Warning: Excessive Famicom Play May Cause Drowsiness in Puppies

A public service announcement from Doogle.

OK, OK I know I know...enough with the dog already.

Black Super Mario Bros. Famicom Cart

(image source: Yahoo Auctions Page)

This might be a rarity. Or not, I'm not sure.

Anyway, recently I've been surfing the Japanese internet for interesting Famicom stuff and today I came up with this: a black Super Mario Bros. Famicom cart.

As most Famicom collectors know, the standard Super Mario Bros. cart is a yellow-orange color. I've never seen one in black plastic before.

This one was put up on Yahoo Auctions on May 23. It got one bid for 50,000 yen (the auction finished a couple days ago). That is about 600 dollars.

It isn't clear if this thing is for real or a fake. In the description of the item at the bottom of the page the seller addresses this question, stating that he purchased it in a lot of 100 games from a single seller. The other games in the lot all had a mark on them "editor's division" (not sure if that is an accurate translation) and he believes they were all either sample items or leftover prizes from a competition or something. He states that none of the other games looked like counterfeits. The back has the number 851224 on it and it is a loose cart without the box.

Not sure what to make of it. I haven't seen anything else on the web about an item like this or how rare it might be. Kind of neat if it is real though.

Related Posts:-Planes, Trains and North Korean Propaganda: Tour de Super Mario Bros. 2011

Bad Computer! Very Bad! And Famicom Store Pictures!

Yesterday my computer suffered some sort of catastrophic hard drive failure. Everything gone. The last time I backed up my stuff was about 6 months ago, so the thousands of pictures I've taken since then are gonzo.

This included a ton of Famicom related ones that I had taken and was saving for future posts on here. I probably lost about 5 blog posts worth of pictures. Bad computer, very bad.

Fortunately the memory card in my camera still had a few including these ones I took at Omocha Souko after they got a new arrival of Famicom stuff a couple weeks ago, so I thought I'd use them to make a post.

First the stuff in the glass cases:
They put a lot of boxed stuff in there, much of which I purchased before this photo was taken. I got my copy of Crazy Climber out of here and a few others. I had taken a bunch of photos of my new boxed collection for a future post....but they have been lost. I'll have to set them up for another photo shoot sometime.

Anyway, some of the stuff in there is reasonably priced (Tiny Toon Adventures CIB for 300 yen), some of it isn't (Baltron CIB for 1200). I think it looks rather cool though, Omocha Souko hasn't had a neat looking Famicom showcase in a while so it is refreshing to see this.

The case below that one is pretty cool too:
The Famicom on the right is a new one in mint condition for 10,000 yen. I haven't looked inside of the box, but that seems like a pretty good deal based on what they go for on Ebay.

The clear plastic box to the left of it is a pretty decent deal too. It contains a complete Famicom, complete Famicom Disk System and a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 for 10,000 yen (about 120$). It says they have been tested and work and if that is accurate it is a reasonable deal (but I don't trust them over stuff like this anymore.)

They have also accumulated a pretty good pile of junk Famicoms for 300 yen each. I just like the look of piles of Famicoms so I took this photo:
As usual, my favorite sight was the new crate of junk Famicom games they had put out:
There were some really good deals in there, all the games were priced between 100 and 300 yen (1 and 3 $). I bought 10 of them (I took this photo after getting mine, so they aren't in it).

As I now find myself short on photo material for future posts, instead of introducing all the games I got, I thought I might introduce these one by one in a series of "100 yen Famicom Cart buys" posts. Stay tuned to this space!

Related Posts:
-Crazy Climber and the Perils of Collecting Loose Famicom Carts
-Why Japanese Retro Game Shops are so Much Better Than North American Ones
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 1: 007
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 2: The Decline and Fall of the Famicom Empire
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 3: Mandarake
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 4: Flea Markets Brought to you by the God of War
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 5: Don Quixote and Village Vanguard
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 6: The New 007 and Hakozaki Flea Market
- Fukuoka Famicom Shops 7: The Other Omocha Souko

Famicom Party Game! Loads of fun!

In this post I will introduce the latest Famicom party game craze that is sweeping Japan. Well, "sweeping Japan" is an overstatement, but at least some Japanese people are doing it (see the video linked below).

All you need is a Famicom, about 30-50 Famicom games, a cardboard box and between 2 and 10 people.

