Precious Namcot games.....Precious....

Some new `pieces` for my collection: the first four games Namcot released for the Famicom complete in box!
I`ve been wanting to get a set of the first 18 Namcot releases (they are numbered) complete in box ever since Bryan over on the Gay Gamer picked up a few of them a couple years back, the pictures he put up just knocked me out. I love the boxes on these, they hit all the right buttons for me: small, cardboard, colorful and with great, evocative imagery on the front.

I already had a couple from this series CIB but they are in the kind of `B-grade` level of games - stuff like Star Luster and Pro Wrestling. These ones however include Pac Man, the one I wanted the most! YES!

I found these on Yahoo Auction in part of a larger lot of boxed games. They set me back quite a bit, but I was massively impressed when I received them. Most of the other games in the lot were in beat up condition but these Namco ones are like new:
They only have some tiny wear on the flaps but other than that they are in perfect condition and look like they could have come directly off a department store shelf from 1984. The photos in the auction weren`t close up so I wasn`t expecting them to be this nice. In fact I was in a bit of a panic when I realized how beautiful they were as these are way too good to just casually toss on a random shelf with the rest of my games where they will get all wrinkled up (what I normally do with games). I had to empty out a plastic bin to put them in for safe keeping.

So my collection now has some showy mint stuff in it. I will not be putting these into hard plastic containers for disply or anything, but I will be keeping them in that plastic bin until I find some safe way of storing them.

Next on my wantlist for this series are Battle City, Warpman, Sky Kid and Burger Time - all of which have awesome cover art. And are probably going to cost me a bit of $$.

Losing my Yahoo Japan Auction Virginity: Better than Losing my Actual Virginity

I finally did it. After years of procrastinating the closure of Omocha Souko finally forced my hand: I got myself a Yahoo Japan Auctions account.

The fact that I no longer have a decent Famicom store nearby has been a bit of a bummer. If I want games I now have to travel long distances to get to the nearest shops, which can be a brutally antagonizing experience if, upon arrival, you find that the shop doesn`t have anything that you want (which seems to be happening more and more these days). When you, say, ride your bike for nearly an hour to that Hard Off location way out in the suburbs only to find boxes full of stuff like this:
It can be quite disheartening (fellow Hard Off junk bin lurkers nod in agreement).

So I`ve been faced with the hard reality that if I want to continue my collecting at its previous Omocha-Souko induced pace (which is like collecting Famicom stuff on Jose Canseco levels of steroids) I would need to do something drastic. That something was getting off my ass and making a serious effort to figure out how to use Yahoo Auctions.

Ebay is not a big thing in Japan, Yahoo is the dominant player for online auctions over here. The basics are the same, but there are some details that are different. Obviously it is all in Japanese. Also you have to pay to become a full `premium` member, 346 yen (about 5$) a month. You can sign up for a regular account free of charge but you are limited to bidding on stuff under 5000 yen, meaning that even if you only buy one thing over that a month it is probably worth it to get the premium account, which I did.


I have been spending a ton of time on there because there is just so much Famicom stuff, a lot of it selling for quite reasonable prices, it is like having Mandarake in my living room. Like the title says, this has been way better than losing my actual virginity. Well, actually it has been quite similar in some ways - lots of awkward fumbling around at first until I familiarized myself with all the accepted protocols, the instillment of a conviction that this is an activity I would like to engage in on a regular basis, conflicted emotional responses and so on. In other ways though it is quite different: there is very little chance that my Yahoo Auction account will end in a messy break up that results in me getting beaten with an umbrella for example.

I signed up about a week ago and I`ve already spent way more than I can afford on stuff. Like, no kidding, I have bought about 600 Famicom games this week. I need help, I just cannot stop bidding on stuff! Argh!

Well, I should get some perspective here. It is good but its got its downsides too. Like Ebay the prices are hit and miss, people price gouge here too. But the auction stuff (rather than the Buy it Now stuff) can go for pretty decent prices, at least if you buy in large lots.

