New Famicom games: Robocco Wars, Gun Nac, Little Mermaid etc

May 19, 2013 by stopxwhispering

I’ve spent all day today updating my Famicom library, both adding new games but also changing the layout a bit. Now the library has all big nice images of the games and the information below them, but I have also created a collage where you can see ALL the cartridges thumbnail pictures at once (instead of having to browse through A-Z if you’re not really sure what you’re searching for). It has taken quite some time, since I made all the thumbnail pics have a hover text with the name of the game and also clickable so they take you to the correct letter in the library if you wanna read more about it. So don’t forget to check out the Famicom collage!

I intend to do the same with all my collections once I have the time to scan the rest of it, and upload it all..

Anyway, here are some of the new games I’ve added to the library today as well:

Some that are a lot of fun and that I’m really happy to have are Robocco Wars (fun platforming action), Gun Nac (entertaining shooter), Kyūkyoku Tiger (another great shooter), Power blazer (Rockman’s fat cousin), Little Mermaid (nice platformer, a bit rare I think, haven’t seen it that often), Peepar Time (weird puzzle game, have never seen it anywhere before), and Donald Land (it’s just weird) ;D

I’ll try to get some time to review some games in more depth soon ^_^

Hector ’87 and Starship Hector

May 14, 2013 by stopxwhispering

From May 10th until May 17th HiscoreHeroes are hosting a competition on Instagram to celebrate Hudson’s 40th anniversary! This is the main reason why my interest and also frustration has grown for this game called Hector ’87, also known as Starship Hector in the US.

The goal is to get the best score in the 2 minute score attack mode in either the Japanese version of Hector ´87 or the NTSC NES version Starship Hector. I had the Famicom version since before, never paid much attention to this game until I saw this competition, but I decided to give it a go!

Another very important rule to the competition is that you are not allowed to use any type of turbo fire, you must button mash! So, the right button fires bombs to hit ground targets and the left button fires shots to hit flying targets. After several evenings of button mashing until my entire arm was sore I managed to reach a score of 296.000. But other people have over 350.000!! I know how I could get at least 30.000 more, but the problem is THIS BASTARD:

I’ve tried playing the game with turbo fire just to see if he’s even mortal, and yes he is, but he takes soooo many shots! I haven’t even been able to kill him a single time without turbo fire!! The second problem is the letters.. There are hidden letters under little mud piles that you can collect by bombing with a LOT of bombs, and the last letter will give you 100.000 points! Here’s where you will find them, what the piles looks like and what it looks like when the letters are revealed:

However, the last letter is located right next to the mid-boss-bastard, so without turbo fire, even if I would be able to kill the bastard, I would have no time to collect the last letter! >_< THIS GAME IS STUPID! IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY! I don’t understand how it would be possible to do both, unless you can button-mash in an incredibly stabile and super-fast-turbo-auto-fire speed! Can you???
I sure as hell can’t… :(

After seeing photos on instagram of all the people reaching scores way above 300k I realized they were all playing the NES NTSC version, Starship Hector. This made me wonder if there were any differences between these two games. Maybe I was playing the more difficult one?? :D So, when going to the Swedish retro gaming exhibition this saturday I only had one big objective, which was to find an NTSC version of Starship Hector. AND I DID! :D

That evening me and my friend NinjaBrite played Starship Hector with big hopes of reaching even higher scores . but.. it was just the same. Just as hard, same enemies, same fire rate, same speed, same ship, same damn score, same everything! >_< I give up…

If you have a copy of Hector ’87 or Starship Hector and you want to compete, then you can read more about the competition on HiscoreHeroes instagram :) I hope there will be more competitions soon, this was great fun, even though it has been incredibly frustrating o_O

Some other advice for people trying to reach the high score (cause I’ve given up..)
Don’t kill the bunkers immediately, they will keep spawning flying spike-bombs that explode, however if you manage to shoot and kill one it gives 2.000 points!
There are hidden triggers in the ground that will make everything on screen on the ground explode if you reveal and destroy the triggers with 2 bombs. (You will still get the same score as if you would have shot the enemies) I have found 4 of them and they are in these locations:

And here’s the points you get for various enemies:

1st letter 10.000 2nd letter 20.000 3rd letter 50.000 4th letter 100.000	Mid-boss 20.000	This guy 10.000
Mr. Guy’s tiny friend 5.000	Big Amoeba 5.000	Spike-bombs 2.000
Squiddy 2.000	Angry crab-head 2.000	Boss Cannon 2.000
Bunkers 1.000	Tiny Amoeba 1.000	Ship thingy 500
Round ship 500	Cannons 500	Boss 500 points (x4 for each bomb-thingy)
Health bars (if you have full health) 500	Boss shots 0 points :(

At least this is what I could figure out when watching my replays. Feel free to correct me or fill in if I missed something ^_^

Retrospelsmässan 2013 – Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition

May 12, 2013 by stopxwhispering

Yesterday I went to Gothenburg with my friend NinjaBrite to attend Sweden’s yearly retro gaming exhibition ‘Retrospelsmässan‘. This is the 4th year in a row that they’re hosting this exhibition and I think it’s a GREAT initiative! I was there 2 years ago as well, last year I missed though since I was in Japan. It has grown immensely in these past years, and it will probably be even bigger next year. The amount of people who came was way more than they had anticipated, even though they had hired larger facilities people were still quieing for hours to get in! I myself had to que about 4 hours (arriving at 12, two hours after they opened). It was ok though, since Nintendo was hosting a Streetpass competition everybody had brought their 3DS and so did we, so we kept busy ^_^ And also met some awesome cosplayers, like Pixelninja dressed up as Megaman :)

This year on the exhibition they had all the old consoles displayed and connected to TVs so you could try everything out, everything from old Pong consoles and Odyssey 2001 to the Atari Jaguar and everything Nintendo and Sega of course. They also had a corner for speedruns where you could watch some of Sweden’s fastest gamers ;D They had a Doom LAN, Cosplay competitions, arcade and pinball corner, game competitions and stands with companies and people selling retro gaming stuff and of course games! :D

Of course I had to pick up some games ^_^ I was looking for one game in particular, which was Starship Hector, but I’ll write more about that in a later post, that’s a looong story ^^ But I found it at this exhibition! And I also found Ninja Kid, Power Blade, Castle of Dragon, The Krion Conquest and James Bond JR. All were NTSC NES and I didn’t previously have them! (I am proud of myself that I brought a PDF of my collection in my phone, because I always tend to buy doubles unintentionally when attending places like this)… ;D
So here’s a little photo shoot I had of my latest pickups ^_^

Samurai Spirits for Game Boy

April 16, 2013 by stopxwhispering

Recently I connected my new Super Game Boy 2 to my Super Famicom to see that it worked, and I ended up playing a fighting game! Very unlike me since I usually never enjoy fighting games, I find them pointless and I don’t like memorizing combos or just button mashing. However, Samurai Spirits was very cute, and since I beat a few guys in the beginning it kept me going ^_^

The box art is really pretty ^_^ I bought it just for that I think, I’ve had it a long time, but basically just started the game before to make sure it worked.

It’s in pretty good condition, but the manual is a bit bent. I scanned some of the pages though, with all the character info. I don’t know much about fighting games, but perhaps someone will find it interesting ^_^ I do know that there’s been more Samurai Fighting games, I have Samurai Showdown for the Xbox 360, and also a Samurai Shodown for the Sega Mega Drive. It’s the same looking guy on the cover so I guess they’re sequels ;D

If anyone wonders what their names are I can read it ^^ I played as Tachibana Ukyo.

and here’s some more screenshots from the game:

Once I had beaten about 5 opponents I got to meet the same character as myself, and he kicked my ass >_< That’s when I gave up…

Complete Donkey Kong Game & Watch!

March 26, 2013 by stopxwhispering

The history: As some of you might already know, I didn’t get any games as a kid, however, my thirteen year older brother did! I know because when I was really young I got his old Donkey Kong Game & Watch passed down to me, so in a way I did get games, but only one and it wasn’t originally intended for me. I loved this Game & Watch though. I played it all the time, all through the summers I was walking around with it, until it was one day lost. I don’t know what happened to it, if I forgot it at my aunts summerhouse, or if I just misplaced it or something, but ever since I’ve been missing it immensely! And I have always been keeping an eye out for it the last couple of years on eBay. I’ve bid on so many orange Donkey Kong Game & Watch systems that I lost count, but never won them >-< Until now!!

