Famicom Impressions: Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya Jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku

November 29, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I managed to find a Dragon Ball game for the Famicom that I didn’t previously have! This time for Famicom Impressions I tried out Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya Jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku ドラゴンボールＺ外伝サイヤ人絶滅計画 (BA-DBZ4) released by Bandai in 1993. Dragon Ball games usually have pretty colorful artwork containing silly anime characters with funky hair, and the manga/anime series has a pretty big fan base from what I understand.. I’ve never been that into anime or manga though.. but I’ve always hoped for a good Dragon Ball game! This is not it though..

Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya Jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku – Famicom

From what I’ve figured from the series the Dragon Ball story is about guys that are flying and fighting. This game is pretty much based on that as well. Unfortunately the action is not controlled by you, it just has a lot of cool looking fighting cutscenes. Instead you control the characters like in an RPG, choose which card to use, pick an action and so forth.. I hate menus.. I want live action!

At least the game has some pretty rad tunes ^_^ Check out the video below to listen to some of the music :) It’s awesome! Apart from that I wouldn’t really say it’s playable or fun without an extensive knowledge about Dragon Ball lore or the Japanese language.. In the main fighting menu the only thing I understood was ステータス (status) and アイテム (item). The others seemed to be various attacks or card picking.. I have no clue what the cards are about, some of them seemed to give me special attacks.. at the end though I just fought for my blonde dude to get killed so I could turn it off XD

I got to see a dragon though, who gave me free cards! The game really has some nice sprites :)

Check out my first attempt at this game here, and listen to the nice music at least ^_^

Famicom Impressions: Suikoden – Tenmei no Chikai

November 28, 2016 by stopXwhispering

The next Famicom impression is on Suikoden: Tenmei no Chikai 水滸伝・天命の誓い (KOE-XJ) by Koei from 1989 and… I seriously have no clue what is going on in this one..

Suikoden: Tenmei no Chikai – Famicom

It’s some sort of RPG/strategy/story-telling nonsense about ancient dudes in China.. so.. yeah.. this:

I don’t know if I chose the wrong menu or if there’s some kind of intro that just lasts FOREVER.. but I didn’t even get to do anything! I just looked at the numbers scrolling in the bottom left, and once in a while a dude popped up, with numbers attached to his card, and that was the only time I got to interacet: I pressed a button and his card went away and the numbers began scrolling again until another dude popped up. FUN!!! *not*… I hate strategy… especially non-interactive types…

Here’s a video of the few minutes I could stand of this game… at least some of the music is decent! o_O

Famicom Impressions: King of Kings

November 27, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Next up for Famicom Impressions is King of Kingsキングオブキングス. It was a game I didn’t have, looking at the artwork on the cartridge made me quite positive it was some kind of strategy game (I’ve learned to tell the difference on these Japanese games with their beautifully deceiving artworks XD). But you never know! I could be wrong, so I had to try it out for myself to be sure :)

King of Kings – Famicom

Just as I thought, it was some kind of strategy and turned based war game. I was quite clueless to begin with, I tried pushing all the buttons and got to various menus. Thankfully the menus were not as extensive as in many other strategy games. I tried various options and figured out that I could buy troops for my King! I bought some of each kind and started placing them out on the map, moved my king around to various towns on the map and got to raise my flag :D

Then it took a while before I could figure out how to end my turn.. I eventually found it in the Select menu, the second from the bottom. And here’s where the game got reeeally boring and long >_< Once it was the computers turn I had to sit and wait for him to do ALL of his moves with ALL of his characters.. each turn he had he got more and more troops and his turn just grew longer and longer. And it wasn’t sped up or anything, he was just as slow on deciding as me almost!! I couldn’t press anything to skip it :/

There’s of course battles as well, but they’re all randomly AI controlled, you can just sit and watch and hope for a positive outcome.. In this game you don’t do anything except move around characters on the board and buy more characters.. as far as I could understand at least. I made the mistake of moving my King too far from my main castle, because that’s the only place you can buy more troops..

