8/31/2013:
Oops, I forgot to update this page when I finished the third "100 Super Famicom games in 10 minutes" video. I obtained a lot of SFC games here in Japan for real cheap and used footage of these games to make this video.

The first 83 games in this video were recorded on original Nintendo hardware. The rest I filled in with my Xbox emulator. I actually began recording footage of games for this video before I moved to Japan in January 2012. My friend's Super Wildcard wouldn't work with his laptop for some reason, so he lent me his Everdrive. It was rather finicky and wouldn't load a lot of games. It was inconsistent to boot. For example, Back to the Future Part II loaded and I was able to capture some game footage, but when I tried playing the game again on the Everdrive, it wouldn't load. So, I was not impressed with that hardware.

I started writing a few reviews. Lately I have been going through a plastic model mood. I have also been busy recording game footage for a "100 import-only Sega Saturn games in 10 minutes" video. Eventually, the pendulum will swing back and I'll start playing more SFC games, for sure.

Last year, I mentioned about the cancelled Akira game for the SNES. In September, Hardcore Gaming 101 did an article on the fate of the Akira game. I know there was an Akira game on the Famicom, and there was the UK-developed Akira game on the Commodore Amiga computer that is considered one of the worst games on the Amiga (if not the worst). THQ was supposed to make an Akira game for the SNES, Genesis, Game Gear, Sega CD, and Gameboy. The project fell apart. Read this interesting article they made on getting to the bottom on what happened to this ill-fated, multi-platform game project.

I've been writing reviews, so stay tuned for an update with several new reviews soon!

I arrived Friday night, April 29th. That night I got to meet up with some other members of the Shmups forum. We met up at the famous Hey game center and found that we were just standing around talking to each other more than actually playing games. So, we decided to just go hang out at a coffee shop or bar or izakaya, and we had a difficult time finding anything open past 10pm that wasn't a game center in Akihabara. We finally found a place for booze and nomz and just talked until past 1am. Here's the pic to prove it.

From left to right is Shou, Dcharlie, Gaijin Punch, Rancor, and me.

Unfortunately, another vacation in Japan is drawing to a close. Tomorrow I'm taking the bus back to Tokyo, and from there I'll return to Narita Airport. I've had a great time with family and friends, but I have to go back to work. I'll be taking with me a rather large loot of Super Famicom games! Power of the Hired, Alcahest, Makeruna! Makendo, Makeruna! Makendo 2, Super Aleste (aka Space Megaforce), Treasure Hunter G, The Firemen, Daruma Doujo, (for a friend of mine), Super Robot Taisen #3, Super Robot Taisen EX, Lady Stalker, Earth Light, Battle Tycoon, Gadulin (this is also called GD Leen), Gundam Cross Dimension 0079, Panel de Pon, Torneko no Daibouken, Great Strategy Expert WWII, and Flying Hero. That's a total of 19 SFC games, and 18 of those are for me, yay. Many of these were only about 300 yen or less each! I also picked up some Saturn, Dreamcast, PC Engine, Mega CD, Megadrive, and PSP games too.

In the August 1994 issue (number 61), two anime SNES games that looked real cool never made it to the USA. One was Akira and the other was Ranma 1/2: Anything Goes Martial Arts (aka Super Battle as it was called on the rec.arts.anime.games newsgroup). T*HQ was supposed to release Akira on the Genesis as well, but neither console got this game. Would it have been any good? I do not know. As for Ranma 1/2, there was even a full page ad advertising the game that same issue. Toho was going to release this game domestically, featuring the English voice "talent" that was responsible for the Viz Video dubs. The rumor on rec.arts.anime.games and Fidonet Anime Echo back in the day had it that Rumiko Takahashi, the creator of Ranma 1/2, was appalled at the English voice acting in the first game (Hard Battle), which was released by DTMC. If you thought the dubbing to the anime was bad, wait until you hear the dubs in Hard Battle. Ugh! This localization effort got the axe, and Ranma 1/2: Chougi Rambuhen (aka "Super Battle") was never released in English. At the time, I was kinda stupid, and I even liked the Ranma 1/2 dub back then. I still would have preferred the Japanese voices to remain intact for the port, but the Viz dub's voices was a far cry above those in Hard Battle. So, was looking forward to this game being released domestically. It never came, so Chougi Rambuhen became my first ever Super Famicom import game. From then on, my Super Famicom import collection grew, as did my desire to put this website together to celebrate import Super Famicom gaming.