I finally got my hands on a complete in box Donkey Kong Game & Watch Multiscreen! It’s all orange and pretty and brings back so many memories ^_^

The box is a bit worn around the edges and has a price tag on it but apart from that everything is in pretty nice condition ^_^

This game is so much fun! I also have the Game & Watch with Donkey Kong II which is also awesome, but this one brings back so many memories ^_^

The manual is also in really nice condition, here’s some outtakes from it, explaining the gameplay ^_^

And the other little paper inlays inside ^_^

It’s a japanese edition, but I don’t really care, it’s the same game and the same amount of nostalgia and fun ^_^
What’s your most nostalgic game? Let me know in the comments below :D

Sega Sunday #2 – 8bit Altered Beast

March 25, 2013 by stopxwhispering

I love Altered Beast, I grew up playing it on the Sega Mega Drive. Once I started collecting video games I found out it was originally an arcade game and there were ports to several home consoles. Most people know about the Sega Mega Drive Altered Beast, but it was also released for the Sega Master System, the NEC PC Engine (both on HU-card and on CD-ROM) and finally I have also found a port of the Altered Beast (Jūōki) game for the Famicom! There’s probably more that I don’t know about..

This Famicom version surprised me though since Sega and Nintendo were such big competitors and Altered Beast were one of Sega’s pearls. But it actually says copyright Sega really tiny in the bottom of the cartridge.

Here’s all the Altered Beast games I have and know about:

Tonight I’ve been playing the 8-bit versions on Famicom and Sega Master System to compare the two. The Famicom version has been totally re-done by Asmik, and compared to all the other ports of Altered Beast this one really stands out. It’s faster, the character isn’t as stiff as he is in the other Altered Beast games and the sprites have gotten a cute and more rounded makeover, compared to the masculine muscular macho-style of the original ^^ You also have 3 continues which makes the game a bit easier. Here’s a comparison of screenshots from the Famicom version and the Sega Master System version:

What’s really interesting though is that in the Famicom version they’ve put in a whole new stage as a second stage, the regular stage that I’m used to where you transform into a dragon is the third stage of the Famicom version. In this stage you transform into a lion and the stage boss is a pig ^^ I think you will be able to transform into a shark in later stages as well (based on the box cover art)

On the Famicom version I managed to get to the stage where you transform into a bear, which in this version is stage 4. On the Master System version I didn’t even manage to get to the first boss before getting a game over >_< This version is if possible even stiffer than the Mega Drive one. I have beaten the Mega Drive Altered Beast a few years ago after I figured out you could change settings and increase your amount of health and lives, but this Master System version is really really hard and I haven’t found any way to get continues or an easier setting..

The game over text is much cuter in the Famicom version ^_^

I managed to record my efforts on Jūōki for the Famicom, but I was too lazy to bring out the DVD burner to record my failures in the Sega Master System version.. Anyway, here’s the video of my gameplay from Altered Beast on the Famicom, check it out since it’s got some pretty sweet 8-bit Altered Beast tunes! :D

Famicom pirate games #1 – The Last Ninja

February 22, 2013 by stopxwhispering

I’ve never been very interested in collecting pirated games for any of my retro consoles. I have always preferred original games, however lately I’ve accidentally come by a few pirated Famciom games. Like the Super Mario IV Armadillo hack, which is basically just the Armadillo game changed to have Mario as the main character, and Caveman Games, which is a NES release ported on a cart for the Famicom.

I know there’s a lot of people that prefer pursuing those rare pirated games, and lately I’ve begun to understand why that is. It’s quite charming, it’s a game just like all the other games I’m collecting, and somebody made it, made an effort to re-code an existing game to their liking, and it’s always intriguing since you never know what to expect form a pirate game. The pirated games are more rare as well, and usually unique, since they weren’t mass produced like many other original releases.

The Last Ninja was a game I saw on Ebay and it intrigued me since I wasn’t completely sure which game it was and also, my best friend NinjaBrite loves Ninjas! So I bought it hoping that she would enjoy trying it ^_^

So I cleaned the game up a bit and tried it briefly to make sure it worked and it worked perfectly on the first try ^_^ I looked it up as well and found out that The Last Ninja was actually released for the NES by Jaleco however the game was also firstly released on the Commodore 64 but it was called The Last Ninja 2.
I compared some screenshots from this version and the version on C64. It is lacking a lot of the details from the C64 version. Here’s the comparison of sceneries: (click to enlarge)

If only the C64 didn’t have such darn long loading sequences then I would probably be playing that more often than the 8bit systems! >_<

More Famicom games ^_^

February 9, 2013 by stopxwhispering

I’ve been continuing to add all my newly acquired Famicom games to the Famicom Library, here’s some of the new additions! Click an image to find it in the Library ^_^

Famicom catalogue update!

January 30, 2013 by stopxwhispering

My Famicom collection page was getting so massive that I had problems loading it even when I was just trying to edit! Therefore I have now re-designed the page and split it into sorting games from A-Z! (and yes, I actually have Famicom games in every single letter, except for X…)

This should hopefully make it easier to browse through the games for the visitor as well ^_^ Both in the top and bottom will be an alphabet of links to each page, like this:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

I have also added a few new games to it. So far there’s 481 games in the list, I do however have a bit above 100 more to put in there under various letters. I’ll get to that soon ^_^

Every game is also labeled with their code on the cartridge, so if you are searching for a certain game that you have but need the name of you can search it in my search box and the correct page will pop up! :D

Oh, and I’ve also added three stars to a few of my personal favorites ^_^ So if you see stars it might actually be a f*cking awesome game!! :D ★★★

So what are you waiting for?? Go check out my new FAMICOM LIBRARY! :D

Winter-een-mas 2013!!

January 28, 2013 by stopxwhispering

Once again it’s winter-een-mas, the gaming holiday so many have started to celebrate thanks to Ctrl+Alt+Del ^_^ In celebration of winter-een-mas me and my friend set out to finish as many games as possible, both new gen and retro, in one weekend! We ended up finishing 11 games :D I finished 6 games, NinjaBrite finished 4 games and my bf chipped in and beat the campaign of Battlefield 3.

I had set up the whole living room into a comfortable gaming zone, 3 screens with xboxes and a famicom connected ^_^

I started on Friday night to play an Xbox 360 game called Brave a Warrior’s Tale. This game took the entire evening and a bit of the morning after, but eventually I beat it. The most frustrating part was that half way through the final boss they cut you off and put you in a village with the elder indian who was “telling the story” and then you had to go do a bunch of bullshit chores for him before he would finish the story! What an anti-klimax! >_<

Second game I started playing through was Bee Movie Game for Xbox 360. It was actually a pretty good movie themed game, they had put som effort into both re-enacting the movie but also creating various gameplay factors that was both fun and well made. This game took until past midnight on Saturday to finish though. A whole day! But 100G was almost worth it ;D

The third game I choose to finish was Gunman Clive for the 3DS. This game was a lot of fun. I love the unique graphics and the gameplay is simple yet challenging ^_^

After this I connected the Famicom and tried completing some retro games. the first one was this really cool “whack-a-mole” type game called Pokkun Mogura. I recently bought it complete with box and the accessory Tap-Tap-Mat with a mallet. I previously only had the loose cartridge and didn’t know how to play it.. I thought it was a light gun game, and I didn’t have a light gun for the Famicom either ;D But now I was able to beat it! :D

It had various stages using various layouts of the Tap-Tap-Mat. And the Tap-Tap Mat was surprisingly responsive! :D It was fun to whack-a-way ^_^

The fifth game I finished was Happy Birthday Bugs, also for the Famicom. I’ve started the game many times but never played very far. This time it blew my mind, so many various stages, a lot of great music and challenging precision jumps ^_^ It was a great game, and surprisingly long! However, after each stage you got to play bonus games with all the carrots you had collected and it was quite easy getting extra lives with a bit of luck ^_^ At the end I had almost 80 lives! There were also loads of boss fights with various Tiny Toon characters.

The final game I finished was Hoshi no Kirby for Famicom. I had actually never played this game before, and now I am in love with Kirby ^_^ Great game! Great fun :D The final boss consisted of 3 consecutive bosses, it says everywhere that it’s a simple game adapted for a younger audience, but I thought it was actually quite challenging! Then again you have unlimited of continues so that makes it easier ^^ (I had to use a few…)

My friend NinjaBrite finished these games on Xbox 360: Feeding Frenzy, Bastion, Portal and Battlefield Bad Company. You can read about it (in Swedish or use google translate) on her new blog about Xbox gaming ^_^

Christmas gift from Canada!

December 29, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but this holiday has been very busy.

