Category: Tech

My Collection: SNES

July 13, 2022

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was released in Japan in 1990 and worldwide starting in 1991. In those days, still in Australia, I knew about the SNES but was content playing NES and PC games. It wasn’t until shortly after I arrived in America (in 1993) that I bought my SNES.

These days this system is renowned for a large library of high quality games. In particular it heralded the arrival or best installments in many famous series including F-Zero, Mario Kart, Castlevania and Metroid. The first (and only!) Mario game on the console – Super Mario World – is considered to be one of the best platform games ever made, and the system includes many famous and beloved RPGs in its library.

In time I would buy 35 games for the system, most of which are shown above. For several years the SNES and Game Boy were my only consoles, and I have very fond memories of long nights playing epic RPGs such as Final Fantasy 6 (one of my favorite games of all time) or Wizardry 5.

Games were expensive in those days! The above game cost me $74.99, which is about $150 today! I recall I used to save up for games and treasured every one I got 🙂

Due to the quality of the library, the large amount of RPGs, and the fragility of the cardboard boxes the games were sold in, the SNES has become arguably the most collectible console. Some games have skyrocketed in value, and very rare ones are bought and sold these days for thousands of dollars. If you wanted to collect a full library of SNES games today, you’d need very deep pockets.

I don’t have any of the super rare ones, but a few of mine are worth a tiny fortune these days. The above game, Chrono Trigger, is probably worth ten times what I paid for it in 1995, or possibly even more since I’ve kept mine in pristine condition!

For me the legacy of the SNES are the very happy memories it has given me. This was the system that really got me into console gaming. The system that hooked me on Japanese RPGs. And the system that inspired me to start my fanzine which eventually led to a job (of sorts) playing and reviewing games. The SNES represents the foundation of one of my personal stories, and for that reason will always remain special to me.

Ultraman Vital Bracelet

March 31, 2022

I bought myself this for my birthday:

This is a limited Ultraman version of Bandai’s Vital Bracelet electronic toy. Think of this as Fitbit meets Tamagotchi. I didn’t know too much about it when I preordered it (for $70) on Bandai’s collectors site, but since my birthday was on the horizon I couldn’t resist.

The bracelet came with a memory card containing five of the Showa-era Ultra’s, and it is these you can take care of in your bracelet.

After putting it on and initializing it my first Ultra was born… and it was a disturbing baby in a swaddling cloth:

Very quickly this child evolved twice into Ultraman himself:

The device has a pulse detector on it and a vibration-based pedometer. However they are both wildly inaccurate and it’s made very clear the values measured ‘are for game purposes only’. Ultraman seems to gain energy as you wear the bracelet, and this powers him up and eventually evolves him into advanced forms. After a week or so mine is now Taro:

You can do missions (fight battles, walk a lot of steps) to power him up, and the bracelet has a NFC chip so you can get in battles by moving a phone near it, but it’s all a bit random and less interactive than I thought it would be. For instance the battles are completely non-interactive, over in seconds and are against other Ultramen. They could have at least added some monster graphics!

I think he will eventually evolve again, and I also think there’s other options that become available when he gets to a higher level, but since there are no English instructions (this is not intended for an English market) I’m going by the ones they translated for the similar Digimon device that doesn’t seem to have as many features as this one. There’s also an app available that somehow connects to the device but it’s not on the US App Store so I don’t have it. Of course these devices connect to each other as well and you can battle your friends, but since I’ll never ever know anyone else with one that feature may as well not exist for me!

So far I have to say this is a cool little toy, and I’ll certainly keep wearing it until I’ve seen more Ultras, but it’s certainly less functional than I expected. Because of that, and since the battery life is awful (it needs daily charging) I suspect the attraction will fade sooner than later.

That said the collector in me likes this thing for what it is, and if I ever see the chips with the other Ultramen on them I may be tempted to pick one up 🙂

A Few Unusual Things

March 6, 2022

I had a birthday recently, and got a lot of weird and wonderful stuff. Here’s a few of them…

KLS gave me an electronic card, that plays Happy Birthday and then lets you blow out the candle (yes you blow on the card) to trigger a jumping game! It’s smaller than a credit card and very unique.

This dispenser creates a cat paw pattern using foam soap! It works very well, and the soap from this Japanese item is denser than what we get here in America. I reckon this basic idea will be the first of many of its kind…

This is a set of neon/metallic watercolour paint samples, and I’ve showed what they look like on the right. The glitter ones are extremely cool, but apparently look best on black paper. I wonder if I can use these in the ongoing postcard contest?

This sculpture of a one-eyed raven – possibly one of Odin’s ravens – is made of resin, quite heavy and mounts on the wall. We have a few items like this, and he’ll find a welcome home on our walls. KLS purchased this directly from the artist, and mine is #139 of 300 🙂

The above is a set of stamp sheets depicting American wildlife. They were printed one per year between 1998 and 2009, and Bernard gave me the full set!

The artwork on these is fantastic, and they are printed in such a way that it’s not immediately obvious they contain actual stamps! I’ll never use these; they’re certainly ‘for the collection’ 🙂

And lastly another piece of art: a miniature giraffe sculpture! This is also made of resin, and is hand painted. It’s incredibly tiny: that’s my fingertip on the left and a normal size LEGO minifig on the right. I need to find some sort of mini display case to put him in since he’s so weightless he may just drift off on the wind one day!

As I said this is just a selection of what I received for my birthday. The ‘usual stuff’ (model kits, LEGO, trading cards etc.) will eventually get their own posts right here on this very blog!

Robot Claw