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:

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):