Famicom friday, 5 games

We've had a little more free time recently so Fredrik could take up Famicom Friday.
There are some games that have been laying around for a while that he's been curious about.
All of the games are for sale at our shop, you can reach the items through the title links below.



First the puzzle game Ochin ni Toshi Puzzle Tonjan. A pretty uncommon game, and puzzle games can sometimes be surprisingly fun. However, the game felt very simplistic so it was probably made for kids.


Then he tried Super Chinese 2.



There are three Super Chinese games for Famicom. There are also three games on Game Boy ("Super Chinese Land") and three for Super Famicom ("Super Chinese World). We have a gameplay video of the first game on Game Boy, too.

The first game on Famicom and the first game on Game Boy are full action games, and they seem to be completely in English. The rest of the games have some RPG elements. A fun thing with these games is that they fully support 2 player co-op mode.

But this Famicom game turned out to be pretty hard to play if you don't know Japanese... I suppose it is playable with a guide, but it would take a very long time to get into it. So Fredrik didn't play for long, since he wouldn't understand the story anyway ...

So he went on to some Namco games instead. Namco made many very enjoyable games based on their arcade games and you know you will always get some decent gameplay, even if the games may lack depth.



Dragon Ninja was more fun than expected. It is also called Bad Dudes outside of Japan. The initial feeling is that the movement is stuttering and unresponsive, but you will get used to it very quickly. It has a great "Double Dragon" feeling to it, and the fighting gives satisfaction. A charming and surprising little addition is the "I'm bad" speech when you defeat a boss. The game seems to have unlimited continues so Fredrik kept playing for several stages.



Quinty is a simplistic but perfectly playable little action game. It is also known as Mendel Palace in the US. Like with many Namco games, the Famicom games seems to be entirely in English. It also has unlimited continues. We recommend playing in 2-player mode. You won't get blown away by it, but it's always nice with co-op mode.



Lastly, he played Burger Time. He tried it before but never made it very far. So this time he decided to give it some more time.

Typical for these arcade made games is that they were made to NOT be beatable... It is a difficult game if you don't learn the enemies' movements, much like in Pac-Man. They often don't move directly towards you, but move right and left instead. After a couple of tries, he made it to stage 3. Must have been tough, though, seeing as he had nightmares about the game that night!

Dragon Scroll for famicom

Yesterday I sat down to play Dragon Scroll, to see if it was playable in Japanese.

Dragon Scroll is an action/RPG game developed by Konami in 1987. It was only released in Japan.

Action/RPG can mean different thing. In best cases, all the fighting is in action, and you have a lifebar and level up. Some games are entirely in English. I have written about two perfectly playable FDS action/RPG games previously.

Dragon Scroll is very much like The Legend of Zelda. It has mostly action and there is no complicated menu system. With Select screen you see some items you can switch between, with English or little text. However, just like in Zelda, the challenge is to figure things out. To do this, you get clues from some enemies that you kill, and the clues are cryptic. According to strategywiki, the game is pretty hard even if you play the English translation (but I haven't tried). In Japanese, it will be impossible to get through it unless you follow a guide.

I played around for a couple of hours but it was hopeless. The good thing I can say is that the action sequences are definitely not unplayable. You have unlimited continues and I made it very far in experience points, to level 13 out of a maximum 15. So I don't think the game is hard if you know how to get through it. If you die, you keep all of your Exp points and can chose to get a password to continue at a later time.

I wasn't able to figure out any of the puzzles. Some of them include to stand between two statues for a couple of seconds, or to shoot certain statues a couple of times. (I read this later) You will in some cases get certain items, that you will have to use later on other items.

The game has typical well made Konami graphics and music. Nice big characters. The controls work flawless as soon as you get used to how your big character gets hit.

I'll quote from Chrontendo:

Konami does a Zelda clone! That's sounds really great, but the game itself turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. You spend most of the game wandering around five worlds (forest world, desert world, moutain world, etc. No ice world, thank God) and various dungeons looks for staffs, books, bells, rings and plants. Dragon Scroll is great looking, has awesome music, and the final dragon vs dragon battle is cool. But something doesn't quite click here. The magic is a little lame -- it's mostly used for finding hidden items. You never really gain any fun abilities from all the stuff you collect. The game feels structureless and lacks character; it mostly plays like a big easter egg hunt. Some of the items and areas are virtually impossible to find on your own (much like Castlevania II), so a FAQ will probably be necessary to finish this thing. -- http://chrontendo.blogspot.se/2009/09/chrontendo-episode-25-is-finally.html

Note that Chrontendo is usually a bit negative towards the games he describes.
I still have to agree with him on most points.

screenshot, taken from gamefaqs

Anyways, the game is perfectly playable and anyone who enjoys top-down NES/Famicom action/RPGs such as Crystalis or Willow should definitely try this out as this is in the same style with the same type of big colorful graphics. It isn't extremely deep and has a very standard story, but is a nice little fantasy game set in a world of waterfalls, castles and dragons, for those who enjoy that. Try it on an emulator with English text, and if you can beat it then try it on original hardware.

