Finally finished scanning and uploading all my Game Boy games! Many of them are boxed, but I’ve decided just to scan the cartridge to make it more symmetrical. So now the Game Boy Collection is up! :D In my Game Boy Collection all games are listed alphabetically with name, publisher and genre :)

Here’s a thumbnail montage of all the games I’ve scanned so far :)
    

My OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder) really got to me when I was creating my Game Boy collection with scanned cartridges.. I had this one game that was still sealed and in pretty much awesome condition, and I couldn’t bring myself to open it up just to scan the friggin’ cartridge.. but I really really REALLY wanted to!!! It really pissed me off  because it made the entire library assymetrical with that one boxed game among all the carts >_<

Damn you Oddworld for being so pristine, pretty and unopened!! >______<

So I eventually just gave up and started looking for the loose cartridge, and found it almost instantly :D I bought it and threw in Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 3 while I was at it ^_^

Now I can sleep at night knowing there’s symmetry in my Game Boy Collection Library again ^__^ AND I will also be able to play Oddworld whenever I feel like it :D

Oddworld! :D It’s difficult but fun ^_^ Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle 3 is also a great game, much prettier and more colorful than it’s prequels ^^

There’s this little cute guy, wearing a hat, a cape and carrying a violin, that comes to a village and plays for the monsters and makes a friend. A girl in a red hat with a white bow…

This story is about the Violinist of Hameln ^_^ On Super Famicom, by Enix!

This weekend me and my friend Gabriella played through the entire game, almost twice! ;D On saturday we sat for hours playing through until the second to last boss, and then.. forgot to press continue on time when we got distracted by our 3DS’s >_< This game lacks cheats or passwords so there is no way to skip ahead, you have to play through it all in one go!! But on sunday we gave it another go, and beat it without ever even getting a Game Over and we had 25 lives to spare! :D

The best thing about the Violinist of Hameln is his buddy, the girl that can transform into almost anything!! Of course you have to discover the various powers first to unlock each creature she can turn into. The creatures will help you along the way. And if nothing else, you can always pick up and chuck the girl straight at enemies or walls :D It works!  The Violinist can only jump, glide a bit with his cape and shoot notes from his violin, so having the girl around is very helpful! Here’s a chart of all the characters you can unlock and choose from in the start menu:

And here they are in action:

The Ostrich buddy: Walks over spikes	The Frog buddy: If you stand on her you can jump up on hard to reach platforms
The Robot Buddy: Can walk over spikes and punch rock walls if you jump on her.	The Curling buddy: Can be thrown and will glide into narrow spaces and is effective against enemies
The Gorilla Buddy: Can walk over spikes, but is mainly meant for you to get passed a certain stage where you have to transform your buddy into the gorilla to impress a guy.. See the gifs below for more Gorilla action ;D	The Penguin Buddy: Let’s you swim passed water, if you jump on the penguin she dashes forward and destroys enemies in the water.

The Fish Buddy: If you step on it it will float upwards! If you press down it will drop, but you can’t steer side- ways unless the wind takes you there.	The Duck Buddy: Can swim over water but also dive if you jump on her.
The Monkey Buddy: Can climb walls! You just tag along and shoot whatever comes in your way ^_^	The UFO Buddy: Hovers around you constantly and is good when you need the girl to follow you (BECAUSE SHE SUCKS AND WALKING AND CAN’T JUMP AT ALL!!) >_<
The Monster Buddy: Is useless, but you need it to get passed a road block. A guy needs to see the monster to let you pass to the next stage.	The Frisbee Buddy: You’re actually not supposed to stand on her, just throw her like a frisbee at enemies :)
The Elephant Buddy: Can put out fires if you jump on her! Pffrrrsshh!	The Bird Buddy: Can fly!! And you can steer her! :D Be careful not to fall off though >_<
The Octopus Buddy: Let’s you swim under water! :D	The BOMB Buddy: You can throw her and she goes BOOOOOM!* Works like a charm on all following bosses :D
	Here’s a closeup of your buddy BOMB blowing up! ;D LOL

The entire screen flickers when the BOMB is thrown ^_^

There are four world maps, each filled with several stages followed by a boss at the end.
    
    

In the beginning of each world map there’s a village which you can re-enter at any time between stages on that map. Here you can talk to people, regain health at an inn and buy stuff! :D Like shields, extra time for stages, a better cape and also some of the stuff that your buddy can turn into, like the UFO (but you will find this one on a stage later) and the missile (I’m not sure if you can find this one, so I’d suggest buy to it!)

During stages you can find stars, when you have found 4 stars you will get to a bonus stage where you can find an extra life and also get loads of coins!

The stages are all very varied, and with pretty graphics ^_^

The bosses were a lot of fun! And not too hard, we only had some problems with one, which was the second boss. But eventually we figured out how to beat this one too ^_^ You’re just supposed to throw your buddy straight upwards towards the boss’ platform and he’ll fall down so you can hit him :)

Here’s screenshots of all the bosses:

First boss, not that difficult, keep throwing your buddy at his face :)

The second boss, we were stuck here for a while since it was hard to dodge all the snakes that kept spawning while also dodging his spiked he kept shooting in all directions >_< but shooting your buddy from below the platform worked like a charm :) The non-blurry screenshots were taken while we were figuring out what to do and thought the UFO was a good idea.. but just throwing the girl worked a lot better ;D

This is the third boss, some skeleton guy on a really weird horse that has no face!!! LOL He wasn’t too difficult if you had the missile. I came into the boss fight for the first time with only one heart of health and I managed to beat him, while taking photos with my iPhone!!  ^_^

During the final boss this guy with a grand piano on his back came in and joined the fight. You met him previously in the village, but I didn’t quite get what he said, so during the entire battle I wasn’t really sure if he was on my side or not.. but it turned out that he was on my side when the credits started rolling ;D

During the entire game you got the feeling that the Violinist wasn’t all that nice. He was quite mean to the girl, throwing her around and she looked pissed most of the time. And also during some cutscenes between stages this is what you saw:

But in the end it seemed like they made friends after all ^_^ This was a great game, and totally worth the high price :D

Recently I got interviewed by Ant Harper from Retro Games Collector :D So for this feature I needed to take some more recent pictures of my Retro Room containing my game collection :) It was quite a while ago since I last shared pictures of my game room, from when I upgraded to a bigger room, so I thought I would share the new ones here as well so you can all see what it looks like today!

