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My Collection: Dreamcast

Thursday, February 16th, 2017

Sega released the Dreamcast console on September 9, 1999. I bought mine that day, with the launch game Soul Calibur and a Visual Memory Unit (ie. save game cartridge). Total cost: $275, or about $400 today.

The Dreamcast (DC) had a rough life, burdened by piracy, strong competition from the PS2 and disinterest from the public. It failed quite spectacularly (especially outside of Japan) and when Sega discontinued it in 2001 it marked their departure from the hardware industry. Even so some publishers continued to release software for a while after, but by 2002 the system had become a memory.

While I remember the Dreamcast quite fondly I purchased fewer than 30 games during its lifetime. I own less today due to an ill-advised trade-in event I may one day dedicate a blog post to. Here (excluding an additional controller) is the entirety of my Dreamcast collection today:

Here are the games I still own:

I set it up this past week and gave most of these games a whirl. To be honest, few hold up now. While we thought the Dreamcast a beefy system back in it’s day, the 3D (polygon-based) games are a bit muddy and suffer from slowdown, and the load times on most other games leave a lot to be desired. Also – bizarrely! – many of the games don’t even use the analogue stick on the controller.

There’s also the issue of the terrible VMU, which is essentially a USB drive with a tiny LCD screen on it. It had a pathetically tiny amount of storage on it, and it’s telling that I bought a second one the day I bought my second DC game. I recall the horror of continually moving or deleting save files just because storage space was limited and I didn’t want to buy another overpriced VMU.

That said, there are some real gems on the system, including most of these:

Cannon Spike is a curiosity – a top down almost-twin-stick 3D shooter/Smash TV hybrid. It’s not great – arguably not even good – but it came out three months after Sega killed the system and is among the pricier games on the system these days.

It’s companions on the photo: Mars Matrix, Giga Wing and (the mighty!) Giga Wing 2 are the triumvirate of superb and these days very expensive DC shooters. Giga Wing 2 in particular is a monster bullet-hell tour-de-force that holds up oh-so-well even now 17 years later. If you want to play it though you’re looking at more than the cost of a Dreamcast today. In fact those four games in the above shot are probably worth collectively well over $500 today, which isn’t bad since I paid a total of $70 to buy all four of them!

Other notable games include Record Of Lodoss War (a still-unique RPG I could sit down and play for hours right now) and Sword Of The Berserk (the first game based on the manga Berserk featuring a story by Miura and the famous anime soundtrack by Hirasawa). While the latter is an important part of my collection, to be honest the gameplay is utter crap and wasn’t much better back then 🙂

And then we have this guy:

Typing Of The Dead, the utterly bonkers “is that real?” arcade machine was converted to the Dreamcast and I bought it used (complete with keyboard) for a laughable $4.95 four years after the DC was dead. The game design is classic House Of The Dead but instead of using a light gun to shoot the zombies you attack via quickly typing words that appear above the attacking hordes. It’s as insane as it sounds, but is a lot of fun and the DC port plays beautifully.

Seriously, this may be the most fun game I own for the system.

The rest of my collection includes racing games, a few fighters, some puzzle games and some RPGs that are almost unplayable these days due to clunky systems or excessive loads. Most of these games have become footnotes, or curiosities at best, and in fact rarely are any Dreamcast games included in lists of landmark games through history.

Which is why, going through my collection as I did I was surprised how much some of these games are ‘worth’. In fact the average cost per game may be higher for my DC collection than for any other system I own. I’ll never (say never…) sell them, but it’s good to know their not worth less than the space they take up.

Which reminds me, is there any interest in a blog post about the ‘stars of my collection’? I started one once but didn’t post it since it seemed indulgent. But I think there’s some good stories to be heard there about games I paid retail for that have now skyrocketed in value if you want to hear them…

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Retro, Tech, Time | 4 Comments »

2016 in Games

Thursday, January 26th, 2017

Once again, it’s time for the long awaited analysis of my game-buying and playing habits of the past year.