Not only celebrating xmas and spending time with family, but also organizing and cleaning games. I bought quite a lot of games from Ebay recently, and I’m still not done scanning and trying them all out yet..
famicom-games

Also today I received an exciting package from Canada!! It was from Alana at retrogamergirl.com ^_^ It contained some 8 bit bead art that she has created:
8bit bead art Game Boy

And lots of games! :D First an ultraman game for the Super Famicom:
Ultraman game SFC

And a Kirby Fun Pak game for the SNES:
Kirby fun pak SNES

And also 8 famicom cartridges :D
SONY DSC

Apart from my Nintendo 3DS this was the best christmas gift this year :D Thank you Alana!! :D
And not to forget my cute mushroom lamps that I got from my bff ^_^ They fit in perfectly in my Retro Room!
mushrooms
THEY GLOW!!! :D
mushrooms lit
AND CHANGE COLORS!! :D :D
Mushroom lamps lit 2

I’ll be back soon with more posts on all the new games I’ve gotten and also a Game & Watch :D

Updates in the Famicom Collection

December 9, 2012 by stopxwhispering

It’s been a busy week.. first I got this huuuge package of games from Japan:

Sorting, cleaning, organizing and trying them all out has been taking some time. BTW, I really love the japanese store stickers, they are always so easy to just peel off without any effort! :D And from this Ebay seller the stickers even had a corner folded in so it was really easy to grip and rip ^^

Apart from that I have been updating my Famicom Collection, now I am finished with “S” which was the largest letter! 64 games just starting with the letter “S”! I also added a few other new additions like Lot Lot, Mississippi Satsujin Jiken, Madara, Maniac Mansion, Meikyuu Jima (Kickle Cubicle), Ninja Jajamara Kun, Obake no Q Tarou, Paaman, Perfect Bowling, Puzslot, Quinty etc.. You can check them all out in my Famicom Collection >>

Some games I would like to highlight:

Paaman
A really fun platformer, where each boss battle is like a boardgame race to the finish line, even though it’s in japanese it’s quite easy to follow ^_^

Puzslot
A fun puzzle game, kind of like Columns where you have to match colors and shapes falling down in pairs, except here you first have to stop the slot-machine-like pieces so it’s quite random what you will get and if you don’t stop them fast enough you won’t have time to place them correctly.

Salamander (Life Force)
I love this shooter!! Great music, great gameplay ^_^

Kyattou Ninden Teyandee (Samurai Pizza Cats)
Another game I added today. A really fun platformer where you can change between different cat characters that have various abilities :)

Seikima II: Akuma no Gyakushu
An entertaining platformer based on a heavy metal band. It’s really hard though.

Seirei Densetsu Lickle (Little Samson)
A great platformer that I think most people know about already. It looks really great, and sounds really great and it’s fun to play ^_^

Shufflepuck Café
A really interesting air hockey type game. I’ve made a review of it here >>

Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti
A really cute but still brutal platformer! I’ve made a review of it here >>

Star Wars
Gotta love Star Wars ^^ This one is a platformer. It’s really hard!! AVGN mentions it in his Star Wars episode >>

Street Fighter 2010
A really challenging and well made platformer. AVGN has a great review of this one as well, check it out here >>

Super Mario USA
And of course I have added all of my Super Mario games for the Famicom as well. Super Mario USA is the Japanese release of the PAL/NTSC Super Mario Bros 2 :)

Contra Spirits and Super Aleste for Super Famicom!

November 28, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Yesterday I got a package with two Super Famicom (Japanese SNES) games that I bought recently ^_^ Complete in box Contra Spirits and Super Aleste! I tried them both out and damn they were fun games!! :D Totally worth the money ^^ I paid approximately 59$ for Contra Spirits and 44$ for Super Aleste.

Contra Spirits is much like the previous Contra games. I really enjoyed it ^_^ Lots of enemies and power-ups and best of all, 2-player co-op mode! :D

How manly isn’t this?! :D

You even get to drive a tank!

It’s really hard though, even when playing 2-player. I only made it to the third stage, but man! That second stage was hard!!!

The second stage is top view and it took a while to get used to the controls. You turn your character with the L & R buttons on the SNES controller. Pressing both simultaneously will make him spin and shoot in all directions for a second or two.

I died many times on this stage, but eventually I managed to kill the second boss!

He just spins around like crazy and you have to back up constantly to avoid him hitting you. He even jump-attacks you, covering the whole screen.

On the third stage I gave up after killing this mid-boss thingy.. when he died rockets came out of nowhere and killed me >_< I will give it another go when my friend NinjaBrite is here, we are kickass when playing Contra together ^_^

Super Aleste is a really cool shmup (shoot ‘em up). It’s really fast, filled with power-ups, barriers and enemies to shoot ^_^ However, we didn’t manage to get past the first boss yet >_< super haaard!

This part of the intro cracks me up (＾∇＾)

Nope, you can not fly through that thing.. shoot it!

Great games, if you ever come across them, pick them up :D

New Famicom additions: Airwolf, Dragon Spirit, Flipull, Holy Diver etc

November 17, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’m working on updating my Famicom Library with all my recent purchases.. it is time consuming >_< So far I’ve made it up to “K”. Among these new games are:
Airwolf
Anpanman Minna de Hiking Game!
Arabian Dream Scheherezade
Boulder Dash
Dark Lord
Dragon Spirit
Family Jockey
Family Tennis
Famista ’91
Final Fantasy 1 2
Flipull An Exciting Cube Game
Ganbare Goemon Gaiden Kieta Ougon Kiseru
Ghostbusters
Godzilla
Gun Sight
Hirake Ponkikki
Holy Diver
Hydlide Special
Jinsei Gekijou 3
Joust
Kero Kero Keroppi no Daibouken
Kiteretsu Daihyakka
Klax
Kyuukyoku Harakiri Stadium

Games I’d like to mention:

Airwolf
A fun shooter ^_^

Arabian Dream Scheherezade
I like the artwork, it’s an adventure game, wasn’t quite as fun as I had hoped though..

Boulder Dash
A classic puzzle platforming game, I love this game ^_^

Dragon Spirit
This is a really great shooter from Namco, where you play as a Dragon! :D

Flipull: An Exciting Cube Game
Is just what it says, an exciting cube game ;D Well, it’s a decent puzzle at least ^_^

Ganbare Goemon Gaiden Kieta Ougon Kiseru
Now I think I have all the Goemon games for the Famicom, but I’m not sure..

Gun Sight
A shooter to fill out my Konami collection ^_^ It’s in really nice condition!

Holy Diver
A really great platforming game! Lots of fun :D

And last but not least I’m gonna mention a timeless classic:

Joust
This game never gets old! It’s just so much fun to run around on an ostrich and flap about :D

Check out all the other newly added games in my Famicom Collection >>

I have simultaneously been working on a PC Engine collection library, I have so far scanned all the games I have and I’m working on a page for it as well :) coming soon!!

NES controller + camera + photoshop!

November 6, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I have another photo shoot that I am working on, it’s all my various Game Boys playing outdoors! :D Coming soon, meanwhile here’s a NES controller I also took a pic of and played around a bit with ^_^

Original picture and photoshop cutout:

Finished results:

Retro Room – My Collection

November 4, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’ve been quite busy this last week, I’ve moved my previously tiny little retro gaming corner into a bigger room in our house! :D This was much needed since my games didn’t fit in there anymore O_o

My previous Retro Room (that’s what I call it due to the vintage interior design and all the retro video games) was quite narrow and I have been working for years adding furniture to the puzzle in an attempt of trying to make all my games fit in there. Here’s some pictures of how narrow my previous Retro Room was:

Eventually it was filled with so many games that I had no more room of storing them, they were lying all over the place and it looked messy :(

So my boyfriend and I decided to change rooms, he got my old one and I got our big work-room for myself! :D
It was a lot more work than I had anticipated, putting up new wallpapers, moving all the things out of both rooms and then moving stuff back in and arranging the furniture in a good way.. it was quite messy during the process:

But I tried keeping things organized since most of my games were already in alphabetical order..

So after a whole weekend of decorating and stuff my new Retro Game Room is finally finished! Here’s the results:

Underneath the big TV int he middle I have 11 consoles all connected to it ^_^ (NTSCN NES, SNES, Twin Famicom, SMD, DC, PS2, Saturn, N64, SFC, SMS and GC) on the right TV I only have an NES and on the left TV Japanese SMD, SMS, PC Engine and Atari 2600.

My 8-bit perler beads came in handy when decorating some dull spaces ^_^

My NES Zapper corner, along with some SFC, FC, SNES and N64 games ^_^

The painting here is made by a friend of mine and I love it so much! It’s some of my favorite game characters of all time ^_^ Samus Aran, Sephiroth, Master Chief and Lulu from FFX :D

My Castlevania collection now takes up TWO shelves! and is the centerpiece of my collection ^_^

I have 4 large bookshelves next to each other on this wall, and on the last one I ran out of shelves because I used them all in the others. I am in the process of getting more shelves though, so soon I’ll be able to stack this last bookshelf full as well, I have one more box of games outside the room waiting to be unpacked ^^

My little space invaders shelf ^^ I used to have only Famicom games in it, but now I put my C64 games on the top compartments and my Famicom Konami games on the bottom (the bottom ones doesn’t have endlabels :( and also there’s a Wonderswan!)

