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

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

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

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

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

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

Download: ex-ranza-intro-music.wav

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

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

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

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

How manly isn’t this?! :D

You even get to drive a tank!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I made a video… it’s a bit awkward and I couldn’t get the freaking formats to line up the way I wanted them too >_< and the lighting in my room is very … red!! But still, I hope you’ll enjoy it!! ^_^

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

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:
                                         

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 :)

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!

So here comes my pickups from yesterday’s Sci-Fi convention Sci-Fi World in Malmö :D I bought quite a few games for various systems, mainly Sega this time! But let’s start off with some odd stuff that I just felt compelled to get!! Like these Star Wars Bend-Ems figures from 1993 with bonus trading cards! The poses of these figures are ridiculous! :D Look at that Stormtrooper!! ^___^

Then there’s this awesome Samus Aran fuse bead lamp made by Pappas Pärlor ^_^  It looks great in my game room! I also got a pair of Game Boy earrings from him! Thank’s Johan! :D

This figure of Sepiroth was not possible to pass out on! So cheap, and so cool ^___^

I also got some stuff from Webhallen :) Mario, yoshi and toad PEZ dispensers, a Mega Man energy drink and a mushroom ^_^

After this it was all games! :D Let’s start of with Sega! I got four Sega Master System games, Monopoly, Golfmania, Prince of Persia and G-Loc. Prince of Persia had such an awesome cover! He looks like a scared Luke Skywalker! :D

Then I also got G-Loc for the Sega Mega Drive, and Super Hang On, Normy’s Beach Babe-O-Rama and Mario Lemieux Hockey. Probably not the best games, but I didn’t previously have them, and my fiance only plays hockey for the Sega systems ;D And I got Strider II which I hope is as awesome as the first one! ^_^

I also got a Sega Mega CD game that had two games in one, on one side there’s Cobra Command and on the other side there’s Sol-Feace.

Let’s move over to Nintendo. Here I got three NES games, R.C. Pro Am (which I was sure I had before, but I couldn’t find it in my list, so I guess I was wrong..), Mad Max (probably extremely shitty since games based on movies usually are ;D) and Defender of the Crown.

I also got three SNES games, first up was Kirby’s Ghost Trap. This one is interesting since I had never heard of it before, but in the morning before the convention I was at my friend’s house and she had it, I got curious since it looked just like puyo puyo so I needed it, then I looked it up on eBay and considered buying it, but didn’t. Then when I came to the convention I saw it again! So I bargained with the guy and got it! I’m super excited to try it out now! :D Then I also got Q-Bert 3 and Dragon’s Lair, I’m wondering whether it’s as hard as the NES version ;D

I found some cheap Super Famicom games as well, but they’re hardly worth mentioning ;D Soccer, Baseball and racing Z_Z boring..

That’s everything I got at the convention! I also popped by the GAME store afterwards, and got some more stuff ;D But I’ll make another post of that later ^_^

I’ve actually never played this game before, since I didn’t grow up having games of my own I just never encountered it. I’ve heard a lot of people through the years praising it though so I finally went ahead and bought it! Star Fox is what it’s called in Japan. This popular series has also gone by the name of Starwing and Lylat Wars, mainly in Europe.

A lot of people are probably gonna hate me now, but I don’t really care, everyone is entitled to their own opinion! ;D

I didn’t like it.. It might be because I don’t have any nostalgic memories when playing it. I bet it was all amazing and such when it came out, but it hasn’t’ aged well in that case. The controls were a bit stiff and I found it hard to aim and hit the targets.. I did give it a good hour or so before quitting.

I also tried several different routes you could choose from, and reached a couple of different bosses, all but one of which I couldn’t beat..