Below are the sneak previews of Akira and Ranma in EGM#61.

Check out a new review for Sanrio Shanghai.

Expect some new reviews soon!

So, I'd been rather preoccupied the past few months and haven't made any updates to this website. For the past few weeks, we've been slowly unpacking and I have my game setup complete. I did recently score some new SFC games: Accelebrid, Battle Cross, The Great Battle III, Super Pinball II: The Amazing Odyssey, and Nangoku Shonen Papuwa-kun. Great Battle III was a gift from my friend Brian.

I have tickets to fly to Japan at the end of April! In the wake of the terrible Tohoku earthquake two weeks ago, The Kantou area has been suffering from food and water shortages as well as power blackouts. The food shortages are mainly just ready-to-eat foods like bread and instant ramen. Regular food is still in abundance. A month from now, I'm hoping that the situation will have mostly normalized by then. I will spend a few days in Tokyo before heading up to be with the family in Nagano-ken. I'll be uploading more videos to my YouTube channel of more neat shops and such.

In January, I wrote an essay about Japanese culture on the Super Nintendo in my Greg's Life section of my homepage, highlighting three games: Kendo Rage, Pocky & Rocky, and Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Go read it or else!

1. I'm a retro gamer, so I'm only focusing on what was not released for the domestic (US) SNES.
2. Some friends and others have suggested "Hey, why don't you record off the computer emulator or the Xbox? The resolution would look better." Well, I wanted this video to be recorded off the native hardware. 49 of the 100 games were recorded from actual Super Famicom cartridges pooled together largely from my own collection, plus from three other friends of mine. The rest of them, except for a very few, were recorded from my SNES using a borrowed Super Wild Card with a laptop serving as a ROMs server via the parallel port. I did not   want this to be yet another "Hey, I'm yet another guy who knows how to use an emulator" type of video. The few other games were recorded from ZSNES on my Xbox for games that just wouldn't load on the SWC, and also my current progress on Tales of Phantasia (which I'm currently stuck on, and haven't spent much time on it lately since I've been playing so much Popful Mail.
3. The final point, and again this ties into wanting to use cartridges as much as possible, was to show the progress of the games in later stages by using save files off my cartridges. I tried not to show too many games of "This is me playing the first few minutes of the game, on the first level with a level 1 character."

So, here is the new video!

I recorded this video with my new AverMedia DVD EZMaker USB Gold capture device. It was like a Christmas gift to myself. Unfortunately, my laptop didn't care for it and the sound would snap and pop intermittently. Must be some sort of software conflict, because the device is supposed to be made for Win7 64bit. Weird. What's nice about this device is that there is apparently ZERO time delay through the software, so I am able to play the games directly from my SNES through the capture device with no problems at all!

I've had a lot of fun playing these games and I've discovered some great new games. Here are some random thoughts:

