Making a Trip to Akihabara today!

ErichWK · Feb 2012

So I've been in Japan for about 4 days and still got a week left.. I'm going to do some vintage game shopping. SO far I bought a Famicom with Kirby's Adventure (boxed !), Rockman 3, Gradius II (boxed!) and Mother! All for like $150. But I plan on going back for another haul.

I am REALLY into classic shmups/rail shooters and am gonna scavenge for Ikaruga and a Dreamcast if I can find it. Is there any games to recommend? Even if it isn't a rail shooter, just anything cool/wacky/awesome.

Also is the Famicom Disk System worth it?? I really want a copy of the original Metroid..but it only came out for the F.D.S...

fearian · Feb 2012

Nice buys! Make sure to take lots of pics - sharing some AkiHabara reference photos would be awesome of you!

ErichWK · Feb 2012

Ya! Here are some i took of it at night. it really is an Electric City. It's nuts!

Here is my first day's haul!

hostilis · Feb 2012

hey man I'm in tokyo too, I see that you love "Old Soft" games

.

By the way I'm having trouble finding an english PC BF3(english pc games in general). I almost bought a 7.5k yen japanese bf3 in yodobashi-akiba :poly141:.

Do you know some shops that sells english pc games?

Racer445 · Feb 2012

i envy you for getting to go to super potato. last i heard they were pretty expensive though compared to the littler shops. IMO the FDS doesn't have many great exclusives that are anything more than a curiosity, and the drives break frequently, though they're easy to repair.

welcome fellow shmup fan. if you're into classic shmups pick up a saturn and one or more of the following (you can burn games too if you get an action replay for like $20 off ebay):

DonPachi
DoDonPachi
Battle Garegga
Batsugun
Strikers 1945
any of the Cotton or Parodius games

as for dreamcast shmups i'd recommend, there's a lot of cool non-traditional stuff from newer companies. if you find one of the first five at a reasonable price let me know because they're mad expensive on ebay, lol.

Radirgy
Trigger Heart Exelica
Border Down
Under Defeat
Zero Gunner 2
Gigawing
Mars Matrix

other good japan only dreamcast games:

Cosmic Smash
Bangai-Oh (there's a us version but come on just get this game it's amazing)
Rez
Shenmue II
Segagaga
Space Channel 5 Part 2

shoot on, shmupper

leilei · Feb 2012

Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service for DC or Vampire Collection for PS2 if you can find it :P

aesir · Feb 2012

hey buddy, I was in japan recently myself, and while akihabara was awesome, there's a place just a short train ride away called Nakano Broadway, and it blew my mind. Otaku paradise. You need to visit it. I even bought some original animation cells over there. They had cells from pretty much every show I'd ever seen. Go.

rasmus · Feb 2012

I hereby second Racer's suggestions

And yeah, Nakano's Broadway is pretty famous for geeky stuff, too. (A few stops west on the Chuo-line from Shinjuku). Happy hunting!

ErichWK · Feb 2012

Sexy! I went in today pretty blind so here is what i got.

Ikaruga
Puzzle Bobble 4
D2
Cool Cool Toon
Power Stone
Egg
Mr driller

And two games I can't translate. One...looks like The japanese version of Die Hard the arcade?

And the other is another Treasure Shmup looking thing.. where the cover is of a Gundam clone chasing a watermelon. . . .

I plan on returning and looking for the suggestions. I keep hearing about Rez but it was like 29,000 yen and didn't know if it was worth it

I want Segagaga so bad!! I keep hearing about it. but isn't Shenmue 2 in japanese? I'm afraid of getting story based games cause I am totes Gaijin. By the way, Akihabara is nuts. SO MANY HOSTESS BARS. And I went to a Cat Cafe. It was sweet.

tehrobster2 · Feb 2012

Yeah dude I have been to Japan twice so far, and Akihabara is one my favorite areas of tokyo, if you get a chance you should check out the arcades, and try out the new arcade games they got, or the gundam pods.

Andreas · Feb 2012

Nerd.

[/jelly]

Shenmue II and Rez are available in all territories Racer. I myself owned Shenmue II (PAL) and even a PAL Reviewers copy of Rez, which is quite rare nowadays.

I didn't realise there were so many collectors here. I have a mint condition Game & Watch Safebuster from 1989 I think that I've been trying to sell for ages, if anyones interested send me a PM.

skankerzero · Feb 2012

Second going to Nakano SunMall.

Makes Akihabara look like a tourist trap.

ErichWK · Mar 2012

I just got back yesterday!! And I want to Nakano Broadway..holy shit. It was INSANE. It's like..oh man. So many weird, odd ball, rad Retro shit. But rarely did I find any retro games. Mostly toys and..Trains. And old school Manga. HERE ARE PIX OF MY SWAG

Thanks for the tips, guys! I totally got Segagaga after forgetting it exists..too bad I don't speak japanese. And RACER. I FOUND PARODIUS. I also bought this..

but I think it fell out of my Carry on Bag in the plane.. =/

Racer, I tried buying as much Shmups as i can..but a lot of them ran for above 4,000 yen..so I had to blindly buy some of them. I will pick them up next time i am there!

I don't even know which game to start with... Now that Journey and Mass 3 has come out. Ugh. Life as a gamer is just so hard

Making a Trip to Akihabara today!

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