I have to admit that the graphics are unique for the SNES and the polygon shapes are somewhat charming, but this type of shooter (rail shooter) just isn’t my type of shmup. I prefer sidescrolling shooters, horizontal or vertical or fixed shooters like space invaders :) Bullet hell shooters are also quite fun ^_^

I will put this in my shelf, to await that nostalgic friend that will visit me and ask for it. Then I will gladly pull it out, let them play it for all the hours they want while I watch and in my mind being glad that I don’t have to play it again ;D

Yesterday was the second time I visited Pixel K.A.F.E. in Malmö! This time it twas mainly because they were hosting a Retro Market there, selling off games and consoles and other nerdy things! Unfortunately it’s not going too well for Pixel, but I hope the contributions and sales today will have some effect and make it turn around! Because it’s an awesome place! :)

There were so many things for sale! Both Nintendo and Sega games, both PAL, NTSC and Japanese! Even Neo Geo games!!! Both AES and MVS, right next to the My Little Ponys ^__^ There were Vintage Toys, consoles, even arcades! And also something I really wanted, but it was too heavy for me to carry home on the train >_< Namely a custom built arcade controller for the Playstation 2 to be used with Pop ‘n Music!! So pretty ^__^

Apart from this, the owner showed me around arcade town! I even got to see the insides of a Blast City cabinet! :D So cool! The key to the cabinet had “SEGA” written on it ^_^ It’s all about the details ;D

So this is what i scored! First up is a bunch of Neo Geo MVS cartridges!! :D :D I’m totally excited about these! And NONE OF THEM are fighting games :D I’ve bought a converter for my AES so that it can play MVS cartridges as well. This is mainly because the collecting will become more feasible and cheaper! I will buy shockboxes for these carts, then they will blend in with the rest of the AES games on the shelf ^_^ The games I got was Spin Master, which is a really cool platforming game, Puzzle Bobble, Puzzle de Pon and League Bowling ^__^ I’m eagerly awaiting my converter to arrive so I can play these!!!

One of the cartridges is transparent, the others are black.

Apart from this I also found some Sega Mega Drive games. These were The Tennis Tournament Grand Slam, RoboCop 3 and NHL 95. The last two lacked a manual, but Grand Slam was complete.

I also found some Super Nintendo games and a Super Famicom game. Even though this NTSC version of Final Fight was in pretty bad shape and lacked a manual I still had to get it, because that boxart is amazing!! I fell in love with it ^_^ I also found Final Fight for SFC, so I got that one too. It’s really fun to just see the differences in the artwork between the North American version and the Japanese :D Apart from these two I also found a really nice version of Tetris Attack!! I didn’t have Tetris Attack previously, but I have Panel de Pon, which is basically the same game, they just switched out the characters ^_^

I couldn’t help but look at all those amazing vintage toys that were there as well ^_^ They are just so charming! :D I ended up buying four figures for Pepparkaksninja that he wanted. He collects vintage toys, takes cool pictures of them and makes even cooler videos (check out his amazing collection here!). I also got a little something for myself that I think will fit perfectly in the game room! :D

When you move his arm the ghosts appear in his mouth!! :D Pac-Man <3

In celebration of May the 4th (Star Wars day!) I thought I’d share some of my beloved Star Wars retro games! ^__^

First up is the weirdest Star Wars game I have, Star Wars on Famicom:

This is a really interesting game! I think it’s a fun platformer, but it gets very challenging after a while. It’s got some really weird things in it, like Darth Vader magically transforming into a scorpion or crab-like creature or Luke Skywalker having black hair in game but yellow in the cutscenes haha ^^ It’s definitely an interesting game though that I urge any Star Wars fan or 8-bit platforming action game fan to try out! It’s also a great addition to any collection with it’s sparkly silver cartridge :D So pretty ^__^

Next up is the Super Star Wars thrilogy on Super Famicom:

These three are amazingly well done and really fun ^_^ Sometimes a bit challenging, for example, I got stuck on the Empire Strikes Back and couldn’t get past one of the later levels because there was a jump that was nearly impossible to make! Otherwise they’re well rounded and stay fairly true to the movies :) I also have the first one on Super Famicom, I have been considering getting the other two as well, but it’s not really necessary since I already have the games ;D I do enjoy the Super Famicom artwork a bit more though…

Next up are some Nintendo 64 games with Star Wars. These I haven’t played a lot, basically just started them to make sure they worked. I’m not really a fan of the N64 :/

One Star Wars game I have that I haven’t even been able to play is the Star Wars Arcade for the Sega 32X. I don’t have the 32X expansion for my Sega Mega Drive yet :( The artwork looks amazing though!