• I'm glad I bought Jutei Senki. I really, really like it and I want to seriously get into it soon. I really like strategy games, and this game is fairly unique.
• I can't figure out Z Gundam. I'll have to spend some time translating the manual, or at least see if somebody's already written up a FAQ on gamefaqs.com.
• I cannot play survival horror games, especially when the protagonist is so helpless. Clock Tower bugs the heck out of me. When that asshole with the scissors pops up out of the bathtub, it scares the crap out of me and the girl can't seem to run away fast enough. I guess I'm supposed to run and hide, and the other orphans who live at the end of the game depends on what I choose to do in the game. So if I want Laura to live, I just have to not see her hanging in the bathtub by the shower head. But ugh, I'm such a sissy to play survival horror games.
• Battle Cross is THE NEATNESS. I love that game! It reminds me so much of Atari's Badlands, which was basically Super Sprint with cannons. While everyone was trying to ape F-Zero and Mario Kart with the Mode 7 graphics, it is so refreshing to discover this game that keeps it completely 2D. I want this game!
• Hamelin no Violin Hiki is a very sweet game. Very unique, by Enix, and I'd like to get it!
• Dragon Knight IV was interesting. The Dragon Knight series was a hentai fantasy RPG series for computers in Japan. Dragon Knight 3 was released domestically as "Knights of Xentar" for DOS/Windows. Dragon Knight 4 was stripped of most of its ecchiness and was released for the SFC. It apparently has a solid strategy tactics gameplay to it, thus Banpresto released it for the SFC.
• Gambare! Daiku no Gensan is a super neat platformer by Irem. My friend Brian put this game on the list, and I like it a lot.
• Go Go Ackman 3. I've never played any of these games, but I really liked playing this game. The part I recorded was a shmup level.
• Bookmans has Lord Monarch for only $6. I didn't buy it, so instead I've played it on the emulator, but I cannot figure out how the game is supposed to be fun. I saw a dragon walking around a mountain in the next island over, so I had a man build a bridge so I can send someone over there to get eaten by the dragon. He wouldn't come out of the cave, so I had my guy try to destroy a house in the neighboring country. Maybe there's a walkthrough on how to play it.
• For some reason, I now like Magical Drop. I had it for the NGPC, but I sold it to a friend many years ago. Playing it again on the SFC, I kinda like it now. Go figure.
• I like Flying Hero! I want to get that game now. Also Spriggan Powered. I played both for the first time at last. Brian teased me for being a Super Famicom nut and still I'd never played these games. Well, I finally have, so shut up, Brian!
• Votoms still sucks. I gave it a bad rating on this site, and it still gets a bad rating.
• Astro Boy was actually more interesting the second time around. I'd played this a bit many years ago and did a quick mini-review of it for the Snapshots section, but I didn't care for it much back then. Of course it's not as incredible as Treasure's Astro Boy game for the GBA, but it's a nice platformer.
• I like Bomberman 3 better than 4. I don't know... I just didn't care for it much. Then again, 3 reminds me a lot of Saturn Bomberman, which is the first game to introduce me to the Bomberman series. I'd like to get Bomberman '94 for the PC Engine someday and see what that's like (or just check it out on my Xbox emulator).
• Super Pinball II: Amazing Odyssey is great fun! I never knew of this series. The original was released domestically, but this sequel seems way cooler. I'd like to buy this one too.

I've also added an article on the Super Famicom Memory Cassettes in the FAQ. Special thanks to Satoshi Matrix on the Racketboy Forum for supplying this information. Check out his blog, the Retro And Contemporary Gaming Archives.

Recently I received a super neat-o Super Famicom shirt I bought off eBay from the seller called Sloth Machine. Jealous? This is my second Super Famicom related shirt, after the Snoopy Concert shirt I bought a few years ago.

I've also added a blurb about Sailor Moon S: Kurukkurin. Gosh, I sure do like saying the word "blurb." It's fun. More fun than playing Sailor Moon S: Kurukkurin, apparently.

Also, check out this incredibly awesome video of a guy playing the theme to Area 88/U.N. Squadron, using his left foot to play the bass notes!

Listen to the original Forest Fortress level music and then listen to his piano version. Beautiful! He also did some beautiful piano versions of music from Final Fantasy VII. But sadly, after checking out his Youtube channel, I learned that this young man had committed suicide. It's sad to see such a talented soul end, especially after his music has touched me and brought back such nostalgic memories of good times. After reading of his death while listening to Aerith's theme, I wept. Rest in peace, George. :~(

Additionally, I have done some mini-reviews of some anime Super Famicom games in the Snapshots section: Akazukin Chacha, Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, and SD Gundam: Power Formation Puzzle. Read them or else. I also added a few pics to the Demos page. Oh yeah, and I also removed that bar across the top of each page. I thought I was being clever and artistic with distorting the SFC logo, but friends and others have commented that it looked like an HTML error. I also fixed the color of the green in the SFC logo on the title page after a friend pointed out that it looked grayish green (I'm colorblind). Something else is that I've added a logo to the URL to make the bookmark for this page look pretty. I found this page that describes how to use this tool to make those icons and put them onto your website. Neatness!

I will spend more time with The Firemen and work on a review for that. A few nights ago I started playing Popful Mail a bit and I was really getting into it. I'd like to spend more time on it, but I am also trying to master playing mahjong by playing Suchie Pai some more. I'm also working on a review for Do Re Mi Fantasy. I also want to check out a game called Run Saber, which is described as a sort of mix of Contra and Strider, featuring two players. I hope that in the past few months, the amount of updates I've made to this site has made up for the slump I've been in for the past several years.

