Japanloppis hösten 2013

Text: Kristin Loman. Foto: Martin Nyberg


Kön utanför slingrade sig lång. Säljarna förbereder sig för folkvimlet.

I Hallonbergens Centrum i Sundbyberg finns lokalen Aggregat, och det var dit vi åkte i fredags eftermiddag. Japanloppisen brukar äga rum ett par gånger per år och det här var tredje året. Kön slingrade sig lång utanför lokalen och besökare köade i flera timmar då det var många som ville komma in och ta del av utbudet: kläder, accessoarer, böcker, tidningar, peruker, cupcakes ... och så klart TV-spel.

Vi blev de första TV-spelssäljarna att delta på en av dessa Japanloppisar och denna gången var vi även de enda. Förutom spel så hade vi med oss spelmusik, spelguider och tillbehör. Vi erbjöd även besökarna att få spela Famicom hos oss: allt från Balloon Fight, Twinbee, Sanrio Carnival till Super Maro Bros.

De flesta var nog inte beredda på att se oss där och därför verkade många spelintresserade bli glada och positivt överraskade. Endel kände till oss sedan tidigare, bland annat via vår utställning på Peppcon tidigare i år men vi fick ofta hänvisa till hemsidan då många var nyfikna på våra tjänster och resten av vårt utbud.


Lokalen var fylld med folk i olika åldrar. Några stannar till vid vårt bord för att spela lite Famicom.

Då vi aldrig varit på någon av de tidigare japanloppisarna så visste vi inte riktigt vad vi skulle förvänta oss, men när kvällen var över så kände vi oss nöjda. Visitkorten hade gått åt och vi fick en känsla av att vi återigen lyckats få många nya personer att få upp ögonen för det som vi och inte många andra erbjuder i Sverige. Med mycket blandat folk på en väldigt liten yta kändes denna tillställning som en blandning av Peppcon och Retro Gathering och det är verkligen ett bra betyg.

Vi är gärna med fler gånger igen om vi skulle få chansen.


Fler som spelar på vår AV-moddade Famicom. Även våra visitkort blev populära på loppisen.

Currently playing: Mario's Super Picross on SFC

Last week I have spent more time than I should playing Mario's Super Picross.
I don't actually play many video games, even though I sell them. Mostly I prefer to relax after work. But this is a relaxing and de-stressing game.

Who ever had the game before me must also have thought so, because in the savegame he solved all 300 puzzles. That probably takes at least 100h in my estimation. The early puzzles are simple but later puzzles take almost all the 30 minutes and may require several tries. Last copy I tested had something like 280 solved puzzles... Yes, addictive game, and maybe not that well known.

I'll borrow someone elses video because I already uploaded a game boy picross video.
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So it is pretty simple to figure out. a 0 means there are 0 black blocks on that row or column. If it says for example "2 2" it means that are two black blocks next to eachother, then unknown emply blocks, then another two black blocks next to eachother.

There are some tricks to figure out where the black blocks are. For example, if a row has max 15 blocks and there are 9 connected blocks on that row, you know there will always be a couple of blocks in the middle.

The difference with this SFC game from the GB games is the Wario mode. In Wario mode you don't get penalized for placing in the wrong square and the timer goes up instead of down. That means you can't lose a level, but the levels also seem more difficult to solve.
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I wish the music of the games were better. It isn't bad but I think it could be nicer to listen to, and more variation would be good too. But I still play it.

I read the game was the first Japan exclusive game to be released on the European Virtual Console. I play it on super famicom hardware, obviously.

A retro meeting yesterday

Yesterday I visited my friend and a very good costumer "stopXwhispering" who writes ambitiously at http://retro-video-gaming.com/. A much more popular blog than mine so your likely to know about it I suppose.
Meeting people isn't something I generally do much of but I couldn't miss this chance to see so many of my old games again. I was also always curious in the 2-player aspect of retro games which would be an excellent opportunity. I think around 25 people showed up in stopXwhispering's fine retro room with many consoles and TVs hooked up.

stopXwhispering is a very good collector because she collects to play games, and it is nice to see people enjoying our games. It is much harder to please the museum collectors who seem to collect items as dust collectors and prefer their manuals to be unread, etc. Not that I care why people buy games, of course, but I do care about making customers satisfied.