So this is more or less what it looks like today! :D

This is the lighting of the room, it’s very cosy and warm with mainly red lights ^_^

Here’s my desk, where I’m sitting right now and blogging ^_^ haha!

A close-up of the shelf over the desk. There’s mainly boxed Super Famicom games (There’s more of them now, it’s basically full so I can’t fit any more in there >_< but there’s still sooo many SFC games I want!!) And there’s boxed Famicom games, in the two middle shelves and the bottom right. I haven’t really collected boxed Famicom games that much, I have over 600 loose carts. On the bottom left are my Atari 2600 games, I have a few more doubles stacked away somewhere and a few boxed ones elsewhere. BTW I loooove my Pacman neon signt ^_^

Behind the desk are 4 shelves, the two to the left are filled with Famicom cartridges, neatly organized by colour and by type! :D The top 5 rows are only platformers arranged by colour, below is one row with the few carts that have end labels (also platformers mainly), and below that is three rows with only shooters and then a row with puzzle games and lastly sports and other playable stuff that I don’t really care for. I have 4 boxes stacked away underneath the desk with all the RPG’s and various other text-heavy games that you can’t really play unless you’re fluent in japanese (also I don’t really care for RPG’s…..). The two right  shelves contain all my boxed GB, GBC and GBA games and on the bottom 2 rows with boxed NES games.

Facing my desk is a cool couch I got from my grand parents, it folds into a matress if you put the back on the floors facing it ^^ It’s like a puzzle :D

On the couch is also one of my three Virtual Boys, a Pacman Pinky porcelain piggybank and an official Nintendo wooden box where you can put a Zapper, two controlllers and a bunch of games inside ^_^ I put some of my favorites in there :D

I also have a really cosy gaming chair that holds my Famicom pillow and temporarily also this Amiga 500. I have found a better place for it now underneath one of the TV’s.. ;D

In this corner I have my PAL NES, with some Zappers on the wall ^_^

Above that there’s some PAL SNES games and N64 games, also some of my Virtual Boy games on the bottom shelf (I have a bunch of doubles stacked away in a drawer as well, I’m only displaying the playable ones that are opened). There’s also some video game related board games like Centipede, Pac-man and Donkey Kong and various other games like boxed Atari 2600 games and games for the Intellivision that I can’t play since I don’t have that system yet :(

On this shelf I have my Famicom Disk System games, some boxed Atari’s and in the left corner all my Star Wars related stuff and games ^^

Underneath that shelf I have my favorite painting that my friend Arri made for me ^_^ It has all my favorite game characters! :D

Here’s the mess.. the main TV that has almost all the consoles you see below connected to it! lol I did this using scart splitters (one outtake turning into 4) and also composite cable splitters for some systems that have the red, yellow and white cables. It’s not optimal, I’m gonna work on making it prettier so that you won’t see all the chords as much, but I’m still quite happy that I was able to connect all of these: NTSC NES, PAL SNES, Twin Famicom, PAL Sega Mega Drive, PAL Sega Dreamcast, PAL PS2, PAL Sega Saturn, PAL N64, Super Famicom, and a japanese Sega Master System ^_^

This is the third TV, and here I have my japanese Sega Mega Drive and all the 30-40 something games I have for it, and my PC Engine Duo and the Atari 2600 Junior ^_^

Here’s a small shelf I painted and decorated and it holds all my Famicom Konami games, and two Game Gears and the Wonderswan color ^_^ I also love my Nintendo neon sign :D

On the floor here are some of my PC Engine games.. I’ve re-organized these now onto a smarter CD stand with double sides that stands on my desk, looks much better! :D

On top of this shelf are more PC Engine games.. this collection has been growing really fast since I discovered this awesome system :D

Here’s an overview of this wooden shelf that contains a bunch of stuff. Below you’ll see some close-ups. In the bottom are magazines, like Retro Gamer, Nintendo Power etc. And my Sega Saturn games.

Here are my Castlevania games, this collection is now taking up two full shelves ^_^ You can see all my Castlevania games in my Castlevania Collection post, where I scanned them all :)

Below the Castlevania games are some other random stuff. Like Chrono Trigger, a factory sealed SNES Zelda, Mario Bros for Atari 2600, factory sealed Doom for Atari Jaguar, Darius Twin for SFC, Super Mario RPG, Life Force for NES, Rockman X, Donkey Kong II Game & Watch, Ninja Baseball Batman ;D and much much more..

Here’s the Sega Saturn games, and  a few Atari Jaguar games.

Various bead art and my Sega Mega Drive collection ^^ I basically can’t get much more games for this system cause I’m running out of shelf-space! LOL

On the top right are my NTSC NES games, all the way down to the half row with Dreamcast games, below those are PAL NES games. Then PS2 in the bottom. In the left shelf are PS1 games, then some of my favorite Famicom games and all my Sega Master System games (I have finally gotten around to fixing shelves now for those poor games stacked on top of each other) ;D

Here’s a closeup of the Famicom games, mainly puzzle, platformers and shooters ^_^

Last but not least I have my Commodore 64 on a small table with a fourth TV on a bureau next to my desk ^_^ There’s also a boxed PAL SNES, another Super Famicom and a black Atari 2600 underneath it :)

I have a lot more games stacked away in various places.. I have 73 game consoles in total (counting a few doubles, over 50 are different systems though) and just got over 3000 games, and  I’m seriously running out of space again and probably need to take over our living room for my retro game collection soon! Just gotta run it past the boyfriend first ;D

Added even more games to the Famicom collection now, these are some of the recent additions:

I’ve also just gotten a new batch of Famicom games, I will upload those shortly as well :)

I will also make a review of some of the more noteworthy games here soon, like Magical Kids Doropie and Juju Densetsu :D Really awesome games ^_^

I don’t usually intend to buy games for various platforms if I already have them for one, unless I know that there are major differences in the game. However, sometimes it happens that I buy a game I already have since the name and label are completely different, making me think it’s a completely different game..