I have never played Pocky and Rocky before last night. I had no idea that it is such a great game. I've only seen the name, and I figured it was some lame American critter game. I had no idea it was a Japanese game, much less a game about Japan. Known as Kiki Kaikai, your main characters are a Shinto shrine maiden and a tanuki (or a raccoon for the domestic version). It's a shooter and the gameplay is very deep. He introduced me to another great shooter called The Firemen, which was released on a PAL format but never for North America. The game plays like Alien Syndrome, but you are fighting fires. I scanned the box and will review this game for this site. He also introduced me to Supapoon DX. I've played the fist Supapoon via the emulator on my Xbox, but the DX game is certainy better and has a 2 player vs mode! Whoever destroys all of the blocks or doesn't die wins! It's a unique twist on Breakout for sure.

With all these great games, my appetite for buying more Super Famicom games is increasing. I don't know if I will make it to Japan next year or not; perhaps my wife and daughter will go there without me. I'll keep my eye out for a used Pocky and Rocky 1 and 2 at Bookmans and Play N Trade from now on!

I've cleaned up some of my older reviews because they were rather amateur and written so that the intended audience is people who were naive about gaming and such. I first created this page in the mid 90's when plenty of people still played their Super Nintendos. By now, I figure that anybody who reads this is a dedicated retro gamer and not some general populace dweeb who plays World of Warcraft or Gears of War all day and hates "old" games.

I haven't received any feedback on this Anime SFC site since 2007. I don't know if its because people aren't clever enough to figure out how to convert "superfamicom -atsign- cox -dot- net" into a real e-mail address or not, or if it's because people just don't know this site exists anymore. I used to get a lot of e-mail about the site, and I miss it all. Even the mail from morons asking for TEH ROMZ.

Google is no longer the search engine it used to be. Now it heavily favors profit commercial businesses over actual content. 10 years ago, doing a search for Super Famicom on Google would show my own Super Famicom-dedicated page as well as others that base the entire content of the site on it. Now, do a search for Super Famicom, you get game sales sites, Myspace, Amazon.com, retail sites, Twitter.... OK, so now there's a Super Famicom T-shirt I now want, but still... At least if one searches for "anime super famicom," this site is #1 on the list.

The FAQ was horribly outdated, with references to Lik-Sang and Buy-Rite, and newsgroups like rec.arts.anime.games. It has been far too long since I've updated the FAQ, so I finally cleaned it up. It was nostalgic to review this page since I haven't touched it for so long. I even tried to connect to Usenet through my ISP Cox, but they've recently shut down their server that connected to Usenet newsgroups to cut costs. Nobody ever posts on there anymore, and they became so spam-filled it was ridiculous. Usenet has gone the way of the dinosaur. I'm sorry to see it go, but I'm just as guilty of not using it for the longest time anyway. I haven't used Usenet in over 10 years, and just thinking about it really brought back so many nostalgic memories. I used to buy SFC games from a company called YOKOM in Japan that used to post sale ads on rec.arts.anime.games and rec.arts.anime.marketplace. I remember reading on rec.arts.anime.games posts by so many people who had been ripped off by Buy Rite Games, the online import game store that had a notorious reputation of taking people's money and botching their orders so that they didn't receive the order. I'd bought from them twice with no problems, but nevertheless it was pleasing to see that company finally go down in flames in 2005. At the same time, it was sad to see Lik-Sang be put out of business by Sony.

I bought my Super Nintendo the summer of 1994, after I graduated high school. My very first game I bought was Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle. Looking back now, it was a rather mediocre game. However that night I stayed up until 3am playing the crap out of that game. I was very much interested in importing video games from Japan, and I chose the SNES over the Genesis because I liked the software library better and it was easier to play imports on than a Genesis. In the early 90s, I would drool over the ads for a company called Japan Video Games in the back of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazines and I wanted to start buying Super Famicom games. I bought my first SFC import game, Ranma 1/2: Super Battle back in the summer of 1996 for only $20 (plus $5 s/h) because I bought it used off of the Web (from GameNest), and it was in excellent condition (box and manual included). That began my love for import Super Famicom gaming, and the next SFC game I got was Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie. It went on from there, and in 1997 I began putting together this page.

I personally find it depressing how nobody makes true websites anymore. For example, there are some great game-dedicated fan pages such as this Fire Emblem site. But everything is shifting over to the blogosphere. Some retro gaming blogs are great, like magweasel.com, but increasingly the old-style home-made gaming sites are going by the wayside. I'm happy if some game sites remain even if they are not updated, such as Dave's Sega-Saturn.com page that has been resurrected. IMHO, blogs are lazy and they don't have the charm that scratchbuilt homepages written in HTML have. Wordpress is okay, but I have no interest in Facebook or least of all Myspace. Plus, the content on blogs is not presented in such a straightforward manner as a real homepage, and one must pick through tags to find the content they're looking for. Fan-made gaming sites written in HTML such as this one are a dying artform. It's sad.