I also have Star Wars games for several other platforms, but I chose to picture the ones that are nice and complete ^_^ There is another one that I find really charming though, The Empire Strikes Back for Atari 2600 :D So I pictures it here with my awesome Darth Vader lunchbox! :D

I hope you have enjoyed some retro gaming Star Wars love! On our Geeky Gals instagram account we’ve also shared loads of various geeky pictures related to Star Wars today! Go check it out here >>

May the Fourth be with you!! ^____^

I’m so excited!! RSM (Retrospelsmässan) is one of Sweden’s largest retro gaming conventions, been running for 6 years now :D I’ve been there every year (except for once when I lived in Japan..). If you wanna see what it’s all about you can check out my posts from RSM 2014 and RSM 2013 here :)

This year I’m having two of my Geeky Gals coming with me :D It’s gonna be so much fun to meet up with people and this year I’m also planning on competing! They’re hosting competitions in Super Mario Bros on NES, Bomberman on Sega Saturn and Asteroids on arcade! I unfortunately only have Asteroids on Atari 2600 o_O Do you think my practice on that will suffice? ;D hahaha

Super Mario Bros on the NES won’t be an issue, however I bet I will screw up in the competition ;D I can run through it usually on one life, but sometimes I get stuck on that stupid 8-3 stage >_< If those stupid hammer bros are in the wrong spot >_<

Last issue is that I don’t have Bomberman on Sega Saturn… I’ve been meaning to pick those Saturn ones up as well, but I haven’t yet >_< I have loads of other Bomberman games though! Here are a few of them:

I also have Bomberman (the first one) on PC Engine as well, just couldn’t find it right now.. Does anyone know which one of these are most similar to the Saturn version in gameplay? ^__^ And please don’t tell me it’s Super Bomberman 3, since that’s the only one I’m lacking in the series ;D hahaha

Anyway wish me luck! I will start practicing now ^_^ And after next weekend you will get to see all my pickups and all the other awesomeness from RSM 2015! :D

This weekend I visited Retro Gathering in Västerås (Sweden), I was there for the first time last year, but this convention has been running yearly since 2006! I came home with quite a lot of loot last year, and this year wasn’t far behind ^_^

I bought 62 games, and traded another 400+ games with friends! So I came home with lots of games.. most of the traded ones were newer games though so I’ll just cover my retro acquisitions on here ;D First up is the Philips Videopac Computer G7000 with 8 games that I traded with Anton for a bunch of Famicom doubles I brought for him :) I also found one Videopac game at the convention, this one was a newly made homebrew game for the system, the packaging was just splendid though, fits right in with the originals ^_^ Can you spot which one it is? ;D

Another system that I bought at the convention was an Arcadia 2001, or at least one of it’s clones. Never heard of this one before, but it didn’t last very long, it was discontinued after only 18 months. The reason I bought it was that it came with almost all the games released for the system! :D The games come in paper boxes, which were surprisingly well kept! Inside there’s a manual and overlays for the controllers and the game cartridge is latched in a whole in the box. This is extremely frustrating since the cartridge tends to move around underneath the opening so it’s hard to get it out of there without ripping the paper around it >_< This makes me even more surprised though that the previous owners haven’t already torn the boxes apart! XD

BTW I think it’s hilarious when companies back in the day lacked the licenses for certain popular titles and had to come up with “alternative” names for clones ;D Nibblemen!!! Hahaha!

I also got my second Sinclair ZX Spectrum that I had bought previously, but got delivered on the convention ^_^ The 48k model is so cute!!!!!!!! :D

There were more japanese games popping up at this convention than what I have seen before in recent years here in Sweden. I think it’s nice that people are becoming aware of all the amazing things you can find from over there ^_^ Unfortunately when demand rises the prices also go up >_< There were no Famicom games that I didn’t already have though, but I did find 5 Super Famicom games and a Famicom pirate that was just cheap :)

It’s always nice to pick up some C64 games as well, they are usually pretty cheap and the artworks on these old cassettes are just amazing! :D I always buy games that look fun, have a funny title or just incredible or funny artwork ^_^

I also found some Atari 2600 games, two turned out to be unopened and I’m torn whether to break them open or not >_< I wanna play them!!

