Retro « Robot Claw

Archive for the ‘Retro’ Category

My Collections: Wii and Wii U

Thursday, March 23rd, 2023

Nintendo released the Wii in November of 2006 to followup from the GameCube. It had a revolutionary motion control system and some notable software that was well-engineered to take advantage, and the Wii became a breakout success appealing to players well beyond the traditional demographic. It was a best-seller almost immediately, and would go on to become one of the most successful consoles ever made. When released I had trouble finding one, but Jim used his connections to get me (and himself) one for Christmas that year.

I liked the Wii, but I always felt it was a back step compared to the GameCube and during its lifetime I vastly preferred games for the Nintendo handheld systems. That said I’m happy for the great success of the Wii: it made Nintendo a lot of money and paved the way for the Switch which I feel is one of the best consoles ever made.

During the eight year lifetime of the Wii I bought 59 games, and here are most of them:

My favourites are the first party Mario games, Monster Hunter Tri and Hyrule Warriors (which I would rebuy for Switch years later). But the system lacks nostalgic appeal, the controls these days are clumsy and the graphics on a HD screen are fuzzy. The Wii was a system of it’s time, and I think best left there.

At the end of 2012 Nintendo released a followup console called the Wii U, and it was a disaster!

Even from the first reveal this thing confused customers: was it a new console or an add-on? What was that weird controller with a screen? Did it even connect to the TV at all? Nintendo’s marketing was poor, and the console was struggling even before release.

When it did come out things didn’t get much better. The Wii U suffered from a critical shortage of software (the strange controller made porting games difficult and development costly) and sales were poor. It would go on to be Nintendo’s worst-selling console ever, and a financial disaster.

I bought only 15 games for the Wii U, which is the least I’ve ever bought for any console. While a few of these were incredibly good (Xenoblade Chronicles X, MH Tri Ultimate, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild), many of the others struggled with weird controls or excessive load times. The Wii U may have had a (very) few great games, but it wasn’t a fun or comfortable device to use, and it was inevitable it would be replaced.

In retrospect we can see the Wii U was a stepping-stone on the path to the Switch, so for that I suppose we can excuse it. But it’s now a footnote in Nintendo history, almost forgotten only a few years after it was retired.

I’ll soon be selling my entire Wii and Wii U collections (including hardware and even original boxes). Neither the hardware nor most of the games have any great value these days, and even in good condition – as mine all are – rarely fetch a quarter of what they sold for back in the day. I do have two somewhat collectible Wii games (shown above), but the value of these is dwarfed by some of the NES/SNES games I have already sold (and Gameboy/GBA games still in my collection).

I won’t miss any of this once it is gone, and am happy for my once-loved games to pass to a new collector. I enjoyed the Wii in its time – and less so the Wii U – but as I said that time has passed, and I’m ok with just the memories from now on 🙂

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

Conkers, Milkies and Cats-Eyes

Sunday, March 5th, 2023

I got the usual things for my birthday (games, books mostly) but here’s something KLS got me:

It’s a little bag of marbles! Not new ones, but vintage ones from the 1980s. These are more or less identical to the ones I used to play with 40 years ago 🙂

This arose from me reading about an auction recently in which individual marbles from the 1950s – 1970s sold for thousands of dollars. Aside from the fact these once ‘worthless’ items can now be very collectible, reading the story triggered a lot of memories about a hobby I’d all but forgotten!

Back in primary school marbles was one of the go-to games at school. We’d all bring little bags of marbles with us to school and play endless games of marbles with each other. Rain or shine this was a game that could be set up and played very quickly and it was so easy to learn that anyone could participate.

Kids all over the world played marbles, and a quick google search shows the rules varied everywhere and in some cases were different enough to almost be a different game! Here are how we played our schoolyard tournaments:

– Select a hole in the ground, a gap in a wall/fence or if nothing suitable exists choose a big marble (we called them ‘conkers’) and place it about 2 meters away from where we’d roll the marbles.
– Each player selects the same amount of marbles from their collection. They need to be the same sizes and the same assortment of glass or metal ones.
– Each player takes turns rolling their marbles until they get them all in the hole or all of them hit the conker. The first to accomplish this is the winner.
– If playing ‘for keeps’, the winner chooses one of the losers marbles and it becomes theirs.

A search online suggests this is a variant called ‘marble billiards’ but as far as I remember this is the only way we played. I wonder if this was just the Newcastle rules, or if this version was popular throughout Australia?

