittedly far more expensive) other kits I usually buy. Would I recommend them? No. Would I buy Ptimo again? Well… it turns out I already had:

Yes this was another Japan pickup, and yes it is (incredibly) a Rilakkuma model kit! It was newer and more expensive than Miku. Here’s the parts:

Unfortunately this kit had the same flaws as Miku, especially in ease of assembly. Kuma’s head in particular stubbornly resisted going together seamlessly and of course once completed he was incredibly difficult to stand unaided:

But they look great don’t they?!? Though it was a fiddly kit to make, with frustrating imperfections, I’ve got to say I’m happy with them both for the uniqueness. Overall the better of the two kits.

Lastly, speaking of Miku kits, I also in Japan bought the astonishing Frame Arm Miku kit (on the actual day of release no less). This will be my next build and assuming it doesnt disappoint you can look forward to seeing it here…

Posted in Crafts, Miscellaneous, Models, Otaku, Toys | 1 Comment »

Happy Birthday Game Boy!

Sunday, April 21st, 2019

30 years ago today Nintendo released their first portable game system: the Game Boy.

That’s a very early Japanese advert touting the ‘handy game machine’ (being played by young boys obviously lost/abandoned in the Australian outback)! As you see the system was very much marketed at children, but as we know now went on to become beloved by players of all ages.

The Game Boy went on to sell almost 120 million units in the fourteen years it was sold, and directly led into the followup Game Boy Advance and then DS series. Many competing handheld consoles came and went, but none made much of a dent in a market absolutely dominated by Nintendo’s Game Boys.

I’ve loved this device since it was released, and to this day handhelds (especially Nintendo ones) are my favorite game systems. Between the Game Boy and it’s followups I own over twenty pieces of hardware and over six hundred games! Needless to say the release of the Game Boy 30 years back had a direct effect on my life 🙂

I’ve written about my (original model) Game Boy collection before. You can read that here (and yes I misspelled the console name throughout). In preparing this post I dug out my collection for another look-see. Here’s a shot of a portion of the game boxes I mentioned five years ago:

And here’s another shot of all five of my Game Boys (all of which still work):

I was looking for a particular game to feature, and found these four Japanese release Pokémon games I bought to play since I couldn’t wait for the USA releases:

(Yes I ended up buying all the USA versions as well, except for Pokémon Card 2 which was never localized!)

And since my original post I’ve added a few more games to my collection, including two more beautiful Wizardry games:

And this guy, bought for ¥100 in Japan last January:

I fired up the above just now on one of my Game Boy Pockets just for some nostalgia…

It was terrible 🙂

The Game Boy may be ‘obsolete’ now, but it will never be forgotten. It’s legacy includes not just numerous followup systems, but also a library of amazing games many of which are still great fun today. The systems themselves are notoriously robust so if you’ve got one in an attic somewhere why not get it out, pop in some batteries, and fire up Tetris again for some late 80’s gaming nostalgia?

Posted in Collecting, Games, History, Otaku, Retro, Tech | Comments Closed

Her Name

Thursday, April 18th, 2019

Some of you asked about Zoffy’s name. It’s not original; she was named after this guy:

That’s Zoffy, inhabitant of The Land Of Light, a Space Garrison Commander and leader of the Ultra Brothers. He was Ultraman’s supervisor in the original series, and only the second Ultra Soldier to appear in the very long running franchise (now 53 years and counting).

Zoffy’s a cool and enigmatic dude, but even greater than his style and accomplishments is his epic name.

I’ve been using it for years in various games, and it wasn’t until after Yossie crossed the bridge that I realized ‘Zoffy’ satisfied our cat naming convention: two syllables ending with ‘-ie’ or ‘-y’ sound.

That realization planted a seed in our minds. Weeks before we met little Zoffy I even drew and sent myself the above postcard (which alas never arrived). Even then I think we’d chosen the name of our next kitty.

And a fitting name it is, carrying with it the prestige and mystery of the M78 Nebula Space Garrison! Little Zoffy has big shoes to fill, but I think her potential is limitless 🙂

Posted in Cats, Otaku | Comments Closed

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