Posted on

A trip to Mandai in Takasaki

We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on the basement and second floors. Mandai has its own area of UFO catchers.

There were xenomorph figures from Alien in one UFO catcher. I gave it one shot and gave up. Those larger, heavier boxes are difficult to grab. I went into the main store area to look at figures and models while Mayu checked out the dagashiya/candy store area.

Amuro Rey figure, apparently from Char’s Counterattack.

A figure of the Serbine. I’m currently working on the Serbine model by Max Factory.

Plenty of Gundam models. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t focusing properly on some of this stuff.

Next I went to the third floor to check out the video game stuff.

Neo Geo AES and Mega Drive games.

Boxed Super Famicom and Saturn consoles.

Here are the Super Famicom Mini and Mega Drive mini consoles, plus plenty of handhelds: Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan, Game Boy Advance, etc. I bought my first NGPC for only 1000 yen about 21 years ago in a cramped shopping alley under the train tracks in Kobe called Motoko. This shopping alley stretches between Sannomiya Station and Kobe Station and is home to many used clothing, used appliances, junk electronics, antiques, and retro game shops. At least that’s how it was when I lived in Hyogo Prefecture at the time.

Check out the prices on these Saturn games. Crows 18,000, Twinkle Star Sprites 10,000, Hyper Duel 60,000, Castlevania SOTN 16,000 (I think), can’t make out the price on Radiant Silvergun, Rockman 15,000, Doom 10,000 (NOT worth it), and I see a loose HuCard Parasol Stars for PC Engine laying in front of Dodonpachi. I really wish I had the chance to get Hyper Duel back in the day, but now it is incredibly expensive.

I guess not all retrogaming is terribly expensive. Here are Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and After Burner for the Famicom, cart only, for decent prices.

I decided to check out their anime soundtracks and found several records for sale: Castle of Cagliostro, Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Macross, and Gundam. Pretty cheap, too. I guess the hipsters are leaving the retro record market alone.

At Leisure Land, I played some air hockey with Ulan. There are two lonely Sega Astro City cabinets in the back corner with Shanghai games running on them. 100 yen gives you two credits, so I played this one. Shanghai III was next to it, but an older woman there playing on it.

So what did I buy that night? I bought this nice figure of Mai from King of Fighters, loose, for 1700 yen. It was a fun night.

Posted on

Dragon Quest ice cream at Baskin Robbins 31 in Japan

I didn’t even know about this until I was told by my friend in Canada of all places. Currently 31 Ice Cream has a Dragon Quest campaign. (As a side note, when I was a kid we called it “31 Flavors,” but then sometime in the ’90s they changed the name to Baskin Robbins. That never caught here in Japan, and everyone just calls the place “31” here.) My friend Jared sent me an email about this.

Oh look, it has soda-flavored gummy Slimes!

You can buy a limited edition box set and choose up to eight flavors, either regular or small scoops. If you get this box set, it comes with a set of cup coasters.

The store clerk was wearing a handmade Slime badge she made from felt.

So here is the box:

Here are the cup coasters it comes with:

And here is the “Slime Hoimi” ice cream itself.

In America, I never cared for gummy candy. However Japanese gummy candy is pretty great. This ice cream tastes good. Since my daughter’s birthday is coming soon, I bought this to celebrate in advance. Dragon Quest really knocks her out, and she loves the Slimes the best.

Posted on

Wild Guns Reloaded on Steam

I recently learned that Wild Guns on the Super Famicom by Natsume has been remade and is available on Steam. I haven’t played this game in over a decade. I have the SNES cartridge but was never able to get it for the SFC. Now it’s been remade with enhanced visuals and music, plus two additional characters (which are pretty meh). the original Clint and Annie are the best characters to play.

Cowboys vs. robots! Neon signs, disco rooms, steampunk contraptions. This is a pseudo 3D shooter, similar to Cabal. A button to shoot, a button to dodge/jump, and another button to ignite a bomb for heavy damage. Tap the shot button to lasso an enemy to stun him. Press the shot button on an enemy up close to activate a melee attack for bonus points.

Shoot bonus items to collect money and limited time shots, such as shotgun, heavy machine gun, bazooka, and this Ghostbusters-esque laser gun.

Cowboys vs. giant robots. Badass. So if Natsume is still around, it’d be nice if they could release their Pocky & Rocky/ Kiki Kaikai games on Steam. This game works flawlessly on my Linux desktop through the Proton utility.

Posted on

Ex Zodiac, a clone of the 16-bit Star Fox game for Steam

Very cool. This game has yet to be released, but I could download a free demo of the game so far. At first glance, you’d swear that you were watching Star Fox on the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo.

It’s extremely similar in gameplay, although Ex Zodiac adds a lock-on missile attack, which is rather nice.

I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on this game, but it’s pretty fun. It’s available on Steam OS, so it runs natively on my Linux computer.

Posted on

Steel Assault: a retro ode to Konami and Capcom platformers on Steam

Alright, this is quite a neat game, which hearkens back to the 16-bit/32-bit era of 2D platformer games. Presented in a retro 4:3 aspect ratio (which my computer monitor is, which I prefer), it also has scanlines to enhance the nostalgic, CRT feel to the visuals.

You can cast zip lines to prevent from falling, as well as for climbing to higher platforms.

I find Steel Assault to be rather difficult. You have an energy whip to lash enemies, and can also punch them when up-close. It seems that I just have to die constantly until I figure out the attack patterns of the bosses and mid-bosses because it is pretty unforgiving.

So far I’ve only made it to the 2nd level. Very hard, but fun game. Fortunately, this game is available on Steam OS, so it runs natively on my Linux desktop computer.

Posted on

Ikaruga on Steam!

I played Ikaruga in the game centers when it first came out. I was living in Himeji at the time, and I was excited to find this at the game center near Himeji Station. Being the spirtual successor to Radiant Silvergun, I was pretty hyped and greatly anticpated its release. I bought it on the Dreamcast when it was first released, too. Since it was under 1,000 yen on Steam, I bought it again. It’s weird seeing it in English. The game’s text can be switched to Japanese though. I appreciate how this game supports 4:3 aspect ratio monitors like my own. It runs perfectly on my Linux desktop through the Proton utility.

Posted on

’80s movie posters spotted in Huntdown

I’ve been playing Huntdown on Steam lately after it went on sale recently. It’s a sprite-based, 2D cyberpunk bounty hunter game with a retro ’80s aesthetic, down to the Terminator-style synth music, CRT monitors, and floppy disk drives. In the first section of the game, one of the levels you go through a movie theater. Check out the movie posters! Aliens, Akira, and The Thing. Love it!