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Category: Features

2010 Gaming Roundup

Greetings and welcome to the fourth annual overview of the games I played in the past year. Previous roundups: 2009 | 2008 | 2007

All games are listed in the order played and/or beaten; the “Endless Games, etc.” section is from memory and may be incomplete (there might be some Mario Kart Wii session that’s gone unaccounted for, in other words). Linked titles go to that game’s review or impressions entry; note, however, that unlinked games are most likely discussed elsewhere on this site. Icons were made from press images poached from various places all over the internet. Thanks as always to namatamiku for the initial inspiration.

The Best of E3 2010… eBay Auctions

As someone who doesn’t/can’t/won’t attend E3, one of the best parts of the annual event is the swag auctions that crop up on eBay. The tchotchkes placed on sale are neat little windows onto the expo, inherently different from the avalanche of news reports, written impressions, screenshots, trailers, and press conference livestreams that are available to anyone and everyone with a decent internet connection. They are trinkets that were actually there, instant collectables that show how an industry markets itself to itself, and to the world at large, in physical form.

L@@K!!!
The E3 goodies on eBay traditionally take many different forms. Every year, without fail, there’s at least one auction for the daily magazines/guides for the event itself. There are also always auctions for t-shirts, as well as lots containing a variety of items; the latter listings are very hard to find after E3 has come and gone. Other common items that appear year after year include lanyards, magazines, keychains, and, for some reason, Square Enix catalogs.

Other items are more on the quirky side. One of my favorites this year—and not just because I love the character and the franchise—are the patches that were given away to promote Kirby’s Epic Yarn. How better to promote a fabric-themed Kirby game than with a fabric Kirby? Several of these patches, with a Buy it Now (BIN) of $9.95, sold quickly, and at least one that has gone up since then as a regular auction is hitting an even higher price. I thought the initial $9.95 BIN listing was a bit high, but I’m a born cheapskate, and now I’m wondering if I should’ve bit before that same seller doubled their price.

Another item of note this year is the Epic Mickey cloisonne pin. Not only is there a huge Disneyana collecting scene, but there is a subset of Disneyana collecting that specializes in pins. Throw in video game memorabilia collectors on top of that, and you wind up with BIN asking prices as high as $24.99 for these pins. A search of completed listings has revealed that only three of these pins has sold so far, which makes me think that the highest of these BINs are too optimistic.

Two bits of Natsume swag have caught my attention. First is the Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar plush horse. Since Natsume typically gives away plushes as preorder bonuses, I think we’ll be seeing this specific item again, on a wider scale, in the future. More unusual is this catalog for Natsume’s games. Again, I believe this to be an overly optimistic BIN. Meanwhile, one enterprising auctioneer has combined the two into one lot.

Some things which could become scarce in the years ahead are the Sonic Colors plush and the two Portal 2 t-shirts. There haven’t been many posted, which is always an interesting sign. The Dreamcast shirts are a little bit more common, but seem to be quite popular. And then there’s the Zelda shirts, of which there are a ton, but might also become nice collector’s pieces, given the size of fanbase and the popularity of past Zelda-related swag of all kinds.

Some general shopping tips: swag traditionally starts hitting eBay on the first day of E3, and BINs, if utilized, trend toward the high end. Both starting prices and selection generally improve toward the end of the event and in the days afterward, but bidding can be fierce. Even so, during and after E3 is the absolute best time to get one’s hands on a piece of swag that might be rare down the line. Please note that it’s sometimes hard to know what will be valuable, even for the most seasoned collector; as with any other type of collecting, it is always best to go after the pieces you personally like the most.

In the months and years following an E3, it will, naturally, be harder to track down many items on eBay or other auction sites. However, when older E3 stuff does pop up, it can sometimes be had at a relative bargain, since there isn’t nearly as much competition. Here are the results I got for “E3 2009” in the Entertainment Memorabilia category, which contained the most number of relevant results. Slim pickings, to be sure, but I bet that Left 4 Dead 2 poster was going for a lot more last summer. It should be interesting to see what an “E3 2010” search brings up a year from now.

My Fan Translation Wishlist

Yuna Kagurazaka, Guardian of the Light. Forgot where I originally got this image from.Remember that huge stack of game soundtracks I bought awhile ago? I’m still working my way through them. Have managed to listen to most of them, but one I haven’t touched at all is Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ Original Soundtrack. A big part of this is because, as I said before, I haven’t played the actual game. Although this sort of thing hasn’t stopped me before, this is Front Mission, and therefore, special in my eyes.

Front Mission 5 was, apparently, briefly considered for an official stateside release. However, this never panned out, and thus, fans took it upon themselves to do what very few (if any) had done before: an amateur translation of a PlayStation 2 game. Thus was born the Front Mission 5 Translation Project, which has since become the Front Mission Series Translation Project, as they are now working on patches for Front Mission 2 and Front Mission Alternative.