The upsides I think outweigh the downsides. Because almost everyone uses Japan Post transfers for payment there is no 3.9% paypal fee to deal with like on Ebay. Shipping is crazy efficient and cheap too, I`ve already started receiving stuff (like the box at the top of this page) that I only won 2 or 3 days ago.

And getting a box full of 100 Famicom carts in the mail is friggin` great.

Sniping also seems to be less of a problem as I found in one competetive auction that I eventually won. If someone outbids you at the last minute they extend the auction for a few minutes so you can respond (as can the other guy). I would have been sniped on one lot had it been on Ebay but after upping our bids by about a thousand yen I eventually won it.

Anyway, I`m going to be doing some posts about my new acquisitions because I`ve gotten some cool collection additions either here or on the way!

Sega My Card: Hero

One of the things that I picked up on my recent trip to Mandarake was my first Sega My Card. The game is simply called Hero. It is a pretty good game, Simon over on Red Parsley did a mini-review of it (along with a few other SG 1000 games) that is worth checking out here.

Technically this is an SG-1000 game, but it can also be played on the Mark III. I have both so its no biggy, but I tried it out on my Mark III for a few minutes. I love the graphics. Very cool.What I love most though is the box it came in. Sega My Cards I think have the best box design of any retro game out there. The cards are about the same size as PC Engine HU cards, but they didn`t use those boring CD cases. They went cardboard, which I love. It is like a little book that you open up and you are presented with the game and its manual:
The cover art on Hero is really great too, in fact it is one of the main things that attracted me to it. At only 525 yen (about $7) it was a really good deal, mainly because the box is pretty worn out, but I don`t care much about that. The cover still looks good and that is enough for me.

Free Stuff: Why I have been drinking so much tea lately

The above is how I have decided to pimp my ride. Yoshi style. Old school.

When I walked into a convenience store a few weeks back I discovered that the beverage companies were doing another one of their promotional giveaways. Buy a bottle of tea and you get a Super Mario 3D Land toy:
They do this sort of thing sometimes and it is always awesome. The best was the Famicom themed Mario bottlecaps they did a few years ago, but this one is also acceptable.

Normally I don`t drink this kind of tea, but for the duration of this giveaway I have decided to do so. It is impossible to resist. I mean, look at the above photo. Three kinds of tea. The kinds on the left and right come with nothing but tea. The one in the middle comes with tea and a little plastic toy. They are all the same price. They are all varations of the same thing (really bland Japanese tea). Which one would you pick?

I have about a dozen of them now, all of them characters from some 3DS game that I will probably never play.

I chose Yoshi to be the masthead for my bicycle, mainly because he is yellow and so is my bike. Also he is in a running pose so it is sort of like he is running ahead of me while I ride. We`ll see how long he manages to stay there before the little chain rusts through and he falls off.

Japanese Game Shops: Service is Second to None

I was reminded recently of one of the other great things about Japanese game shops: the customer service is incredible.

As I recently posted about, last week I went to Kitakyushu to do some game shopping. One of the things I picked up at the Mandarake there was a loose Sega Mark III console.

The console was in their glass case right next to another old, obscure console - the Bandai Playdia. The cables for each console were in plastic bags seperate from the console.

After returning home the next day I decided to plug in the Mark III to test out a Sega My Card game that I had also purchased. Only when I went to plug it in I discovered this:
A Bandai Playdia AC adaptor!! The horror!

It was a pretty simple and honest mistake, when the staff member took out the Mark III console he accidentally grabbed the Playdia`s cables instead of the Mark III`s.

If this had happened at the Mandarake here in town it wouldn`t have been a problem as I could just go in and exchange it. Since it happened at the one in Kitakyushu though I sure wasn`t going to spend the time and money it took to get out there just for some cables.

So I looked up their website, found an email address for the Kokura store and sent them an email explaining the situation and asking if they could do anything.

Shortly thereafter I received a lengthy and apologetic email with a promise to mail the Mark III cables right to me.