Hey, check out this great Youtube video I found that shows the differences between Assault Suits Valken and Cybernator. It shows the cosmetic differences as well as the censorship as the ending sequence of the Japanese version was completely eliminated in the domestic version.

I came back from another trip to Japan earlier this month, and I did pick up some new SFC carts. Popful Mail, Fire Emblem, and Super Bomberman 3. First of all, I don't know why it's called Popful Mail, since the kana is written more like "Popul Mail". Fire Emblem is a remake of the original game on the NES, which was also remade for the DS, called Shadow Dragon. However, I want to get this because it is for the SFC afterall, and also because it includes a direct sequel game on the cartridge. Lastly, I have never owned a Bomberman game on the SFC, and so my shame has now been lifted from me now that I have this game. Finally I can put my Bomberman multi-tap to some good use, I hope! I've had it for a while, and I still haven't used it for Super Puyo Puyo 2 even. I need to have friends come over for gaming get-togethers more often.

You can see the many videos I took on my trip to Japan on my Youtube Channel. Please subscribe!

In April we went to Japan for 3 1/2 weeks. My Super Famicom game haul from the trip includes Tactics Ogre, Front Mission, Record of the Lodoss War, and Der Langrisser. For the Sufami Turbo, I got Gundam Generations Gryps Campaign.

Last summer I even planned a big 10 year anniversary update, but I never got around to it. There are still so many reviews I have yet to complete. In February of 2007, I came back from another trip to Japan with several more SFC games, and I now have a Sufami Turbo to play around with. I've heard that if you put two Sufami Turbo cartridges in the device at one time, you can share characters between games. I have SD Gundam Generations and Sailor Moon: Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2. I was unable to play Gundam characters in the Sailor Moon puzzle game and vice versa. I'll have to do more research.

I have actually been playing a lot on my Nintendo DS, primarily Final Fantasy IV and Super Robot Taisen Original Generations 1 and 2 GBA games. I love this system. Unfortunately, I've been unemployed for the past five months or so. I was downsized three times last year and it really killed me. I really hope I will find a good job soon. Especially since I will be a father two months from now!

For now, please check out this incredibly cool Youtube video I found: 100 Japanese exclusive super famicom games in 10 minutes.

So, eventually people may start wandering back to this site through finding it with the search engines once again. In the meantime, I'll be cleaning up all references to my old defunct e-mail address with Asahi-Net. I went to Japan at the end of April. I did a lot of otaku shopping in Tokyo. For the Super Famicom, I bought Lode Runner Twin, Umihara Kawase, and a Sufami Turbo bundled with a Gundam Generations strategy game. Maybe this summer I will work on writing reviews for these games.

I went to Japan again this spring for two weeks, and there I did pick up a few new SFC games (even though playing them was far from being on my to-do list). I got Super Nazo Puyo for only 500 yen. A Puyo Puyo game with a picture of curry rice on the cover? Looked too bizarre to pass up. I also got Suchie Pai, a mahjong game with character designs by my favorite anime/manga artist, Kenichi Sonoda.

So to make up for the long period of inactivity, here is a big update. Reviews added for this update are Armored Trooper Votoms (finally!), Snoopy Concert, Suchie Pai and Jaki Crush. I've also been playing a lot of Hyper Iria lately again, and I've expanded my review of this game. Also look for an introduction to Mazinger Z and Nobunaga's Ambition in the Snapshots section. I'm planning on doing a review for Lupin the 3rd next. As I try to figure out Japanese rules for mahjong more, expect the review for Suchie Pai to evolve.

By the way, Lupin the 3rd is still available for sale, cart-only.

As I mentioned last time, I had a fabulous one month stay in Japan. I spend quite a load of money on anime, toys, and of course, video games. Here's my final stash list for Super Famicom stuff: Ranma 1/2: Neighborhood Combat, Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle, Snoopy Concert, Lupin III, Sonic Wings, Power Instinct, Jaki Crush, Same Game, Sailor Moon: Kondo wa Puzzle de Oshiyokiyo, a Bomberman multitap and a Super Famicom mouse. Pretty cool addition to my collection, I think. I wasn't able to buy Load Runner Twin, a cute Japanese rendition of the classic game. I also was not able to afford a Sufami Turbo, so perhaps I'll get one next time around. They're fairly cheap to get, and I'd like to eventually get one just for collection/novelty's sake.