All told the year was slightly down on 2015, and the number of systems I bought games for continued to be small. In total I purchased 65 games for 4 systems, to a total of $1836, or $28/game. Notably, 2016 was the first year since I started keeping records (way back in 1993) that I didn’t buy any new hardware, which meant I was not swayed by Sony and Microsoft releasing iterative updates of both their consoles. While the numbers weren’t much different from 2015, looking back at 2016 as I am now gives me pause for the console gaming future.

Here are the games purchased per system in percentage format:

And the dollars spent per system, again by percentage:

As you can see my gaming was more or less split between the PS4, Vita and 3DS with the Wii U an almost forgotten fourth entry. As far as I can surmise the Wii U may already be a dead console for me, unless the Nintendo Switch is dead-in-the-water and I buy the upcoming Zelda game on Wii U as it’s last hurrah.

Vita sales continued to be strong but I believe they have passed the peak and the system will decline sharply in 2017 (not a risky prediction since it’s already effectively ‘retired’ by Sony). I expect the PS4 will continue to be strong for a while, especially in this house as it’s difficult to resist the allure of deeply discounted games (such as Far Cry Primal for $5), but it remains to be seen how much the 4K updates will eat into the lifetime of my version of the console. The 3DS is a bit of a wild card at the moment; it hardly seems the Switch is a replacement (and Nintendo says it isn’t) but at the same time there’s not a lot on the horizon for it at present. 2017 could be a difficult year for the venerable handheld.

Before I get to my favourites from this past year, a few comments on specific games:

Puzzle And Dragons relaxed it’s hold on me somewhat this year. I still play it every day – as I have for nearly four years! – but it’d best days are behind it and I have little patience for the forced difficulty of some of the more recent dungeons. Mostly my logins these days are 5-10 minute bursts spending stamina in trivial dungeons. I have almost all the gods and many ‘broken’ teams and can beat almost anything the game throws at me. I think the game would benefit from a big round of powercreep to bring the fun back.

Egg, Inc. is a crazy ‘chicken hatching’ game for iOS that has stolen my soul these past two months. It’s the first mobile game in years that I have spent money on, and has the notable honor of being the game that broke P&D’s hold on my in the mobile sphere. It’s little more than a crazy ‘tapper’ (although you can quickly research away the need to tap) but it has a good sense of progression, is generous with rewards and is fiendishly addictive. Highly recommended.

Bubble Bobble for ZX-Spectrum cost me £5 in a UK retro games store and is not included in the above charts due to it’s uniqueness. At present it’s my only Spectrum game (on cassette!) and I can’t play it since I don’t own the machine. Waste of money? You be the judge 🙂

This year to mix things up a bit I’ll list my favourite games from each of the main three systems I played on. In no particular order (well…) they are:

Stranger Of Sword City (Vita)

This is a monstrously long and difficult Wizardry clone that dominated my time for about 150 hours during the late summer. The story, graphics and atmosphere of the game are superb, but what made it really shine was the way it took liberties with the genre (no resurrection spells, permadeath, forced character restarts) in a way that could have been disastrous but instead ended up being revitalizing. Dungeon crawls are popular right now, but too many of them are needlessly complicated with labyrinthine and un-fun dungeons. It takes a careful hand to avoid such pitfalls in design, and the makers of SoSC walked that path well. While I wouldn’t actually recommend this due to it’s difficulty, it was just the right game for me at the time and beating it was very satisfying.

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir (PS4)

Vanillaware took their PS2 classic and ran it through the Dragon’s Crown machine to make it a much better game for PS4. This is quite simply one of the best 2D beat-em-ups I have ever played and I would have loved it even were it not for the fact it happens to be one of the prettiest games I’ve ever played as well. Multiple characters, numerous endings, breathtaking art and wonderful music make this a close contender for my game of the year. In fact I loved it so much I beat every inch of it to get the platinum trophy (which took over 100 hours). Highly recommended.