Actions of course speak louder than words and sure enough, the VERY NEXT DAY a delivery man arrived at my door with the cable! They had gone to the expense of sending it courier rather than regular mail!

When I opened the box not only did it have the cables well-packaged in tons of bubble wrap (pictured above) but it also included a one-page letter of apology. This wasn`t a form letter either but one that had been personally written to me by one of the store`s staff.
Gotta love the customer service here. If this had happened in North America I can`t imagine the difficulty I would have had in getting this sorted out.

So that is another big thumbs up for Mandarake!

A Million Euro Collection on Ebay that Might Actually Be Worth It

The craziest thing ever on Ebay: a video game auction with a million Euro buy it now price that might actually be worth it. Well, its hard to measure how much something like this is actually worth, a million might be a stretch but its definitely worth way more money than I have.

The guy has a full set of Famicom games, both cart and FDS, all CIB! Plus full sets of about 20 other systems all CIB - Super Famicom, Mega Drive, PC Engine, etc etc. I`ve never seen a collection that extensive before. If only I was rich....ah, but its funner to collect these things bit by bit rather than getting them in one shot. Still, massively impressive, I wonder who the seller is...

Cheers to Famicom no Neta for first reporting this!

Top 80s Movies that Would have been great in 8 bit

Part of my love for the Famicom is probably dervied from the fact that there are a lot of Famicom games based on 80s movies, which I love. These generally fall into a few categories:

Good movies made into good video games: The Empire Strikes Back, Die Hard, Batman, Gremlins 2, The Goonies, etc.

Good movies made into bad video games: Ghostbusters

So-so sequels that were made into good video games: Ghostbusters 2

Terrible movies that you cannot believe were made into video games: Hudson Hawk, Iron Eagle 3

Movies that don`t exist but were made into decent video games anyway: Goonies 2

Good movies that were made into bizarre video games: Predator

I`m probably missing a few categories and games in there but you get the general idea. Despite the great number of movie tie-in video games released on the Famicom (and NES) there were still a ton of great 80s movies that never had video game versions made of them back in the day. I`ve here put together my top ten list of great 80s movies that would have made for great Famicom (or other 8 bit system) games but, sadly, never were. In no particular order:


1. The Naked Gun

The whole game should just be based on that opening sequence where Frank Drebin takes on the Ayatollah, Idi Amin, Arafat, Ghadafi, Gorbachev and all those other bad guys. Tranquilizing an overweight woman in mom jeans onto Reggie Jackson would also make a very good challenge bonus stage.


2. Romancing the Stone/ Jewel of the Nile

Both of these would have made awesome platformers. A lot of people prefer Romancing the Stone but I`ve always had a soft spot for the sequel.


3. The Burbs

Probably the most under-rated movie ever made. They could make this a cooperative platformer in which the main characters snoop on the Klopeks while trying to avoid admonitions from their wives. Bonus points when you get Corey Feldman to cheer you on. Also whenever you lose a life the game should say `There go the god damn brownies`.

4. Police Academy 2The showdown at the Old Zoo with Bobcat Goldthwait`s gang would make an awesome level in any game.


5. Arthur 2

Just to demonstrate that even Dudley Moore`s worst movie would still make a good video game.

6. The Ice Pirates

This would work as either an RPG or an action platformer game. Angelica Houston`s best role to date.

7. My Dinner with Andre
An existential discource between Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory over dinner at a fine restaurant? Need I say more? Hours of RPG fun in there.


8. Ferris Bueller`s Day Off

This one is too easy and requires no explanation. Rooney as the final boss?

9. Commando

I know that they made a game for the NES called Commando (and for the Famicom), but I don`t think it was based on this movie. I say this because at no point in that game do you get to play with one of those rocket launchers that is, like, four rocket launchers. In one!! This totally needs to be in a game.

10. The Breakfast Club
Two John Hughes movies in one list? It is a bit gratuitous, but a game with Dick Vernon as the final boss would be pretty cool.