She had though out a competition of some games and the best total score would get a price. I think that on purpose they picked games that are not common PAL games people might have played before.

I didn't do to well myself. I ended up in the middle of the field. It was only thanks to a somewhat strong performace in the game Tetris (BPS), which I actually have played a little before.
In Tetris (BPS), you turn the block by pressing Down which takes a couple of minutes to get used to. Somehow I must have learnt the skill from all of my testing of the game. It may still be unfair for those who don't know that to get a high score in Tetris you have to get many four-rows or three-rows. I didn't know myself until recently actually. But I am not much of a gamer.


We also played Hector '87, also known as Starship Hector. The key to get a high score was probably be to watch others play to learn where the enemies are. A decent shoot'em up game, from the "middle" generation of 8-bit shooters in my opinion. I consider first generation shooters to be Xevious, Twinbee and Argus. With the middle shooters you have more enemies on the screen, better music, and just more intensity.

We also played Musha on the Mega Drive and Ninja Spirit on Pc Engine. It seemed that some people were a lot more experienced than others in playing these games, or maybe they were just better gamers. Anyways, I didn't last long. Ninja Spirit is an expensive and sought after game, I could have played it when I had it, but I never really saw the appeal... I can't think of any "run and kill" game that I have played for more than 5 minutes.

Then, a music quiz that didn't go to well for me either. I think one reason is because I wanted to do it alone and another reason that I never really got into NES as a kid. I don't know the hair color of Metroid or the names of bosses in Mega Man. Anyways, the quiz was well drafted, I think. God, in general I find quizes annoying, but a quiz while drinking beer at least makes for one fun. 

There was also a Halo moment I refused to take part in so I got disqualified.

In the semi final, the best people played Vs. Collection. I remember I had this fun and uncommon for sale at 25$ for at least six months (in great condition) before stopXwhispering bought it. I think many people don't have good taste in games since they passed out on this fun game.
It was fun for me to see it in action with 4 players.
They also played Super Bomberman. The bomberman games are always fun with 2-4 players (or more in some version!). But I think some of the later bomberman titles got confusing, and that the simpler bomberman the better it is.
I set up Bomberman '93 for pc engine to try out multiplayer and it proved popular. Games for 2 or more players are probably good to have for gamer meetings. It would also increase interaction between people that don't know each other. I read that was one major reason why Pong was so popular in bars in the early 70's.
I did find a person to play Salamander (Life Force) co-op with, but that game is too aggrevating for most first time players. I did make it to the first stage boss for the first time so I will call it a success. My co-op player was game over much earlier though.

In the final match, the two best players played Fatman on mega drive. I once tried to sell this game very cheap but no one ever wanted it. I auctioned it away in a lot last week. It is in the middle.


These 9 games sold for 161 SEK.

Fatman is obviously a crappy game but it was fun to watch and fun for the finalists to play, a "camp" game if there is one.
I sometimes compare the artistical side of games to movies. Some people like movies and are called movie buffs. These movie buffs like to think that they are watching some artistical creation that tells us some deep secret about life, when in reality they are watching some pretentious run of the mill production that lives in its own reality and tells us lies that are disconnected from reality (such as "follow your dreams", "the bad guy always get shot and dies" or "one day a prince will come and take you to live happily ever after").
Video games are no worse or better, from an artistical point of view. A game like fatman is like watching a camp movie, I think. I just happen to like video games better than movies.

I almost forgot to say it was a very nice evening, and thank you very much to hostess Stopxwhispering.

Magic Knight Rayearth (saturn) and Youtube, and other saturn intros

I uploaded the intro of Magic Knight Rayearth a while ago.
After that, I got a "contentid" warning on youtube, and my account is now restricted to max 15 min long videos... This restriction will last for 6 months, if I don't get more contendId warnings.

I read alot about the contentId thing they have on youtube. If your clip is restricted by its copyright owner worldwide, you will get this warning.

It isn't the same as a copyright strike though. A copyright strike is more serious -- if you get three stikes your account will be permanently deleted. That would be pretty devastating for me...

I have uploaded around 200 videos now. Many of them have third party matches, such as the song from Super Mario Bros that is copyright by nintendo. Bomberman songs is also copyright, but not be Hudson but by a company they work together with: iosyshaitenai. This is confusing. All it says is: the music is owned by iosyshaitenai.