Everyone seemed to have marbles, since they were able to be purchased inexpensively almost everywhere. We had names for all the different types and styles: ‘milkies’ were opaque glass, ‘cat’s eyes’ were like the ones I got for my birthday, ‘steelies’ were metal balls (usually just repurposed bearings), ‘tiger’s eyes’ were orange and black cat’s eyes. There were others as well that I forget, and again a quick search shows the nicknames were as regional as the game.

Marble collecting seems to be a popular hobby these days, and an entire industry has arisen around identifying and trading rare marbles. Although we had our favourites, we were never precious with ours and after we got a bit older aside from using some of them as ammunition in slingshots I don’t really recall what ever happened to our marbles?

I suppose we gave them away to younger children? Maybe we just threw them away? Maybe Bernard still has them to this day? I just don’t know. Marbles were fantastic in those primary school days, but then they just seemed to fade away very quickly. That said, I think it’s a perfect children’s game, and maybe it’s time for the worlds children to rediscover marbles 🙂

Posted in Blog, History, Retro, Toys | 4 Comments »

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

Thursday, February 2nd, 2023

This will be the last of my Japan pickup posts. While I have a few other items that will eventually be shown here, I’m going to end the series with my favourite items that I purchased during the recent trip: Wizardry games.

As many of you know, I’ve sold off a large chunk of my game collection these past five or so years. Amidst this I chose to focus on collecting one series, and it’s Wizardry, which I’ve been playing since I was a boy! I’ve bought games in the series before in Japan (all the way back to our first trip in 2002!) but this time I really hit the jackpot.

The game on the left is a Saturn port of an adventure-style Wizardry spinoff, which is apparently quite poor. On the right is the Saturn port of Wizardry VI and VII, two of the series best. It’s supposed to be a good port, albeit somewhat slow. I’d never seen either before and was surprised how reasonably priced they both were.

Here’s the PC Engine port of Wizardry 5. I now own four versions of this game! According to what I read it’s a fairly good port, but the slow CD speed makes the SNES version the one to play. This one was about the cost of a brand new game.

Here’s a couple of curios: Wizardry Empire II and Wizardry Dimguil, two Japan-only games. As I’ve mentioned on the blog before Wizardry continued in Japan long after it ended in the west and all sorts of weird and wonderful installments were made. Without getting into needless detail, the Empire games introduced certain innovations without straying too far from the old game design, while Dimguil is a faithful installment in the old style that also added polygon dungeons and enemies.

And here we have Wizardry Xth, Wizardry Alternative Neo and Elminage III. The first was the game that ‘modernized’ Wizardry and would eventually lead to the Class of Heroes RPG series (and it’s own spin-offs!). Busin-0 is the Japan-only sequel to the last Wizardry game ever released in the west (Tales of the Forsaken Land) and Elminage III… well let’s say it’s an important ‘Wizardry adjacent’ game 😉

None of these – or the preceeding PS1 games – were cheap, and in some cases cost more than a typical new game. All are in fantastic condition, complete with box and all inclusions. If you’re keeping track then no, I can’t play any of these since I don’t have the Japanese consoles. Except for Elminage of course (I still have my PSP), which I plan to play one day.

I also found these four hint guides! Two of them are for games shown above, but the other two are for games I don’t have. Throb of The Demon’s Heart is a SNES game, and if I ever see it for sale I don’t doubt the price will bring a tear to my eye. Likewise for Wizardry Xth 2, the PS2 sequel to the one I bought. Why are Wizardry games so expensive! It’s not like there could be many collectors focused on this series?

The books are all great, packed with details such as dungeon maps, monsters, items and strategies for building your party. The latter ones are full colour (and fairly lengthy) but the SNES one – almost 30 years old now! – is all black and white. The above pic is an example page, which shows a fiendish dungeon that appears to be mapped on the face of a cube!

Speaking of books, when I saw the above packaged as a set I was literally speechless. They were in one of Mandarake’s glass cases, tightly bound together, and I didn’t know what they were at first. The price was high, and when I asked for a look the cashier misunderstood me, took them out, and rung them up! Of course I bought them, and I’m happy I did.

They are a six-volume series of hint guides for the first four Wizardry games. The books seem to be written for computer players (they reference Japanese systems of the day such as the FM-7 and PC-88) although I’m sure they work with any versions of the games. The interior and cover art is beautiful, the the detailed contents astounding!

The first and third games have two books each, and the other two just one. The extra books (for games one and three) are dedicated ‘monster manuals’ with two pages for every beast! These books are magnificent and such an incredible find: a ‘grail’ item I didn’t even know existed.