Apart from all this I found a few other titles for various systems, like Batman Forever on Sega Mega Drive, Wolfenstein 3D for the Atari Jaguar and two Amiga 500 games, Pinkie and Capone ^_^ These last two looked like fun games when looking at the screenshots on the back :) Unfortunately my Amiga 500 has gotten a green screen so I can’t try them out right now :/ Have to get it fixed or find a new one first…

This year on Retro Gathering there were even more sellers than last year and loads of old systems setup to play ^_^ They held competitions in Super Bomberman 2 for the SNES, Super Skidmarks on the Amiga and Car Race ][ for Commodore PET. This last one in honor of the late CEO of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, who programmed that game back in the day. They also hosted the annual Swedish Championships of Pong, and I participated this year as well! I made it one step further than last year, so just a few more years and I might win! ;D hahaha or not.. I’ve began searching for an Atari Pong console so I can do some serious practicing though ^_^ They’re unfortunately hard to come by :/

This is one of my favorite retro gaming conventions in Sweden, the atmosphere is just so friendly and you can find so much more than just Nintendo and Sega stuff! ^_^ It’s just a shame it’s so far away from where I live :/ I will still come back next year though ;D

For more pictures from Retro Gathering, check out Geeky Gals :)

I’ve amassed quite an extensive Tetris collection by now. I always buy a Tetris game if I don’t already have it, and man! There’s a lot of Tetris games out there! Tetris is such a fun game, you never get tired of it, and I think it’s so exciting to try different versions :) So here they are! You can click the pictures to view them larger if you for example want to see the screenshots on the back of the box ^_^ I right now have 58 different video game versions (including 2 arcade games) of Tetris and 3 board games :)

Atari Tetris Arcade

My most proudest Tetris game is definitely my dedicated Atari Tetris Arcade from 1988. It’s so much fun to play against friends ^_^ And it has the unique gameplay where you have objectives instead of just endless mode with increasing difficulty. You can read more about this one in my blog post about the Atari Tetris Arcade >>

Sega Tetris Arcade

My most recent Arcade pickup is the Sega Tetris PCB. This is not a Jamma standard, but fortunately I got an adaptor with it so I can play it on my Blast City cabinet :) It has these photorealistic pictures in the background, so awkward XD And when you die this disappointed monkey is disappointed in you… haha XD

Tetris Plus 2 Arcade

I also recently got a PCB of Sega Tetris that I can use with my Blast City arcade ^_^

C64 Tetris

I have two different editions of the Tetris game on C64. The gameplay is the same, it looks like on the back of the big box one (it’s almost all in black and white), the screenshots on the back of the smaller one are taken from a different system.

ZX Spectrum Tetris

I recently got the ZX Spectrum version of Tetris on cassette tape as well. The packaging looks exactly the same as the C64 version, but the graphics should be quite different because of the hardware. Haven’t had time to try this one out yet.

Amiga Tetris

I’ve begun finding Tetris games on Amiga as well ^_^ So far I have Tetris and Super Tetris. I love the box art on Tetris :D

Atari ST Tetris

I recently got myself an Atari ST 1040, an so far I only have like 5 or 6 games for it, one of them is of course a Tetris game ^_^ This one is called Welltris and it’s like playing Tetris in a well :D

CDI Tetris

I also have a Tetris version for Philips CDi. Just bought myself a CDI last week, so I’ll be able to try it out now ^_^

Famicom Tetris

Moving on to 8-bit Tetris we have a couple for the Famicom :D The BPS Tetris is by far my favorite, mainly because of the fucked up controls XD A fun challenge, and the Technotetris soundtrack is awesome! ^_^

NES Tetris

I also have the NES versions that I’m aware of. Here my favorite is by far Tengen’s Tetris, since they have this awesome co-op mode that is incredibly fun! You either work really well together with a friend, or it’s a train wreck, or you start fighting about the score and try to work against each other XD

Game Boy Tetris

Then there’s the handhelds! Tetris for Game Boy was a classic ^_^ But even more versions were released! I’m still missing Tetris 2 >_< But soon!

