I snagged a pair of Pocket Pikachu!

 A few weeks ago, I snagged a pair of Pocket Pikachu in our local shop for a very good price. The Pocket Pikachu I bought was the first released monochrome and the colored screen. The Pocket Pikachu functions similar with tamagotchi.

The pair I bought has signs of scratches and fades but still works perfectly. 

DDR Japanese versions for Wii! (Photos)

Box art (HOTTEST PARTY ~ MUSIC FIT). For me, HOTTEST PARTY has good box design

Game front cover art (HOTTEST PARTY ~ MUSIC FIT)

Konami Official Controller dance pad for Nintendo Wii

DanceDanceRevolution titles written in katakana. BEMANI games are rated CERO A. On top of the FURUFURU PARTY box.

Wii LOVE  DANCE! Back box art from DDR HOTTEST PARTY

Music licenses featured in DDR MUSIC FIT

DDR HOTTEST PARTY coincides with BEMANI 10th Anniversary

Collector's perspective: Taking care of your collection

Overtime, we collect more and more video games, controllers, and consoles, thus, they pile up in our cabinets and containers. Taking care of them properly is one our responsibility to ensure preservation.

Cleaning BEMANI controllers during summer

Here are my basic helpful tips on how I take care of my collections;

1. Store your collection in a dry, and dust free place. Moisture absorbing desiccants can be used.

2. Avoid contact your collection with wet hands or any kind of liquid. In case of unexpected contact, immediately wipe and inspect for liquid intrusion. Liquids cause corrosion especially in consoles and may cause short-circuit. For games, it may cause box art discoloration and water stains in discs.

3. Avoid direct contact with sunlight. Prolonged exposure may cause console and box art yellowish discoloration especially in white console and controllers. Also, storing your game discs in dark places prevents data rotting.

4. After gameplay, always clean your controllers with damped cloth. Alcohol with cloth can be used to sanitize and remove grease. Keep it mind to apply in minimal amounts.

5. Avoid reaching it by children.

6. When cleaning discs, use microfiber cloth (used in cleaning eyeglasses). Make sure to wipe it vertically, not in circular direction. Check if there are signs of scratches especially in the reading side of the disc.

7. Wrap your large controllers in large plastics or bubble wraps if your controller doesn't have a box.

8. Avoid hitting your game cartridges. When we are young, when a console can't read game carts (i.e. Family Computer) we usually blow the connector thru our mouth or hitting the cart with great force. Frequent trauma to the cartridge can cause severe damage and malfunction. Cleaning the cartridge connector with microfiber will suffice.

Asking a friend to buy me stuff in Japan (Part 4)

This January 2018, my friend went to Japan for a few days vacation. Just before he left last week I asked him to buy me some game stuff during his stay. I gave him 10,000.00JPY or approximately 4600.00PHP.

loots!!

Earlier this afternoon, I went out to see my friend and get the loots. I got Video game soundtracks, game figures, and food stuff.

He bought me three video game soundtracks; a REFLEC BEAT collete ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK VOL.1, beatmaniaIIDX23 copula ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK, and Ryu☆'s fourth album, Sakura Luminance.

REFLEC BEAT soundtrack, Sakura Luminance, beatmaniaIIDX23 copula

 

Suprisingly, I found out that the Sakura Luminance album has a card (signed by Ryu) and a smartphone keychain bundle while the REFLEC BEAT -colette- includes the bundled REFLEC BEAT limelight ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK EXTRA! A good buy indeed!

Next is the figures. The big one is the recently released beatmaniaIIDX figure last September 2017, Kanzaki Saya for only 1,980.00JPY. It is fourth part of the beatmaniaIIDX 1/8 scale manufactured by Eikoh. The two figures were sold as a bundle (Sakura and Erika) for only 1,500.00JPY.

Kanzaki Saya 

I requested to get me a SUICA Card. I might use the credits to buy digital games in Nintendo's e-shop service.

Suica card

My friend also bought me a New Nintendo 3DS desk charger. Unfortunately, he bought the non-LL. Although my budget depleted, he managed to buy some Pocky and KitKat goodies and some sweet crackers.