Speaking of treasures, I also bought the Wonderswan version of Wizardry 1. This was expensive: in fact it was the 4th most expensive game I’ve ever bought, at about thrice the cost of a new game. This is because it’s very rare, and because it was complete including an unused sticker sheet:

I have a Wonderswan, and plan on playing through this one day. Yes it’s in Japanese, but google translate these days is a wizard (no pun intended) and will more than suffice.

And the bonanza didn’t stop there! I found the above trio at Mandarake Nakano, and spent at least one minute deliberating before handing over my credit card and buying the three most expensive games I’ve ever bought. These are the (Japan-only) Gameboy Color versions of the first three games in the series, and are in fantastic condition. One of the biggest deciders in me splurging on these is the fact I can play them all on one of my many GBC’s, and will.

With 12 new (old!) games and 10 books my Wizardry collection expanded a lot this past trip (here’s an old post about it)! And yet I didn’t buy everything I saw, since even for a no-budget Wizardry collector some items were a bit too pricey, such as a factory sealed Empire II (the same one I bought for ~$40) for $300+, a 3DS Elminage game for $130 (which I couldn’t play since the 3DS is region locked) or a ‘greatest hits’ version of Busin for $100+ (I own the USA version).

And then there was the above soundtrack CD for about $220, which suggests that it is spectacularly rare.

Or these metal miniatures for tabletop RPG play. Give they are sealed, and probably insanely rare, I was a fool for passing on them at ~$70. If they’re there when I next visit (they won’t be) I’ll get them for sure.

Despite this bounteous haul, the two items I was really after – both of Jun Suemi’s Wizardry art books – eluded me. Both are very expensive now, so if I ever do find one I’ll be paying out the nose.

And when I do, you can read about it here 🙂

Posted in Blog, Books, Collecting, Games, History, Otaku, Retro | Comments Closed

Japan Pickups: FF Books

Thursday, January 19th, 2023

The Fighting Fantasy series was popular in Japan in its heyday, and the first 33 titles were translated and released in the early to mid 1980s. As a diehard collector of FF books I’ve been lucky enough to obtain a few of these Japanese versions over the years, but this past trip was by far my most successful in terms of new additions.

The above four were purchased at RPG bookshops (yes, that’s a thing in Japan) in Nakano and Akihabara. Collectively they cost me about $130, with half that being Creature of Havoc (the lower right book). All are in exceptional condition for 35+ year old books, and the (2nd edition) of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain even included a small cardboard ‘postcard’ that can be used to make dice if you don’t have any handy:

Incidentally the obi (paper wraparound) on the cover of Warlock identifies it as a worldwide bestseller, which was absolutely true when this 1984 edition was published.

Creature of Havoc includes images and writeups of the preceeding 23 volumes, as well as adverts for other gamebook series the publisher also licensed (such as Tunnels & Trolls and what looks to be a Japanese book called ‘Dice Fantasy’). It also includes the above advert for a Japanese release of Tasks of Tantalon! I wasn’t aware it had ever been translated; I suppose it now gets added to my ‘list’ 🙂

In addition to the four original FF books, I also bought 4 books in the Sorcery! series: original 1984 imprints and reprints from 2002. As an offshoot from the FF line these are a little bit less expensive these days, and the four in total cost me about $70. As with the FF books these are in pristine condition, with nary a hint they’ve ever been read.

Each of the original books includes a pull-out adventure sheet printed on ‘vellum’ paper with this lovely translated map on the back!

The Shamutanti Hills included this! One of the delights of buying used books is often finding unusual bookmarks from the previous owner inside, and in this case it seems they were using what seems (according to google translate) to be a coupon for a student discount on a ticket to see the Ghibli film Nausicaa upon its original cinematic release in 1984!

One thing I love about Japanese imprints of the FF books is that they are physically smaller than the western ones (even the US versions) and therefore a bit more pocket-sized. And yet the print quality is exceptional and the fine line-art characteristic of the books is reproduced beautifully. In 2000 the (new) Japanese licensor started reprinting some books in a much larger format, and I have to say they look even prettier! You’ll also note an inclusion in the above photo of one of the 2002 reprints: a quick-reference for section numbers on the left side! Why didn’t English versions ever implement this?

In 2021, the Japanese licensor (Group SNE) published a box-set of five new imprints of classic FF books. I really wanted to find this in Japan but failed. Happily though, I found this:

It’s the second box set, which was only released very shortly before we arrived! It reprints Appointment with F.E.A.R., House of Hell, Deathtrap Dungeon, The Port of Peril and Stealer of Souls. It’s a beautiful box, and it’s obvious this collection was produced by a company deeply respectful of the series heritage and importance. It cost ¥8250, or about $64.