Here are some examples where I haven’t realized it was the same game until I actually played and recognized it! :)

Xexyz VS Kame no Ongaeshi Urashima Densetsu
Xexyz is the american NES release, and in Japan it’s called Kame no Ongaeshi Urashima Densetsu.. I did not see that one coming ^_^ It’s great platforming fun though! 

Rockin’ Kats VS Nyankies
Rockin’ Kats is the PAL NES release, and when I got Nyankies (which it is called in Japan) I first thought it was some sort of sports game, since it made me think of the New York Yankees (I think that’s a team in some sport.. not my field of expertise though) ;D Man was I happy to realize it wasn’t a sports game but a fun platformer, a bit less exciting that I already had it though … >.<

The Krion Conquest VS Magical Kids Doropie
Here I actually got the Famicom game first. I had never seen it before and got really excited when I discovered a copy on eBay.. I paid looots of moneys for it >_< It was fun though! Kind of like a female Mega Man, but harder. Just like a month later I found The Krion Conquest, never heard of that one either, and bought it quite cheap at the Swedish Retro Gaming Exhibition.. when I popped it in I realized it was the same game that I had just spent a fortune on >-<

Dino Riki VS Shinjinrui
Here’s another example of the same game bearing a totally different name. In this case however the cover has similar artwork, a boy raging on a dinosaur haha ^_^

Air Fortress VS Air Fortress
Of course sometimes I do buy games knowing I already own another version of it.. just because it’s a good game at the right price, or perhaps because I’m curious to see if there are any differences in game play ^_^ Like Air Fortress, I enjoy it and didn’t mind owning it on the Famicom as well.

Yume Penguin Monogatari is a platform/shooter game by Konami for the Famicom. This game was only released in Japan, and I can understand why with it’s bizarre story!
You play as Penta, a chubby penguin who has lost his girlfriend Penko to a cool penguin with dark shades, and he needs to win her back!

In this game you don’t have a life bar and there is no way to die on the stages, but there’s a fitness bar, showing Penta’s current obesity status! Penko’s new boyfriend is sending out troops of enemies to throw foods at Penka. If something hits him he automatically eats it and becomes a bit more fat! When you reach the fattest phase he can hardly move and his only attack is to throw himself on his belly and wiggle around! lol

You can find fitness drinks around the stages that will get Penka to Shape Up! When you’re less obese you can kick enemies, and if you get really fit you can shoot out the japanese letter PO (ポ) from your mouth “PO PO PO” ^_^

If you reach the end of the stage and your fitness bar is pink, you will have to replay the stage, because Penta was too fat for his ex to take him back! This is just hilarious! :D However, if he’s fit enough (when the meter is blue) he will begin to win her over and you get to go to the next stage. You have unlimited tries (as far as I know) on each stage.

The second stage is a shooter, once again you will have to get fit and avoid flying apples and rise balls (onigiri) that the enemies will chuck at you. You will reach a boss at the end of the stage, when you shoot him you’ll get fitness drinks, but he will also constantly shoot food at you. Even if you beat him you will still have to be fit to be able to continue on to the next stage. If you’re obese you’ll just have to replay the stage again.

There’s  various stages in this game, both platform and shooter stages. It’s really funny and obscure! The music is great, just what you would expect from an 8-bit Konami game :) I love how the feeling of the controls change with Penta’s various obesity phases, it’s fast and easy when you’re fit and really slow and troublesome when you’re  obese, your attacks also change. It’s brilliant! You should Seriously Play this game! :D

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! SPOLER ALERT ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 

When you beat the game you will get to fly away with your girlfriend. She will take you back and you will get a kiss and start blushing.. after that you sit under a tree under the star sky and then Penko turns around and starts eating and gets OBESE!! irony ^_^ lol

This has kept me busy the last couple of weeks. Scanning, cropping, and uploading all my boxed Super Famicom games! But now it’s done, check out the Super Famicom Library for information and big pretty images of all my SFC games ^_^ There pictures of both back and front on all of them :) I have quite a lot of unboxed games as well.. but those turn out shitty when I try to scan them so I’ll just leave that for now…

Here are some thumbnails of some of the games I really enjoy ^_^
          

Don’t forget to check out all my SFC games on my new Super Famicom Library page! :)

So I finally went and bought myself Super Back to the Future Part II for the Super Famicom! I have been wanting this game ever since I saw the AVGN episode Back to the Future ReRevisited and he explained that it was the only GOOD Back to the Future game released! haha

I found it complete and in nice condition on eBay, and lately I’ve been really into buying SFC games, so I just had to get this one ^_^

I tried it out a bit tonight and it was a fun game, and it looked really great! The music was also awesome ^_^ Compared to the other Back to the Future games that has been made for various systems this one was just so much better in every way! I can’t understand why it never got an overseas release..

Here are some screenshots from the game, unfortunately I wasn’t able to hook up my second SFC for recording since I couldn’t find a certain cord.. so they’re taken with my iPhone..

The animations are just awesome ^_^ The only bad thing I have to say about it so far is that the controls are a bit stiff, but the game makes up for that in so many other ways :D

Wagyan Land 3 is a very intuitive platform game with puzzle elements. The sprites are cute and the stages are very colorful and has a lot of variation. There are also LOADS of stages! 24 to be exact ^_^ and 16 bosses!

I have Wagyan Land 1 & 2 for the Famicom as well, and they’re ok.. but in this third one the platform elements were just a lot more fun and took a lot bigger part in the game compared to the previous Wagyan games.

Instead of fire power and hordes of enemies this game uses the colorful platform stages and gravitation to create interesting, variational and most of all fun stages! Usually Wagyan has  a standard high jump, but on some stages the gravitation has been lowered so you can jump even above the screen, this also makes him move slower which makes it more challenging to dodge flying enemies or hazards.