Monster Hunter Generations (3DS)

Not just the latest installment in my favourite game series of all time – the best version yet. This owned me as all the others have, and I played it like a fiend for months. Easily my game of the year, and I can’t wait for the upcoming sequel due some time this year. You can read about it on next year’s post 😉

Posted in Blog, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku | Comments Closed

More Crafting

Saturday, December 10th, 2016

It’s time for a craft update. While KLS was in Ireland I occupied myself with a bit of making. Three different miniature kits to be precise, and all turned out quite well.

The first was a tiny cardboard dinosaur skeleton that I had picked up in CA earlier this year. I bough a kit by the same maker in Japan years ago but ruined it during assembly so I was very careful this time and it went together without issue.

As you can see it’s very detailed for its size (about 1.5 inches high) if a little flimsy. A tiny bit of glue would perfect this, but I’m too nervous to do it so it shall sit on the shelf forever!

The next kit was a gift from Florence, who has since admitted she chose it because it looked difficult. She wasn’t wrong!

I’d made one like this before and that was hard enough, but look at the micro-folds required here! The level of precision is incredible, and this one also requires glue to assemble. Im not sure I had the correct tools for this, but then I don’t know even what the correct tools would be!

Almost all the pieces in the first photo go into making the tiny three-windowed piece in the lower right of the second!

Anyway I was careful and meticulous and patient and believe I ended up doing quite a good job:

It came with a little display case (which also needed assembly) but I like it better out.

Lastly it was time for (yet!) another Metal Earth kits, this time from their new Doctor Who license.

This was another trial of my patience to be honest, and definitely amongst their more difficult kits. But once made, it’s amazing:

Next on my list: a Gundam. Whether or not that happens before Oz remains to be seen…

Posted in Blog, Crafts, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Puzzles | 1 Comment »

Thanks Mr Dever

Thursday, December 1st, 2016

Most of you probably haven’t heard of Joe Dever, even though he was an author of over 50 books that sold more than 10 million copies combined in many languages. As the owner of more than 50 of his books (in several imprints), it was sad to hear that he passed away the other day at the age of 60.

Starting in 1984 Joe Dever was the creator and sole author of the Lone Wolf series of gamebooks that continued for 29 installments and spun off into other gamebook series, novels, computer games, audio books, role-playing games and even a phone-based adventure game. It’s still going strong (more or less) with iOS games, reprints of the books and even a new installment which was released a few months ago. Lone Wolf was every bit as important as the Fighting Fantasy series, and is as much-loved today by it’s legions of fans.

As a 12-year old already caught up in gamebook mania via the Fighting Fantasy series, I ate up the Lone Wolf books when they were first released. Unlike the FF books, they were all set in the same world and told a continuing narrative where you played the same character through each book. You could even use your old character sheet, which was remarkable in those days! The world of Lone Wolf, inhabited by the jedi-like Kai Lords (and more powerful Magnakai) and the evil Daaklords was exotic and dangerous and fascinating and illustrated by the wonderful art of Gary Chalk.

In those days I had no way of knowing when (or if!) a new book in the series would ever come out so it was a real treat when I went to the bookstore and found the latest one. I must have played through at least ten in the series before I grew out of them (as a youth at least). As an adult, when I fell back into gamebooks about a decade ago, it wasn’t long before I’d acquired most of the low-number Lone Wolf books. My collection grew to include a mishmash of USA, UK and Australian imprints and would soon expand to include Dever’s other gamebooks (Combat Command, Grey Star and the Mad-Max Freeway Warrior) as well as Long Wolf novels and the (long sought-after by myself) The Magnamund Companion Lone Wolf Atlas. All of these are now important parts of my collection.

And yet to this day even in my expansive and encyclopedic gamebook collection there are a few books that remain elusive. And many of them are from the Lone Wolf series. I have books 1 through 20 (in some cases, multiple versions of each) and then book 25. This leaves 9 books out there to be one day found, with evocative titles like The Hunger Of Sejanoz and Vampirium. These books had small print runs, are quite rare, and very expensive (hundreds of dollars for some). One day I may own them.

I’ve read every Dever book I own and enjoyed them all. The gamebooks in particular are among the best written, and the quality of the Lone Wolf novels was a great surprise (since my expectations were influenced by the for-kids FF novels). The Lone Wolf books though are the keystones of his legacy, and I’m just one of millions that have enjoyed them now for over thirty years. Apparently Mr Dever was still writing new installments up until he fell ill. Even though those books will never be read, I believe the many works he left behind will keep readers entertained for many years to come.

