Retro game stuff talk

[FlyingTomahawk]

Another one down

Visited 4 stores today. Just the usual stuff.
This one store had a bunch of "regular" MD JPN stuff behind glass.

[celly]

Although not as impressive as @FlyingTomahawk or @obsidianspider, I did trek to the other side of town today to a used game store. Swapped up some loose carts and some Gameboys for some store credit. Left with these bad boys. I saw the Extreme Green Gameboy Pocket and couldn’t NOT get it.

[obsidianspider]

Today 伝説のスタフィー2 (Densetsu no Stafy 2) arrived in 9/10 condition.
With this addition I only need Densetsu no Stafy 3 to have the whole series.

Also, since Krikzz is now on Instagram I decided to get everyone together for an EverDrive family photo. I need to get a SuperGrafx so I have an excuse to get a TurboEverDrive ;)

[FlyingTomahawk]

Went to visit my favorite retro game store. That store is really old school. When i visited Japan for the very first time, around 18 years ago, that store existed and looked exactly same. Good memories there. I used to have a far better salary then and therefore spend tons of money there. Sorry for the bad video quality but I don't think it is allowed to take pictures or film in there so it was more of a hush, hush do quickly thing. Just slow down the time on youtube to watch it slower.

They always have a great selection of games even very rare stuff. Like for example Eliminate Down for MD JPN.
I asked the girl if she could take it out of the glass case and show it to me. So she takes out the game and pulls out a carpet knife and cuts open the wrapping. The way she handled that game gave me goose bumps and my face got all white. I almost wanted to tell her "hey, you do know that this game is worth half your monthly salary right?" lol
Anyways I asked her if I may take some pictures for you guys and she said "yes, sure". So without further ado I present you Eliminate Down MD JPN Price 88,200 Yen +tax

They had lot more like Battle Mania 2 for 64,800 Yen +tax

man I just wish I had a case full of money today, I'd be the happiest person.

[Dipkid]

@FlyingTomahawk oh man I remember my so far only trip to Tokyo. Stumbling in to Mr potatohead in Akihabara was insane! Heaven on 5 floors 😊 (they had like pallets with free sfc games lying around. I wanna remember it as free, my Japanese is non existing)

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk said in Retro game stuff talk:

Eliminate Down MD JPN Price 88,200 Yen

So you got two?

[obsidianspider]

As a fan of Kirby games and Puyo Puyo, Kirby’s Avalanche has been on my list for a while. I finally found one complete in about 6.5-7/10 condition for a good price. Now to pop some Puyos.

[FlyingTomahawk]

This post is deleted!

[space cadet]

I just put a ghost case on a xbox and next soft mod

[A Former User]

You guys call that retro ?
This, is retro. Lol.

Seriously, I can't believe a near 40 year-old, black and white computer with no graphics or sound, can fetch so much money, today.

[Clyde]

@John_RM_70 Oh man, that reminds me of my C-64 Mastertronic cassettes collection back in those days … I kept them in a special suitcase for music cassettes.

[A Former User]

@Clyde Yeah, I tried to collect, in the last few years, a Mastertronic collection across all my systems - C64, C16/Plus4, Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX, BBC. And realised this was not only impossible, it was going to cost me quite a lot. I used to love this publisher, back in the day, and I would regularly ride my bike 3 miles to get to my nearest games shop just to see if they had any new Mastertronic titles.

[Clyde]

@John_RM_70 Yeah, well, I gave my collection to relatives in Eastern Germany right after the reunification in 1990. From today's perspective, I kind of regret it, but I think I would still do it for said relatives, and as a hard determinist, I don't think that I could've acted differently anyway. 😏

[A Former User]

@Clyde I would love to find their DISK collection, these are very rare - I have only seen a handful appear on ebay over the last few years, across a few platforms (C64, Atari 800, ST, Amiga).

[Clyde]

@John_RM_70 There were only a handful of their games on disk anyway, if I remember correctly.

[FlyingTomahawk]

Few days ago I did something that was long overdue and I should have done a decade ago.
Retro console cleaning!

Even though my consoles where inside cardboard boxes it is amazing how dirty they can get.
After I was done I did a systems check. Hooked it up to my TV via composite (RCA) and it did run but the image quality is so bad that I could not hold out longer than 10 min.

I kept digging through my old stuff which was packed in different bags and found this Mega Drive, looks like original Sega (MK-1637-09), Scart cable with a stereo sound mod and Mega Drive 2 to Mega Drive 1 adapter attached to it. Hurray! A rare gem right there I thought.

I can't recall where I got it from but I was excited to have found one next to some Dreamcast S-Video and Scart cable as well.
The problem now, how the hell do I hook this up here in Japan. I know in Europe all old TVs had RGB or Scart plugs but here they don't or at least that's what I thought, more in a minute.

So I ordered this RGB21-HDMI converter on Amazon for 3800 Yen.

...which I received today and hooked up the Mega Drive via that Scart cable and...nothing. No input signal detected. So I was like WTF!? Is the cable bad or is that converter box not working. So I dig out my Dreamcast and connect that one with the same result. I was buffed and thought that the converter box must be faulty.
But before I claim anything to the seller or Amazon I did some research and it turns out that in Japan they did have TVs with Scart plugs but just very few of them. They where called J21 or RGB21 plugs. Looking at my converter box it says RGB21. Duh! And to make things worse they are also differently wired on the inside that is why it doesn't work. Great!
I opened up the Mega Drive Scart cable but it has a tiny PCB inside it and I don't want to mess things up there so I closed it up again. Now I ordered a EuroScart -> JP21 adapter at Retro Gaming Cables which I hope will solve all my problems.
All in all a real pain in the rear to get things working again.

[obsidianspider]

@FlyingTomahawk Oh you guys and your fancy SCART cables. I know that Mega Drives have a larger cartridge than US Genesis systems. Will a Mega Drive play a US game without any mods?

[FlyingTomahawk]

@obsidianspider

Send me a Genesis game and we shall see.
As far i can recall the Nomad, a US only product, can play Japanese MD games.
I think as long the game fits through the opening/slot it should work.
It does look different if you want to play Japanese Games in let's say PAL Mega Drives (Europe).
They run on 50Hz therefore you need to do the 50/60Hz mod and file out the corners of the input slot. That is what we used to do back in the days. With a Genesis you most likely only need to file out the corners and you should be able to play JPN games. But not 100% sure though.

[ruckage]

@obsidianspider
The cartridges won't physically fit but I do remember there were adapters available and if you were really brave you could physically cut part of the cartridge shell to make them fit (I did that on a few Japanese import games when I was a teenager as they were sold really cheaply at a video rental store called choices.)
I think some games have actual region locking though so It's probably hit and miss.

[obsidianspider]

@ruckage said in Retro game stuff talk:

if you were really brave you could physically cut part of the cartridge shell to make them fit (I did that on a few Japanese import games when I was a teenager as they were sold really cheaply at a video rental store called choices.)

I saw that done on an episode of Game Sack, which is what had me thinking that the Japanese Mega Drives had a bigger cartridge slot, which in theory would allow play of the smaller/differently shaped US cartridges