Game Boy Color Tetris

For Game Boy Color there was Tetris DX! This I accidentally bought from both PAL and JP region, usually I’m content with having the game from just one of the regions.. as long as I can play it and it’s the same game then I don’t really care for which region I have it :)

Game Boy Advance Tetris

I also have one for Game Boy Advance :)

Pokémon Mini Tetris

Continuing on handhelds I also have Pokémon Tetris for the Pokémon Mini. Unfortunately I don’t have a Pokémon Mini console to play it on :(

Tetris Jr.

I also have this tiny little Tetris Jr. handheld keychain ^_^

Super Famicom Tetris

On Super Famicom loads of various Tetris versions were released, like for example Tetris Battle Gaiden which brings RPG elements into it. In Super Tetris 3 you can play up to 4 people versus each other, I usually bring this one forth during the finals of my Retro Rumble competitions ^_^

SNES Tetris

On Super Nintendo we didn’t get as many Tetris versions. I don’t really want to add Tetris Attack to this collection, but I will, just because people always mention it when talking about Tetris on the SNES. I don’t think it’s a Tetris game though, in that case I would have to add every other puzzle game I have into this category. Tetris Attack is just Panel de Pon where they added Super Mario characters and called it Tetris because it’s a puzzle game, but it’s nothing like Tetris.

Sega Mega Drive Tetris

Nintendo was the company that acquired the license for Tetris back in the 80’s, therefore Sega was not allowed to release Tetris games, they created their Columns instead, which wasn’t as popular. They did however make a Tetris game for Sega Mega Drive, but they got sued and it got pulled out of production immediately. However a couple of copies made it out. There’s less than a handful known copies which sell for ridiculous amounts of money when they go up for sale. I do however have a bootleg/repro of this Sega Mega Drive Tetris game, just so I could play it and see what it was like for myself :) It’s a Chinese copy so it’s not very pretty, and doesn’t look like the original, but the game plays well ^_^

Nintendo 64 Tetris

Moving on to N64, there were a couple there as well.

Virtual Boy Tetris

Nintendo’s Virtual Boy didn’t get a lot of games (like maybe 15 in total), but two of them were Tetris! In North America they got 3D Tetris and in Japan they got V Tetris. The two are completely different games ^_^

Sega Saturn Tetris

Sega Saturn was popular in Japan, and so was Tetris. I guess Nintendo lost the exclusive license for Tetris by then O_o  I have a few Tetris games for Sega Saturn, not sure if I’m missing any..

Dreamcast Tetris

For Dreamcast there were quite a lot of Tetris games as well. I don’t know if I’ve found them all yet, but I have 3 different ones so far :)

Playstation Tetris

Some of the ones released for Dreamcast also came for Playstation. I have The Next Tetris on PS as well, but also a Deluxe version :D Then there’s Tetris X, both in normal and “Playstation best” edition and I also recently found out from a Facebook friend about this Japanese Tetris game called Tetris with Cardcaptor Sakura Eternal Heart XD

Wii Tetris

The Wii got a Tetris game called Tetris Party Deluxe. In this one they also have a co-op mode (just like in Tengen Tetris for NES)! So much fun! Two pieces on the board simultaneously ^_^

Nintendo DS Tetris

Then there’s Tetris on DS. I still need a few newer versions for 3DS and I also know there’s one for PS Vita that I’m missing..

Xbox & Xbox 360 Tetris

Tetris Worlds and Tetris Evolution got released on multiple platforms, I choose to get them on Xbox and Xbox 360 since that’s what I’ve mainly been playing on when it comes to the newer generation consoles. I recently found out about the Arcade Tetris game called Grand Master Tetris, never tried it, but I did find that it was also released for Xbox 360 in Japan, so I got it ^_^ Unfortunately the game is region locked and I don’t have a Japanese Xbox 360 to play it on :( yet… Meanwhile I’m also on the look out for the Arcade version!!!

