Friday, March 7, 2014

Collecting Goal for 2014: Finish my CIB Namco 18 Series


Of all the game boxes released for the Famicom I think the original Namco series of its first 18 games are my favorite.  They are small, made of cardboard and they have some awesome cover art.  Perhaps more important, in terms of inspiring me to collect all of them, as the above photo demonstrates they also look really cool when displayed together!

After a few important pick ups that I made over the last few months, I am really lose to finishing the set with 15 out of 18:


As you can see from the photo the ones I am missing are:

5 Galaga
11 Burger Time
17 Valkrye no Bouken

Galaga and Valkrye are actually pretty easy to find and don`t cost too much so they shouldn`t be a problem.  Burger Time is a tougher one to find CIB and usually sells for more, but I should be able to find that pretty easily too. In fact I could probably just buy these all right now off of Yahoo Auctions, but as usual I like to wait patiently for a bargain to come along.

Some of these are not truly CIB - Battle City and Sky Kid I don`t have the manuals for and the boxes on them are pretty rough so I`d like to upgrade those at some point. 

I have a lot of trouble deciding which one is my favorite.  Warpman is a really recent acquisition so I am currently quite taken with it.  THe blue and orange cover art just looks really awesome:

Battle City is pretty cool too though, as is PacMan and Sky Kid. 

As always I am left with the question of how to properly display these in a cramped Japanese apartment.  I envisage these someday getting a wall rack that will adequately show them off, but for now I have to keep them in a box since I don`t have the wall space.  Someday....someday....
at

8 comments:

  1. Bryan OchallaMarch 7, 2014 at 1:22 PM

    Ah, and what a worthy goal to have, IMO! I'd be working on picking up a few more of these beauties myself this year if I weren't so damn interested in the GameBoy at the moment.

    Anyway, although I agree with you that this series sports some really great box art, I still prefer the Pulse Line series myself. This series would come in second, I think.

    Oh, and CIB Burger Time costs more than Galaga there? That's nuts! I think I picked up my CIB Burger Time via US eBay for like $5, yet Galaga tends to go for about $50 CIB--which is why I've yet to pick it up :|

    The only ones I still want from this series are Galaga and Dig Dug II, although I may find a better Pac-Man eventually, too, as the one I have right now has marker on the cover. Grrrr!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SeanMarch 7, 2014 at 8:57 PM

    Thanks Bryan!

    Actually I am a bit torn between these ones and the Pulse Line ones. Both have really awesome box art and just look great...maybe I would say it is a tie. The only other series that comes close for me are the early Taito ones, but they are a bit bigger.

    And that is really interesting about Galaga costing more than Burger Time, I can`t believe you got a CIB Burger Time for only 5$!! Mandarake here has one in somewhat beat up condition for about 30$ and that is about my only option. Galaga is pretty common in Japan, I could have gotten a CIB one for about $5 a year ago and I passed it up. I have been regretting that ever since!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LoganMarch 7, 2014 at 11:32 PM

    I am so jealous. I'm like, a world-class Namco(t) fan. And then you have this huge collection only missing Galaga and Burgertime (which I have for the NES) and Valkyrie(the arcade version is better to me anyway, but gotta collect them all I guess and it IS a part of the set). Keep Xevious, Mappy, Dig Dug, Druaga, Warpman, Battle City, maybe Pac-Land, Dig Dug II, Babel, and Sky Kid nearby if you're not displaying the set - they're great addicting games. Also check out shiftylook.com if you like these games, they're a NBGI subsidiary that makes new webcomics/cartoons based on these games. Sorry to fan out here. Namco's the COOL.

    ReplyDelete
  4. SeanMarch 8, 2014 at 8:55 AM

    LOL, no problem: fan out!! :)

    I`m also a big fan of the Namco games, like you say almost all of them are really addictive and fun. I play Battle City, Mappy, Warpman and Sky Kid all the time and pretty much all of them except Wrestling, Star Luster and Super Chinese are regulars for me!

    I`ll check out that site, comics based on Namco characters sounds cool!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LoganMarch 12, 2014 at 10:29 PM

      Ok, but do it soon - It's closing down this year.

      Delete
  5. Aboriginal GaikokujinMarch 13, 2014 at 1:53 AM

    Hmm, I already have a complete collection of the Pulse Line games, This seems like a pretty cool next step for collecting Famicom stuff. This also reminds me of the Bandai Super Famicom games that are all numbered as well. Thats another set I'm working on finishing soon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. SeanMarch 13, 2014 at 8:44 AM

    Yeah, these would be a really good companion to your pulse line collection, the boxes are about the same size and they both look real good. I almost have the pulse lines CIB too, I am just short Mario Bros and Donkey Kong Math.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousFebruary 9, 2019 at 1:57 AM

    This seems like a really cool set. But do you know anything about the numbered Super Famicom games that Bandai put out? https://imgur.com/SiwJb1l

    ReplyDelete