The basic rule of the game is this. You have a bunch of Famicom games. You write down the names of each game on a scrap of paper and put them into a cardboard box. Each person takes a turn drawing a game name from the box. After removing the game name from the box, the person then has to complete level 1 of whatever game that is without losing a life.

The game does not finish until the group of you have collectively done this 10 times in a row without losing a life. Each time someone loses a life before they've completed level 1 of the game, the counter goes back to zero.

This can be a really fun group activity, particularly if you have been drinking. I've done it a few times. The tension really builds up when the group has finished 5 or 6 in a row.

One of the keys to making it fun is game selection. You have to choose games that have a level 1 and in which you can lose a life (ie no baseball games, etc). The photo at the top of this post shows a selection of 20 games that are usually in my lineup for this activity. Depending on the skill level of your group you might want to avoid putting tough games like Spelunker or Sky Kid in the mix.

This is a really interesting video on Youtube of a group of Japanese Famicom fanatics playing this game. They dress up in cosplay as they do it and make an evening out of it. They have put a series of such videos up and they all make for interesting viewing if you are a Famicom fan like me. Their big mistake is choosing games that are too difficult, though it kind of adds to the fun - note the exasperation on the girl's face when she gets stuck with Spelunker. The girls do criticize the host for the poor game selection a bit towards the end of the video.

Just to add a bit of trivia I should note that this game originated on a TV show called "Otameshika" that airs on Monday nights in Japan. Nowadays it isn't much of a show, but a couple years ago they would sometimes do these really awesome Famicom themed episodes in which the two hosts (the comedians Taka and Toshi) along with a few guests would play. It would usually take them quite a few hours to do 10 in a row. If you have less time you might want to change the rule to 5 in a row or something like that.

I should also note that while I say it is a game for the Famicom, you can also play it with an NES, Atari 2600, Sega Master System or any other early console with a large library of games.

Anyway, this is a fun party activity if you have a small group of people who all like old video games. Give it a try.

Famicom Cart Trading

In addition to the above cover image of the Famicom, another little thing I like about my recently acquired Hisshou Sakusen Mecha Guide is the last page:
This is a page for kids to record which games they have lent out to friends. From left to right, the columns are titled "Friend", "Game's name", "Day it was lent" and "Day it was returned".

This page, incidentally, is the reason this guidebook was much cheaper than the rest: because the kid who owned it had actually filled it out. In the guide collecting world, this is considered serious damage.

I'm rather pleased that he or she did so. The first entry states that the guide's owner lent Bomberman to a friend called "Turbo" on March 13. Either it was never returned or he just didn't bother to fill that column in when it was. The second entry states that Atama no Usenkan Garu, a game I have never heard of, was lent to a friend named "Non-kun". By that time the guide's owner was no longer interested in recording dates of any sort, and thereafter he seems to have abandoned use of the guide for this purpose altogether.

An extremely brief career this guide had as a record of a kid's lending activities, but its kind of interesting nonetheless.

As I wrote about in an earlier post, a lot of Famicom carts out there have kids names on them.
This is mainly a legacy of their having been traded with friends - a way of ensuring everybody knew which cart belonged to which kid.

My wife used to do this when she was a kid too, so much so that a lot of games she isn't sure if she had them or had just borrowed them from a friend. I think that is kind of cool.

Cartridges, I note, are ideally designed for trading like that. They are sturdy and can survive roughing it in a kid's backpack for the trip to and from school or a friend's house. Disc based games were much less well suited to this - the jewel CD cases the PS1 and Saturn games came in are pretty easily broken and the sturdier post-PS2 cases are a lot bulkier than most carts.

Digital distribution, of course, makes this sort of interaction among friends impossible. Which is yet another reason why it is bad.

Another interesting thing about this is that the Famicom's dominance probably facilitated game trading in Japan much more than elsewhere. As a kid in the 80s I played games first on an Intellivision, then a Commodore Vic-20 and later on an Apple IIC. I didn't get an NES until 1989, when I was 13.

My problem - and a lot of friends had this too - was that nobody I knew had a Commodore Vic-20 or Apple IIC. It seemed everybody had different computers or consoles. We couldn't trade games with each other since everybody had software that was incompatible with what everybody else had. If you wanted to play each other's games you had to go to the other kid's house, which always sucked because they (having the benefit of practice) would always kick the crap out of you on whatever game it was.

Probably kids with NES's didn't have this problem so much. One of those rare examples of a near-monopoly producing benefits for consumers. Go figure.