Xbox One Tetris

The latest release of Tetris I imported from Japan for the Xbox One. It’s Puyo Puyo Tetris! You can choose to play either pure Puyo Puyo or pure Tetris, or you can play Puyo Puyo Tetris where they have merged the two! :D It’s awesome ^_^

Tetris Board Games

And here’s my board games. It’s Tetris by Tomy, Jenga Tetris and a Nintendo licensed Milton Bradley Tetris! :D

Now if you know about any Tetris video game that I don’t have yet then feel free to give me some advice on what to look for next ^_^ Meanwhile, try out some Not Tetris 2, I blogged about it some years ago and it’s still hilarious ;D

Two weeks ago I threw a Retro Rumble game night for a friend of a friends bachelor party XD

11 guys competed in various retro games, starting off with Soldier Blade for PC Engine. What’s really funny is that each and every new contestant beat the previous highscore XD Talk about competition!

After that we went old school and they got to compete in some Race on Philips Videopac G7200 ^_^ This was much harder for the guys, but a few of them managed to get some decent scores :)

They also got to compete in Kato-chan & Ken-chan on PC Engine, original Tetris on NES and Super Monaco GP on Sega Mega Drive :)

Meanwhile the entire retro game room was open for business, I had games on on every single TV. The guys really enjoyed Chou Aniki on Sega Saturn, such an absurd game! I just want everyone to experience it XD They also played some Neo Geo AES, some Atari 2600, Virtual Boy, Mr. Gimmick on Famicom and lots of other games and systems when they were not competing ^_^

After this it was time for the semi-finals where 4 competitors got to battle it out in a few different Super Famicom games. These games were VS Collection, Harapeko Bakka and Sugoi Hebereke ^_^

Vibben, who they threw the bachelor party for, luckily made it onto the finals as well :) Here they got to play Combat on Atari 2600, Choco Vader Contactee on arcade (really absurd japanese mini-games) and finally competing in highest score on co-op Tetris on NES, the Tengen version ^_^

And the winner was… Vibben! :D

I love throwing game nights so this was a blast ^_^

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…

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

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

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 ^_^

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 ^_^

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..

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.

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!

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 ^_^

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 ^_^

Now this wasn’t the entire loot.. I’m saving some of the best parts ;D I’ll be back soon with part II of the l00t!

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 ^_^

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!

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 ^_^

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

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

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

I managed to squeeze in another Retro Rumble before the year ended, on December 27th. This time was an all-time high in the amount of visitors! We were over 30 people! At least 21 of these were competing in the Retro Rumble competition ^_^ It was great, and a bit crowded XD A lot of old friends who I haven’t seen for a while came this time, and also a bunch of new friends who had never visited my game room before! :D My godson Benjamin is now the youngest Retro Rumble visitor ever XD

The competition consisted of 5 games that everyone had to play. These were:
1. Race on Philips Videopac 7200, one try, 2 minutes, get the highest score.
2. Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time on VIC-20. One life, get the highest score.
3. Spaceman Splorf on C64. One life, get the highest score.
4. Cycho Rider on PC Engine CD. One try, 2 minutes, get the highest score.
5. Katochyan & Kenchyan on PC Engine. One life, one stage, get the highest score.

Everybody competes individually but they’re also divided into teams, there’s a winning team score as well as an individual score :) The winning team was team “Spökplumpen” with Mattias, Matte and Leigh! :D The individual scores were really close this time, so we had to have an extra match to see who would make it into the semi-finals. This stood between Christian and Klas. They got to play The Kick Boxing on Sega Mega Drive and Christian came out victorious! :)

In the semi-finals the 4 highest scoring individuals battled in 3 different games on Super Famicom. I usually have these games or similar ones, because it’s so convenient using the Super Famicom multitap, and there’s just so many games on the system which has 4 player compatibility. The games they competed in were VS Collection, Sugoi Hebereke and Super Bomberman 2.

The two highest scores from the semi-finals were Matte and Christian. They went on to play in the finals which started of with Freeway on Atari 2600 :D Christian won this one, and the second game was Air Sea Battle on Philips Videopac G7200. They couldn’t seem to win over eachother in this one, after two rounds it was a draw XD So it ended with a game of Combat on Atari 2600 and Christian came out victorious! Congrats! :D

I know a few people have contacted me about what their scores were, here you can download the PDF >>

Thanks to everyone who attended! Hopefully I’ll see you again for a new Retro Rumble coming up in 2017! :D