Happy Time Zone Everyone!
As the fall turns to winter and the holiday seasons approach (as well as the holiday deals), I got another shipment of games in from Japan! I have found in my years of haunting the auctions on yahoo Japan that there seems to be a small proliferation of games and, more to my interest, VGBGs getting listed in (for the US) pre & post summer seasons. Perhaps spring cleaning in Japan as we do in the United States?
Regardless, I found a handful of games to add to the archives. Granted, as I collect more and more VGBGs from Japan there is less and less for me to import (which my wallet is thankful for). Especially the vintage VGBGs from the 1980s. However, that doesn't count two categories: modern Japanese releases & VGBGs for video games I don't realize are actually video games.
That last category largely defines the games from Japan I wish to spotlight from the most recent shipment: games that I didn't know had an adaptation OR that they were games until I got that 'tingle' that they were based off of video games.
Jungle Wars 1 & 2
I've always been a sucker for survival / simulator games even though I don't really delve into the modern ones like Raft for example. (Granted, perhaps delving into them I would really dig but I digress lol). I think it goes back to trying to find games that scratched that same itch on the OG Gameboy that the first Harvest Moon gave me. One such game was Survival Kids:
Released by Konami and is a game where you crash on a deserted island and have to explore and survive piqued my interest back in the day, and while I did pick up a copy off ebay years later, I never got far in it. Despite that, it always stuck with me.
So, when I saw the card games for Jungle Wars, I looked into it as there are a lot of franchises in Japan I am unfamiliar with and, in a lot of cases, it is something based off a toy line or manga or anime. However, I saw the logo for PonyCanyon which did a lot of laser disc based video games in the 90s (which we discuss in Episode 20 of the podcast) so I gave it a google.
As I found out, it turns out that Jungle Wars is an RPG set in a land where humans and animals co-exist and you are a protector of that jungle and try and keep the peace. The sequel (Jungle Wars 2) was released for the Super Famicom two years later in 1993 and follows a similar storyline and RPG mechanics. That aside, I am glad to add them to the collection.
Field of Nine 2001
This set was interested in that it came not only with the Starter Deck for the Field of Nine card game, but came with the Gameboy Advance game as well. I got the impression from the auction that these items were originally bundled together but I do not know for sure.
That said, its the opposite of what we normally collect at the Arcade Castle, as you can see by the sub-header on the box, it is the Digital Edition; so, the video game version of the card game. Which we see with most TCGs (Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon TCG, etc.)
However, as one can see, its a more 1:1 translation of the card game without a video game attached to it, like a Yu-Gi-Oh video game, for example.
Genghis Khan - The Blue Wolf and The White Stag
Its always difficult to determine sometimes if a lot of the games surrounding the Romance of the Three Kingdoms et al. are based on video games or not. However, this game based on the first Genghis Khan title from Koei.
For those unfamiliar with Koei's historical strategy/simulation series, they have three main focuses for their grand strategy games: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunaga's Ambition, and Genghis Khan. Generally involve a mix of kingdom management and tactical battles, you attempt to complete the objectives of the scenario.
Ice Climbers
I think the famicom line of board games is interesting for sure, as it was very early in Nintendo's life cycle and I believe the earliest board game merchandise. Or near to it. And there are some interesting titles in the 7 or so games that were in the series published by Takahara before the series was ended. One of which was Ice Climbers. This would be probably the 2nd or 3rd sighting on this game in the wild on yahoo Japan so I made sure to snag it this time around.
The series has some classic early Nintendo franchises such as Donkey Kong Jr. & Excite Bike. Currently the archives is missing Sky Destroyer and Mario Bros. (the earlier arcade game prior to Super Mario Bros.). Most games are similar to the Party Joy Series where they are a step up from a Roll n' Move style board game that try to emulate the stages or levels of the games they attempt to emulate.
While there were other games obtained during this period, I am trying to start discussing them a little more on here so just trying this format out and will probably flesh out the blog posts as I try to continue writing about my journey to spend way too much money on VGBGs. Stay Tuned!
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