This video has copyright material from a greek geological / weather company. I have no idea what. I thought it could be the logo in the intro, or maybe that the game developers used 3d graphics material.


My videos of Super Mario Bros 2 also have copyright song from "Taigherwuds-Bravo Mario! (Original Mix)" by InGrooves. Another Super Mario Bros 2 video has copyright music from "Organ Donors-Super Mario", by [Merlin] Essential Music.
Basically this means that they get money from the ads that are shown by the video. They can also chose to block access to my video, if they want. (by the way, I don't get or have signed up to make money from the ads by my videos)

If you get a contentId warning you can dispute it. It took me a while to understand what this is and what it does. Youtube has several warnings about doing it wrong, that it might get your account banned and such. You can't actually dispute that material is owned by the copyright holders, so I can't dispute that I use material from "Organ Donors-Super Mario", by InGrooves, whoever that is. I think it is a copyright troll.

You can claim fair use though. What happens is that they send your message to the copyright owner, who then decides if they want to allow me to use their copyright material. Youtube has all kinds of warnings about this. Fair use you only be claimed if your material is non-commercial, does not infringe on the original material, creates something new from the original or is used for critical commentary....

Well it isn't the easiest thing to try and figure out if my Magic Knight Rayearth video is fair use. After reading around, it seems that it might not be, but that you probably won't get penalized for asking a few times. So I sent in a fair use request on my intro of Magic Knight Rayearth, and until TMSanime has decided, the clip will be available for viewing. So take your chance to watch this beautiful intro.
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I really started to like Saturn intros. I like them more than the intros on any other console, for some reason, including on later consoles.

Here is the intro for Langrisser III
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I have NO IDEA on how to play the game so I just shot the intro. LOL.

Here is Cyber Doll. I actually played that game, and I liked it. Check out part 2 and 3 for gameplay.
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Very imaginative story, maybe they used drugs.

I have made a couple more Saturn intro videos that are on Youtube.

2 player game recommendations

Article by Kristin

We play a lot of games. A lot of them are good, some are not so good, some are downright bad, but there are a few games that we like for a special reason: the co-op feature!

It might not sound like something very special but back in the days of 8 bit, it was not very common. Many games have a 2 player option but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can play simultaneously. Most of the time, like in games like Super Mario Bros or Gradius, you just take turns in playing, and player 2 has to wait for player 1 to lose a life.

So here are some good 8-bit 2-player co-op games that we highly recommend.


Battle City (Famicom)

Not many people might know about this action game but it's really worth a try. You play as two tanks and the mission is to defend the eagle at the bottom while taking out all of the enemies.
We don't have it for sale right now, but if you are interested you can make a request in our webshop and we might contact you the next time it's in stock.

Here is a video from our YouTube channel, you can skip to 00:20 to see our gameplay:



Salamander (Famicom)

This game is called Life Force outside of Japan and has been a well-known favorite for many of us who grew up with the NES. Our most recent cart only auction of Salamander ended at 106 SEK. There is sequel to this game called Salamander II for Sega Saturn, Playstation and Arcade, which was unfortunately never released outside of Japan.

Salamander is a spin-off to the Gradius series and combines horizontal with vertical shooting action. It is similar to Gradius in many ways but has more smooth controls and you won't have to start from the beginning each time you lose a life! And yes, the Konami code works here as well, on the start screen. You might need it before you learn to master this game!

We don't have our own video of this game online yet on our channel,
but here is a clip from someone else playing the western version in co-op mode:




Twin Bee (Famicom)

This Japan-exclusive shooter title is really popular in Sweden and it sells very well from us at Tradera. There are many sequels as well, for example on Sega Saturn and Super Famicom.

We currently have the Famicom version for sale, you can order the game from our webshop. Here is a video from our youtube channel, but in this video we play as 1 player for the FDS version.



Bomberman GB (Game Boy)

If you put your Bomberman GB in your Super Game Boy you can play 2-player with the second SNES controller. This Game Boy game can be played up to four player with a SNES super multitap.