I managed to withstand 3 or 4 turns of my own.. then I was so bored out of my mind that I just shut it off.. I would say it’s fairly playable, even if you don’t understand Japanese, just guessing your way through menus gives figurative results so you can understand what you just did basically. But it’s definitely not fun in my opinion.. just boring.. I’m not much for strategy games in general though. It was probably great at it’s time for people into that kind of stuff :P

Here’s a video of my first attempt at this game. I’m surprised I didn’t shut it off sooner XD

Famicom Impressions: Captain Tsubasa

November 24, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I have quite a lot of Famicom games, over 900 unique ones, and when I sometimes search for information about some lesser known titles on the internet it usually won’t give a lot of rewarding results. So I thought I’d start a series where I do short first impressions of all of my Famicom games so people get a feeling of what type of game it is, if it requires Japanese knowledge to play or not, and what the gameplay looks like :) Since I have so many, this will be a long term project XD But hopefully since the reviews will be short I’ll have time to squeeze some in now and then :) So here’s the first in the series of Famicom Impression! :D

So first up is Captain Tsubasa キャプテン翼 (TCF-TP)! Released by Tecmo in 1988. Just looking at the cart I was pretty sure it was a regular sports game, soccer to be exact, but it’s not really.. It’s about playing soccer, and you play soccer, but not like regular sports games where you control the character. This is RPG SOCCER!!! O_o Two of my LEAST favourite genres put together! Ouch…

Captain Tsubasa – Famicom

Instead of steering your character and pushing A or B to dribble or shoot you get menus to choose various actions from. Now if you’re not that familiar with the Japanese language this might prove to be difficult XD I have some basic knowledge since I’ve studied it for 4 years, so I remember how to read Katakana and Hiragana, but I’ve completely forgotten all the Kanjis. Thankfully most 8-bit game menus mainly contain Hiragana or Katakana, but then there’s the issue of also knowing what it means XD I managed to figure this much out:

シュート	= Shoot	パス	= Pass	パスカット	= Pass cut
マク	= Mark	キャッチ	= Catch	うごかない	= I have no idea

The only live action you get is when you receive the ball, then you get to run towards the goal, at first I wasn’t even sure which way I was supposed to score XD Another issue with that part is that you also don’t see anything on the map of the field except yourself, so how the hell do I know if I’m not running straight into opposite players?!

The game seemed quite unfair in general.. or maybe I just sucked at it.. but it seemed like the opposite team catched every single ball I shot or tried to pass, while they managed to pass and score without any resistance >_<

Here’s a video of my first and most likely only attempt at playing this game:

This really was the worst of two worlds for me.. sports and RPG elements >_< bleh… I don’t recommend it.. unless you’re a hardcore soccer fan who fancies RPG’s and happen to be fluent in Japanese!! Then you might actually enjoy this ^_^

A new challenger has appeared! Retrospelmarknad in Vetlanda

November 17, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Last weekend I took a roadtrip to Vetlanda with my friend Matt, because we had heard that they were arranging a retro game market! I actually didn’t have too high expectations in sellers and visitors attending, both because of the lesser known town of Vetlanda, but also the amount of retro gaming conventions that had been taking place in the recent couple of weeks. I still needed to check it out though!

I was pleasantly surprised that it first of all was indoors (it said Retro Game Market in the Park, so I was afraid it would be outside in the cold of Swedish November XD) but also what a big number of sellers that were there! We first found a small room with only one seller who had set up 8 tables filled with games from the NES to PS2.. but we later discovered there was a whole other giant room filled with loads more! And there were lots of people that I’ve gotten to know from previous conventions ^_^

Game Boy games

Japanese games

Matt8Bit is browsing

My Little Pony

Bead art

Bead art paintings

NES games

Bead art

Sega Mega Drive games

MSX with his awesome T-shirt ^_^

It was a lot of fun just talking to everybody, but I also ended up finding and buying way more than I had expected XD My biggest find was a boxed Japanese Virtual Boy! I now have 4 Virtual Boys XD But only one is boxed and it’s American. I’ve always liked the Japanese box design, but didn’t think I would find one at a decent price. This time I couldn’t pass it up though :D I also found a cute little arcade thing, the screen is smaller than a Game Boy Advance, but it carries similar graphics and has 108 games in 1! One of them is “Falling Blocks” which I also have on another system, it’s the most frustrating Tetris-like game XD The blocks are ridiulously shaped!

