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Pepsiman

英語圏のゲームサイトだからこそ、ここで自分がはるかの旗を掲げなければならないの。

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Pepsiman's Shopping List

Even if it's economically detrimental to me in the end, I like hoarding my video games. Save for a few instances where I sold games that I either had extra copies of or just disliked extremely, I've more or less held on to every game I've ever gotten my hands on. As a result of that, I've come to enjoy the act of going out and deliberately collecting video games. Although I'm not one of those people who's crazy enough to collect an entire console's library or anything like that, there are still a number of games and systems that, for various reasons, I want to go out of my way and nab at some point in the future.

Of course, that's money permitting and that's mostly what this list serves: as a reminder of the more expensive video games, consoles, and what have you that I want to add to my personal collection. When I'll actually come across the money and luck necessary to track some of these items down, I don't know, but there's a certain sense of fulfillment that comes from finally getting a hard-to-find game in my hands, so the search goes on for as long as it needs. Sometimes it turns out the search is more fun than playing the actual games themselves and that's okay.

List items

  • Rakugaki Showtime is one of Treasure's lesser-known PS1 games, since it was not only released solely in Japan, but it also ended up having its print run cut short due to legal issues. That's unfortunate, since it's actually a really fun multiplayer brawler that's got more strategy than you'd first think. While it is available on the Japanese PSN for 600 yen, I'd still prefer having a tangible copy precisely because of how hard it can be to find, even in Japan. When it's actually out in the wild, it's not surprising to see it command $200-plus, but usually you're lucky if you find it in a store to begin with. Still, I've seen it in places like Tokyo's Super Potato enough to know that it's not impossible to get it.

  • I want Steel Battalion purely for the novelty of having such a gigantic, 30-button custom controller to operate the game. It's a bid for the sort of immersion in a game that few developers have ever actively sought outside of arcades and for good reason: it's a god damn crazy idea. But that insanity is precisely what makes it so neat and as such, I hope to have the pleasure of taking a box with it home sometime and subsequently being too intimidated to beat the first level. The local game store across the street actually sells them for a fairly decent price, so I'll probably get around to nabbing it eventually.

  • Neo Geo units themselves aren't terribly expensive, but it still ends up on the list because of the know-how required in getting the cheaper arcade version up and running in a home environment. There's also the fact that the games themselves, which I'll just lump with this entry, are generally not super cheap, with a lot of the classics like Metal Slug still often asking for quite a bit of pocket change. But for someone like me who grew up with arcades right before they died in the States, it still feels like, when money is less of an issue, I should build up a Neo Geo collection out of respect for it. It was a great system in its time.

  • <s>Lazy, I know, considering how I named myself after this ludicrous game and all. This is definitely one of the cheaper entries on the list, but still warrants it because of its relative rarity. Prices tend to fluctuate for this game, too, and while it really isn't worth it for the gameplay itself, I just probably have an obligation to get it one way or the other. If nothing else, I'll do it for the classy advertisements that brazenly masquerade as FMVs.</s><br><br>I have since redeemed myself as a human being and finally purchased this. One down, more than one to go.

  • Although I mentioned that I don't really collect anything specific like an entire console's library, I've been slowly trying to get a lot of Treasure's more iconic games, which also happen to be the ones that usually command a lot of money. Radiant Silvergun tends to be among the top of Treasure's games in that regard and that, I suppose, contributes to the allure that makes me want it. It's also a fun game, too, though, even if only crazy people will ever master it. This is also a game that's supposed to get a digital rerelease fairly soon and while I may very well end up getting that, it just won't be the same as a tangible copy. Hopefully the digital version makes the price for physical copies crash hard.

  • <s>I don't like Evangelion as a TV show. The recent remake movies are ones that I've surprisingly enjoyed, but this game came out way before then. Nevertheless, FMV games on the N64 fill such a weird niche that, even if I'm not inherently interested in the actual subject matter, I'm always morbidly curious how they actually pulled off the act of getting movies to work on cartridges pressed for space. That's where my interest in this Evangelion game starts and stops, since I hear the actual gameplay isn't great by any means, but that's okay.</s><br><br>Having seen some YouTube footage that showed how a seemingly even lower budget for the game can make it highly entertaining in its right, I decided to pick up a copy I found in a store for 1000 yen. Certainly not the most sensible decision I've ever made involving my wallet, but I probably wouldn't be collecting video games in the first place if it was such a major concern.

  • I've had the weirdest fascination with this add-on for the N64 for a really long time. Not a whole lot of notable games came out for it and the ones that were originally going to come out for it either got outright cancelled or just released for the regular N64 itself. (Unless you're Mother 3, but then that's crazy people's history.) Regardless, what still ended up coming out for it makes for an interesting footnote in the system's history, especially considering that it actually had Internet connectivity. Like Pepsiman, this is something I definitely intend to get at some point, although the current market conditions don't make it a buyer's market for this particular machine.

  • Save for any data that might be stored on the unit itself or Nintendo Power-branded rewritable cartridges, the Satellaview is by and large a useless piece of hardware nowadays. But the basic ideas behind it, being able to download Super Famicom games via Satellite connection and, in cases like the Zelda games, have live commentary for them, make it sound like it was a really neat machine in its heyday. Unlike the 64DD, Satellaview units tend to be significantly less expensive, but that's probably precisely because you can't do a whole lot with them anymore. But it's the history behind it that draws me more to it anything else, so how much I'd really get out of it is a moot point to me.

  • Soundvoyager is one of the very few video games in the entire history of the medium that relies purely on sound to progress. While there are very sparse visuals available, you're supposed to play with your eyes closed and your headphones on, completing rudimentary minigames with just your ears. It's a really neat gameplay experiment and while other games more recently have replicated the basic premise, Soundvoyager still remains the game that really nailed the formula. Definitely one of the cheaper games on this list, the only thing stopping me from getting it is really motivation.