Related Posts:
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- Famicom Cart Condition: Why Good is Bad and I Never Buy Sealed Stuff

Mahjong Famiclone

I came across this unusual Famiclone at Omocha Souko the other day - the Mahjong Famiclone.

Mahjong is an old Chinese game played with tiles. I used to have a set, but I never figured out how to play it myself.

There are still some Mahjong parlors to be found here and there where the game is played (usually for stakes). I ride past one on my way downtown sometimes. Most of the ones I have seen are tiny little establishments in hole-in-the-wall places that look like they are run by shady characters.

It isn't just a gambling game though, people play it at home as well and it seems to be popular among a segment of the oba-chan set.

Anyway, I found this thing kind of funny. It was only 780 (about 9$) but I didn't buy it. According to the box it has a built in Mahjong game and can also be used with regular Famicom carts.

Interesting too is the note on the left of the cover which says it is for those "aged 12 and above."

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-Pachinko and the Famicom: AKA The Stupid Side of Japanese Gaming

Crazy Climber and the Perils of Collecting Loose Famicom Carts

I picked up a complete in box copy of Crazy Climber at Omocha Souko yesterday. At 2000 yen (about 25$ US) it is both the most money I have ever spent on a single Famicom game (which is saying something about how much of a cheapskate game collector I am as that isn't much) and one of the best deals I've ever gotten.
Crazy Climber CIB is a tough one to find, especially in good condition. You'll notice from the above photo that the box is a bit longer than most Famicom boxes. That is because it comes with "Climber Sticks" that are necessary accessories to play the game. It is also one of the reasons true CIB copies of this game are hard to find - so many bits and pieces go with it which might have gotten lost over the years. Mandarake had one a couple of months ago for 7,000 yen.

I figured this one was probably incomplete at such a relatively low price, but I opened it up and discovered it had everything inside, in mint condition to boot:
I bought a loose copy of this game last year. I'd never played it before but I had really wanted it for a long time. "Crazy Climber" is a really cool name for a video game, it sounds fun. And the cover art also looks cool.

But when I popped it in for the first time to play it? It sucked. No matter what combination of button-pushing I did on the controller I could not get the guy to climb up the building. It was massively frustrating and I instantly disliked this game.

Enter the perils of collecting loose Famicom carts.

As those of you familiar with the Famicom Crazy Climber undoubtedly already know, the reason I was having so much trouble was that Crazy Climber has without a doubt the most unusual control features of any Famicom game out there.

Not having the manual, I didn't know that.

With a lot of games, you can buy loose carts without the manual or box safe in the knowledge that your general video game expertise will probably be sufficient to figure the game out. Like Xevious or Exerion for example. Those are games that I had never played before but had no trouble figuring out in about 10 seconds even without the manual. Shoot the bad guys - OK, say no more.

Crazy Climber though is one of those games where just the cart alone is not enough. Your general video game knowledge will not be enough to get you through it. You need the whole thing.

Of course the internet has a lot of info, so even before I bought the boxed game I had been able to figure out what my problem was - mainly that I was only using one controller when you have to be using both of them simultaneously.

The game's actual manuals are usually a bit more to the point that online ones (a lot of which tend to be console-neutral) and I couldn't play it well without the Climber Sticks (I had one that I got in a junk bin, but you need two), so I'd been in the market for a CIB Crazy Climber for quite some time.

Anyway, I'm massively satisfied with this game now. This is what the two climber sticks look like on the controls:
With the help of these and the manual I am now able to navigate my climber to the top of the building, avoiding all the obstacles on the way. It is quite an interesting game, actually. The mechanics of using both controllers at the same time makes this a truly unique game in the Famicom catalogue, I don't think any others do that.
The box is pretty cool too. One thing that I noticed is that this one has a manufacturer's suggested retail price (5300 yen) printed right on the box (bottom centre in the above photo). Most Famicom games don't have that. PC Engine games (HuCards) all have that on the back and I always thought that was kind of neat for some reason. Especially when I pay 100 yen for a game that says "6000 yen" on the back. I like to pretend that I actually paid 6000 yen for it. Makes me feel like a big shot.

Ahem, anyway I'm revealing too much about myself here. Bottom line is that if you are going to get Crazy Climber for the Famicom (and I say go for it) be sure to get a CIB copy and not cart-only. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches that way!

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