The inclusion of Stealer of Souls is notable, since this was book 34 of the original FF line. Japan stopped at book 33 (Sky Lord), so this is the first time this one has even been translated.

Each book includes a pull out ‘vellum’ character sheet and the print quality and ‘feel’ of the volumes is magnificent: many levels above the recent Scholastic versions. Japanese fans of the series are receiving a real treat with this release!

It also includes a small booklet history of the FF series, as well as a general critique of the books and their historical importance. This is the first time I’ve ever seen all the books – including the new ones published in recent years – numbered together in one chronology. This book (which is entirely in Japanese but google translate is magic these days) also mentions that the 2021 box set was ‘printed to order’ and sold out due to ‘high demand from loyal fans’ which explains why I couldn’t find it.

Lastly – and most unexpectedly – I got the above. It’s a Back To The Future choose-your-own-adventure style gamebook published by the licensor of the FF series and using a similar trade dress! It’s rare that I ever discover a book not on gamebooks.org, but here you go! I would imagine this would be of a lot of interest to many different collectors, and yet this was dirt cheap (about $6) compared to everything else in this post.

The entries – 565 in total – are accompanied by stills from the film, and the blurb on the back suggests the goal of the player is to essentially do what Marty accomplished in the movie. It would be interesting to see how the author invented a gamebook out of the plot, but to give you an idea here’s a translation of a random page:

As I said google translate is a wizard these days, and I suspect I could actually play this entire book via the translator. Maybe I should?

I bought every FF (or related) book I saw this past trip, and these are amongst my most prized possessions. They’re not cheap (for books I can’t technically read) but I’ve developed a new approach to my collections recently after having sold out of MTG and a good chunk of my video games. It makes me wonder, had I found myself once again faced with the bounty of pricey Japanese books I saw in 2017, how much less daunting those prices would have been…?

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

View-Master

Saturday, December 10th, 2022

The View-Master is a device that allows a user to view stereoscopic (‘3D’) images. It was introduced in 1939 and reached the peak of popularity in the 1960s. The viewer above is a modern version I bought maybe a decade ago, and is essentially identical technology to the original release. Over the years there have been dozens of different models but they all work the same way: each eye views a slightly different image from a circular reel, and this creates a 3D picture when they are viewed simultaneously.

I’ve got a motley collection of reels, some new and some old but since the technology has never changed they still work in modern viewers. The majority of reel sets – especially before the 1970s – are pictorial views of tourist sights in various countries and US states, and the reels were often sold in souvenir shops as a sort of 3D scenic postcard.

The above are from the mid 1970s, and are typical of the sorts of sets based on TV and movies that made the viewer popular amongst children during that decade and gave View Master a sort of ‘second wind’. Each set comes with three reels showing pictures from a single episode of the tv show, and a booklet describing the story of the episode.

That’s the Happy Days cover and pages from the Six Million Dollar Man book. The writing is fairly advanced; I imagine parents would read these to kids as they viewed the scenes from the show through the viewer.

I tried to take photos of the images on the reels as best I could, and the above show some examples.

It’s subtle and hard to see the difference between the left/right images when viewed separately. Can you see in the photos above that the sakura branches are in slightly different positions with respect to Fuji? When these two are viewed simultaneously through the viewer the 3D effect is striking, and the blossoms seem to float close to you with Fuji far away in the distance.

Disappointingly some of the newer reels – including all the examples that came with the viewer when I bought it – are not in 3D. The best feature of the View-Master isn’t even used!

Some of the older sets I own include this order form, which is itself quaint today since it reminds us of buying things ‘mail order’ before the internet. The prices – circa 1974 – are absurdly cheap, and the selection of available reel sets is massive with a focus on the tourist examples.

Interestingly no one really knows how many reels exist. View-Master never kept a master list, and there are many unlicensed releases. The list would include the many reels made for non-commercial use, such as a series for the US military so soldiers in WW2 could identify planes, or training reels for corporations, or even reels used in restaurants in place of picture menus! It is known there are more than 4300 different series though, which suggests over 10,000 or more unique reels! These days you can even have custom reels made, and a friend did just that using wedding photos as souvenirs for his guests.

Some reels and viewers have value today, and some sets (usually based on sci-fi or fantasy properties) can reach many hundreds of dollars on the secondary market. But when I see reels in antique stores they’re almost always the scenic tourist types and rarely priced at more than a few dollars, which is where I got the small collection I have today. It’s a fun nostalgic item, and even today the 3D images look as impressive as they did back when I was a little boy 🙂

Posted in Miscellaneous, Retro, Toys | Comments Closed

Robot Claw