I finally bought myself a copy of Lupin III complete with box and manual on my trip. Last fall, my friend got this game for me, but it was cart-only. The funny thing is, a guy who I had corresponded with through the Anime Super Famicom site promised to give the game to me for free, complete with box and manual. I didn't believe him, so I bought it when I found it in Akihabara. But soon after I returned from Japan, I received it from him in the mail! So, since I now have two extra copies of the game (one complete and one cart-only), I now have these two items up for sale on the sale page.

I've revised my review for Arkanoid: Doh It Again to reflect the gameplay with the SFC mouse. I've also added a few comments about Nobunaga's Ambition in the Snapshots section. I've recently learned that Nobunaga's Ambition is also compatible with the mouse. For the games I bought in Japan, I've added new box scans for them. Soon I will have a review of Lupin III!

Oh, one last tidbit: here's a pic of the Super Famicom cartridge case I bought while I was still living in Himeji, Japan. It managed to survive its shipment from there to here without a crack in the plastic, surprisingly. Pretty cool, huh?

I've had some nice feedback about the site lately, and a guy bought a set of the Chun-Li and Mai figures from the sale page. I still have one more set if anyone wants to buy them! And I always welcome feedback from intelligent gamers who are fans of retro gaming. You wouldn't believe the laughable e-mail I get from some people off this site. Here's an example from earlier this year:

From: Ann
To: Greg
Subject: about the Hyper Iria game 

hi there, I was wandering if you know where or how I'd be abile to find that game as a rom, 
if ya don't know where I can find it, then please at least tell me what tipe it is, like if it's a 
sens rom, ya know? I would aperishyate it, thanks you. 

P.S. here's my e-mail so you can tell me your anser. 
xxxxx@verizon.net 

~*Video game lover*~

There's just no hope for such people to ever get a clue... Anyhow, expect an update soon.

I saved up a bunch of money to spend on games, anime figures, and other otaku stuff before coming. While staying in Tokyo, I scoured Akihabara like I never have before with a guy I know from the Shmups Forum known as Eight One. (Shmups is the nickname for 2D shooters like Gradius, and Shmups.com is the definitive source of information on this gaming genre.) We visited game centers and game shops like Liberty and Traders all day long. Later that night, we met up with another shmupper, Yamo Skrap.

So far, I have found several Super Famicom games. I finally now have a complete copy of Lupin III with box and manual. Also in my stash are Ranma 1/2: Neighborhood Combat, Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle (my original one back home is the US version, which was actually the first SNES game I ever bought), Snoopy Concert (hey, I'm a sucker for cute stuff), and Jaki Crush. I got a 4-player multi-tap by Hudson that has Bomberman's face on it. I also bought a SFC mouse to play with Arkanoid.

I plan to also meet up with a fellow Shmupper called Piyo when we visit Kobe towards the end of this month. I hope to similarly thoroughly shop Osaka's Den Den Town. I really miss the Super Potato stores! I especially miss the Super Potato Retro Game Revival store. I am running out of the money I had budgeted for buying games, but I may yet find some more Super Famicom games I want before my vacation to Japan ends. I'll add more to my list of games I've bought as time goes by.

Yamo Skrap, me, and Eight One at a game center in Shibuya

Completing the update, the Snapshots section also now has new mini-reviews for two anime-based games, Astro Boy and Tekkaman Blade.

Finally, the mystery of the "Gamer" difficulty level ending for Area 88 has been explained by a reader. Check out the review to see what it is!

Recently, I have convinced my friend Brian to contributed a review for Rockman and Forte for the Anime SFC page. Hopefully I can coerce him into finishing it soon! Also, my friend Lou is currently on vacation in Japan, scouring the game shops of Akihabara. He found Lupin the 3rd for me! I've been searching the Net for this game for a long time, and at last I will soon own it! I currently have a blurb about this game in the Snapshots section, but now that I will soon have the cartridge I will eventually write a full review for it.

I've been back in America for the past month, and I'm job hunting like crazy. I'm hoping to be able to get a car soon and find a job that pays well enough so that my wife and I can have our own apartment. I really miss our independent life. Living with my parents has been a blessing, but we're really anxious to move out.

