In which the creator of this document has to shamelessly nick photos from other sources:

( 6/21/1984 )

More light gun madness.

( 6/12/1984 )

So in spite of generally sucking at sports games, I can say for certain that there is only one I ever owned.

( 5/01/1984 )

Oh hay, this game.

( 4/21/1984 )

Hey, the first light-gun game! Bitchin'.

( 2/18/1984 )

Another classic Nintendo game, or at least one that's just as likely to be recognized by the Yanks as by the Japanese.

( 2/2/1984 )

Beware the savage jaaaaaaaaw ... of 1984! Population so far: 1.

( 1/14/1984 )

And for the LAST GAME OF 1983, WE HAVE... oh.

( 12/12/1983 )

Another single release.

( 12/7/1983 )

Continuing Nintendo's very slow first half year (which, notably, lacks a single third party game), we have yet another single release.

( 11/22/1983 )

...Aw Lawd. One game in the next wave, and guess what it is?

( 09/09/1983 )

Looking at the release dates for the second wave, I'm somewhat struck by how far apart the releases are. Considering it's a rarity if ABSOLUTELY NOTHING comes out video game-wise in a given week these days, it's sort of amazing to imagine well over a month passing before any new games were released. And was it worth the wait? Uh...

I guess it depends on what you like.

( 08/27/1983 )

...on a whole, a bit underwhelming. But maybe the Japanese felt otherwise.

So hey, I'm feeling productive again, finally. And here's what I really wanted to do: try and catalog all the Famicom games, partly so I have a better idea of what I want in my own collection. This is partly inspired by my date source at The Famicom Database, whose taunting lack of translation made me decide to make my own. That said, it's worth checking that site out; it's a pretty complete list as far as I can tell of every game that came out for the system, albeit in Japanese. Nice if you want to look at the images, anyway.

So. First release week for the Famicom. What'd the Japanese get?

( 07/15/1983 )

I read once somewhere that there are areas of the world where Mario is more recognizable that Mickey Mouse for kids. If this is true, then Chip and Dale, who while recognizable have nowhere near the same star quality, might not even register to some kids in other countries. In the USA, of course, we recognize them from Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers if we're old enough, and from the older Disney cartoons, but Mickey is still the big icon. So clearly, from a ratio standpoint, Chip and Dale are mere blips against Mario's juggernaut.

Well, apparently some pirate hackers realized this too, because who needs Chip and Dale when you have...

( LJ cuts! Wait, no. )

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort some game pirates will put in to ripping off someone else's intellectual property. Sure, there are the lazy pirates who just rip off the copyright data on a game and call it a day, but then you get the stories of completely reverse-engineered wonders, or things programmed from scratch, and you have to wonder why they put all that effort into something when they could probably just make a game from scratch themselves equally well. Maybe they figure they can't make money if they don't make sure it's something some brat out there will squeal desperately to their parents to buy.

Then there's the stuff that sort of meets it halfway in the middle. Like this.

( Gee Aladdin, you look sort of cool. )

Read this first.

I suppose, from a technical standpoint, I can understand why they'd take this approach to weapon control. But that liberal hippy type in me can't help but be a little disturbed by the idea of taking something that's meant to be merely cathartic and turning it into something that's both cathartic AND destructive in real life. What do you do when you start making warfare, well, FUN? After all, it's not like people in real life have respawn points.

I can UNDERSTAND it, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

GAME: Astro Robo Sasa
RELEASE DATE: 1983 original, 1985 NES
COMPANY: ASCII/MTL
ENGLISH AVAILABILITY: None needed
GENRE: Arcade/Imma flying backwards wheee!

( Come fly through the air. With a bazooka. )

RANDOMNESS: Oddly enough, the tune that plays whenever you pause the game has LYRICS. I can't vouch for it myself, as they're in the manual which I don't have, but you can hear how they line up with the tune here. Or, if the esteemed talents of one Miku Hatsune doesn't appeal to you, there's always the fantastic cover of the song by the Japanese game cover band Low-Tech Son, seen performed live here. (Even if you don't particularly care for game music, I highly encourage you to hear the latter once; the lead singer has a pretty voice, and it's overall a fantastically laid-back, lounge-jazz version of the song.)