  • Vanilla If is easy enough to find in standard editions for both the PS1 and Super Famicom. The version I'm actually interested in is the special edition for the PS1, which is basically meant to be a piece of fake marketing for the school in which the game takes place. Commemorating the school's supposed 50th anniversary, it comes with the sort of items you'd expect to find in a school, like notebooks and whatnot. They're neat more because they remain true to the game's plot and setting more than anything else. It also has exclusive box art that I really like, though, which is honestly my main motivator in finding it and adding it to my collection.

  • While I won't say no to the Dreamcast version whenever I come across it, in this instance, I'm specifically referring to the original N64 version. My interest in owning this is both out of "Oh hey, another rare Treasure game" and because I also like the gameplay in the series in general. It's wondrously hectic, but feels really gratifying once you actually understand what's happening on the screen and it'd as such be nice to just own a copy of the game that started it all. It'll probably happen eventually, since the N64 version is fairly cheap when compared to some of the other Treasure games on this list.

  • LSD is a strange, strange game. I could attempt to explain what it's about, but it's one of those games that should probably only be classified as a game because it came out on a game console. The way it operates otherwise doesn't really resemble much coming from an actual game. This one is also available for download off of the Japanese PSN, but like real LSD, it's best enjoyed in a tangible form.

  • While I already own the original Nocturne, there was another edition released in Japan just a few years back. Basically commemorating the release of the then-new Raidou Kazunoha Devil Summoner 2 by being a preorder bonus for the game, this one basically replaced Dante as the recurring boss with Raidou himself. It's a change that I imagine doesn't ultimately amount to a whole lot, but it's still something I'm interested in seeing in action sometime myself and I'm therefore willing to pay a bit of an admission price for that.

  • I admit that I have a serious fetish for Nintendo console add-ons. While I can't say I'll ever be crazy enough to find, say, the BASIC programming suite released for it, the Disk System at least seems like something of a necessity as someone who owns a regular Famicom unit as it is. Considering that a fair number of games actually came out for it and that some of them were legitimately good, I don't really need to justify this one a whole lot. This one is definitely an item I'll get eventually, most likely when I'm back in Japan.

  • F-Zero X is probably my favorite entry in the series and as such I've been interested in having this little number just to screw around with it. I probably wouldn't get a whole lot out of it anyway since level design isn't my forte, but at least it'd give me something to play with on my hypotheticaly 64DD other than the abominably boring Doshin the Giant.

  • Densha de Go is like Steel Battalion before Steel Battalion, crazy additional controller and all. While you trade giant mechs for Japanese trains, the intimidation factor in operating them doesn't exactly go away, so it's ultimately a win-win. Although most of the games in this series could just be in this entry, 64 is specifically included because it was the first one to introduce me to the surprisingly long-running niche series.

  • As one of Sega's very last official Dreamcast games, my interest in it is mostly because of the history behind it, although the gameplay is somewhat interesting as well. The tone behind it overall, beings as it's a game made by a team that was very, very aware the Dreamcast was well on its way out, also makes it stand out. But most importantly, it's a game worth buying because the budget got so low in places that they needed to use puppets for some of the cutscenes. This is a good thing.

  • Naturally, I don't mean any old PlayStation when I put this thing on my list. I already have a PS3, PS2, and, for the hell of it, a PS1 debug unit. No, what I've specifically wanted for a long time is the Net Yaroze, a publically available development kit. It certainly didn't have the functionality that a full-fledged unit came with, but I always really like it when a company goes out of their way to provide the public with some level of officially-sanctioned development tools and that in itself is enough to make want a Net Yaroze, even if my skillfulness at actually using it would be highly questionable at best.

  • Metal Wolf Chaos has what can only be described as "classic voice acting." A game that knows it's ridiculous from the get-go, Metal Wolf Chaos is essentially a very tongue-in-cheek satire of American politics that sports surprisingly specific references from a Japanese developer (ie: "I'll smash it faster than a Florida recount!") and it has extremely over the top native English voice acting that compliments that mentality to a t. While it was meant to actually come out in the States at some point, that never happened, forcing me to likely pay over $100 for a copy of it eventually. The gameplay looks mostly okay, but it's really the presentation that justifies that price.

  • This isn't a particularly expensive game compared to a lot of the items on the list, but it has been on to-do recurringly since the game came out years ago, so that's why it's on here. A great mixture of rhythm gameplay with surprising variety in the minigame department that we could expect only from the Warioware, this has always been the definitive portable rhythm game for me and I just need to get around to finally buying it.

  • People are often of the mindset that no Mario game in existence could ever go obscure by sheer virtue of the mascot's popularity, but games like Super Mario Bros. Special prove that there have been occasions when that's actually happened. Hudson's redux of Super Mario Bros. 1 for Japanese computing platforms isn't a particularly good rendition of the game, thanks in no small part to the lack of scrolling screens. But like a lot of other games on this list, my interest in acquiring this is more for historical reasons anyway. It's not completely forgotten in the Mario pantheon, especially compared to the few other Mario games that are even more obscure than Special, but it's probably one of the most interesting of the bunch because of the platforms it was released for and the fact that it tries (and fails) to emulate what made the original game so great.

  • Being able to own this is so dependent upon me coming upon very specific financial and space circumstances that I doubt I'll ever be able to own one of these, but having played one of these units several times at a local arcade years ago, I know I'd love to have that experience in my own home somehow. Despite the only real gimmick being that the chairs rotate and vibrate with the tracks as you race, it adds a surprising amount of atmosphere to the proceedings. Fun times to be had with it for sure, even if playing it was definitely expensive.
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