The group completed the beta translation patch of Front Mission 5 in December of last year, so all I would need to do is to hunt down a copy of the game and the necessary PS2 modding tools to get it to run. However, this brings me to the one criticism I have of the project. If the group’s goal is to draw Square Enix’s attention to English-speaking Front Mission 5 fans, then why make it so the patch works only on the non-Ultimate Hits verion of the game, which has long been out of print? I think a spike in sales of new copies of FM5, rather than secondhand ones, would push Square to consider an official release even more. For historical evidence, I point to Capcom, who localized the DS port of Gyakuten Saiban in North America (as Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) after noticing all the sales of the bilingual game that were coming from outside of Japan. Anyway, I know the fan translation team is well aware of this issue, and I hope they make an Ultimate Hits version of the FM5 patch a priority for future releases.

With FM5 on my mind lately, I got to thinking about what other Japanese games never made it over here that I would like to see complete translations of. There are some games that are “import friendly” in that you don’t have to know a lot of Japanese—if any—to be able to enjoy them, so those aren’t a problem. There are also those like Tales of Graces, Front Mission 2089: Border of Madness, and Game Center CX: Arino’s Challenge 2 that are still recent enough to have a chance of localization, slim though they may be. What’s left are the text-heavy titles which are on dead systems and have small cult followings, if they’re lucky. What’s left, in other words, are games like those on my wishlist.

Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand, Super Famicom – I’m cheating a little bit here with a couple of them, including this first one. You see, a fan translation of Ys V was started several years ago, but the patch is currently incomplete. This leaves Ys V as the only main-series Ys storyline whose translation has never been made available. Rather frustrating if you’re interested in the Ys canon and don’t read Japanese, but even after all these years, the patching project is not dead, so there’s still hope.

Galaxy Fraulein Yuna and Galaxy Fraulein Yuna 2, PC Engine – And now for something completely different: visual novels! My initial exposure to Galaxy Fraulein Yuna came in the form of the first OVA series; later, I saw the much more coherent second series, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna Returns. Each storyline follows the adventures of teenage Yuna Kagurazaka, who is the savior of the universe, a popular celebrity, and a regular girl all at the same time. It’s a pretty wacky series, with some amazingly good character designs, all courtesy of mecha designer and Gundam Girl artist Mika Akitaka.

Some years ago, I learned that these anime were based on a “digital comic” game series, which gave me a better perspective on the character-stuffed OVAs. However, aside from the Sega Saturn’s Galaxy Fraulein Yuna 3 these games have never been translated into English, by anyone. The Yuna games have shown up on several systems, but the first two in the series are on the PC Engine, thus, my wishlist request. A PSP collection of the first two Yuna games as well as a related title, Galaxy Policewoman Sapphire, was published only a couple of years ago, so it seems there’s still interest in these oldies, at least in Japan.

Chocobo Stallion, PlayStation – Unlike the others on this list, I actually own this game. If I recall, I first learned about Chocobo Stallion while reading some information about a different Squaresoft-related thing. The idea of a chocobo sim racer intrigued me, and I later picked up a cheap copy on eBay, only to find that this was not an import-friendly game in the least. There are no English-language guides of any sort on GameFAQs or anywhere, and, naturally, no translation patches. I’ve long had the idea to make a rudimentary guide of my own, but have yet to get around to putting something together.

Segagaga, Dreamcast – A translation of this navel-gazing RPG/sim is the dream of every English-speaking Sega fan ever, and as with Ys V, is an actual project that has been ongoing, with occasional updates. Started in 2006, the project lead is still pushing forward with it as of September 2009. Will it ever see the light of day? Let’s hope it does!

Taking Issue

I have much I want to talk about: Halo and its classic FPS horror aspects, the marvelous life story contained within Dragon Quest V, the StarCraft II beta in general (ayup), recent game music purchases and trades, PAX East remnants, and so on, but for now, some complaints and observations about specific video game magazine articles.

Game Ads in Archie Digests, Circa 1990

Some years back, I got on a big nostalgia trip for certain Archie Comics Digests that I used to own in my middle school days. I no longer had them in my possession, but found most of them on eBay as part of two large lots of Betty and Veronica Double Digests and Jughead Double Digests. I bought both lots, which left me with far more Archies than I ever thought I’d own. Since then, I’ve reread the old favorites, and read some of the new (to me) issues for the first time. Recently, I’ve gone back to them, which is when I noticed the video game ads.