In other stages if you hold the jump button Wagyan will flip gravitation completely so you will be walking in the ceiling, this makes it tricky when avoiding holes both in the floor and the roof. This particular type of stages have gameplay that can be compared to the more recent game VVVVV.

In some stages you will have to push buttons in order to flip gravity instead of just holding the jump button, these buttons are of course put in tricky spots where the timing of your steering has to be precise. In another stage the walls are bouncy like a pinball table, Wagyan will only jump diagonally and you will have to predict the landing point so that you will bounce off walls in the desired direction (and hopefully not into a hole in the ground) ^_^

There are even stages where he gets a jetpack and you will have to steer around, kind of like Asteroids, by boosting!

One touch of an enemy kills you instantly. You can shoot out “ギャ” and “ド” signs but they don’t make the enemies go away, they just freeze them temporarily. Depending on how much power your “gya”-sounds have the longer the enemies will stay frozen. The only items to pick up during stages are stars for points (which might lead to an extra life eventually) and little Wagyans which increase your power when shouting “GYA” ^_^ If you reach 4 in your Power meter you will become invincible :D After it wears off however your Power meter will be back down to 1…

There’s one stage where you need to use your “ギャ” shouts to get around, because they freeze in mid air and you can use them as platforms :D

There are 16 bosses in total and this is where the puzzle element comes in. There are three different types of boss fights which I will explain here. Most of them are quite easy but some do require some knowledge of basic japanese language.

Boss fight: Find-the-number-game
It’s basically what it sounds like, you get a screen with a bunch of numbers and you have to go click the one that the boss tells you to. In all of the bosses except for one (stage 12) the numbers start at 1 and go up, 2, 3, 4 etc.. but in the one on stage 12 he gives you random numbers which makes it a bit harder to predict where to go. It’s still pretty easy though since the boss is extremely slow to react and beat you to it. I only lost a few points when the boss was already standing on the number I was looking for basically ;D

Boss fight: Memory
This is just memory, the boss always starts and gets to pick two cards, then it’s your turn to pick two. If they match you get a point. The trick here is to find the pattern. The patterns are usually pretty easy once you get them. Try looking for pictures right next to each other. Here are some examples of the layouts I got, and as you can see the images are almost always either right next to each other or in a predictable pattern diagonally:

Boss Fight: Picture-word-game
This is the tricky one.. You basically need to be able to read a bit of japanese hiragana, and it’s even easier if you know some japanese names for random stuff. In the beginning you just need a few points to win so you can make a few trial-and-errors but after a few boss stages it gets harder. The objective of the game is quite simple, if the boss chooses a picture of a “Lemon” it ends with a “N” then you have to pick a picture of something that starts with a “N”, like “Nail”, then the boss has to choose a picture of something that starts with “L” and so on.. but with japanese Hiragana instead of roman letters ;D Every time you get one right you get a point.

In the beginning I was just guessing and thinking the picture had to be related before I figured out the real objective. I actually made it all the way to the second to last boss before I started having real trouble and actually “got it”. After that I recorded all my attempts and made a guide to help myself through it. I read hiragana and katakana fluently, but my vocabulary in japanese is not that good. My picture recognition is though :D So here’s the guide and this is how you use it: I made a list of all the hiragana letters, the boss will always show which one you are looking for (i.e. 『い』), either you read it or just recognize the symbol and skim through the list, next to the letter I’ve listed all the pictures that can be a correct answer for that letter. Some pictures can have several names, like a “horse” could also be called an “animal” or a “pony”, therefore a picture can be listed under several letters.

There’s another guide I made in the beginning, it helped me in the first couple of word-stages, but it wasn’t very useful at the end where the possibilities were bigger and pictures changed more frequently. In this guide however you can look for a picture, and the picture below it is a correct answer. This helps if you don’t know how to read hiragana, then you can just look for images instead. However, sometimes that particular correct picture might not be on the screen.. This list isn’t complete since I switched to the other one which was more helpful for me.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might pick a picture that ends with a letter that doesn’t have a corresponding picture, in this case you win! :D Except for the last boss, he will just challenge you again and it will start over… As long as you get the required amount of points (get past the bar on the left) then you win.

The final boss will challenge you in all three games, first the word game, then memory and last the numbers.

You get a password after every single stage! This is generous, and great if you wanna get to a certain stage, like the jetpack stage which has great music! ^_^ And in case anyone gives the game a go and get stuck somewhere, then here is the complete list of stage passwords:

Stage 2 password: 4C4 888E8 888A

Stage 3 password: 4A0 77747 7779

Stage 4 password: 27C 77387 717F

Stage 5 password: D5A 55445 5655

Stage 6 password: 27D 77387 707F

Stage 7 password: A55 11001 111D

Stage 8 password: 250 33343 333A

Stage 9 password: 939 77507 7577

Stage 10 password: DDB 55405 5449

Stage 11 password: 210 33333 333D

Stage 12 password: 8DO FFF0F FFFA

Stage 13 password: 2A9 66586 6566

Stage 14 password: 5C4 88868 8982

Stage 15 password: 130 333A3 3431

Stage 16 password: 484 88888 8A86

Stage 17 password: FFF 77337 7677

Stage 18 password: 501 BBBBB BCBC

Stage 19 password: 651 FFF1F F0F1

Stage 20 password: E3C 331B3 3C3B

Stage 21 password: 7AB 66516 6B66

Stage 22 password: E9A 55455 5A69

Stage 23 password: 106 00000 020C

Stage 24 password: 2C6 000C0 010E

I really enjoyed this game, it was a fun challenge to try to beat all these bosses and good practice for my japanese language skills ;D

In the last month A LOT of Super Famicom games have arrived in the mail… and I’m still waiting for more to arrive ;D

I’m super happy about Cotton 100%!! I paid around $160 USD for it, but it was complete even with a tiny music CD and in great condition ^_^ I’ll make another post about this game itself soon :)

Doremi Fantasy!! I’m so happy to have it! And it’s an amazingly cute little platformer ^_^  I’ll make a post about this one too soon!

