The Thousand Yen Challenge

So a challenge was issued to all gamers in Japan. Spend ¥1000, and only ¥1000 and get as many games as you can. Games you’d want, mind, but games nonetheless. They’d be cheap, some of them shitty, some of them amazing. I made it a bit late to the party, but hell, this is a party found in the bargain bins of every game store and the heart of every retro gamer. I’m ecstatic to share the list with you because what I’ve added to my collection for under $10 is a set of games that I’ll happily be playing even if they are bad. Because, hell, games are games.

Robot Ponkottsu 64 (N64) – ¥38

There’s a robot dolphin on the cover. In fact, everything is a robot, even the samurai, the fencer(?) and even the title is a robot.

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Pokémon Snap – ¥28

If you ask yourself why I bought this, you clearly don’t know the joys of throwing apples¹ at wild animals until you can take their photograph. The only reason we got what critics are probably calling a beautiful game like Afrika is because Pokémon Snap paved the damn street. Sadly the previous owner did not write in their name and telephone number in the space provided, so I’ll have to keep this instead of going on an Améile style hunt for the previous owner, which honestly would probably be better worth my time.

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ZORK I – ¥38

Not only do I dream of playing text adventures in Japanese, I dream of doing it with a Sega Saturn controller. Hell, people argue that it is the best console controller we have, nay, will ever see, so if you chose one Japanese console port of Zork I, clearly this should be it. The back claims it is a “Super Remake” so I highly anticipate the chance of getting eaten by a グルー².

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Policenauts Pilot Disk – ¥30

The only item I picked up that I’ll probably never play, but it just looks badass. If you’ve got a Japanese 3DO that you want to give me, let me know. This disk seems to have a shitload of cool stuff on it, though. Shame that I don’t have a 3DO but I cannot think of one game I’d want to own for the system.

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Dragon Force – ¥18

Did you know a search for Dragon Force on Wikipedia brings up the game and not the band? That’s because the band has no space in its name. I learned something today and I learned it thanks to a video game.

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Ogre Battle 64 – ¥10

If you’ve talked to me about games you know Matsuno is not my favorite gaming related guy. But to buy a ¥10 game that  has a ¥200 off sticker on it is funny enough for me to spend that ten yen.

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Eltale Monsters – ¥78

If you can’t quite remember why the protagonist on the cover to this game looks familiar but the name Eltale Monsters does not ring a bell, that’s because my dear friend, this game was better known in North America as Quest 64, and yes, that is Brian wielding his staff in a not so menacing way. Being the RPG buff that I am and owning a Nintendo 64 pretty much means I must own this game. The sad thing is I paid more for this game than significantly better games appearing in this list. Still, for almost half the price of a can of soda, I have the game that redefined the meaning of “It’s not that bad.”

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Shigesato Itoi’s No. 1 Bass Fishing – ¥78

Did you know the man behind the Mother series also had a bass fishing game series as well? Well, now you know.

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Funky Fantasy – ¥18

Incase you can’t see it, underneath that pentagram is carved the word “funky”. As if the title wasn’t enough for me to buy this instantly. I didn’t even bother looking at the back of the case until now. Doing just that, I noticed that it pimps “High Quality CG Movies”, “Flashy Card Magic” and “Characters Rich in Personality” in an ugly red font that covers most of the tiny, incomprehensible screen shots.

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Virtural Hydlide (SS) – ¥20

Ever since we did the Famicom version of Hydlide for Let’s Playing, I had a fear deep down within my soul that I’d have to pay money for Virtual  Hydlide one day and own the game. Thankfully it was much less than I expected.

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Space Channel 5 – ¥38

I remember seeing commercials for this game when it came out and thought it looked ridiculous. I was right. But the game is also awesome. And now I finally have a copy of my own.

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Bangai-O (N64) – ¥598

Unfortunately, this cost me 60% of my budget. I had to put back games to be able to get this, but fuck. The cart only is going for nearly 8 times as much on Yahoo! auctions. The fact that it is an awesome Treasure game on top of that is just sweet buttered biscuits.

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You  may have noticed the prices on the photos not matching up with what I’m saying. Here’s the receipt:

Yep, nine hundred ninety two yen. Should have been ¥9920, but everything was ninety percent off. I just ruined any progress I hoped on making to my backlog this year, and that is ignoring the stuff in this pile that I won’t ever actually play. Oh well, it was fun. Hopefully I’ll have another chance to take the ¥1000 challenge in the near future.

1. Was it apples? I forget. [↩]
2. Grue [↩]