Other goodies!!!!

 Maybe on the fifth time I think I have to give him a bigger budget so that I won't have any money shortages and transferring money to abroad is quite expensive.

Touch, touch, touch, Utacchi 「うたっち」！

Early Friday, I received my newest game in my BEMANI collection,Utacchi / うたっち. The only BEMANI game for Nintendo DS and the only BEMANI CS game that uses a stylus pen. Makes me wonder, why the game is under pop’n music line? The songs? I think.

うたっち box art

I used to play the game 6 years ago, but the copy I have is a downloaded ROM.Tried to play the again, on my first attempt I got a PERFECT FULL COMBO! On the next songs, its already raining GREATS.

MIRACLE FLYER

In Japan, there is an advertisement promoting the game and showing a glimpse on how to play the game and variety songs in it.

This is a hard-to-find game. Last year, a friend of mine had no luck in finding it in any Akihabara video game shops. Meaning, a $17.00 for a used copy with free shipping is a good catch after all.

The Pokemon Go Craze in the Philippines

Last August 7, 2016, Niantic, creator of Pokémon Go, opened its servers for the Philippines. Avid Pokémon lovers got its long waited hype. Most of them (including me) went to various locations that has Poke stops. I even bring my IPad and hotspot phone to work (I took the advantage of going elsewhere because of my work).

Venue: Bonifacio High Street

But today is different, My colleague and I went to Bonifacio High Street to catch some Pokémon although a sudden trip. Ayala Malls organized a Nationwide event for Pokémon Go from August 12 to 14. Other malls such as SM and Robinsons have this kind of event as well. When I got to the venue, the place is full of people playing the game, standing near the luring Pokestop. When my colleague met up, we walked around and catch them. It's surprising that many Filipinos are playing regardless of the age.

During our quest, I caught a Meowth, Scyther, Voltorb, Tangela, and Sandshrew. Evolved Kakuna into a Beedrill and hatched an Abra Egg. And of course increased Combat Power (CP) of my current creatures.

People playing Pokémon Go.

When I started to feel the hunger we tried to look for a place to eat, however, almost all restaurants around is almost full, luckily we found one. Good thing is that the there is a so close Pokestop in the restaurant, playing while eating that is.

This is the place my colleague and I had a bite.

A Pokestop signage.

Pokémon Go hype is overwhelming, it caused a worldwide craze. Niantic, might add beyond the original 151, because as of the press time, there are around over 700 creatures. It remembers me when I was in 5th grade, I was dying to have a GameBoy Color to play Pokémon and collect playing cards and compete with my friends.

My Gaming collection

Since I was in college, I have been collecting video games. My first item was the PlayStation counterpart of DanceDanceRevolution 3rdMIX, since then, my passion for video game collecting grew. I started to buy games in various such as Japan surpluses in the Metro Manila, online stores such as Tipidpc and ebay, and trade games to other game collectors.

When I was collecting games, I dedicated myself to collect only games from KONAMI such as; Winning Eleven, Jikkyou Pawafuru Proyaku, Genso Suikoden and Gundam video games from BANDAI. There was a time that my games collected was over a hundred and space became a problem. My mother warned me to refrain from collecting because it collects dust and consumes household space. Suddenly, I realized that I have been collecting games that I don't really like. So I decided to relinquish those games that I don't like.

Now, I am still collecting video games from KONAMI, but limited to BEMANI, Metal Gear Solid, KONAMI's Arcade classics ported to consoles such as Gradius and Silent Scope. I think it's better to concentrate on te games we really love because we can enjoy the passion of collecting, unless, a huge space is available inside your house.

DDR MUSIC FIT!

Two weeks ago, I received my DDR MUSIC FIT bundle from Japan. I bought the game at Ebay for only $68.00.  It took 2 months before I received my postal letter from our local Post Office.

DDR MUSIC FIT bundle

Although used, the game and dancepad is in pristine condition. A lot of the songs of this game are ported to the arcade version, DanceDanceRevolution X2.

This game is the last DDR home console for Nintendo Wii, as they are (I think), concentrating on the arcade version.