We recently sold this item on Tradera, here is a link: www.tradera.com/item/300201/192308627/bomberman-gb-till-game-boy.
And here is a video from our youtube channel, recorded from an original Super Gameboy:



Puyo Puyo (Game Boy)

This is a classic puzzle game which has been released on multiple console systems over the years. Unfortunately it has not been very popular outside of Japan, and we think it deserves more attention. We currently have this game for sale on Tradera: http://www.tradera.com/item/300201/192308643/puyo-puyo-till-game-boy.

Here is a video from our youtube channel, recorded from an original Super Gameboy:

O-chan no Oekaki Logic, Sega Saturn

Article by Kristin

This game works exactly like Mario Picross, the only difference is that our well-known plumber is exchanged for Sunsofts characters from the Hebereke series. It's a puzzle game where you try to figure out a pattern based on numbers on the side of the board. If you are unfamiliar to the Mario Picross series, you can read about it in our previous blog entry from last year: http://japanspel.blogspot.se/2012/09/mario-picross.html. Also, now that we have a video recorder, here is a video that Fredrik made recently of the Game Boy version of Mario Picross:



O-chan, the cute cat-girl (who is changed into the Lizard boy Freeon-Leon in the NES game Ufouria), is the main character of O-chan no Oekaki Logic, in comparison to all other Hebereke games where Hebe (or Bop-Louie in Ufouria) acts as the main character. The games has been released on many platforms: Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, Super Famicom and Wonderswan. The Playstation even got two sequels, logically called O-Chan no Oekaki Logic 2 and O-Chan no Oekaki Logic 3.

I don't know much about the differences between all these versions of the game because there isn't much information about them on the internet. But we were able to try the Saturn version and uploaded a video about it on our YouTube channel:

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We recently sold the Sega Saturn version on Tradera, the auction ended at 52 SEK which is about 5 euros. You might still be able to see the auction here. None of these games are very common but they are also not very expensive, so they could be worth checking out if you like challenging puzzle games and have grown tired of Sudoku. We hope to get more copies of this game in the future. Next time, maybe even for another console.

Gamex 2013 - från ett japanskt retroperspektiv

Text och foto: Kristin Loman.



Sveriges största spelmässa hölls även i år i Kistamässan strax norr om Stockholm. För fjärde året i rad fick mässhallen inredas med dekaler från en mängd olika företag som alla har någon form av koppling till spel. Den 31 oktober 2013 slogs portarna upp för alla hungriga besökare och Gamex pågick i hela fyra dagar.

Jag kom dit under fredagen den 1 november och blev snabbt översköljd av alla intryck som gick att hämta. Det fanns mycket olika aktiviteter på mässan och det kändes som att det alltid hände någonting. Det känns alltid spännande att delta på sådana här event, även om man själv inte är utställare (för den här gången...!).



Det man såg mest av när man gick omkring på området var detta som ni kan se ovan: mycket amerikanskt, mycket nytt och framför allt mycket folk! Man fick tränga sig fram bland folkmassorna och jag hade tur ibland som hittade bra fototillfällen där någon person inte hann gå framför mig.

Men jag lät inte detta stoppa mig utan jag fortsatte min jakt efter retroprylar och mer japanskt, då det trots allt är det som är vår avdelning. Och det visade sig att det inte var förgäves i år heller.



Ett axplock av det utbud som fanns tillgängligt på mässan.

Det fanns faktiskt flera spår av både retro och japanskt på många håll. Det mesta var försäljningsföremål men det fanns även tre skärmar där man kunde spela gamla Nintendo-klassiker på NES, SNES och N64. Det var betydligt mer retro i år än tidigare och man kan tydligt se att retrotrenden växer sig större.

Något av det mest fascinerande är när nya spel låter sig inspireras av retrospel, eller när klassiska spelserier återuppstår i den nya generationen. Vi som växte upp med retrospel har nu blivit vuxna, vissa av oss blir speljournalister och vissa av oss blir spelprogrammerare, så det är inte konstigt att retro är populärt idag.

Spelserier som Mario, Sonic, Pokemon och Final Fantasy har lyckats hålla sig kvar genom generationerna men jag tror att vår generation vill återskapa våra barndomsdrömmar och samtidigt visa de nya generationerna att det finns många olika former av spelglädje och att historien har många dolda och spännande element.


Ett tydligt exempel på att retrotrenden växer sig större är när man ser nya produktioner med retroinslag.