Posted in Blog, Books & Comics, Gamebooks, Otaku, Time | Comments Closed

My Collection: Wonderswan

Thursday, November 17th, 2016

In 1999, Bandai – no doubt tempted by the oodles of cash Nintendo were raking in via their Gameboy – released their own handheld system called the Wonderswan. It was notably designed by legendary hardware engineer Gunpei Yokoi (who created the Gameboy and many other Nintendo products) and was less expensive, more powerful and had longer battery life than the Gameboy. Bandai leveraged their contacts within the anime industry to deliver a wealth of licensed games unique to the system. It was quite a success in Japan in the first couple of years, obtaining almost 10% of the portable market. Then along came the Gameboy Advance, which killed the Wonderswan almost immediately, and despite two updates in as many years, the Wonderswan was discontinued in 2003. It was never released outside of Japan.

I bought mine in Japan in 2004 for Y3600, or about $31. This was the final iteration of the system, called the SwanCrystal. It boasted better battery life and a colour screen compared to the original version, but is reverse compatible with all Wonderswan games. Mine came with two games and I bought 7 more at a total cost of an additional $45 (approximately). Here are the games I bought that day:

I bought it in Akihabara, on the first or second day of the trip at a branch of ‘Super Potato’ if memory serves me correctly. Of the games shown above, only Final Fantasy IV (Y1900) and Front Mission (Y1800) cost much at all – Densha de Go! was an incredible Y80 (about $0.70)!

I still have fond memories of playing the system in the inn at night during that very trip to Japan. In those days, this was extremely advanced handheld technology.

The system uses a single AA battery and has a (non backlit) 224×144 resolution colour LCD screen. It’s very reflective, which made taking photographs difficult. As you can see the cartridge-to-system ratio is enormous, and the cartridges for the WS are not just big compared to itself, but amongst the biggest handheld system cartridges I’ve ever seen. The pool game (Sidepocket) was made before the colour version came out and is B&W only. Here’s a shot of the graphics:

The Wonderswan feels more like a toy than it’s competitors, but delivers in the gameplay department. The screen refresh is much better than it was on the gameboy, and the graphics and sound are still impressive today. I forget the battery life but it was surprisingly long for a single AA, and I very much enjoyed playing the FF games on this system long before ports came out for the Gameboy Advance. As you can see, it took me over 28 hours to reach the end of Final Fantasy IV:

The game is of course all in Japanese (as would be virtually every game for the system) but I had played it multiple times before so that didn’t bother me. Here’s a photo of the fight against Bahamut:

Note the unusual controls of the system, specifically the two d-pads on the left. This was so the games could be played either vertically or horizontally, or even by two people at once. No game I have supports vertical (or 2P) mode so I don’t know what it’s like, but the small size of the system would make holding it vertically uncomfortable for an adult.

As with most retro game systems, and despite being at best a footnote and at worst unknown, the WS seems to be appreciating in value these days. A boxed SwanCrystal can be picked up for about $80+ on ebay, although apparently mine is one of the less common colours (‘blue violet’) and may cost twice that. Games range in price from a few dollars up to over $1000. And yes, that’s no mistype: go and search ebay for ‘Judgement Silversword’ to see what I mean. I just checked ebay for the ‘value’ of my games and found most of the WS Colour ones to be going for about $20-30 each (boxed).

However to me my most prized game is actually this one:

It’s an adventure-type game based on the Uzumaki manga by Junjo Ito. It’s B&W since it was for the basic WS, and virtually unplayable for me due to the language barrier, but I’m a big fan of the manga so I couldn’t resist buying the game ‘for the collection’ when I saw it a few years after I’d bought the WS during a later Japanese trip. Here’s a screenshot:

This game was also the reason for the one-and-only Wikipedia edit I ever made. But that’s another blog entry…

Posted in Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Retro, Tech | 1 Comment »