Dai Makaimura is awesome ^_^ the sequel to Makaimura which is also a great game! It’s quite different from the Sega Mega Drive game with the same name, I’ll make a comparison in a later post :)

I looove Final Fight, so I just assumed Final Fight 2 would be just as good, and it was :D

I also went and got Final Fight Guy, I haven’t tried it out yet, but from the looks of it I think it’s a fighting game and not a beat’em up  :( But at least there’s a mini CD in the box! :D

I had never heard of Dino Wars, but when people started bidding on it, I’m not the one that quits.. that just makes me want something even more ;D It’s a really fun platform game where you ride a dinosaur! :D

Hansei Zaru Jiro-kun no Daibouken, a very cute puzzle type platform game where you have to collect keys to enter the next stage. In the beginning I found it very childishly easy and didn’t think much of it, until it started getting quite tricky! :D

Poi Poi Poitto!! Looks awesome!! And I bought it only for the cover, since I love puzzle games, but it’s actually not that fun.. shit keeps happening and I don’t understand why.. Like I’m about to win, and then WHAM shit just falls down without the opposing player even doing anything! It’s a game that doesn’t like winners >_<

Super Gussun Oyoyo! This puzzle platformer is fun, but I prefer pure puzzle games… if I get stuck I give up >_< …. which I did ;D

Super Back to the Future Part II!! :D Check out my post about it here >>

Ranma 1/2, I thought this was a fighting game and almost didn’t buy it at first. But at a second glance at the back I got super excited to find out it’s a PUZZLE GAME! :D So I had to get it ;D It’s really unique! In the beginning I didn’t get it, I tried to match colours and pictures on the blocks, until I realized that it’s a Janken game! (Rock Paper Scissors) So if you have a stack of stone hands you have to throw a paper hand on it for them to disappear :) It’s really tricky to try to beat the computer who is awesome.. but as a two player games it works great :D

Rockman X2! Rockman is always awesome ^_^ Now I have Rockman X, Rockman X2 and Rockman X3 :D still on the lookout for more Rockman games ^__^

Konami is my favorite game company <3 I’ve never really understood the Goemon games though, sometimes they’re a fun platformer and sometimes they’re just weird.. but this was the first one I tried for Super Famicom and it rocks! You run around beating ninjas with your stick and you can ride on a fish and much much more! :)

I also found Ganbare Goemon 3, so now I’m just looking for the first one as well ^__^ Fun platformers!

Keeper was an interesting puzzle game and very cute ^_^ You run around in a square as a little keeper and you push blocks to match them, new blocks keep appearing though so you will easily get stuck and when the board is filled it’s game over.

SuperFamicomGuy recommended Thunder Spirits so I had to get it ^_^ and he was right, it’s a totally “belted” game ;D (did I use that correctly?)

Syvalion was another shooter I bought straight from Japan through the Mandarake shops online! I haven’t tried this one out yet, but I’m thinking it will be great ^____^

The Mickey Mouse games on the Famicom are just as great as the Sega Mega Drive ones :) I’m trying to catch them all ;D 

I’m not really that into fighting games, but I got these three in a lot on eBay and it can always be fun to have since a lot of my friends enjoy playing them ^_^
    

I also got curious about Sailor Moon, I heard there were a few really good ones, and I got confused when looking through them all on eBay.. so I just ended up buying them all ;D
                        

And here’s even more new ones:
                                         

I’ve still been collecting and gaming a lot the last couple of months, and my latest addition that arrived in the mail today was two Power Rangers games for Famicom! I’ve seen both of these occationally as pirated copies, and I actually never thought they really existed as released games. Until I bumped into the originals from a japanese seller on eBay ^_^ I bought them instantly because I’ve always wanted to know what they would be like, and I assumed they would be platforming games, which I love!

The first one is called Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, and this one is not too good.. but they definitely made an effort!

It’s a platforming game, but the controls are a bit slow, unresponsive and stiff. You can collect orbs and when your meter fills you get a scene with the machine/animal the Power Ranger can transform into, but I tried every possible combination of buttons and did not manage to transform >_<

Then I reached a boss and 4 hits kill you even though you have a much larger power meter than just 4 bars.. deceiving! After reaching Game Over I gave up, it just wasn’t any fun..

However, they have 3 bonus games you can play, some are even 2 player! The first one is some kind of quiz where you get three answers to choose from. This is all in Japanese and I don’t really know that much facts about Power Rangers anyway ;D

The second one is a kind of Pong game, this can be played in VS.

In the third one you throw a bomb between you and the monster and who ever holds it when it explodes looses. You can hold it for a little while but if you hold it too long it also explodes even though the time limit isn’t up.

These extra games are nothing special, they should have put more effort into making the platforming experience better instead!

The second Power Ranger game is called Choujin Sentai Jetman. This game was much more fun! It’s also a platformer, and if felt way more like the series I remember from my childhood.

First you run around as the human form Power Rangers, and you can choose from the 5 different ones. The Grey and Red one have swords which kills enemies with 1 or 2 hits. The Pink and Blue one have some type of long range gun, but it takes 2 or 3 hits to kill enemies though. The Yellow Power Ranger has a short range blow that is similar to the sword.

There are 5 various stages to choose freely from.

At the end of each stage you reach a boss, and this is when your Power Ranger transforms!

Then you get to fight the monster in a kind of beat ‘em up / fighting style battle. This gets quite easy once you learn the patterns of the bosses and how to block in time ^_^

After all 5 stages there’s a 6th Last Stage.

The boss on this stage was hard if you tried to have time to block, I eventually just went all in punching him and managed to get more blows in than he did ^_^

This games was quite easy, but fun nonetheless :) And the music wasn’t all that bad either ^^

I’ve recently come back from a two week vacation in Tokyo, I went there with 5 other friends and we had a blast! ^_^
  

While in Tokyo I took the opportunity to go hunting for some retro games of course! I’ve been to Tokyo quite some times now, but I’ve only ever found Super Potato where I could buy retro games. This time however I got a friend from instagram to show me around Akihabara to all the best retro game shops! ^_^
Here’s a map I’ve made of the places I went to:
 

The two Sega buildings that I pinned on the map are easy to find. After you take the Akihabara Electric Town Exit just go right, out into a square, if you look to your left you will see the first giant SEGA building:

Once you get closer to it you will see the second SEGA building as well:

SUPER POTATO

So first off is Super Potato, this place is a bit pricey, but it’s a must-go for all retro gaming enthusiasts! It’s located on the street behind the two SEGA buildings. It’s kind of hard to find the entrance since it’s quite small and you won’t really see the signs for it unless you look up (or can read japanese). It’s down on this street, I’ve located it with a circle, however if you go on the route of the map it will be on your right side instead of left.