Boxed Japanese Virtual Boy

Game Machine 108 in 1 box

Game Machine 108 in 1

I also found loads of games for various systems. A few 16-bit games for Super Famicom and the Sega Mega Drive. I’m sorry about the upside-down photo of Raiden Densetsu, I just keep wanting to see it the opposite way! Haha! And I couldn’t be bothered re-shooting.. I don’t really like RPGs as many of you know, but I couldn’t resist price-worthy Final Fantasy games, it’s the only RPG series I’ve at least played a few games from.. and the box arts are so pretty ^_^ Super Family Circuit looked kind of like micro machines :) And the two Mega Drive games were in really nice condition and I didn’t have them before, platformers are always fun ^_^

Raiden Densetsu Super Famicom

Final Fantasy IV Super Famicom

Final Fantasy VI Super Famicom

Super Family Circuit Super Famicom

Spot Goes to Hollywood on Sega Mega Drive

The Flintstones on Sega Mega Drive

I also got some Famicom and Famicom Disk System games that I didn’t have :) Fun to run into Tom & Jerry in the wild like this, you don’t see it every day ^_^ I have Baseball, but not he pulseline version. It’s hard not to pick up Famicom games when it’s something I don’t have XD

Tom & Jerry – Famicom

Baseball Pulseline – Famicom

Mukashi Banashi Shin Onigashima Kouhen – Famicom Disk System

Namida no Sokoban Special – Famicom Disk System

Neunzehn 19 – Famicom Disk System

I also got a bunch of Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Advance games, and found an Amiga CD32 game called The Chaos Engine. I vaguely remember somebody telling me about it once.. saying it was good.. I guess we’ll see ^_^ I also bumped into a Tetris game I didn’t have! I didn’t even know Tetris Attack existed on Game Boy! It’s not really a “Tetris” game in my oppinion, but I can’t argue with the name XD

The Chaos Engine – Amiga CD32

Alice in Wonderland – Game Boy Color

Boulder Dash – Game Boy

Tiny Toon Adventures Wacky Stackers – Game Boy Advance

Disney Princess – Game Boy Advance

Ms. Pac-Man Special Color Edition – Game Boy Color

Secret Agent Barbie – Game Boy Advance

Tak 2 The Staff of Dreams – Game Boy Advance

Tetris Attack – Game Boy

Casper – Game Boy Advance

I’m really happy to see that so many Japanese Nintendo games have made it to the Swedish market! But the prices of them are also increasing.. The only negative thing for me with this Swedish market, just like a majority of the Swedish retro game events and conventions, was the giant focus on Nintendo.. I would like to see more varied things, like Atari, PC Engine, Commodore, and other more obscure systems, but I guess the interest in those things is just smaller :/

Other than that it was a pleasant surprise to see such a niched event pop up further south and I hope it will continue! They said they were looking at having another retro market already in spring next year :D

Retro Gathering L00t part I

October 6, 2016 by stopXwhispering

It takes time going through, cleaning, testing and taking pictures of 105 games, a few consoles and other things.. that’s how much I came home with after this years Retro Gathering XD Anyway, let’s get to it! I mainly focused on cartridge based games this year, I found a whole bin full of cheap Atari 2600 games to start with ^_^ In the bottom were even some boxed ones :D I tried all these ones out tonight and some that stood out was Planeten Patrouilie and Sub Scan, these were fun and intuitive :) Fatal Run was also interesting, it had the most advanced tunes I’ve heard in an Atari 2600 game so far! Unfortunately it only played the music when you got Game Over XD Superman was probably one of the worst Atari 2600 games I’ve played.. I didn’t even understand what the hell I was supposed to do…

Atari 2600

Human Cannonball, Wüstenschlacht and Sorcerer – Atari 2600

Racquetball and Arilock – Atari 2600

Fatal Run – Atari 2600

Gangster Ruine – Atari 2600

Planeten Patrouilie – Atari 2600

Midnight Magic – Atari 2600

Sub Scan – Atari 2600

Superman – Atari 2600

I found these two little handhelds that were super cute! I love how “Hero and Princess” is such a total rip-off from Donkey Kong Game & Watch, it’s even dual screen! XD And the gorilla looks totally derpy XD

Grandstand handheld

Hero and Princess handheld

I finally got myself the Zapper for Famicom! It’s so funny how this one actually looks just like a regular gun, while we had to have the “kids-version” XD

