Manhatten Police and Running Stadium: First Famicom Trade

A couple weeks ago I made my first ever online Famicom purchase.  Continuing that new trend (prompted in large part by the closure of my favorite local Famicom shop) a few days ago I received the above carts - Manhatten Police and Running Stadium - as part of a Famicom cart-for-Famicom cart trade with 80sFreak on Famicom World, who did a lovely job of packing them and shipping them to me quickly.

This is not just my first online trade but my first trade of any kind involving Famicom carts.  When I first started getting doubles in my collection about 3 years ago I always intended to use them for trading purposes, but at the time none of my friends or acquaintances were interested in the Famicom, so they just sat around until I learned to start selling them online.  Now they are finally being put to their intended purpose: helping me fill holes in my collection.

These two are both Family Trainer games, as was my recent online purchase.  I`ve decided that getting all of the Family Trainer games would be a nice intermediate collecting goal so I`ve been actively trying to get all of them (even though as I pointed out in my last post I can`t actually play them at the moment).  My main motivation for doing so is that the subset actually has some very interesting looking games, Manhatten Police in particular being one that has intrigued me for a while.  It also helps that they come in a wide variety of colors which makes the carts themselves look pretty cool.

If my count is correct there are ten games in the Family Trainer series and I think this gives me seven of them, so just three more to go!

Takeshi`s Castle on the Famicom: My First Famicom Internet Purchase!

Something happened yesterday that has never happened to me before. A Famicom game arrived in the mail. The game? Fuun Takeshi Jou 2 (Takeshi`s Castle 2)!
I should give a quick thanks here to the awesome Manuel at Famicom World, who sold the game to me and mailed it in record time.

I had been wanting that game for a couple of weeks since I bought Fuun Takeshi Jou (Takeshi`s Castle), the first of the two games in that series at a shop here in town.
These are both games in the Family Trainer series, which is a pretty awesome series actually. The games are both based on the Takeshi`s Castle TV show, a show whose existance is a constant reminder that once upon a time Japanese Television actually broadcast stuff that was worth watching:

The games feature similar challenges as those on the TV show. There is a pretty good review of the first one on Pink Gorilla here. They were also featured on an episode of Game Center CX at one point.

You might wonder how I enjoyed them. Unfortunately I haven`t been able to do so. Perhaps my predicament is best described in the following mathematical formula:

Overcrowded Japanese apartment

+


Dog who LOVES to do nothing but bite feet all day

=

Not a good environment for Family Trainer games

So basically my Family Trainer pad has been sitting in its box collecting dust ever since we got the little guy. Someday though I am going to break that thing out and give these a try.

Incidentally if you are interested in getting a copy of the first of these games, go check out Manuel`s shop (linked above). He has the most reasonably priced copy of it you are ever likely to find, and he is a great guy to be buying stuff from to boot!

Mega Bargain of the Day: Famicom Basic, Family Trainer and Climber Stick

Its been a while since I've put up a post filled with some good old fashioned "Shopping Porn for Famicom collectors" - which, if I'm honest, is really what this blog is all about:)

Today's trip to good old Omocha Souko, readers will be glad to know, has provided ample fodder for such a post.

I went in today to do my usual rounds. I was massively excited on getting to the game section to see that they had created a new retro game "junk" section filled with piles and piles of good old stuff for between 50 and 300 yen per item.

You might remember 3 months ago they did something similar, putting out huge piles of boxes of retro game stuff for 50 yen each. That was the last time I went on a mega shopping spree, getting boatloads of stuff. After about 5 or 6 weeks pretty much everything from those piles had been sold, with the remainder just tossed onto shelves with their regular inventory, so for the past few weeks Omocha Souko hasn't had a proper junk section.

Today's new junk bin wasn't as good as that one in September, but it was pretty good. They didn't have any games and there weren't any particularly exciting consoles (piles of Super Famicoms, Playstations, Saturns, N64s and even Game Cubes for 300 yen each but without any controllers, etc.). They had a lot of controllers separately for 100 yen each and AC adapters/ AV cables for 50 yen.

But I didn't buy any of those.

I only bought 3 items. For a grand total of 300 yen (about 3$ US). This is what I got:
These were pretty cool. First up was Family Trainer, a Bandai game which is kind of an early version of Dance Dance Revolution and all those pad-type ones. It is also the fore-runner of the Power Pad for the NES:
It didn't come with the manual, but the thing itself was in pretty good shape. I love the box. I have a real soft spot for 80s toy ads that have kids in amusing 80s clothes, like these ones on the back of the box:
Ah...tube socks. And short shorts. Brings me back.

Anyway, next up was the Family Basic:
I couldn't believe this was only 100 yen. This actually wasn't something they just got in new, they've had it for sale for a long time, sometimes in the glass case. It was lovingly wrapped, CIB with the manual on the outside. They had tested it and it had this lovely handwritten sign made specifically for it:
Underneath the new 100 yen price tag you can see the old price of 3,980 yen just peaking out.

This turned out to be a really good buy not just for the unit itself but for the goodies stuffed into the book: Handbills!

One for version 3 of Family Basic:
One for the Famicom Data Recorder:
And one for the Family Basic itself:
The manual is pretty cool too. I really like it because it reminds me of my own childhood. My dad bought a Vic 20 in the early 80s and later got an Apple IIC. He had a lot of programming guides and stuff that I used to look at with utter incomprehension as a kid. They were way over my head, the type of thing only dads understood how to use. They looked pretty cool though and this guidebook reminds me of them. The photography, the font, the multicolored characters written at a slight angle: Even though the language is different, it looks so familiar: The unit itself is in pristine condition:
Rounding out my shopping day, I found this little guy right at the bottom of one of the big crates:
Its called a "Climber Stick" and was released by Nichibutsu, the same company that made the game Crazy Climber, so I assume its for use with that game. You can just snap it onto a regular Famicom controller:
I haven't tried it yet but I'll probably go dig up my copy of Crazy Climber to see how it works. I rather like it, goes well with my growing collection of "oddball Famicom accessories" that I'm slowly accumulating!

Related Posts:
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Kousenjuu Electro Safari
- Mega Bargain of the Day: 3 Consoles and a Game for 10 Bucks
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Exorcising My Twin Famicom Demons
- Mega Bargain of the Day: Another Square Button Famicom