Unfortunately, game centers in Japan have become increasingly boring due to the lack of actual games. Even the Purikura (“Print Club”) photo booths are boring as while 20 years ago they were a fun way for friends to have pictures taken together, they are apparently now targeted at young girls who aren’t old enough to wear makeup and these things detect your eyes and add make-up, make the eyes freakishly big, etc. The tourist-y Purikura booths were the best, so if you went to Tokyo Tower you could have your friends get a picture taken with Tokyo Tower inserted behind you, etc. Now they just make you look like some anime freak with creepy eyes. To think that girls these days actually appreciate how these photo sticker booths treat their appearances is bewildering.
The UFO catcher claw-arm prize games can only be entertaining for so long. Most of the time the claws just caress the prizes, or maybe they will pick them up, only to drop them clumsily. I’m sure it’s all on purpose.
Space Invaders Frenzy provides a fun gaming experience that cannot be replicated at home. It is a retro throwback to the original Space Invaders, but you control it with rapid fire gun turrets, picking up power-ups to defeat the invaders. It’s pretty fun.
I recorded this at the Taito Game Station in Lirica Mall in Maebashi a couple of years ago.
I went back to Shimamura a few days later and found Sega towels on sale! They were all discounted from their regular price. For each of the Megadrive, Saturn and Dreamcast, I bought hand towels, face towels, and bath towels. The hand and face towels are a two towel set.
Here are the hand towels:
Here are the face towels:
And here are the bath towels:
BONUS! Here is a set of Urusei Yatsura’s Lum-chan face towels I also bought:
You may need to click each image to see the images in a larger scale to truly see the effect, since WordPress tends to shrink images to fit.
For scanlines/shaders, you’ve gotta go into RetroPie Setup. From there, Configuration/Tools -> Config Edit -> Config Basic libretro emulator options. Now here you can choose to apply the shader to ALL of the emulators (option 0) or do it for individual emulators. I’m using Final Burn Alpha, so I went to Configure additional options for fba. Option 3 is Video shader enable (3). Click that and enable “True.” Next is Video shader file (4). I chose crt/crt-hyllian.glslp . You can choose it with the glow (crt/crt-hyllian-glow.glslp) to add that aged CRT look. I think there are others that will mimic a curved monitor’s surface. Tinker around and see what you like.
Here’s my Lynx crap. Behold the fancy carry case! I have the type 2 Lynx (the smaller one). I bought a set that came with the console, carry case, screen shield, and several games from an online store called Video Game Liquidators in 1997. Here’s my list of games:
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Chip’s Challenge Gates of Zendocon Gauntlet: The Third Encounter Ishido: The Way of the Stones Joust Klax Qix Rampart Roadblasters Robo Squash Rygar Shanghai S.T.U.N. Runner Todd’s Adventure in Slime World Xenophobe Xybots Zarlor Mercenary
I had hoped to visit Japan the summer of ’97 with the World Youth Visit Exchange Association (WYVEA), but the trip was cancelled. I had saved up enough money to go, but in the end I couldn’t go. (I went to Japan on my own the following year and made my own arrangements.) So, that summer I bought myself a Lynx and a decent VCR.
I recently discovered a game publisher called Flynn’s Arcade (awesome name!). Basically, the game is a cross between Dig Dug and Bomberman. You play as a bunny rabbit that poops bombs. And no, I’m not being silly. the game actually says that you poop bombs by pressing the button!
The object of the game is to kill all of the enemies on screen before the timer runs out, and you get bonus points for eating the four carrots on each screen. Press the button to drop a bomb behind you. It’s not like Bomberman where you drop a bomb right where you are, but rather behind your bunny. The delay is very swift, so you must move quickly. You can also dislodge rocks to have them fall on the enemies. Points multiply when you kill more than one enemy.
The emulated CRT scanlines are great in this game. Sometimes these faux retro games go overboard with the scanlines, but they look nice in this game. The game is available for Steam OS, so it runs natively on Linux and Steam Deck. Last year, I discovered Annalynn. Murtop is another such fantastic neo-retro arcade game. Play it or else you suck!
The first time I visited Japan was in 1998, and at that time all I saw were sit-down cabinets like the Sega Astro City, Taito Egret, Namco Cyberlead, etc. So, I was unaware that game centers here in Japan once had standing cabinets like America did until talking with my Japanese friend. He said that he would play Atari’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the ’80s. Atari had some successes in Japan back in the ’80s, especially Gauntlet and Marble Madness. And going back further, Breakout obviously made quite an impression in Japan, giving birth to the “block kuzushi” genre with Arkanoid being the most exemplary title. Dang, if only I could travel back in time, or at least Quantum Leap into my childhood self and relive those memories…
I get a lot of comments on the buttons covering my backpack. I appreciate it when somebody has something to say about a button they’ve identified as something they know and like so that I can have a meaningful interaction with somebody, but if they are a boring person and just commenting on the amount of buttons only because they noticed that I have a lot of buttons and that most people don’t have a lot of buttons on their backpacks then they’re just wasting my time as I’m not usually interested in interacting with normies since it depletes my Energon cubes or something.
A very long time ago, my cousin Bethany gave me a button that simply says, “Everything I need to know about life I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.” I think this was back in college. It just slowly increased from there. Many of the buttons I’ve purchased on my own, but several were given to me, particularly by people who were kind enough to just want to add to the collection. Over time, I’ve lost some buttons, unfortunately. I won’t show them all, but here are some I’m particularly fond of.
This is a button for Mugen Senshi Valis by Tokuma Soft for the Nintendo Famicom. While I don’t care for this Famicom port, I do like the PC Engine a lot and the Megadrive version somewhat.
These buttons are for a game called Pac-Man. Perhaps you have heard of it.
Here is Mai and her fabulous tits from King of Fighters 2001.
A few years back, Village Vanguard stores at shopping malls had plenty of Sega Megadrive merchandise. There were these blindboxed enamel pins. Here are Puyo Puyo, Tant-R (a spin-off from Bonanza Bros), Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bare Knuckle II (aka Streets of Rage II for the NA Genesis). I’ve never played Tant-R before, so I sent this pin to my friend Brian. That’s what friends are for: pushing stuff you don’t want onto others.
Here is Reimu from Touhou Project and Lum from Urusei Yatsura. Reimu was given to me by a former coworker named Eddie several years ago. I think the color may have faded a bit? Not sure. If you don’t know who Lum is, I hate you and I’ll never be your best friend.
More King of Fighters: Here are pixelated Athena and King buttons.
My friend Lou gave me these enamel pins: the Vic Viper from Gradius and Oopa Oopa from Fantasy Zone. He found these at specialty pop-up stores in Tokyo, I do believe.
Anyhow, I have many other buttons and pins on here: Uglydolls, Peanuts, Rilakkuma, Blue Impulse, Darius Burst, Star Trek, the Flatwoods Monster, Tamiya, Hasegawa, and other pins. If you don’t know what any of these are and just want to comment that I have lots of buttons because you’re a normie and find it weird that others aren’t normal like you, then don’t talk to me by saying, “Boy, you have a lot of buttons on your backpack, bleh” because that drains my energy. So shut up.