I also really love my new Nintendo neon sign! It really lights up the room ^_^ I have two more neon signs on the way, I’ll blog about them when they arrive :D

In this corner I have my desk, hardly visible here though. I also have all my boxed GB, GBC and GBA there and some Famicom games ^^

Finally my Commodore 64 got it’s own place and didn’t have to stay on the floor anymore! :D

I also have a few consoles which I have doubles of, and these I keep on the desk in case I want to record gameplay :) Like my Famicom with Disk System :D

I am incredibly satisfied! And I want to give out a special thanks to my wonderful friend Becky who helped me move and organize everything this weekend! :D

Additions to my Castlevania Collection – Legacy of Darkness

October 18, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Soon after having finished my post about my Castlevania Collection I realized I was missing quite a few games that I just haven’t gotten around to buying yet.. this bugged me so I went online and bought them ^_^ So far these ones have arrived:

It’s Castlevania Judgement for the Wii, Order of Ecclesia and Portrait of Ruin for the DS and Legacy of Darkness for N64. I’ve scanned them and added them to my Collection.

I also realized something when I tried out Legacy of Darkness.. it’s the same game as Legend of Cornell in Japan o_O So I basically already had the game..

But they looked so different, the artwork, the name and everything. I would never have thought it was the same game. But when I started Legacy of Darkness and found that the main character was called “Cornell” then I got it.. when comparing the backs they actually have exactly the same screenshots:

Well, for a complete collection I guess I will have to find all the different releases eventually anyway ;D

More Castlevania games are arriving soon! Will be updating then :)

Reflections on my Famicom Library, anyone? :)

October 17, 2012 by stopxwhispering

My Famicom Library is meant to be of help for people who are also collecting for the Famicom. Like finding the name of a certain cartridge or looking up what kind of genre a certain game is. But I would love some feedback, is there any information lacking that could be of interest? Should I rate the games if they’re good or bad or decent? Should I add the cartridge colour to the description so that you could ctrl+F search for i.e “Turquoise” to skip through all the turqoise coloured cartridges? Any ideas or comments are welcome ^_^

Anyway, here’s some newly added games to my collection:

Ganbare Goemon 2
An interesting asian style platformer by Konami

Hana no Sutā Kaidou
A really interesting platformer where you control two characters on the screen simultaneously. It creates an interesting challenge ^_^

Jajamaru Ninpou Chou
I thought this game would be just like Jajamaru no Daibouken but it’s not :( This one is an RPG >_<

Mad City
Mad City IS The Adventures of Bayou Billy (by Konami)

Metal Gear
I don’t think this game needs an introduction ;D

Nishimura Kyoutarou Mystery Super Express Satsujin Jiken
I call anything with too much text an RPG. Even though this actually is some kind of murder-mystery-crime-solving-bullshit.

O, P, Q & R! Famicom Collection ^_^

October 15, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Updated my Famicom Library up to R tonight! Among some of the updates were of course the Rockman games I have, Rolling Thunder, Puzznic, Red Ariman (which is Gargoyles Quest for NES), Penguin-kun Wars, Pac-Land, and a bunch of great Konami games, like Rampart, Road Fighter and Quarth!!

And much much more, so go check it out! :D

My Castlevania Collection!

October 10, 2012 by stopxwhispering

So what’s on this shelf.. well I have scanned all of my Castlevania games, so let’s start with the 8-bits and move forwards ^_^
edit: now my collection is taking up two shelves ^_^

Castlevania
The first Castlevania adventure for the NES. I have finally found a nice complete edition ^_^

Castlevania II Simon’s Quest
The second Castlevania adventure for the NES. Still looking for a complete one…

Castlevania II Simon’s Quest Tiger handheld
Here’s a handheld version of the Simon’s Quest Castlevania game. It’s really nothing like Simon’s Quest for the NES, it’s a very basic sidescrolling beat ‘em up, but still a nice edition to the collection ^_^

Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse for the NES
This one is a PAL edition and it’s complete in box quite nice condition.

Castlevania Blood Moon
This is not an actual release, it’s an NES reproduction cart with a fan-made hack of the Castlevania game.

Castlevania Chorus of Mysteries
This one is also an NES reproduction cart with a fan made hack.

Akumajou no Densetsu 悪魔城伝説 (Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse)
The third Castlevania game, released for the Famicom.

Akumajou Special Boku Dracula-kun 悪魔城すぺしゃるぼくドラキュラくん
A cute platforming spinnoff of the Castlevania series. Released for the Famicom by Konami.

Akumajou no Dracula 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Castlevania I)
The first Castlevania adventure for the Famicom Disk System. I have this one complete with the outer plastic box and manual, but scanning the complete package with that box looks terrible >_< So I just scanned the inner case with the game and inlay.

Dracula 2 The Accursed Seal (Noroi no Fuuin) ドラキュラII呪いの封印 (Castlevania II Simon’s Quest)
The second Castlevania game on Famicom Disk System. Same here I have it complete in box with manual, but scanned the inner case with game and inlay.

Dracula Densetsu トラキュラ伝説 (Castlevania Adventures)
The first Castlevania game for the Game Boy. I wrote a bit about this game here. One thing that baffles me about this game is that hearts = health, where is the wall chicken?! I have this game in PAL edition as well, however only the loose cartridge.

Dracula Densetsu II トラキュラ伝説II (The Castlevania Adventure II Belmont’s revenge)
The second Castlevania game for the Game Boy. Great adventure, great music. Shouldn’t be missed out on, all the Castlevania Game Boy games are completely new adventures, not just ports of the NES/Famicom adventures. I have this in PAL as well, but just the cartridge.

Akumajou Dracula Shikkokutaru Zensoukyoku 悪魔城ドラキュラダークナイトプレリュード (Castlevania Legends)
Probably my favourite Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy. I made a video of where I finished it here. Really hard final boss! But thanks to the password system I managed to go back and finally beat him ^_^ Great music in this one! Like most Castlevania games ;D You should really check out my video just to listen to the first stage song, a great remix of the Daylight music from Simon’s Quest! Also the Final Boss brings back the Vampire Killer theme song but in a new version, it’s kickass!! What are you waiting for? Go put on that video in the background to listen to those awesome tunes! ^_^

Castlevania Legends
I also have the PAL edition for Game Boy.

Akumajou no Dracula 悪魔城ドラキュラ (Castlevania)
The Famicom Mini Edition. Castlevania re-released for the Game Boy Advance in Japan.

Castlevania NES CLASSICS
The NES Classics edition for the Game Boy Advance.

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
My favourite Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy Advance. You can collect the enemies’ souls and gain their powers! :D AWESOME!

Castlevania Circle of the Moon
Also for the Game Boy Advance, also a great adventure with some memorable tunes ^_^

Castlevania Circle of the Moon Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ白夜の協奏曲オリジナルサウンドトラック
The original soundtrack for Circle of the Moon to Game Boy Advance. This one is amazing! Here are some of my favorite Castlevania songs! :D

Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance
The third Castlevania adventure for the Game Boy Advance. There was a Game Boy Advance release that contained both Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance but I haven’t been able to find it yet in decent condition.

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow
For Nintendo DS. I have the game for Order of Ecclesia as well but without box and manual and I’m still keeping an eye out for Portrait of Ruin..

Castlevania Portrait of Ruin
Another Castlevania game for the DS, I just got this (that’s why it’s scanned with plastic around) so I haven’t been able to try it out yet.

Castlevania Order of Ecclesia
This one is also brand new, another Castlevania game for the DS. This one however I had the game cartridge for previously so I have played it and got pretty far, and it was great! But then I got stuck >_<

Akumajō Dracula X: Chi no Rondo 悪魔城ドラキュラX 血の輪廻 (Castlevania Rondo of Blood)
Finally got my hands on the rare Castlevania game, Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine! :D It’s in super nice condition, but unfortunately I am unable to play the game since I don’t have a PC Engine duo or the CD-ROM2 >_< but I’m getting one soon!!

Akumajou Dracula 悪魔城ドラクラ (Super Castlevania IV)
The first Castlevania game for the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom. This is the Japanese release. I have Super Castlevania IV for PAL as well, however only the cartridge :(

Akumajou Dracula XX 悪魔城ドラクラXX (Castlevania Vampire’s Kiss)
One of the rare Castlevania titles. This is a japanese release, complete and in great condition. The PAL version is really hard to find.. but I’m looking ^^

Castlevania The New Generation
The only Castlevania game I know of that was released on Sega. This one is PAL for the Sega Mega Drive, complete and in awesome condition ^^

Castlevania
The first Castlevania game for the Nintendo 64. Definitely not a favourite.. Castlevania games really should stay in the 2D platforming genre…

Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku 悪魔城ドラクラ黙示録 (Castlevania)
I have the N64 Castlevania game in it’s Japanese release as well..