On gamefaqs, Dragon Scroll has a score of 4.10, which is pretty high. Higher than Willow, and a little below Crystalis. However, there are no reviews for it yet. It was only released in Japan and is probably not that well known.

Also see:

• http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dragon_Scroll
• http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/564419-dragon-scroll-yomigaerishi-maryuu

Hana no Star Kaidou - a reappreciation

My colleague Fredrik wrote about this game earlier after playing without a guide. After reading other people's reviews, it was easy to agree that it's a bad game. But we found out that many gamers (especially from the US) don't have enough patience with games like these.

The game is about a famous japanese pop star duo and you control both of them at once. There is no GameFAQ for this game but we found another page with useful information. The game is definitely more fun and playable once you figure out how to play.

* Instead of going right towards the wall on the first stage, you can go up the stairs to the left, making it possible to proceed to the next level (pressing up+right+left+fire button).

* You can walk up to an enemy after you stun them and press up. It gives you items that increase your hearts (time) and a cassette tape needed to enter the studio.

So the game isn't as impossible as we thought. You just have to know about these two things. But it's still a really weird game. You can buy it from us here when it is in stock.

Retro Gathering 2014

written by Kristin.

Sweden's 2nd to largest Retro Gaming convention @ Västerås, Saturday October 4th.

I've been working for Japanspel for almost two years now so me and Martin got free entry and the chance to sell some stuff. There were so many people that we didn't have time to take many photos.

For a few, short moments, one of us had the chance to take a stroll to look for things to buy for ourselves. By taking turns, we managed to get our hands on 4 things in 9 hours... we would've liked to find more stuff but I think as a seller it's pretty much impossible to get the same chances as a regular customer. We'll see what the situation is like next year.

Last year we made an article about Retro Gathering 2013, you can see it here.

Video gameplays lately (Saturn, FDS)

I haven't been slacking off playing lately but I have been visiting some friends who have a youtube channel with videos they upload where they play games.

It is in Swedish language. I am the guy to the left with the cap!

Here is Twinbee on Saturn. I have previously written about what a fun two-player game it is, finally I have a video:
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Here is Guardian Heroes. I hadn't played this before, but I quickly found out what a great gameplay it has, especially in multiplayer.

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Here we played two games on FDS:
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Well, there is a couple of more videos we've made and more will be uploaded. If you are interested, check out their youtube channel and subscribe.

Next time I visit them I plan to bring a couple of famicom games.

Hudson Famicom Stick HJ-7 repair

I recently got one of these for the first time.

Hudson Famicom Stick, HJ-7

It has small rubber pads for the joystick, and these had gotten stiff and it was hard to move.

I read some some recipes on how to fix them, such as boiling them for a couple of hours and then putting them in glycerol, or boiling them in an ammonia solution. Anyways, I put them in boiling water to soften them up. I don't know if it is such a good idea to do with conductive pads, but I didn't have much choice.

While it was boiling, I thought that if I could replace the pads with identical, I wouldn't have to worry about the pads being worn out or not being conductive. They look pretty identical to the pads in a MD1 controller. So tried to replace.

After a little of testing of one of my favorite games Bomber King, it seemed to work perfectly. The MD1 has nice and soft pads that move with little restistance. However! When moving the stick left and releasing, it would bounce to the right and move slightly right... The MD1 controllers are too soft! This was annoying, at least to me. So I was thinking, would this be acceptable to a customer? After some more testing I found it to be too annoying.

So I searched for other pads that would be better.

At the bottom here you can see the MD1 pad (left) and the original pad (right).

My first replacement attempt after MD1 was to cut out pads from a Super Famicom (SNES) controller. They worked alright, but I think they are slightly too short and soft, and gave a little of the same problem as the MD1 pads. Also, they didn't always make contact. I think that because these original rubbers are second hand, one can't trust them.

A video game seller needs to have many skills, such as cutting.

I looked at some other rubber pads.

The Saturn and MD2 pads are completely different and wouldn't fit. I also stabbed myself trying to open an MD2 controller when my screwdriver broke right through the plastic. Evil SEGA design.

Alright, but the SNES pads were still decent so I tried these third party replacement pads. They are stiffer than the original and new, so there would not be a concern about them making uneven contact (when some side might work worse than some other side).

The pads for the A and B button to the left are original and work as they should.

And now the stick seems to work great again. I won't bother boiling the original pads as these pads work great.

The best thing with sticks like these is that they make it much easier to move diagonally. They are also removable unlike original famicom controllers, and you can use an extension cord to make them longer.

Famicom sticks are hard to come by and I don't really know of anyone who owns one. On eBay these sticks are for sale at around 45$ with shipping. Due to my restoration work I'll list mine for 60$ (incl 25% VAT) plus shipping.

I don't know if this will be necessary to do with all of these sticks with time, but I suspect that the type of rubber they used is more likely to have this problem. Maybe it won't happen if it has been stored differently, or used regularly.

Jyutei Senki, Super Famicom

During the weekend I suddenly suffered a tooth inflammation that made it hard to eat, drink, swallow and gave me a lot of pain. Unable to do anyting, I sat down with a strategy game I had, Jyutei Senki.