Back then, as now, such ads weren’t uncommon in comic books. They could readily be found alongside ads for breakfast cereals like Cap’n Crunch and Fruity Pebbles, sales clubs where kids could earn fabulous prizes, and of course, comics subscriptions. Here are some of the ads that have jogged my memory:

The Little Mermaid handheld game, by TigerThe Little Mermaid handheld electronic game, from the back cover of Betty and Veronica Double Digest No. 31, May 1992 – I can’t recall if I was still reading Archies in 1992, but I was reading comics in general at the time, and recall seeing this ad somewhere. Tiger’s handheld games were ubiquitous back then; for those who don’t remember them, they were little LCD games along the lines of Nintendo’s Game & Watch handhelds. Kind of fun for awhile, but nothing to write home about. I had a Pinball one, while my sister’s had a crude approximation of Sonic the Hedgehog. As you can see from the ad, the basic design of the handhelds had changed since then. The gameplay was probably still meh, though.

Mappy-Land for the NES. Developed by Namco, published in the US by Taxan.Mappy-Land for the NES, back cover of Jughead’s Double Digest No. 1, October 1989 – Here we have the oldest ad in this set. I saw this ad for Mappy-Land in several comic digests back then, but usually on the interior, where it had a clean white background (just the paper color, really). Seeing it here in yellow strikes me as a bit unusual. Anyway, I’ve never played this, but always thought it was a well-designed ad, what with the mouse trap and Apple-esque type and layout. Looking back on it now, the list of other Taxan-published games piques my interest more than Mappy-Land itself; Star Soldier is fairly well-known in retro gaming circles, and Fist of the North Star is, of course, based on the manga and anime of the same name. The original arcade version of Mappy is currently available on Virtual Console, but it remains to be seen if Mappy-Land will show up there as well.

Mickey Mousecapade for the NES, developed and published by Capcom.Mickey Mousecapade for the NES, interior page from Betty and Veronica Double Digest No. 18, April 1990 – Here is another ad that popped up a lot; note that it also has a yellow background, but for once, this was purely intentional. Mickey Mousecapade was the first of several beloved Disney games published by Capcom, but it also seems to be among the least remembered. Go on any Internet messageboard to discuss Capcom’s Disney games, and I’ll bet you that nine times out of ten, DuckTales will be the first one mentioned. I played DuckTales back in the day like everyone else, and what I most remember about it was that the control scheme for Scrooge’s pogo cane maneuver was annoying. I’ve never played Mickey Mousecapade, but for some reason, I’ve always imagined that the controls were better.

Five games from HAL's US branch.Various games by HAL, interior page from Betty and Veronica Double Digest No. 31, May 1992 – Finally, no more yellow backgrounds, not to mention the first appearance of 16-bit games! Here we have five titles published by HAL America, which could be ordered directly by calling a toll-free number: Quantum Fighter, DayDreamin’ Davey, and Vegas Dream for NES, and Hole in One Golf and HyperZone for the SNES. Do you remember any of these, because I sure don’t. The funniest thing about this is that also in 1992, a certain HAL-developed game would become more famous than all five of these combined: Kirby’s Dream Land. Since then, HAL became a beloved second-party developer for Nintendo, best known for its Kirby and Super Smash Bros. franchises; knowing this, it’s kind of funny to see this old ad now.

The Ultimate Game ClubThe Ultimate Game Club, interior page from Betty and Veronica Double Digest No. 22, December 1990 – This is, to me, the most interesting ad of the bunch. According to the ad’s text, the Ultimate Game Club carried just about every console and handheld game ever made (at the time), sold Japanese consoles and games, matched advertised prices, bought and sold used games, and shipped all orders via overnight FedEx, all for an annual membership fee. I imagine that for serious gamers in 1990 (at least, those with the money to spend), services like these were a godsend. Nowadays, with the likes of Amazon, eBay, Play-Asia, and others, us gamers are spoiled rotten by the breadth of selection and special offers available to us. Anyway, I also remember this ad very well, and recall being intrigued by the high price for Romance of the Three Kingdoms. At the time, I didn’t think games could be that expensive.

I did a little research in an effort to learn more about the Ultimate Game Club, and found this interesting tidbit on the Lost Levels forums. Apparently, the UGC had a publishing arm called Innovation Tech, but a quick Google search for that name revealed that they had only ever planned to publish two games, The Dinosaur Dooley and Buzz & Waldog, and both of them were cancelled. In my original search for UGC-related info, I also happened upon an auction for a Vidpro display card, which includes the following in its description: These Vidpro cards were only sold to a licensed Nintendo retailer of which we were one of them called “The Ultimate Game Club” but that’s another story. Lo and behold, the Ultimate Game Club lives, sort of. The seller is even located in the same town as the old UGC!

Anyway, that wraps up my little tour of old video game ads. There might’ve been one or two that I overlooked or accidentally thumbed past, but these are the major ones, if not the most memorable. If I get on another comics nostalgia trip, perhaps I’ll do this again some time. I know of at least one ad from various early-90s Disney Comics titles that I’d like to highlight…