This is the building:

You will have to go into a corridor and take the elevator up:

Super Potato has 4 floors, first floor is mainly cartridge games (famicom, super famicom, sega master system, mega drive, pc engine, game boy etc). Second floor has some newer games like playstaytion, dreamcast etc. The third floor has mainly strategy guides to retro games and the fourth floor has retro arcade machines where you can play puyo puyo, pac-land, final fight, ghosts n’ goblins and a bunch of other old classics ^_^ Everything is very neatly displayed and they also have a bunch of merchandise.
One thing that bugs me about Super Potato is that they have two giant shelves filled from top to bottom with famicom games and most of them are doubles. You will see the same game 10 times in a row sometimes, it makes it hard going through it all.. and time consuming. They have however put end labels on the plastic wrap of each game, but it’s written in japanese.

MANDARAKE COMPLEX

Next up is Mandarake Complex, I didn’t spend too much time here, but they had loads of retro games at reasonable prices! And so many boxed games in great condition ^_^ I saw a mint CiB Recca and I really wanted to buy it, but that game is almost just as expensive in Japan as it is on eBay… :( At Mandarake Complex all the games were in hard plastic cases, it made it a bit dull to look through it all, and hard to spot the games you were looking for..

They also had an assortment of Neo Geo games, I really would like to start collecting for that system, but damn those games are pricey! The most expensive one I saw was 220.000 Yen, which is over 2000 USD… o_O

MANDARAKE GALAXY

I did however spend more time at another Mandarake store in Nakano (Nakano is just one stop from Shinjuku station with the JR line, or three stops if you don’t take the chuo rapid line). (Note that this store is NOT located in Akihabara and not pinned on the map above..). Mandarake Galaxy is located on the second floor inside Nakano Broadway, a mall that is just straight ahead after exiting the station.

This one wasn’t very big but they made use of their space by only displaying one of each game instead of triples (like in Super Potato). Their games were also really neatly displayed in a way that you could easily browse through them ^^ And it was very reasonably priced! :D This is how happy I was at the Mandarake Galaxy store in Nakano ^_^

They had a lot of gems and I bought loads of games here, including Gimmick! ^_^ They also had another cabinet inside where they had stuff that wasn’t for sale, just for show >-< Like the Sega Mega Drive Tetris!! 

TRADER

Next up is Trader in Akihabara, this is located just a bit further down the street from the two SEGA buildings.

Just like in the Mandarake Complex in Akihabara this store had all it’s cartridges and boxed games in plastic cases. This makes it kind of hard to browse through loose Famicom carts.. I bought a few games here though.

I found a boxed Altered Beast for Game Boy Advance, I regret not getting it since it was so cheap >_<  3500 Yen is approximately 34 USD…

They also had a bin filled with loose carts that all cost under 100 Yen! The cheapest I found was 19 Yen, which is less than 20 cents ^_^ There was no guarantee that they would work though. However, all the five games I found in the bin has worked perfectly ^_^

You could also get Neo Geo games here and other rarities. However they were not displayed, only by advertisements all over the walls. I guess you would have to go to a counter to order them.

FRIENDS

Now the last shop my friends took me too was so cute! It was run by this old lady and her husband, and it was called FRIENDS ^__^
        

It was very small, but it was crammed with retro games! ^_^ And it was mostly very cheap :) It was really easy to browse through the Famicom carts, and they also had a bunch of bins filled with cheaper carts, around 100 Yen.

Apparently there was also a second floor, I didn’t have time to see it though. I was told they had Sega Saturn games and stuff like that upstairs.

I would recommend all of these shops for retro game collectors that visit Tokyo ^_^

And if you’re not into buying games, there are also loads of places to just play games! :D Here’s my post about the Arcades of Akihabara ^_^

Finally I’ve had some time to go through all the games that were already on my desk before leaving for Japan, and also the 117 games I bought while in Tokyo!! :D

On this trip to Tokyo I mainly focused on Famicom, I just went through every shelf of every retro gaming store and picked up anything I found that I didn’t already have! This concluded in a few really rare and expensive titles, but also a lot of junk like baseball games and unplayable mystery solving games and RPGs, but I’m really happy to finally have Gimmick!, Over Horizon and Snow Bros in my collection :D

Snow Bros wasn’t as fun as I had hoped. Kind of like Bubble Bobble, but not as cute :/

Over Horizon is a great shooter! The visuals are so pretty ^_^

And Gimmick! was also a lot of fun! So adorable, but yet difficult! ^_^

I also found Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers in pretty condition and Gebara (or Guevara)  which I’ve only ever encountered once before and it was too expensive that time. Below is also a game called Jigoku Gokuraku Maru. I had never seen it before but the cover art reminded me of Genpei Toumaden so I assumed it was good ;D and it was! But it’s just a sidescrolling action platform where you play as a red-headed girl :)

Guevara is a fun Commando-style shooter where you can team up with a friend (who then plays as Fidel Castro) ;D

I found a Famicom cartridge copy of After Burner, I’ve never seen that before either.. I have it for Sega Master System and Mega Drive though.. Also got Cross Fire and Guardic Gaiden (Guardian Legend).

Cross Fire was kind of fun, very much like Dead Fox (Code Name Viper) but not quite as good.