It has a beautiful box, but I only have the cart at the moment.

I enjoy strategy games. Back when I was a teenager I spent many hours on the PC with games such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert and Heroes of Might and Magic IV. There is an appeal to me in being able to build something good that outsmarts the opponent, without ever feeling like I have to do work myself. The action does itself, and I am the military leader who builds smart strategies. A nice feeling when you plan a battle so that you know in the end your own guys will be able to just barely beat out the enemy and win the scenario.

Also, the computer can never cheat in strategy games. You can see what he has and you both have the same resources at your disposal. He has to follow the same rules as you. And, you can save and load at any time. So you can't blame your loss on a mistake or bad luck. 

Game Description

Jyutei Senki was only released in Japan. It was developed by Tam-Tam and produced by Enix and I would call it a light weight strategy game. I was happily surprised that it required no Japanese knowledge at all. Most Japanese strategy games I've tested so far seem to want to add complexity such as byuing and selling, reparing, and an abundance of options.

I'll show you someone elses video, because it goes faster than my gameplay. Here is a gameplay I enjoyed with someone playing the fan-translated version , and you see the intro and such. Normally I don't like to link to other's videos because I found that people often remove them!

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Jyutei Senki is simplistic. Take turn to move your units, and if they are close to an enemy unit, they can attack, and the enemy can retiliate. Each unit has a strength and attack range, and all that other stuff we expect from strategy games.

One little extra in this game are the repair spots. Put a unit on it, and the next move it will be fully healed. This is a tremendous advantage if used smart. You can restore your strongest unit from almost dead to completely restored in just one move. You can even place a unit on the repair spot and wait for enemies to attack (and give them retaliate damage), only to have yourself healed the next round.

Another thing that one might not be used to is that from each scenario, your units will get taken to the next scenario. But the ones that died won't come back. With each kill, a unit gets upgraded up to a max of 10 when it becomes "ace" and will get an extra power upgrade. You don't want them dead at that stage! So save often to avoid it... And try to keep your units alive.

The computer isn't particularly smart and often attacks you on repair spots. It also fondly attacks your most useless units first instead of finishing off your strongest units, puts its weakest units in front of its stronger units so they can't pass, and so on. Computer stupidity is one of your main advantages.

My story

Well, as it so happens, I started from a save game on level 7 without knowing. It took me a little while to understand how to play, and unfortunately I didn't understand this "don't die" thing too well at first. Your leader, a big bird called Ark, is stupidly weak until he gets 10 kills, but then he becomes the best unit of the game! So upgrade him quickly, and don't have him killed. He will, unlike other units, return in each new scenario, but at any level below 10 he is a useless crap that just dies as soon as battle starts. If he dies he will restart at level 0 again.

I played through the first couple of stages at about 40-60 minutes each. How many are there?? After each scenario it just says "to be continued". At around stage 12 it started getting more difficult, and I realized I should have upgraded other units earlier.

The gamefaqs FAQ (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/570965-jyutei-senki/faqs/39388) goes up to 17 scenaries, but the FAQ is incomplete. The game has 20 scenarios! The last 5 scenarios took me around 2,5 - 3 hours each, except the very last that took less than an hour.

The reason why the later scenarios took much long were:

• The computer moves take so long. He moves each unit one at the time, and when he has many it will take around two minutes per move. ("beer time")
• I had to restart a couple of times because I realized my strategy was bad. For example, I had to keep my flying birds alive, and kill off his flying birds quicker.
• Many Save and Load. Make a bad move and see your strong unit get killed off three moves later, you might have to reload from an earlier point. If it still can't be avoided that this or some other important unit dies, you might have to reload from an even earlier point. You can use a max of three save game slots, so use them wisely.
• I hadn't upgraded properly and was almost much worse than the opponent and had to find tricks to beat him, at the same time keeping my best troops alive.

Well, like a mad military commander I kept playing a couple of hours each night. Finally, Wednesday night, I beat the final scenario and the game. The ending was satisfactory. After the scenario mode there are expert scenarios you can play, if you want even more challenge.

I don't think this game has anything that can't be found in some app game but I am happy to have beaten this classic 1993 game, in case I ever make a list of games beaten. Starting from level 7 without knowing, it took a total of 25-30 hours, I think. It could have gone in at least half the time if I had known how to play from the beginning.

Here are some other reviews:

• http://www.videogameden.com/sfc.htm?jse (Jyutei Senki is a fun and unusual War Game. Its overall design is extremely well worked out and unique. Graphics are correct and perfectly fit the game's theme, especially the large animated scenes displayed during battles. However, the difficulty level is quite high. Most of the time any defeated units is lost, and this makes the outcome of any battle greatly influence the rest of the game, especially in later stages. All in all, an excellent game I would recommend to any fan of the genre brave enough to stick out its tough difficulty level. )
• http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/570965-jyutei-senki/reviews/review-56263 (This game is not for the faint of heart. It's very good, but the high difficulty level really turns a lot of people off of this game. Maybe if someone makes a PAR faq, it'll become more popular. But if you want a real thinking strategy, then you have found it.)