Retro Find: Frogger Handheld by Konami/ Gakken!!

Frogger is one game that I have a lot of fond memories of as a kid.  I had a big floppy disk version of it for my Apple IIC back in the 80s and it was one of my favorite games.  I remember sitting at that computer in the basement of my childhood home with Airwolf on TV in the background and sneaking some snacks before dinner while playing it for hours on end.  The good old days.

Sadly Frogger is one of those smash hit arcade games from the 80s that, for whatever reason, never got a release on the Famicom.  Q-Bert is another one in that category that I really wish they had released on the Famicom so I could play it.

Anyway, I`ve been wanting to get a vintage copy of Frogger for something for the longest time and today I found it: an original 1982 Frogger handheld produced by Gakken, a subsidiary of Konami.

It is a really awesome machine.  The gameplay is a very faithful reproduction of the original, a bit better than my Puckman handheld that I found last year, which isn`t quite the same as the Pacman arcade game.

This one came with the original box and manual, which was a nice touch. 

The controls are pretty simple, I like the fact that this one lets you turn the music on and off.  Puckman and my Game and Watches all make a bunch of noise that you cannot turn off, meaning you can`t use them in some situations.

I also like the yellow plastic and the distinctive Frogger logo I remember so well from my old Apple IIC floppy disk:

  

 It was a pretty good deal for about $50, my wife was actually nice enough to buy it as a gift for me.  I checked on Yahoo Auction and there are a couple without boxes with buy-it-now prices well above that so I think it was a good deal.    

Frogger is also an awesome game because of the fact that it was a central plot element of the best episode of Seinfeld ever:

 

 Total classic.  I will play this game until I best Costanza`s high score.