Today I have added a review for one of my favorite Super Famicom games, Arkanoid: Doh It Again. I still haven't yet reviewed Ys III, Super Turrican or Armored Trooper Votoms. I haven't gotten around to playing them much yet. My friend I met on Shmups has let me borrow some of his Super Famicom games, such as Super Bombliss and a real gem called Same Game. Same Game is a rather unusual game, apparently part of a series of games by Hudson Soft called "Eisei Housou" ("Satellite Broadcast") that interact with each other. The cartridge for this game looks very similar to a Super Game Boy, with a small cartridge that plugs into the top that allows you to play the game with Hudson characters such as Bomberman and Bonk! There's also another version of this game that comes with the cart that features Nintendo characters like Mario and the gang. While I was at game stores in Japan last January, I noticed other games in the "Eisei Housou" series. One was a bass fishing game, another one was a musical game, and a horse racing game. I haven't finished it yet, but I have started putting together a special feature for this game at this location.

And finally, I forgot to mention that a few months ago, my friend Lou let me borrow his Super Wildcard DX to try it out. In case you haven't read the FAQ yet, the Super Wildcard is a disk drive for the Super Famicom for the use of "backups." ROMs can be saved to disk and then inserted into the Super Wildcard, which allows you to play ROMs on the actual Nintendo hardware instead of a glitchy emulator. Actually, I used his Super Wildcard to make a backup of Arkanoid to use on SNES9X to make screenshots for the review I've uploaded today. It's pretty neat, and I'd like to get one eventually. Preferrably the Super Wildcard DX2, which can connect to my old Iomega Zip 100 Drive via a parallel port. It can also connect to a CD ROM as well, I've read. For more information on SFC disk drives, check out this site.

I hope to be back with more reviews soon!

Also, I've been trading e-mail with a fellow Super Famicom anime game enthusiast, and he's volunteered to give me a review for Ranma 1/2: Neighborhood Combat. I'm looking forward to it!

Of course, one thing I miss about Japan is the access to neat-o gaming stuff. Before I came back to America, I bought a really cool Super Famicom cartridge storage cabinet. Fortunately, it was shipped to America undamaged and the clear plastic doors weren't cracked or broken. Wish I could say the same for some other stuff we shipped. I was able to get King of Fighters 2000 for the Dreamcast a few days before I came to America. And I got Ikaruga for the DC soon after I arrived. I think I probably about doubled my gaming library while I lived in Japan. If you're curious, you can see pictures of my gaming setup in my Japanese apartment at The Blast Shack at this page.

But now that I'm separated from Japanese game stores and currently unemployed while I'm taking classes once again, my videogame purchasing has dropped to nil. But this is a good thing, since it gives me the chance to enjoy the games I have instead of just buying more. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Oshaberi Parodius and Hyper Iria. I finally got past level 3 in Hyper Iria and have made quite a bit of progress. I'm really starting to like this game more than ever before. I have added a few new pictures for the review.

I still haven't gotten around to doing a review for Super Turrican or Armored Trooper Votoms. One thing strange I've discovered is that it doesn't seem like the ROM for Votoms can run on any emulator. Strange. But recently, I found the domestic SNES version of Ys III used for only $6, complete with box and manual! I couldn't pass it up. Right now it's fairly low on the list of games I want to play, but eventually I'll make a review for it for the Anime Super Famicom Web Resource Center.

But this certainly won't mark an end to the Anime Super Famicom page. I'll never stop visiting Japan, especially since my wife is Japanese and her family is here. My SNES and the rest of my game consoles are packed up and are on their way to America by now, and I'll be going back to school studying IT at my old junior college. So for now, I have updated again with a review of the Playstation port of Final Fantasy V.

I have posted two new game reviews: Cotton 100% and Super Puyo Puyo 2. I added an update for the Valis 4 review now that I have played the PC Engine version and I commented on the differences a bit. I have also added box scans for Area 88 and Assault Suits Valken. Coming soon will be a review for Armored Trooper Votoms and Super Turrican.

Recently I bought an S-Video cable for my Super Nintendo. In case you don't know, the S-Video cables for the N64 and the Game Cube are fully compatible with the SFC/SNES. If you have an S-Video compatible TV, these cables sharpen up your game screen a bit on the vertical axis.

