Some recent acquisitions from the last few weeks

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 100^th 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.