Windjammers, Twinkle Star Sprites, Parasol Stars / Wii Virtual Console
So like many a duder, after watching a bunch of Giant Bomb’s Extra Life marathon, I really wanted to get my hands on Windjammers. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a Neo Geo or a spare hundred bucks lying around. What I did have was a disused UK Wii, and a Japanese VC release of Windjammers with my name on it. There were certainly a few tense, confusing moments, but over the course of a couple of hours I managed to change the region of the console, set up a new Wii Shop account and grab a copy of the game for an extremely reasonable 900 yen. Haven’t had a chance to play it with anyone yet, but I’ve had a lot of fun with the single player so far. Took me a little while to get the hang of though (and man, that time limit can be freaking brutal).
Having opened the gateway to the promised land of the Japanese VC, I also grabbed the other rare Neo Geo game on there that I was desperate to have: Twinkle Star Sprites - a really fun cute ‘em up / competitive puzzle game mash-up. Again for a paltry 900 yen. After that, I went down the dark hole of researching what else would be worth getting on there and more importantly, what would be playable without needing translation. Not a simple undertaking when you can’t understand a single Japanese character, but with a combination of Nintendo.co.jp, Google and guesswork, I’m making pretty good progress. Already discovered that Parasol Stars was up there - the super-rare follow-up to Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. For only 600 yen! Japanese Virtual Console, I think I love you.
The Firemen / Super Famicom / £22.71
But before any of that went down, I already had my first physical retro import ever on the way: The Firemen for the Super Famicom - an arcadey fire-fighting game that did actually see a release in Europe, but now retails for obscene sums on eBay. Perhaps not the wisest purchasing decision - it’s pretty much a blind buy and I don’t even have a way to play it at the moment - but seeing the auction ticking down with no bids and with such a low price, I just couldn’t resist. I’ve got a Retron5 pre-ordered anyway. It’ll be fine. :D
Super Play Issues 3, 6, 8, 11 / £25.98
And finally, continuing with the SNES retro love, I picked up a few more issues of Super Play on eBay last week, the unofficial SNES magazine that begat N64, NGC and NGamer. Always enjoy reading through old gaming magazines, and this was a pretty good one, though it doesn’t quite have the same goofy sense of humour that you get in N64 and it’s successors.
Gotta love that Wil Overton cover art though!
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