Since I’m in college taking a break from coding
I might as well go through some of my recent acquisitions I picked up in the
last few weeks.
First up is a US SNES.
While it’s as ugly as sin compared to the
Japanese and European console it does mean I can play all my games at the
correct speed of 60Hz and Mario RPG will now work. I do however need to get a
50/60Hz switch on it since a few on my PAL games won’t work due to a frequency
check on boot. At least I know someone handy with a soldering iron.
Since I got the US SNES I’ve been expanding my
quite meagre SNES collection lately. I’ve picked up quite a few of the more
common games but unfortunately I’ve noticed some of the ridiculous prices many
of these games are going for now. However I’ve also noticed that for many of
these stupidly priced US and PAL games the Japanese versions are going for a
fraction of the cost. Games like Super Castlevania IV go for silly money
considering how common they are. I picked up a JAP copy of that game and it
works perfectly and since there’s no text it’s not like I’m missing out. I also
noticed that one of the more expensive ‘vania games, Dracula X on the SNES, was
much cheaper as the Japanese version so I snapped that up.
Speaking of cheap Japanese versions of games I’ve
been busy building up a nice Gameboy collection. If you know your Gameboy games
then you know one of the harder to find games in Megaman 5. However Rockman 5
is very affordable and I picked it up. While the story is in Japanese I don’t
think I’m missing out too much.
I also picked up two other Megaman gameboy
games, namely 3 and 4. I’ve not played 4 before but 3 was one of my favourite
games growing up but it was stolen on me so it’s great to have it back. I’ve
already played through it and beaten it and it’s as good as I remember and
still incredibly tough! You can see Hybrid Heaven in there as well. I picked it
up after hearing how bonkers it is. I’m playing it at the moment and it doesn’t
disappoint in that area.
I’ve been wanting to get my hands on
Castlevania Legends for a while. I know it’s one of the poorer ‘vania games but
the ‘vania fan in me had to own it. I finally got it for a decent price from
Germany of all places. It’s not a terrible game, just frightfully dull. I
picked up Belmont’s Revenge to make up for it which is superb. I can’t get enough
of the music in that game.
Back to SNES games again I finally got my hands
on a game I’ve wanted for the last 20 years, the Firemen. After seeing great
reviews of it at the time of release I always wanted to give it a go but didn’t
have a SNES. When I eventually got a SNES the price had risen to silly levels
since the English language version was only ever released in Europe. To make
matters worse early emulators had trouble emulating a rain effect it used in
one of its levels making the game impossible for me to beat at the time. Well I
finally found a copy with a decent buy it now price from Germany. It cost me 60
euros which is expensive but a bit less than it normally goes for on auction.
In the last few weeks I’ve also finally got my
Megadrive modded with a 50/60Hz and language switch and bought a RGB cable for
it meaning I can play games as they were intended. What pushed me to finally
get it modded is that I won a competition on Facebook for the 100th
Mega Everdrive from Stone Age Gamer. This thing is quite the piece of kit and
allows you to play any Megadrive/Genesis game from a SD card. I’ll write about it
some other time. Anyway I’ve busy building up my Megadrive collection as well.
I came across one of the best bargains I’ve gotten in a long time. I picked up
Alien Soldier for the Megadrive for 10 euros. This game usually goes for
significantly more and is very sought after since the English language version
is a European exclusive. I think they thought they had Alien Storm. I’m not
complaining!
Lastly some weird imports. First is Gunhound
EX. I’ve not gotten around to playing it but looks like a Cybernator/Assault
Suit Valken clone and a very good one at that. G.Rev had something to do with
it so you can be sure there’s plenty of blasting action.
Lastly I got a game that absolutely reeks of
shame, Gal*Gun. I bought this for a laugh when I saw on playasia that a budget
price version was released. It seemed like a really fun lightgun shooter at
first until I found out what the triangle button does in the game and now it
just seems a little bit creepy. One feature I thought was hilarious was the
panic button. Press select during the game and it will pause and overlay what
looks like a 8-bit RPG over the screen to hide your shameful game playing from
your family who don’t need any more reasons to be disappointed in you.