Castlevania Legacy of Darkness
When I finally bought Legacy of Darkness for the N64 I realized it was the same game as Legend of Cornell in Japan.. But now at least I can play it :D

Akumajou Dracula Mokushiroku Legend of Cornell 悪魔城ドラクラ黙示録レゲンドオブコーネール (Castlevania Legacy of Darkness)
This one is also for the Nintendo 64, but I don’t know much about it. I don’t have a Japanese N64 so I haven’t been able to try it out yet. But I can’t say I’m in a rush to do so, since the N64 is my least favourite console of all time.. edit: now I’ve found out that Legacy of Darkness and Legend of Cornell is the same game! It wasn’t much better than the previous N64 Castlevania game, same awkward 3D adventure >_<

Castlevania Chronicles
A PAL edition of the Castlevania Chronicles for the Playstation 1 (PS1)

Castlevania Symphony of the Night
A mint complete edition of a PAL SOTN. Here’s where the Metroidvania style of Castlevania games began. I like it alot ^_^ I especially love that they went back to 2D platforming instead of messing around with awkward 3D..

Castlevania Symphony of the Night Tiger handheld
Much like the Simon’s Quest Tiger handheld, this is also just a side-scrolling beat ‘em up game, though a bit more advanced with more options.

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles
Mint PAL edition for the PSP. This one I was particularly happy about when I got since I would be able to play the rare Rondo of Blood adventure that had been released long ago on the PC Engine, but NOW that I HAVE a PC Engine I am looking for the actual Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine. Soooooon it will most definitely be a part of my Castlevania collection :D edit: I now possess the PC Engine version too ^_^

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles Soundtrack 悪魔城ドラキュラ Xクロニクルオリジナルサウンドトラック
I also have the original soundtrack from Japan for the PSP game: Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles. This is a 2-disc collection, quite nice ^_^ It bugs me that they put the cover image in the wrong direction..

Castlevania Lament of Innocence
First Castlevania adventure for the Playstation 2. Here they went back to 3D, however I must say it looks better than on the N64 ;D

Castlevania Curse of Darkness
Another Castlevania game for the PS2. Stupid sticker ruining the front… >_<

Castlevania Judgement
This is the only Castlevania game I know of for the Wii and I just recently got it. I don’t really play the Wii that much, but now I have to try this game out ^_^

Castlevania Lords of Shadow
And finally a Castlevania game for the Xbox 360. It’s supposed to be good, but I haven’t actually had the time to try it yet o_O

Additions to the Famicom Collection

October 10, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’m trying to keep up the updating process of my Famicom Library, I’ve still only made it up to the letter “N” but it’s also a process of adding the recent purchases that are on previous letters. Today I’ve added:

1943
A classic shooter by Capcom

Arctic
A very different puzzle game, a bit too smart for my taste O_o

Balloon Fight
A classic Nintendo platformer ^_^

Bats & Terry
An okey side-scrolling platformer.

Contra
An absolute must have from Konami! Great action platformer ^_^

Crazy Climber
An arcade type platformer where you have to climb.. It was a bit dodgy though, not sure my copy is working properly, or perhaps I’m just not understanding the controls.. he just… won’t…. MOVE!!!! >_<

Konami games for Famicom & Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa!

October 9, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’ve been going on a retro-gaming-shopping-spree trying to find all the Konami games for the Famicom. It is my favorite game company ^_^ So far I have 34 Konami games for the Famicom and 21 on the Famicom Disk System :D

I love how the Konami cartridges almost always have end labels! It makes it so much easier finding the game you’re looking for. Why doesn’t all the games have that?!

I recently received this batch of Famicom Disk System games, that were all Konami as well :D

I’m really happy I finally bought Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, since I’ve been eyeing it for quite some time now on Ebay!

Complete and in great condition! Almost like new :D

It’s a really cute platformer, I will record some gameplay footage soon ^^ Meanwhile here’s some images from the manual!

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti for Famicom

September 29, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’ve been looking for this game since I found out about it’s existence, and it’s always been really expensive.. but finally I found it for a decent price on Ebay :D I paid 48 USD and it’s in excellent condition!

It even had all the little notes inside the box

And the manual is so colourful and filled with cute animations ^_^

I wrote a review about the gameplay on Findyourinnergeek, you can check that our here >>

Pirated Famicom carts – Super Mario IV 4 Armadillo & Caveman Games

September 25, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’ve never been into Pirated games, but the other day I found these quite cheap and I was in a Famicom-cartridge-shop-a-holic state of mind and they just happened to slip into my possession thanks to my itchy auction-bidding-index-finger ^^

The name of the first game intrigued me, so I googled it. Super Mario IV (4) Armadillo is actually the Armadillo (アルマジロ) game for Famicom that has just been hacked to contain Super Mario as the main character instead. It’s basically the same game, I suggest getting Armadillo instead, the cartridge is prettier ^_^

The original Armadillo cartridge looks like this:

And this is what the pirated fusion of Armadillo with Super Mario Bros 3 looks like compared to the original (the original is on the left):

Mario cannot kill enemies by jumping on them, he has to transform into a ball like in the Armadillo game.

When you turn into a ball to kill enemies it’s basically exactly the same game.

They haven’t even bothered to change the life icon from Armadillo’s head to Mario’s..

Caveman games was released for NES with the same name. It’s a fun sports mini games type of game set in the stone age with cavemen. You can choose different characters and different game types.

They have some really funny competitions like Mate Tossing:

Or Clubbing:

Dino Race:

And various other sports:

Caveman Games is a fun game IF you have a friend to play and laugh with.

New Famicom addictions! Crisis Force, Kage, Hitler no Fukkatsu etc..

September 22, 2012 by stopxwhispering

This weeks I’ve gotten many packages, but this one got me most excited! :D

The games I got were Kage, Zelda, Battle of Olympus, Doki Doki Yuuenchi, Crisis Force, Street Fighter 2010, 1999 Hore Mitakotoka! Seikimatsu, Great Tank, Hitler no Fukkatsu, Hokuto no Ken 2, Hoshi no Kirby, Abadox and Eggerland (which didn’t fit in the picture).

They were all in such great condition! The ones that I am most happy about are these:

Crisis Force from Konami! A great shooter, and the cartridge looks like new!

Hiter no Fukkatsu! Because Adolf is on the cover! lol

Kage! Because it’s a great Ninja platforming game ^_^

Hoshi no Kirby Yume no Izumi no Monogatari! Because believe it or not I didn’t have this one before! ^_^

Street Fighter 2010 by Capcom, because it’s not really a street fighter game, it’s a really cool futuristic platformer! ^_^

and Zelda no Densetsu, because I might have to give it another try.. even though I don’t like Zelda games.. I’m falling for the group pressure >_<

I will update with more of my additions soon, I also have a lot of new Sega games ^_^

Dead Fox for Famicom

September 8, 2012 by stopxwhispering

The awesome music of Rockman / Mega Man 3!

September 3, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I recorded my favorite songs from Rockman 3! The intro, stage select and Snake Man stage music ^_^ Enjoy!

My Mega Men..

August 28, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Today all my 110.000 beads arrived! :D

So this is what I’ve been up to tonight. I’m particularly pleased with my Megaman or Rockman as I prefer calling him, since I put him next to all my Rockman games for the Famicom ^_^ I even made two! One with a bit more shading..

I have Rockman 3 through 6 for the Famicom and they’re all in pretty nice condition! :D I’m still looking for 1 and 2, but I will find them eventually ^_^

I love the Megaman / Rockman games (probably not as much as Alana though) ;D But they are a lot of fun! I always love jump-and-shoot-games! (<< seriously check that link, it’s awesome funny!) If anyone wishes to see some gameplay from any of the ones that I happen to have just let me know, but I assume that everybody knows about most of the Megaman games already ;D

Tomorrow I’ll try to catch up with blogging about all my recent additions for both Sega Master System, PC Engine, Famicom, Super Famicom and Game Boy games! ^___^

Scanning and sorting.. Hajya no Fuuin

August 10, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Collecting japanese games is always a bit tricky, especially if you don’t know any japanese. Fortunately I studied it for 4 years and lived in Tokyo for a little while, hence I can read all the Hiragana and Katakana which are phonetic alphabets. The Kanji’s however are difficult, I only know a few basic ones. Most Famicom games which contain Kanji’s in the name have tiny Hiragana above the Kanjis so you will be able to pronounce it even if you don’t know that particular Kanji.

Like for example on this Altered Beast game:

I don’t know those Kanji’s but above it I can read that it says “Jyu u o u ki”, hence I can sort them game in my excel spreadsheet alphabetically, written in both roman letters and Kanji. The joy! (I’m kind of a freak when it comes to keeping things in order..)

However, one game has really pissed me off for a couple of weeks now.. namely this one:

It says Fantasy Role Playing, and then the name of the game is in Kanji, without the help of Hiragana or Katana. I was googling and searching through lists of alla ASCII Corp games and alla Kogado Studio games but couldn’t find anything!! Eventually I remembered my japanese digital dictionary that I bought to help my studies!

This thing sure is a blessing! At the bottom you can actually write a Kanji on the touchpad and it will tell you how it’s pronounced and what it means! :D So I tried to write out these Kanjis:

And after some trial and error I finally got a bit of the name and was able to google it to get the whole thing.