Back in the dark days of pre-DSL, I got into the habit of collecting MIDI's of video game music. Part of it was convenience; after all, a file that's only a few kilobytes long is a lot faster to download than one that's a few megabytes long. More importantly, they were my introduction to the arrangement of gaming music; it was sort of nice, hearing NES music arranged the way they could've been if the songs had appeared on later consoles.

But at the same time, I developed an odd sort of topsy-turvy attitude to game music; NES music was more interesting upgraded, but everything else was much more interesting DOWNGRADED. In other words, something about hearing a famous Playstation or Super Nintendo piece coming out as blips and bloops was just awesome (and, franky, still is).

I can't remember when I stumbled across the GXSCC player (which I would link if the website didn't expressly request me not to, for some reason). For those who don't know, it's a very specialized MIDI player that downgrades all songs played through it so it sounds as though it's coming through an 8-bit sound chip. And for someone who collected MIDIs as obsessively as I did, it was a really fun tool to mess around with. Want to hear Wild Arms as 8-bit? Toss a MIDI in and watch it go. It's not perfect, of course, since it still allows for all the song's sound channels, which means that some songs are a little too complex even for a game with a specialized chip like the famous VRC6 Konami chip. Furthermore, some songs, due to weird instrument choices, sound like total ASS on the thing. But I still had a lot of fun with it.

Unfortunately, so does everybody else. And this is the problem I have with the player today.

I love finding chiptune arrangements, see. Even have a couple decent sites in my links devoted to the stuff. So when I realized that people stuck music on Youtube, I figured I could find some nifty stuff there, right?

Well, yes. But a lot of no.

Youtube users seem to have this inability to grasp that grabbing a random MIDI off the interwebs and tossing it into the GXSCC is about as impressive as me putting on an MP3. And I sure as hell am not interested in hearing "LOL THROUGH THE FIRE AND FLAMES 8-BIT" if you didn't actually take the trouble to downgrade and arrange that song yourself. If I wanted to hear that song like that, I would've done it myself.

Yes, yes, blah, blah, quality on Youtube har har. But it's still a pet peeve. Show me your real talent, people, not some stupid gimmick. I love the GXSCC -- but only when I'M using it.

GAME:Elysion
RELEASE DATE:1988
COMPANY: Tokyo Shoseki
ENGLISH AVAILABILITY: Translation patch (Tenshigami)
GENRE: Action RPG. Kinda.

I am irresistibly drawn to new Famicom translation patches. This is a new Famicom translation patch. I must play it.

( As new to me as it is to you. Make of it what you will. )

So let's get one thing established here, first things first: I am not, by nature, one of those types who automatically thinks of Japan as the end all, be all of the world. At one point, I was one of those types who was deeply into all things Japanese Pop, but those days are more or less gone. Anime? Highly complex stories about the same damn thing over and over again. Manga? Flooding the market, though at least paving the way for NON-JAPANESE comics to start becoming recognized.

Talk to me about Japanese video games, however, and I'm all "neko neko wai" up in your ass.

I love video games. Have done so ever since I was a kid. And my first console, and the one that still occupies a special place in my part, is my Nintendo Entertainment System, the one of which I put special effort into asking my parents to buy at the age of 3. (Seriously. This is sort of family lore at this point that I was able to pronounce "Nintendo Entertainment System" in perfect diction -- and then little else for years after that.) Being an enthusiast, though, it was impossible to escape the fact that while we had a lot of games, the Japanese had MORE of them. And the grass is always greener, as they say. This is not to say I'm blind to the fact that there are very crappy Japanese games, but that doesn't tamp down the curiosity about them.

Thank God for the emulation era. (But shh, you didn't hear me say that.)

This journal is primarily for me to write down whatever the hell I feel like video-game wise, though obviously chiefly on my passion for retro gaming. Be it stupid hacks, obscure Japanese gems, or (probably failed) attempts at Let's Plays, this journal is for me to put down whatever comes to mind. It's also a sort of documentation for myself; I feel, sometimes, that coverage on this sort of thing on the net is sorely lacking. And if I find weird stuff, I may post it here as well.

The Famicom -- the system that started it all, and the Japanese console that would birth the American console that birthed my obsession, has turned 25 this year. No better time to start a journal about my own retro obsessions than now.

As the Japanese say, "Game start."