Lastly, my new love for my Turbo Duo I bought last fall has inspired me to create a sister page to the Anime Super Famicom Web Resource Center: the Anime PC Engine Super Game Review System! Please click this link and check it out! I don't have very much yet at all, so it's still in its infancy stage. But I am most proud of the logos I've designed for it. As with the logo to this Super Famicom page, I duplicate the logos and fonts to the best of my abilities using MS Paint.

Last Monday I had the day off, so I took my friend to Osaka's Den Den Town electronics district. We scoured the area for video game shops and found lots of neat-o stuff. I picked up Gradius Deluxe Pack, Capcom Generations 1 (which includes the classic 1942 and 1943 shooters) and Do Donpachi for my Sega Saturn. For the Super Famicom, I bought Assault Suits Valken (I only have the U.S. Cybernator version) and a game based on the anime Armored Trooper Votoms. I'll have to play this game and write a review for it, along with my recently aquired Super Puyo Puyo 2 for this page.

And last but not least, I decided to buy a Turbo Duo, otherwise known as the PC Engine, and known as the Turbographix 16 in the States. I had to rely on my friend Lou and my fellow retro-gamers at Shmups.com for help on buying this complicated gaming system. It's no wonder why so many game developers gave up on NEC by the time they released their PCFX game system. There are HUCards, CD, Super CD, Arcade, and finally Supergraphix categories of games. Not to mention the various incarnations of the system... the original Core System, the CD add-on and it's various HUCard drivers to play the various types of CD games, the Duo, the Duo R, the portable Turbo GT, the Shuttlegraphix, the Supergraphix.... Man, it's confusing! But I settled on getting the black Duo, which has the 3.0 CD driver built-in. I picked up many cool games including Bubblegum Crash, Ranma 1/2, Valis 2-4, Macross: 2036 and Macross: Love Song. I am very excited about this system! If you want more information about this system, I suggest you go to http://www.turbogaming.com/. I have an idea of creating an Anime Duo homepage and an Anime Saturn homepage to go along with the Anime SFC page, but it just depends on how much energy I put into the effort.

I'm planning another trip to Osaka this summer, so I might be able to find some more interesting Super Famicom games there. After that, I'll be in America for four weeks! I'll be in San Diego for six days for the the San Diego Comic Con!

I was pretty bummed out when I heard the bad news that Dreamcast consoles were stopped being produced. I have a feeling that the Dreamcast was the last true otaku machine. Everything else is just mass-media hype platforms with boring games.

I did buy Advanced V.G. and Pretty Fighter X for the Saturn. Both of these are considerably better than their SFC counterparts, but they're still a bit outdated and slow. Pretty Fighter X features some rather low-budget anime cutscenes for each character with muffled sound. It gets an 18+ rating because there's a few close-up shots of cleavage, but there's no nudity. So if anyone had their hopes up, sorry!

If anyone would like to review any games for this page, any help would be appreciated! There hasn't been a review on here since last summer.

Also, I'm getting a Dreamcast tomorrow! I'm getting it used with four games and an extra controller for only $200 from a friend of mine. I've been drooling over these things for awhile now, and I'm more excited about the Dreamcast than I am about the upcoming Playstation 2. My prediction is that the Dreamcast is going to be the new home of true anime games, the successor of the Saturn. I just hope somebody develops a surefire way of modding Dreamcasts to play imports. The SNES and Saturn were so easy to play imports on... I think it's pretty crappy how Sony has screwed us import gamers on the Playstation by developing that modchip-blocking code of theirs. Fortunately though, most of the best games on the Playstation are released domestically so there isn't much of a reason to buy Japanese Playstation games (I only own three).

I've had a handful of people inquiring about the Iria game on the Playstation lately. It's called Zeiram Zone. No, I've never played it, but you can find a review of it on the Anime Playstation page. It looks kinda cool, I think. However, most anime games on the Playstation tend to stink. Take for example the Ranma 1/2 game for the Playstation: it looks like crap. They tried to make it look and play like Tekken! It would have been better if it had been a 2D hand-drawn anime fighting game to carry on the tradition of Super Battle. Would have been even better on the Saturn... Oh well, wishful thinking.

What else... oh yeah. As far as updates go, I changed my mind and lowered the rating on Pretty Fighter. The more I look at this game, the more I think it could have been much better. Maybe I'll be able to buy Pretty Fighter X for dirt cheap in Akihabara and see if it's any better.

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