A few hours later I remembered something Alana had told me about Googling pictures.. I went to try it out and WOW! I just dragged and dropped the image there and it gave me the name o_O

And I could just copy past the Kanjis into a Kanji converter online which would give me the pronunciation. Why didn’t I try this out earlier?!

It sure saved me a lot of hours today though, because I’ve been scanning and sorting for three days! All my Famicom cartridges now have a picture on my computer labeled with the correct name!

I am hoping to get up a page on my blog where I can help people out by finding names of japanese games by just looking up the image of the cartridge, with big pictures of each game cartridge and name in English / Roman letters / and in japanese plus adding publisher (such as Konami or Namco etc) and what type of game it is! I will also add an extra page with games I have doubles of, in case anybody would wish to trade ^_^

Apart from this three day scanning and sorting project I have acquired a Super Mario Bros. 3 Poster that came from the Swedish Nintendo Magazine back when the game was released. It’s so pretty! :D

And my boyfriend also found my old Nintendo CarryAll case, I haven’t seen it for years! And inside along with a manual and some other stuff I found this pretty poster of the Nintendo Game Plan with ROB! :D

So many games…

July 7, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Been quite busy lately.. haven’t really been able to play and review any games because I’ve had so many games arriving that all my time has been consumed with cleaning and testing them all! haha

Here’s a few of them:

Soon I’m done and I’ll be ready to start enjoying the games and writing about them as well ^_^

Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum for NES

June 17, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum is a game i picked up dirt cheap on Ebay, and I hadn’t heard about it before. When I was sitting and trying out the lot of around 30 something NES games I had ordered I got stuck playing Dash Galaxy since it was so much fun!

At first the gameplay strikes you as very stiff, but after a while you realize that it’s supposed to be like that and that the stiffness of the controls just adds to the challenge of the game.

The objective is to reach the tip of the Spaceship. You do this by entering different stages in different rooms. You can also find warps that will sometimes take you a few rooms ahead, but also send you back a bit. It’s trial and error, you basically need to find the correct route to take you to the last stage. This is what the different rooms can look like:

The tunnels lead to different stages and you can move around blocks to clear a path. There are also forcefields which kill you unless you have a key that opens them or a bomb to blow them up. In room 24 you will find the last stage which is the tunnel in the bottom left. Also if you stay in a room for too long your oxygen will run out and you will die. This is the same in each level, you have an oxygen meter which decreases even faster if you get hurt by enemies.

The stages have various design and backgrounds, and there’s several different types of enemies and obstacles. The music is very catchy, you can hear the songs and watch some of the gameplay in a video I put together here:

Here’s a what a few different stages look like:

The final stage looks like this:

This final stage is a bit tricky since the blue blocks are icy and slippery and whenever you make a long jump in between them you slide a bit without being able to stop, so you need to time the jump precisely.

I managed to beat them game today ^_^ While attempting to do a speed run. It took around 9 minutes I think.

Here’s a video of my speed run in case you need help trying to beat this game:

It’s a great game with great music, challenging but fun! I suggest everyone should pick it up, since it can be found really cheap on Ebay :D

Game & Watch and Game Boy Color!

June 14, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I went to Gothenburg this last weekend to visit some friends of mine, and I received a belated birthday gift from a dear friend of mine <3 Something I’ve been looking for for quite some time now actually! A Game & Watch! Donkey Kong II!

Except for some scratches on the top and a little orange sticker on the bottom it’s in quite good condition ^_^

It’s Multi Screen and super pretty! I used to have an old orange one, the first Donkey Kong for Game & Watch, it was my brothers, but it disappeared :(

Now I just need to go find some batteries so I can play it :D

And if this wasn’t enough I also got a Game Boy Color brand new in original box :D

This is actually the only Game Boy console I didn’t previously own (except for the 3DS, which I will get eventually). I thought about buying a Game Boy Color several times, but never did, cause I could always play those games on the GBA. So now I’m really happy to finally have one in my collection :D

It’s the Scandinavian release :D

Japanese Sega Mega Drive Games

June 6, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I bought some more Sega Mega Drive games, now for my japanese Mega Drive that I recently got ^_^ Mainly shmup’s but also some puzzle and platformers! All in super nice condition (except for Alex Kidd which had some torn corners)

The games were: Dangerous Seed, Puyo Puyo 2, Ex-ranza, Forgotten Worlds, Alex Kidd in Miracle world….

…And an accidental Super Famicom Game, Valken. I was so caught up in the auctions that I didn’t notice that this one wasn’t Sega! haha, but it doesn’t matter since I have a Super Famicom as well, so I can play it ^_^

Tonight I’ve been trying them all out, and I was recording gameplay for about 2 hours, but when I was finished the results looked like this:

All black and white >_< or just weird.. so back to square one, trying to figure out how to record a JAPANESE Sega Megadrive onto my iMac..

All the games were really good though! (didn’t try the Super Famicom Valken..)
Alex the Kidd is a classic, just like Puyo Puyo, it just can’t go wrong ^_^ The other games I had never heard of before when I saw them in the auction. A lot of people were bidding on them though, and they started getting a bit pricey, and that just made me want them more ! :D I’m happy that I really enjoyed all of them! Especially Ex-ranza! Amazing shmup! With great controls, fantastically fast movement, awesome music and just great gameplay ^_^ I wish I could have showed you some screenshots, but you will have to settle for an audio clip that I managed to extract of the intro song for Ex-ranza. It’s great!

I’m really into japanese Sega Mega Drive games now, I’ve already ordered 12 more from Ebay ^_^ Hopefully they’ll arrive soon, and hopefully by then I will have found a solution to yet another recording problem..

Aren’t the Puyo Puyo blobs simply adorable?!! yatta! :D

Pink Game Boy Pocket boxed!

June 1, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I just bought a Japanese Game Boy Pocket on a Swedish auction site. It was in such nice condition, and even though I don’t like pink very much, I just couldn’t let it go so cheap! So I stepped in and bought it. I ended up paying about 40 USD. At first I was thinking of giving it to a friend of mine who loves pink, though she doesn’t really collect retro games.. but when it came in the mail I just fell in love with it.. It is sooo cuuuuuuute!! So I’m keeping it, and I’m loving it ^_^

First game I tried out on it was of course Konami’s Castlevania! :D

I also got two free games with the delivery! I love perks ^_^ <3
Kirby and Super Mario Land! :D And believe it or not but I didn’t previously own these :D At least I don’t think so, I have a Kirby Game Boy game called Kirby’s Dream Land but I’m not sure if this Japanese Kirby game is the same one or a sequel or prequel.. Perhaps Alana who’s a Kirby fanatic or Fredrik who’s a Game Boy collector have the answer for me?

I also have two editions of Super Mario Land 2, but not the first one ^_^ So yay!

It’s not even my birthday yet, but it sure feels like it already :D

Parodius, Don Doko Don and more!!

May 31, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Today I got a package of Famicom games I had bought through a Swedish auction site. First of all four Famicom cartridges, Parodius Da!, Bokosuka Wars, Don Doko Don 2 and Insector X.

And also some Famicom Disk games; Gall Force, Gyruss, Arumana No Kiseki, Falsion and Kiki Kaikai: Dotou Hen with a guidebook:

I can’t wait to try them all out! :D But that will have to wait until tomorrow, since I spent this evening watching Iron Sky (a Finnish/German/American movie set in 2018 about Nazis who had been hiding on the dark side of the moon since 1945).. interesting..

I also got an early birthday present from my favorite japanese import game seller :D He had included a Hudson Turbo Controller for the Famicom ^__^ YAY! Perfect for all the shooters I have just bought :D

Hebereke (へべれけ) for Famicom

May 19, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I recently got a new batch of Famicom games I had ordered:

The games are Dig Dug, Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken, Tetris, Ninja Crusaders, Urban Champion, Karateka, Hebereke, Tetrastar, Wits, Bubble Boobble for Famicom Disk System and Jikai Shounen Met Mag Square complete with a guide book as well ^_^

I’ve played them all a little bit but what I would like to start reviewing is Hebereke. For those of you who didn’t know, Hebereke was released under the name Uforia: The Saga in the PAL region. I tried Ebaying it today but couldn’t find either Hebereke or Uforia, but they are usually quite expensive when you see them. I got mine for about 46 USD.

I hadn’t played Hebereke, or Uforia for that matter, before. It’s a platforming game where you play as Hebe, a cute little white penguin ^_^ He’s quite useless though, he has no attacks, he can’t swim, he can’t jump very high..

He’s cute though.

Even though he can’t swim..

The enemies are also really cute:

There are in total 4 playable characters, which you unlock through gameplay:

I only made it so far to get the second character, O-chan. You have to battle them to get them by your side:

She can swim through water at least! And walk on ice!! But she doesn’t have an attack either..