I’ve been looking for Wanpaku Kokkun no Gourmet World but it’s been awfully pricey on eBay, in Tokyo however it was much more affordable ^_^ The middle game is called Pyokotan no Dai Meiro and it’s kind of like a maze game but with various mini-games whenever you open chests and stuff. It was interesting :) I also found Moero Twin Bee on a cart! I’ve only ever seen it for the Disk System, I didn’t think it existed on a cartridge, but I was pleased to find it ^_^

Wanpaku Kokkun no Gourmet World was OK, kind of easy and childish though.

In Moero Twinbee you can play three players simultaneously! This blew my mind ^___^

These were just a few of all the Famicom cartridges I got (103 in total!), but I also scored a few Super Famicom Games:
  
  

And some PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive games:
  
  
 

Now this was a few of the pickups, I will make another post soon with all the rest of the Famicom carts when I’ve uploaded them to the Famicom Collection Library :)

Finally updated the Famicom Collection Library, and also the Famicom Collage with the 103 Famicom carts I acquired in Tokyo :)
It was not easy getting it all back home with a weight limit of 23kg for the suitcase and 10kg for the carry on, I had to send home 7 packages (all weighing less than 2kg, because then it will count as a “letter” and be muuuuuch cheaper) ;D

Now I’m up to 868 unique Famicom carts (986 in total counting doubles..). It’s getting hard to find stuff I don’t already have for the system…

Here’s the thumbnails of all the 103 games I got in Tokyo!

Retro Rumble is back! Yesterday I had a retro gaming get-together with a retro gaming quiz and retro game competitions in my game room ^_^ I was very happy to have GamingGrannar visiting me for the weekend, they arrived already Friday to make a video of my retro game collection. Keep an eye out for the episodes that will show up on their blog soon :) They stayed and took part of Retro Rumble on Saturday as well. There was a lot of gaming this entire weekend! :D

For the competition I had chosen 5 games:
Ninja Hattorikun for Famicom – First leve, 1 life, best score
Soldier Blade for PC Engine – Caravan mode (2 minute score attack)
Super Monaco GP for Sega Mega Drive – Free practice Japan, Super A-class, 1 lap, best time
Panel de Pon for Super Famicom – Score attack mode
Jigoku Gokuraku Maru for Famicom – First stage, 1 life, best score

Out of the 12 contestants 4 went on to play in the semi-finals :) DAVE, Murazor, Mensflickan & Mattias :D

Here they got to play Super Bomberman 4 for the Super Famicom and then Harapeko Bakka (Hungry Dinosaurs) also for the Super Famicom.

We did not continue on with the third game since it was already clear which two players would continue on to the finals, namely DAVE and Mattias ^_^ They went on to play Rakuga Kids for the japanese N64:

And then also Combat for Atari 2600! :D


 

It was a fun and exciting competition, and I think everybody had a great time ^_^ All the competitors were also divided into teams, and I had prizes for the both the best team, the best player and player 2 and of course the Quiz Master! And here are all the winners!

DAVE was no.1 in the competition ^_^

Mattias came second, but he won the Quiz which makes him Mr. Quiz Master! ;D

And here’s the A-team!! :D

Here’s the RETRO RUMBLE QUIZ questions, how many correct answers would you have scored? ;D

1. What does NES stand for?

2. Who was SEGA’s mascot before Sonic?
X. Pacman
Y. Flicky
B. Alex Kidd
A. Opa Opa

3. Contra is a famous game from Konami, it’s also called Probotector and one other name. What is the third name?

4. In Zelda 2, The Adventures of Link for NES you encounter a man in the village of Ruto, what does he say?
X. Go West
Y. The Cake is a Lie
B. I Am Error
A. Take this Potion

5. Which game is this song from?
X. Megaman 1
Y. Megaman 2
B. Megaman 3
A. Rockman 4

6. What is the Konami code?
X. Up, Up, Down Down, Left, Left, Right Right, A, B
Y. Up, Up, Down Down, Left, Right, Left Right, A, B
B. Up, Up, Down Down, Left, Right, Left Right, B, A
A. Up, Up, Down Down, Right, Left, Right Left, B, A

7. What is the name of this game system?

8. On what stages can you go down tunnels and warp to stages later in the game in Super Mario Bros?
X. 1 – 1  &  3 – 5
Y. 1 – 2  &  4 – 3
B. 1 – 3  &  4 – 2
A. 1 – 2  &  4 – 2

9. Sony’s Playstation was original intended to be a CD-ROM add-on to which 16-bit console?

10. What is the resolution of an NES?
X. 260 x 310
Y. 256 x 240
B. 460 x 840
A. 356 x 255

11. Which Japanese company created Pacman?
X. Konami
Y. Taito
B. Bandai
A. Namco

At the end of the evening we ended up playing a lot of Utsurun desu. Ka wa uso hawai e iku. A really strange japanese game for the Famicom, but so very very very entertaining! :D I recommend anyone with a Famicom to try this one out!

Here’s what the chubby-legged guy in a beaver suit looks like when he’s jumping:

And here’s some other moves (the gentle wave of the hand is his main attack.. he can also dance and cast out some dance flames) ;D

Thanks to all of those who came and played, and watched, and laughed, and enjoyed some retro gaming goodness ^__^ And to all of those who didn’t make it I hope to see you next time!

I bought so many games at Retrogahtering 2014 that it has taken some time to organize it all. It was a great place to shop for games though, they had a lot of great sellers, like Spel & Sånt whom I bought loads of stuff from ;D

The most expensive game I bought was Separation Anxiety (PAL) for the SNES. It’s the sequel to Maximum Carnage. The day after my friends over at Gaminggrannar showed me a cool little shop called Ploppsi in Örebro, here I also found this action figure of Venom which I basically got for free after buying some games there as well ;D It made for a great photo opportunity ^__^

Here are some other SNES games I picked up. The Lost Vikings, Robocop 3, Lost Dimension, Judge Dredd, Push-Over, Rival Turf! and Space MegaForce. When I tried Space Megaforce out I realised I already had it for the Super Famicom, it’s Super Aleste…

I also got some really nice Sega Mega Drive games, like Ristar and Contra Hard corps for the Japanese Mega Drive, and also Captain America and the Avengers, Galaxy Force II, Robocop vs Terminator, California Games, Sword of Vermillion, Alien 3 and a bunch of NHL and sports games that I didn’t previously own. 