Famicom Zapper Revolver

I managed to extend my Tetris collection a bit, but not with a game.. a music LP and an old ad! My friend Marcus sold it to me and he also had a few other cool EP’s with video game reference :) I also bought a cute Dreamcast game from him called PenPen ^_^

Doctor Spin Tetris LP

Tetris ad

Space Invaders EP

Ms. Pac-Man EP

PenPen – Dreamcast

After getting to know a lot of other retro gamers online I tend to usually have some deals waiting for me once I meet up with these friends at a convention :) Anders was kind enough to sell me a Video Computer VC4000 game which I didn’t previously have. I just got into this system thanks to an old high school teacher that found this system in his attic XD I also met the guy behind arkadbutiken.se on instagram who had a PCB with Hatris for me :D Can’t wait to try this one out, the arcade version must be so much better than the Famicom one ^_^

32 Invaders – Video Computer VC4000

Hatris PCB

One of the things I bought from Zeela was this really cute little Pong clone called Las Vegas Super Color Teve-Spiel :D I tried it out tonight and it was fun, I didn’t see the colors though because apparently the TV was black and white XD I’ll try it with another TV next time… what I really liked about this Pong version is that the joysticks also go horizontally, so it actually resembles Tennis even more :) You can run back and forth and not only up and down XD It has SO MANY BUTTONS on it though! I had to read the instructions just to figure out what they were all for..

Boxed Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Complete Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel Joystick

Las Vegas Super Color Tele-Spiel by Philips

I also bought a bunch of games from Zeela, he has such good prices on old cassettes that it’s hard to resist XD So many pretty covers! I also got some extra memory for my VIC-20, which is probably the reason why I haven’t gotten more than half of the games to work on it so far XD He was also kind enough to dig out a few Jeff Minter games! Hell Gate and Gridrunner ^_^ I also picked up some Amiga games.

Rockman, Cosmic Fire Birds and Critters – VIC-20

Alien Blitz, Outworld and The Alien – VIC-20

Hell Gate and Gridrunner by Jeff Minter – C64

Vic Rescue, Anirog Krazy Kong and Galaxions – VIC-20

Vic Scramble, Chopper and Skips Action Biker Clumpsy Colin – VIC-20 and C64

Vixen 16k RAM for VIC-20

Overkill – Amiga 1200

The Killing Game Show – Amiga 500

I also found a bunch of Videopac G7000 games that I was lacking ^_^ Some I bought from my new found retro gaming friend Jack :) Thanks for bringing them for me!

8 Baseball – Videopac

9 Computer Programmer – Videopac

30 Battlefield – Videopac

10 Golf – Videopac

19 Catch the ball – Videopac

14 Gunfighter – Videopac

Some other things I found were a Case Boy that Söders Spel & Skivhandel thought would look great in my Castlevania collection because of the Castlevania screenshot on the box :D I also bought a reproduction of Trip World, mainly so I can play the game.. I’m probably never gonna spend that much money on the original.. I also got some cheap Famicom pirates, I thought they were quite funny since they read “4 in 1”, then “39 in 1” and finally “1000000000 in 1”!!! I’m skeptical to whether it actually contains that many XD Apart from this I picked up a bunch of other games, like Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi for Famicom Disk System, Slider and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Game Gear, Puzzle Figher II on Game Boy Advance, Cobra Command on NES, Puyo Puyo on N-Gage, a hombrew game called Photon for MSX a few other games and I also got two ZX Spectrum games for free ^_^

Game Boy Case Boy

Trip World – Game Boy

Photon – MSX

Famicom Pirates

Slider & Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – Game Gear

Hao-Kun no Fushigi na Tabi – Famicom Disk System

Horace goes skiing and Space Resque – ZX Spectrum

Puyo Puyo – Nokia N-Gage

Cobra Command – NES

Puzzle Fighter II – Game Boy Advance

Paper Boy 2 – SNES

Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football – Sega Mega Drive

General Knowledge for Dummies – DS

There’s not a lot of Japanese games at this Swedish convention, but I did manage to find a few. I found some cheap PC Engine games I didn’t already have, and also Super Darius which cost a bit more. I also bought some Japanese Sega Mega Drive games from my friend Karl ^_^ And I found some really nice Super Famicom games! :D Yoshi’s Cookie, Yoshi’s Island and Super Bomberman 3 which completed my Super Bomberman set ^_^