The whole game is a maze, where you will have to travel back and forth to find new places you couldn’t get to earlier. You will also bump into several dead ends that you can’t pass since you don’t have the correct character yet:

On your way you will find chests.

These are crucial, since you will find items helping you along your way, like for example health potions, increasing your health from 10 to 49.

You can switch between characters anytime in the select menu:

If you’ve found the chest containing the map you can also access it here:

And the first chest you’ll probably find will contain the item generating passwords for you, so you can restart where you left off. The passwords are long and confusing, however there are unlimited continues ^_^

I made it to some giant door, but it was locked and I needed to find a key I think:

I also made it to some mines where you could ride mine carts ^_^

I also found clowns! :D That shot bubbles at me :(

And a giant boss, which I couldn’t hurt.. I guess I have to find yet another playable character first.. maybe one that can shoot!! >_<

The funniest part of this game was the birds that dropped giant turds!!

I eventually got kind of stuck, having tried every possible direction and not being able to proceed.. I will have to give it another shot some other day..

Here’s a video I put together with some gameplay, check it out, it’s really cute! ^_^

Btw, I am now also writing a bit about Famicom games for FYIG (Find Your Inner Geek), you can read it here!

Retro console photo shoot part II

May 16, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Here’s the rest of the consoles and their accessories that got the opportunity to take a little walk with me and my camera ^_^

Retro console photo shoot!

May 14, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Today the weather was really nice, so I decided to take some of my consoles for a little stroll ^_^

I photographed a few more, but haven’t had time to resize them yet.. tomorrow perhaps ^^

Tokorosan no Mamorumo Semerumo for Famicom

May 13, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Here’s a Famicom game called Tokorosan no Mamorumo Semerumo (所さんのまもるもせめるも). Even trying to translate that in google translate makes no sense “I also place blame also protect the” and in a Kanji converter “Mr Tokoro’s *particle Mamoru *particle *verb *particle” what?!?

Anyway, it’s a platforming game starring a guy (I guess Mr. Tokoro) who has a water pistol squirting various enemies such as cats, jumping feet and whales (?!) through different areas of Tokyo city (such as Chiyoda and Shibuya).

There is no password save feature in this game.

The gameplay is kind of fast, and the controls have a nice feeling to them.

The graphics are ok. It looks nice when you’re standing still ;D

The enemy sprites are kind of vague and blurry though.

After passing some enemies you will get to a door that takes you to the boss. It looks like some kind of aqua-guy in old-fashioned diving equipment, but he flashes at you like a camera and no matter where you are in the room you WILL get hit! If you have squirted your gun too much during the stage you will have run out of water, it’s therefore better trying to jump over enemies in the stage instead of shooting them. Save as much life and water as possible for the bosses.

When you’ve taken out the boss you’ll get to a couple of doors, it’s either 3 or 4 to choose from and I guess they take you to different locations on the map. There seems to be various ways of reaching the end:

This is what stage two looks like:

You only have one life, so if you die you are game over. However, you have continues, but they are limited! I didn’t count them but I feel like there was about 4. Which basically means that you only have 4 lives to finish the game o_O

The second boss looks exactly the same, so once again, make sure not to loose too much health during the stage and save up your water!

After several tries I got through the third stage and went into the door at the end, and it didn’t take me to a boss, instead I fell down and was supposed to land on a platform, but I didn’t have time to realize that so I fell into the whole and got game over. That’s when I gave up. I could probably have gotten further in the game, it’s just trial and error and you have to remember what to watch out for in each stage, but I just got really annoyed with it after replaying the first three stages over and over..

The music in the game was ok, but after a while it got extremely frustrating and repetitive because the game was quite hard and I kept dying >_<

Watch this video I uploaded of the gameplay and music to see what i mean:

Gifts from Canada!

May 9, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Yesterday I also received another parcel, however this was not from Ebay or any other store, this was a beautifully wrapped red parcel filled with surprise! :D

I knew my friend Alana had sent me some NES games she had duplicates of, but there was also some cute Nintendo stuff! Like Mushroom and Mario straps, a keychain with Mario characters and a stuffed Koopa! :D The games were Tetris, Bubble Bobble, Kung Fu Heroes and Operation Wolf! So exciting! I didn’t have these for the NES before, I had some for the Famicom and one for Sega Master System, it’s going to be interesting to see if there’s a lot of difference ^_^

Thank you Alana (Retrogamergirl) for these wonderful gifts! Tomorrow a package is in the mailbox heading for Canada! :D

Here’s some happy ZX Spectrum music by X-Agon to share my joy ^_^

Second batch of games from Japan

May 8, 2012 by stopxwhispering

So here’s the second batch of games I bought in Japan, a bunch of Famicom Disk games and also some more Famicom games:

Some that I’m really happy with are Star Wars, Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru, Eggerland, Castlevania II, Alien Syndrom and Hatris (which was only 100Yen =about 1.25 USD, in mint condition!!)

This weekend I tried all the games I purchased in Japan out briefly (in total 64 games and one system), and all of them worked, except for one Famicom Disk game (Breeder) which I actually think I broke myself o_O Not really sure what happened there..

Also when I got home I had a package waiting for me, with 4 reproductions I had ordered earlier ^_^

The games are reproductions of Cocoron, Recca and two Castlevania games which are fan-made in 8-bit ^_^ Can’t wait to try them all out!

I’m sorry for the shortness of this post, but I’ve been really busy since I got home, I will try to make a longer post tomorrow ^^

Retro gaming store in Japan

April 29, 2012 by stopxwhispering

So today I took another trip to the Super Potato store in Akihabara. This time I spent hours just looking through all the retro gaming goodness they had to offer ^_^ And on the way to the store I took the opportunity to drop by a couple of arcades, like this one:

So here’s a couple of things you could find in the Super Potato store:

Famicom games, 4 shelves (only 2 are in the picture) all organized in alphabetical order.

On the opposite side just as many shelves with Famicom games in original boxes, all in really nice condition.

Super Famicom games, also 4 shelves in alphabetical order.

Super Famicom games in boxes, super nice condition.

Game Boy games! They also had shelves filled with boxed ones, and lots of GBC and GBA games too ^^

Lots and lots of Game & Watch!! ^_^

Nintendo 64′s that looked like new, came with controllers and all cables for like 2000 Yen (about 170 SEK, or 25 USD) o_O

On the first floor they also had a bunch of Sega, everything from 8bit to Dreamcast ^^

On the second floor they had all the PS1, PS2, comics, literature such as walkthroughs and guides, all soundtracks to games and lots more ^^

I really wanted to buy this Super Metroid book, but I had already picked up sooo many games that I had to stop myself somewhere :/

And of course they had all the machines where you can get little game related thingys like straps and keychains, I got some Mario stuff there ^^

On the third floor they had an arcade, and no regular arcade, they only had old games, 8bit and 16bit, like Pacman, Pac-Land, Donkey Kong, Final Fight, Splatterhouse, Ghost n Goblins, Street Fighter, Metal Slug, Space Shooters and lots lots more. I stayed there for a while and tried out most of the games, a japanese guy wanted to play Final Fight with me and we got quite far. It was a lot harder than on the console version O_o They also had this really cool chair made out of Famicom cartridges glued together! I sure hope those games weren’t in working order, otherwise it would be a waste :(

Also Pac-Land was a lot different from the Famicom version which I have previously reviewed here and re-visited here.

Here’s some pictures of the different arcade machines, especially Pac-Land ^^

Ghosts n’ Goblins

XX Mission

Final Fight

Final Fight Game Over :(

Pac-Land!

Twin Famicom & Attack Animal Gakuen

April 27, 2012 by stopxwhispering

It’s working! I’m still in Japan, but managed to connect the Twin Famicom I bought yesterday to the TV in my hotel room.

I’m probably not gonna have time to go through and try all the games I bought for Famicom, but at least I know the system is working ^^

The first game I opened up was something called Attack Animal Gakuen (アタックアニマル学園) and it kind of resembles Space Harrier. Not nearly as good, but still an entertaining game.

I haven’t been able to try the disk station of the console yet, since I didn’t buy any Famicom Disk games, but I will try to find some of those tomorrow so I can make sure it works completely :)

Look at those cute controllers!!!!

OMG Japan!!

April 26, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Retro gaming store in Tokyo Japan. Three floors just filled with retro heaven! This one was only Famicom ^_^

So many things, I just wanted it all!

And the prices were reasonable!

Akihabara, also known as the ‘Electric Town’ in Tokyo. This is where you will find some of the Retro Gaming stores I’ve been visiting today :)

Here’s some of the things I’ve picked up today. A Twin famicom! A bunch of Famicom games, some Super Famicom and a Sega Mega Drive game (just to see if it works on my PAL system).

More Famicom Disk System games

April 20, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Now I’ve played all the Famicom Disk System games I have, and also a few new ones I recently got. It’s the first console I have that uses disks instead of cartridges (except for playing floppy disks on PC which I did back in the day) and it’s different in many ways.

Here’s the intro when you start up a Famicom Disk System:

One downside with playing Famicom Disk System games is the load times, which is something you never experienced on the cartridge systems, and sometimes they’re extremely lengthy. However, they only appear in the beginning when starting. Otherwise the music and graphics have to some extent been enhanced in many of the Famicom Disk games.

The most noticeable difference between cartridge games and the disk games is usually the enhanced music. You can hear an example here where I recorded the intro of Metroid on Famicom Disk System:

The biggest benefit of playing a game, that you might as well could have played on a cartridge (like Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania etc), is that you are able to save your progress when playing on the Famicom Disk System. It’s not always an option, but most lengthy games have the feature. I was incredibly happy when I started my Castlevania for the Disk System and realized there were already saved files on there, and this one person had saved the game right before the Dracula battle! ^_^

Here’s the gameplay and stage music of Castlevania for Famicom Disk System:

Here are some various videos of other games I tried out on my Disk System:

Nazo no Murasamejou! Awesome game, with great music ^_^

Some Donkey Kong Jr on the Famicom Disk System (it was the first time I actually played this Donkey Kong game, and it took some time to figure out how the hell it worked):

Patlabor, a platformer game only released in Japan:

A weird platformer called Kinnikuman (not a very good one..):

The intro music for Karate Champ, with some gameplay animations thrown in to create some action ^^

And of course Super Mario Bros:

Retro Game Challenge for Nintendo DS

April 17, 2012 by stopxwhispering

Today I got Retro Game Challenge that I ordered from Ebay! I started playing it immediately and went through the first 8 challenges, it was hard to put this game down!

It’s basically a re-visit to the early days of gaming, where a game master challenges you in all the games he played in his childhood (throughout the 80′s).

The first game I was challenged in was Cosmic Gate.

Each game has 4 different challenges which you have to complete to continue on to the next game. The first challenges are quite easy, but the further you get the harder it becomes.

The last challenge of Cosmic Gate was to score 200.000 points. After beating all challenges of a game you unlock the freeplay for that game.

The second game was Robot Ninja Haggle Man.

A cool thing is that you get to see the original cartridges for the games and you’re also able to read about the story of the games.

The first challenges of Robot Ninja Haggleman was quite easy, however the last two ones were tougher. #7 Beat level 4 without dying, and #8 Beat the entire game.

I managed to beat all the challenges for Robot Ninja Haggleman as well, I will continue the challenges tomorrow ^^

If you have trouble with any of the challenges, like figuring out how to earn extra points or find cheats and such you also unlock a Gamefan Magazine with each game where you can read about them. You are also given the manual for each game. This is a really nice touch to the game.

It’s a really cool game for the DS, it’s a lot of fun to be able to play 8bit retro games, and also get challenged in them! However one downside to the game is that there is a little bit to much talking in between gameplay, a lot of meaningless blabber to sit through..

Thanks to Alana at Retrogamergirl for making me aware of this game! ^_^

Famicom Disk System games

April 7, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I’ve recently started collecting Famicom Disk System as well.

Here it is connected to the Famicom

I only have 5 games for it so far though

The games that are complete with box and manual are Metroid, Castlevania and Nazu no Murasamejou and the two games without manuals are Kinnikuman and Donkey Kong Jr and Super Mario Bros in one.

My two favorites are Metroid and Castlevania. And it’s really fun to look through the manuals which have a lot of artwork.

Here are some pics from the Castlevania manual

Omnomnom, chicken makes you stronger!

The Metroid manual is also filled with cool artwork :)

Here are the bad guys plotting to take over the universe!

At the end of each manual there’s always instructions on how NOT to treat your Famicom Disks:

AAAAHHH! Don’t touch me!!!

I love the illustrations ^_^

Shufflepuck Café for Famicom

March 29, 2012 by stopxwhispering

This is a game I’ve been playing quite a lot lately. It’s fun, entertaining, but super hard o_O

You have a bunch of opponents in some kind of cyber-futuristic café (looks more like a bar) where you can battle each of them in a game of “shufflepuck” which resembles air hockey.

The story: “You are the galaxy’s most successful Krypton-3 salesman on the way to close the biggest sale of your career. Your brand new Nash Sombrero has blown a capacitor in the reactor valve. You exit the gravy and coast down into the wrong side of town. Now all you need to do is find a phone and a repair sled will be on its way. The only signs of life seem to be coming from a shoddy structure three doors down and across the street. Opening the door you make your way down a flight of debris-covered stairs. Something loathsome scampers over your feet on its way to the activities below. A shout of recognition is heard as whatever it was enters the smoke-filled room. You stumble into the room and suddenly it’s as silent as the depths of space. Several pairs of hostile eyes, and a few sets of three, challenge you to enter. The only thing that stands between you and the telephone is eight galactic misfits, and obsolete droid and a few “friendly” games of shuffle puck. Relax, if you lose, you’ll earn their contempt. Win, and you’ll earn their resentment.”

All of the opponents are different, they all have different styles of playing and various difficulty levels (where most of them are ridiculously hard, and some even unbeatable!!)

The only easy one is Skip, some kid that just moves in slow-motion when you’re playing against him.

The goal is to get a score of 15 first. There are only 2 or three other opponents that I have even a chance of beating.

This is Vinnie, winning over me.. .>_<

This is Visine beating me..

This is the grim reaper.. or I mean, Nerval (!?)…

Here’s the drunken Lexon getting wasted whenever he scores…

Here’s the General:

Here’s DC3 the Robot waitress with nipples o_O

And Biff with anger management issues.. damn, he really wants to kick your ass!

I did get a few hits in there though.. ^^ pure luck…

And this is Bejin, the worst opponent there is.. she cheats by using the force!!

All in all, an entertaining game which also brings quite a lot of frustration ;D

Here’s a video I put together of the gameplay, the music is quite good :) in between stages that is, during stages you only have the sound effect of the puck bouncing around >_<

NES games & Nintendo Power: vol 33 -92

March 23, 2012 by stopxwhispering

I got some more games from Ebay this week :D I also started buying Nintendo Power magazines, and in this lot there was a Nintendo Power issue with TMNT III. I also got a book called “How to Win at Nintendo”, written in 1988 by Jeff Rovin. It actually only has 30 games in it, described with the story and strategies to winning. Including games like Arkanoid, Balloon Fight, Castlevania, Commando, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Gradius, Kung Fu, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda II and many other big titles. However there’s no pictures, only text describing everything. I’m not much of a reader, I need pictures to look at to stay focused >_<

The games I bought were Millipede, Wurm, Lone Ranger, Xenophobe, Friday the 13th, Dungeon Magic, Joust, Twin Eagle and Predator. Wurm is awesome <3

Well, in this post I think I will take a closer look at the Nintendo Power issue, volume 33 from 1992. (all images are clickable to view full size)

You just gotta love Nintendo Power. 16 pages of a comic about Zelda a Link to the Past, 8 pages Super Mario Adventure comic, Nester’s Adventure and a bunch of game walkthroughs, guides, pictures, game promotions, ads from the 80′s and early 90′s and more!

Here’s the Zelda comic for those of you who want to read it ^^ All 16 pages, large enough to read it clearly :D

Now I’m actually not that into the Zelda franchise.. I know many ppl think I’m weird now, but it’s a long story and I basically just never got into it.. but I know there’s a lot of ppl who do love Zelda so this was for all you hardcore Nintendo fanboys, and girls ^___^

Now this is some hardcore advertisement for the Nintendo Power!

And what the hell do they mean by this? Hook your SNES to your NES?! I guess they just wanted people to keep buying games for both systems..

They feature a lot of games in this issue, such as Gradius, one of my favorites ^_^

Another featured games is Super Hunchback for Gameboy, never heard of it. Has anybody played it? There’s apparently many bells to ring…

And T2, “He said he’d be back”, he sure did!

And here’s the Super Mario Adventure comic for those of you who are interested in reading it ^_^

There’s also a 10 page long walkthrough for the game ”The Legend of the Mystical Ninja” for Super Nintendo. I haven’t heard of that one either. It looks kinda fun though, however all the stages seem to have the same shade of orange throughout the game, usually SNES games were more colorful..

The poster for this Nintendo Power volume was Lemmings:

Super Scope was the shit back in ’92!

And all the children playing Gradius wanted to become an Astronaut! ;D

The Nester’s Adventure cartoon is only 1 page, it’s quite good though. This one is about Castlevania IV:

And last but not least, here’s the Top 20 of the NES, SNES and GB games in February 1992!

There’s a bunch of other stuff in this issue, like walkthroughs of TMNT III, G.I. Joe, Rampart, The Simpsons Bart vs the World, Asteroids, Q*Bert and Wanderers from Ys. If there’s anyone of these in particular that you’d like to see then just leave a comment and I’ll post some more pics :D

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