I found a weird game that Borka at Spel&Sånt persuaded me to get. It’s called Caution Seaman and it’s for the Sega Dreamcast. Apparently you have some sort of seaman in an aquarium which you speak to through a microphone that comes with the game. It just sounded so weird that I had to get it! :D

The Swedish GAME store was also represented at Retrogathering and I got some complete Sega Game Gear games from there :) Halley Wars, Aerial Assault and Super Space Invaders!

I also got a bunch of Sega Master System from Super Motaro at Retrogathering. These included Kung Fu Kid, Rambo III, Great Golf, Fantazy Zone II, Rocky, Crash Dummies, California Games, Basketball Nightmare, The Lucky Dime Caper, Wimbledon and Wimbledon II. I also found Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker the day after at Ploppsi ^_^

I found something that I wasn’t expecting as well! When I started collecting a bit over 10 years ago I fell in love with the Nintendo Virtual Boy and bought every game I came across for it. After a while I had most of them, I was only lacking Water World out of the US releases, and I found it this weekend! :D I also got Warioland and Mario Clash for the Japanese Virtual Boy, I only had these in US releases previously, and I found a complete copy of Nester’s Funky Bowling (I previously only had the loose cartridge). This got me so excited that I went on eBay when I got home and found something else ;D I’ll let you know what once it arrives in the mail! :D After that I am only lacking two of the Japanese releases to have a complete Virtual Boy Collection! :D

I also got about 20 Atari 2600 games, a multi-game tap for the Atari 2600, 12 games for the Commodore 64 some pirate NES and Famicom carts, 3 complete N64 games and a bunch of other stuff ^_^ Now I’m gonna prepare my next entry about Retrospelsfestivalen which was this last weekend!

I finally got one step closer to completing my Virtual Boy collection! :D Nintendo’s Virtual Boy was one of the first things I started collecting for, since it was never released here in Europe I got very intrigued by the system :) I have three Virtual Boy systems and all the US released Virtual Boy games, now that I recently found Water World at Retro Gathering! :D

Through the years though I’ve found out about games that was released in Japan that I didn’t know about. At one time I thought I had them all, when I got Jack Bros and Innsmouth no Yakata, but then I found out about the three that I was lacking.. These were Space Invaders (which always had a ridiculous price tag of 1.400 USD on eBay), Virtual Lab and SD Gundam Dimension War which are even more expensive and hardly ever found for sale.. now I’ve finally got one down though! :D Space Invaders! (Which is probably the most fun one out of the three I just mentioned). I found it on eBay and it wasn’t cheap.. I got it for 500 USD. A few years ago I never thought I would ever be able to pay this much for a single game, but now that I’ve almost bought every “cheap” game that is out there, the only ones left are the rare and expensive ones >_< I’m still very happy to have this one though, and I doubt that it will loose it’s value any time soon :)

The one I found is complete and in excellent condition! So minty ^__^

Now I’ve only got 2 more to go ^_^ Wish me luck!

Is anybody else collecting for the Virtual Boy? :)

So here’s the games I picked up at Retrospelsfestivalen, due to the proposal the day ended quite quickly so I didn’t have time to buy much more, but I did find a few interesting things ^_^

First off I found a guy selling off some of his japanese games. I picked up Chitei Tairiku Orudora & Super Boy Allan for Famicom Disk System. Both complete in their big boxes :) I already had Chitei Tairiku Orudora, but not in it’s big box, so I couldn’t stay away from getting it ^_^

I also found a Jajamaru game I didn’t previously have :D They’re usually quite cute platforming games so I picked this one up as well. It’s called Jajamaru Gekimaden Maboroshi no Kinmajou.

He also had a bunch of PC Engine games, most of them I already had, and some were just a bit too expensive. But these two I got at a reasonable price :) Avenger and Prince of Persia.

Another seller had a Power Pad for the NES! I’ve always wanted one but never found one at a good price. It’s bigger than I expected! :D 

I’m really excited to finally try these two games out for the Power Pad! :D Athletic World I’ve had for about a decade (!) and Dance Aerobics I got the weekend before at Retrogathering. Look at those hilarious 80’s kids posing in aerobics positions! hahaha ^_^

And here’s a closeup of the Dance Aerobics label!

I also got an NES game called M.U.L.E. It’s a US release only I think, never heard of it before but I’m excited to try it out! The box art is amazing! :D It’s a freaking Space Cowboy!!! :D

The final game I bought was from a friend of mine that was selling off parts of his collection. I finally got around to getting Sonic 3! (Yes, I did not previously have all the Sonic games… shame on me…) I’m glad to have it now though ^_^

This weekend I’m heading to Gamex/Comic Con in Stockholm, so the update on this previous weekend’s visit to a Sci-Fi convention in Helsingborg will have to wait until after this weekend (and yes, I found games there too!!) ;D

I’ve been so busy with work and playing games with friends online lately that I haven’t gotten around to finishing my own video tour of my new Game Room. Thankfully my friends over at GamingGrannar paid me a visit and filmed it for me! :D They have now released all 5 episodes of my retro video game collection.

The first episode covers my Virtual Boy collection and Super Famicom. Unfortunately for all you non-Swedish people all the episodes are in Swedish, but you can still see all the games and stuff, you just might not understand what we’re saying about them ;D Here’s the first episode:

The second episode is covering my PC Engine collection, Dave gets to try out some PC Engine shooters like Cocoron and Download, and we play Katochan & Kenchan:

The third episode is about Famicom and we play some Crisis Force and other games:

The fourth episode is basically a tour of the game room and the setup and Dave gets to play some Vectrex :)

And in the fifth and final episode we go through my Castlevania collection and some Sega Mega Drive games:

There’s still a lot of things that GamingGrannar did not cover, but I’ll continue to post about all my games here on my blog ^_^

Hopefully I’ll get around to finishing my own video tour soon, meanwhile here’s some recent pictures I took of the game room (things haven even changed since they were here this summer) ^_^

And here’s some closeups of some of the game shelves: