Japan 2012 Travel Diary, Day 10

Posted Thursday, 28th February 2013 under Travel
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The first full day in Osaka was set as a half nerd/half not-nerd shopping day. Osaka houses the west-coast equivalent of Akihabara, Nipponbashi or Den Den Town, so we had planned to head over there in the morning and then jump over to the Dotonburi shopping district in the afternoon. To make things more time-efficient, I used Sebaattori’s excellent blog entry on retrogaming in Osaka as a base and headed to the Ebisucho Station via the Sakaisuji line, exit 1-B, and found Super Potato two meters to the right of the exit once we got out onto the street. We ended up crossing over the other side to check out the Sofmap over there only to realise the Sofmap on the same side of the street as Super Potato (and our other destination, Game Tanteidan) was where we needed to go.

Before going on, I have to say that Nipponbashi is a completely different beast than Akiba. Where Akiba is gaudy but full of life, Nipponbashi is gritty, grimy and dark; Wifey commented the same, and where in Akiba she felt pretty comfortable and found the spectacle entertaining, she felt a bit uncomfortable in comparison in Nipponbashi. We started off hunting for LDs in a store on the corner before starting the nerd run, and once again inadvertently walked into the porn section on the second floor (which felt a little more seedy than the other accidental walk-ins). Exiting, we headed to Sofmap and found their retro collection was located across 6 bins (3 x 3 – so two rows), where the whole thing was a bit of a mess. Games in there were certainly cheap enough (I grabbed Virtua Cop 2 for only ¥50), but it was a lot of effort for comparably little return time-wise, so we left after grabbing the above and headed to Game Tanteidan (or to use Sebaattori’s translation, Game Detectives).

The store isn’t massive, but the selection is fantastic and pricing wasn’t too shabby either considering we were shopping in an urban area – on the whole, it was probably 10% to 20% cheaper than Akiba, though in some instances it was also more expensive (consistently inconsistent then!). The bottom floor is where the hardware is (they had a set of boxed Virtual On Twin Sicks for the Saturn for only ¥960!!), as well as most of the software. The Famicom selection is extensive, but being conscious of time I wasn’t in a position to go through everything individually, and instead prioritised the Saturn and DC, and checked out a couple of Super Famicom games and some Mega CD titles. Upstairs is dedicated to MSX, collectible cards, game music and art books (and probably guide books as well). Up here I was fortunate enough to find a copy of the Phantasy Star Compendium art book for around ¥3500 and snapped it up, then grabbed some titles from downstairs on the way out, with my amazing and patient wife helping by holding onto games while I shopped (and by now I’m sure you’ve noticed that Wifey being amazing and patient has been a continuing motif throughout this entire trip!).

I was debating whether to go to Super Potato as I heard the prices there were really expensive, but Wifey said I should still go in, and as always she was right 🙂 We skipped the bottom floor as per Sebaattori’s advice and went straight to the second floor where the retro love is. Since the shelves weren’t quite as packed as Game Detectives, more games were facing with the label-side visible rather than the spine, so it made it faster than relying on my not-so-speedy ability to read Japanese to trawl though carts 🙂 I ended up buying some more gear from there, as price-wide they were often similar to Game Detectives, with some titles more expensive and some gear cheaper (they had piles of Model 1 Mega Drives for around ¥1500 a pop which was pretty cool, and Saturns for ¥3500), but of course the selection was a bit different which was great. We passed a couple of other gaijin in the shop taking turns playing Super Mario Kart which was pretty awesome too.

Where this Super Potato really came into its own were some readily accessible premium titles I was after – I snapped up Radiant Silvergun for a shade under ¥8000, Asuka 120% Final Burning Fest. for under ¥5000 (closer to ¥4500 I think) and a few other titles I hadn’t seen elsewhere (like Dead of Alive on the PSone for a cheap price too). Wifey, again being amazing, pointed me in the direction of the bargain bins towards the back where I snapped up a whole heap of goodies for ¥50-¥200, including a boxed Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon and some loose Sonic carts for the Game Gear, Godzilla Generations and a few other DC games and a DC lightgun as well.

After exiting Super Potato, we headed back to Ebisucho Station and took the Sakaisuji Line up to the next stop (Nipponbashi) and jammed the nerd stuff into a coin locker (note to all tourists – coin lockers are amazing and should be utilised to reduce shopping fatigue!), then walked out and passed a couple of dodgy looking pachinko parlours (pachinko is huge in Osaka) before arriving at the start of Dotonburi, which signalled the end of nerd shopping and the start of food and Wifey-friendly shopping!

The general perception is that in Osaka you eat and drink your fill when you’re out, and the proliferation of so many places to grab a bite down this street was impressive and set your belly rumbling. We passed all manner of cuisine, but being Osaka we knew we had one destination – takoyaki.

We ended up stopping off at a place with an impressive line-up considering the time of day (close to 3pm if memory serves), so I jumped in and managed to order a small selection of takoyaki to share with Wifey. As much as I enjoyed the goodies from the night before, I’m pretty confident that these topped them and were mouth-burningly delicious. With our belated lunch sorted out, it was time to work off all that yummy batter with more shopping.

Doutonburi is a long and densely-packed open-air mall, with shops initially sitting along the main street when you enter it from where we came from. As we progressed though, the foodie haunts gave way to all manner of shops and amusement centres, and these eventually gave way to labyrinths of other enclosed strip malls spidering off the main street. The scale really was impressive and we barely scratched the surface, instead prioritising a visit to H&M across a bridge that showed off some amazing views of the concrete jungle that is Osaka (no H&M locally and the EU sizes meant it wasn’t too tricky to work out what to buy).

As the afternoon wore on, the middle and high school students hit the pavement and Doutonburi became alive with a sea of people. Apart from catching up and going shopping they were also checking out some live performances on one of the bridges that lead over to H&M and all manner of other gear was happening in the area. We ended up doing some shopping and purchasing around this part of Doutonburi, and I have to take this spot to give huge credit to the incredible pride the Japanese guys put into looking the part when they head out. I felt comparatively under-dressed sporting jeans and a t-shirt (the humidity meant I couldn’t layer stuff otherwise I would have become a sweaty gaijin, which isn’t a good look!), but it was great to see pride in appearance and passion in the stores with guys out shopping in force. There was also an abundance of headwear that I picked up while we were over there (one of the catches with being a ranga with a thinning hairline means hats are a bit of a necessity these days!), and they’ve certainly been put to use as the Australian summer kicked in locally.

After finishing up there we wandered our way to the nearby Tokyu Hands department store at Wifey’s very sensible insistence (passing a Konami fitness club on the way!).

I didn’t know much at all about Tokyu Hands before we visited, but I cam away really impressed with it! It’s a multi-story department store with a tip towards the more affordable end of the spectrum, and while we were there we bought a couple of souvenirs and a lightweight piece of luggage to accommodate all the crap we had bought to date (I can’t recall the cost, but it was incredibly lightweight and strong, with four wheels on the base for easy movement and was extremely good value). The only trick with purchasing the luggage was that I got my Japanese mixed up, but between my command of the language and a touch of English, everything got sorted out and after 5-10 minutes a staff member brought out a fresh, new piece of luggage from the storage area out the back. With the new luggage in hand, we headed back via the train station to grab the nerd haul from the coin locker to take home with us. Turns out it all fit quite nicely inside the new piece of baggage too and made it very easy to take all our shopping back to our hotel!

We dropped our collective haul off at the hotel before hitting the Universal City Walk again for dinner (yes, we were being a bit lazy by relying on going somewhere so close to the hotel rather than exploring more of Osaka at night!), settling for Mos Burger as Wifey was interested in more comfort food as she continued to fight off her cold, and then picked up a banana and strawberry crepe from the crepe stand and more drinks from Starbucks (being the manly-man I am, I continued my addiction to their mango passion iced tea, while Wifey grabbed a mocha espresso to warm up) to finish off at our hotel.

Osaka continued to gel with us after a day of shopping – while not as clean as the other cities we visited, the place was full of life and everyone seemed to be milling about with purpose. The nerd run to Nipponbashi blew a reasonable wad of cash, but it was so much fun and while you’re paying a bit extra for the convenience, when you’re strapped for time it’s a pretty good compromise in my opinion. Time’s the central key point here I guess – there was so much more to explore in Osaka and we only touched on Nipponbashi, Doutonburi and the immediate surrounds of our hotel during the day. We also needed bigger gaijin appetites to take advantage of all the amazing street food, and that’s not even counting the copious flow of cheap and tasty beer on offer either!! I have a feeling we’d have trouble keeping up with the locals, but I’m sure if Wifey and I get back to Osaka in the future we’ll be ready to give it another crack!

To view all posts on the Japan 2012 Travel Diary, just use the 2012 Japan Trip tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.

Sega Ages 2500 Phantasy Star: Generation 1 FAQ

Posted Wednesday, 8th June 2011 under Guides and FAQs
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There’s no such thing as too much love for Phantasy Star. For this FAQ, I’ll list all the resources I used to finish Phantasy Star: Generation 1, the Sega Ages 2500 remake of Phantasy Star, as well as some hints that the existing guides and FAQs have missed.

First up, your essential resources:

• Omar Pérez’s Mini-FAQ (GameFAQs): This is your base for the game, as it contains the information to get most of the core items, the sequence to play through the game and all sorts of other goodies. The content up until you go to Dezoris can be a bit light at times (more on filling those gaps is noted below), but once you jet off to the ice planet, it is 110% rock solid. I would not have been able to finish this game without his guide, especially with his constant plugs to use the Collaboration system 🙂
• Bokokun’s Lists FAQ (GameFAQs): It’s in shift-JIS, so make sure you have Japanese fonts installed. I can read hiragana, katakana and a bit of kanji, so Bokokun’s guide was a godsend in filling in the gaps when my brain wouldn’t articulate everything correctly 🙂 Especially noteworthy is his guide to the Collaboration system, which saved my bacon on the final boss fights.
• Wolfgang Landgraf’s Phantasy Star: Generation 1 guide. I used his Phantasy Star: Generation 2 guide extensively when I played through that a few years back, and once again he comes to the rescue with detailed maps on every dungeon in the game, translations of items in the store, general hints and full overland maps – his maps of Dezoris were amazingly helpful as I kept getting lost 😉
• Dark Vortex’s (Quan Jin’s) Phantasy Star FAQ (Sega Master System; GameFAQs). For the areas where Omar’s guide skimmed over pretty quickly, all the necessary info was neatly tucked away in Dark Vortex’s FAQ for the original Phantasy Star on the Master System. To be honest, any of the FAQs for PS1 would suffice, I just happened to prefer Dark Vortex’s.

The other thing I did to make life easier was to hack my levels to save on grinding – in the first instance, I bumped Alis to level 60-ish; later on when I amassed the rest of the party, I was pleased to see they all leveled up with Alis even when they weren’t in your party. Later into the game, I noticed in a few battles things were getting a little dicey, so I hacked my characters again to level 95 (or 9,000,000 EXP!) to finish off the game. You’re welcome to grind to your heart’s content, but I’m time poor and as much as I adore the early Phantasy Star games, PS1 and PS2 are too grind-heavy these days. I’ve already done the hard yards back in the day, so I was lazy with the remakes 😛 I’ll be posting an updated guide on hacking the experience levels of the other characters in the future, and will look at uploading a guide to GameFAQs as well at some stage.

So, using all those documents above, you’ll be relatively set. I’d use Omar’s guide as the base, use Bokokun’s guide to help with identifying items and spells, Wolfgang’s guide for dungeon maps and fill in the gaps with Dark Vortex’s FAQ. There are still a few tricks that may step you up, so apart from the obvious (talk to everyone two or three times to exhaust the conversation chains, consult often, keep track of locations being mentioned in green [a working knowledge or katakana and hiragana helps, otherwise use Bokokun’s guide], etc), here are some situation specific details I noted during my playthrough:

Naula Key (Naura no kagi)

Talk to the man at Eppi (village leader), get Hashim’s Key (Hashim no kagi), talk to the village leader again, consult (L1), goto Parolit, talk to Mary (Meari-), and you should get the Naula Key (Naura no kagi) to enter Naula Cave.

Toriada Key (Toriada no kagi)

The Toriada Key (Toriada no kagi) is in the brown house in Gothic. Use it to enter Toriada Prison.

Bortevo Key (Bartevo no kagi)

To obtain the Bortevo Key (Bartevo no kagi), in Bortevo go to the top-right house, talk to Garingu and you should get the Bortevo Key (Bartevo no kagi). Consult a few times prior to getting it as I remember Myau mentions Garingu.

Hapsby

After obtaining the polymetal, you’ll find Haspy by searching the bottom-right house in Bortevo.

Casba Dragon

This one drove me nuts, so here’s how I got the dragon to appear in the dungeon. Goto Casba, talk to the people in there, especially the girl Natalia (Nataria), consult, then goto Uzo and talk to Vivian (Bibian), consult, talk to the rest of the townspeople in Uzo, head back to Casba, talk to everyone and by now you should be getting plenty of people talking about the Blue Dragon in the dungeon. Consult, save then head back into the dungeon, and he should be there. Remember to head to Bortevo afterwards to grab the hovercraft.

Hovercraft

Head to the building next to the save game panel and search it – Hapsby will nerd it up and you can jump into it by pressing R1 when you’re next to the water (saves going into your inventory to active it every time).

Abion/Forgotten Tower and Medusa’s Tower

I found that I did these the opposite order that Omar’s FAQ suggests you do them in owing to what my characters were talking about when using the consult command. I did Abion/Forgotten Tower first and tackled Medusa’s Tower second. I never got around to doing Jara Cave 😛

Aukuba

Omar notes Aukaba as Twintown; doesn’t really matter, but when all my characters started talking about Aukbara no machi, it confused the buggery out of me. Having only played through Phantasy Star on the SMS once, I had a d’uh moment when I arrived and realised they were one and the same. Go me!

Gaining entrance to the Guaron Morgue

I can’t take credit for this one – Busterbeam over on the GameFAQs board pointed this out ( the original thread is here). To gain entrance to the Guaron Morgue, here’s the full list of what I did: I talked to the two Head Dezorians in Aukuba (they’re in red outfits, each in their own house either side of the town entrance), consulted, went to Guaron, got denied twice, consulted, returned to Aukuba, talked to the Head Dezorian on the left, consulted, returned to Guaron Morgue, and was permitted entry. Thanks Busterbeam!

Getting past the pit in Guaron Morgue

Use Myau’s Report techniqe (also referred to as his trap disarm spell) just prior to the pit in Guaron Morgue that leads yo the Laconian armour. You’ll go straight on top of it and won’t swear at the TV like I did three times before I realiased you had to use his technique 😛

Ice Dungeon gibberish

This one’s an anomally – using consult after finishing the Guaron Morgue and before heading into the Ice Dungeon, at the end of a conversation Alis exclaims “Ha-a-a [X] [Triangle] [Square] [O] [Triangle] [Square] [O] [X] [X]”. I’ve no idea if this is a fancy cheat or code, but thought I’d note it down regardless.

I think that covers it – again, huge props to the authors of those FAQs, I wouldn’t have even hoped to have made it through Phantasy Star: Generation 1 without your help!

Fan translations for Phantasy Star: Generation 1?

Posted Monday, 30th May 2011 under New old games
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As part of my preliminary hacking of Phantasy Star: Generation 1, I ended up doing some searching for basic info like… how to save the game 😛 (top tip – talk to the terminals in the towns using O to save your game)

Anywho, part of this saw a couple of interesting bits on possible fan translations for the game, including this one from jessethehedgehog on YouTube:

In addition, there’s also a thread on Fringes of Algo where someone as recent as April 2011 is talking about translating the game.

Not sure if either project will get anywhere, but it’s still pretty cool. Shame I don’t have the language skills or the programming ability to help out, as it would be great if G1 and G2 of the Sega Ages Phantasy Star releases received an English translation.

Mind, if Sega of America actually translated them and released them when the PS2 was a reasonably viable machine, or even in the aftermath alongside the likes of Sakura Taisen, a lot of rabid fans would have been extremely happy. If value was a problem, jam them on a disc with all the contents from the Phantasy Star Collection disc. Simple.

Well, it probably isn’t, but the internet is a choice platform for people to voice their opinions with realisation of the amount of work required to achieve such an ask 🙂

Experimenting with hacking Phantasy Star: Generation 1

Posted Monday, 23rd May 2011 under New old games
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A few years back I wrote a guide up on GameFAQs about hacking save games for Phantasy Star: Generation 2 on the Playstation 2. I decided I wanted to give Phantasy Star: Generation 1 a whirl since I finally got around to finishing it on the Master System a few years back (via the Phantasy Star Collection Sega Ages release – never finished on the SMS back in the day, it was too hard 😛 Sheer tenacity and the hint book meant I could finish Phantasy Star 2 back in the day though!), but since I’m time-poor I thought I’d kick-start the grind with Alisa/Alis (choose your favourite translation :P). So, I used the experience with the previous save game hacking and applied it to PS:G1 and have had some success.

I’ll actually post up updated tutorials at a later stage for hacking PS:G2 and PS:G1 later on, but if you’re industrious you can apply the theory from my previous FAQ yourself. The only issue I’ve found is that PCSX2 0.9.7 won’t load games, but my old PCSX 0.9.4 works fine; might just be a Windows 7 x64 thing though. Had to add some C libraries to my OS as well (specifically, msvcr71.dll), as MyMC wasn’t working either. I’m using Cheat Engine v6, and it seems to be fine as well.

Just to prove I’m not barking, here’s my game 6 minutes or so in – note the meseta:

And finally, check the Experience and the Level – it’ll take me up to about level 61 after completing my first fight of the game, as that’s how the hacking works:

Anywho, just wanted to share – I’m off to play through the game properly now, not sure if I’ll hack the other characters since Alisa is such a tank now, but probably will down the road 🙂 Well, I probably should since I’ll need the hex values to write up a full guide, like my previous one.

An ode to Valkyria Chronicles

Posted Monday, 4th April 2011 under Retrospective game reviews
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I realise most current-gen gaming writing on here are for retro-themed games, but I had to break the rule. Valkyria Chronicles is such a good game it deserves it.

Why am I posting this now? After all, the game came out three years ago, but since I’m a bit slow, I’ve only just gotten around to finishing it, and while I know I get carried away with hyperbole at times, I want to mark it up as one of the greatest, if not *the* greatest, gaming experience of this generation.

I should probably justify this, because in many respects, it isn’t exactly ground-breaking given it’s an evolution of so many strat (J)RPGs that have accumulated over the years. But it’s a great mid-point behind pure strategy and some hands-on, meaning there’s a bit more flexibility if you’re a bit retarded when it comes to strat games (like me :P). Even though I relied on YouTube videos towards the end of the game owing to my rubbish skills, the game remained accessible to someone like me who has never been that good at turn-based strategy or RTS games. Thank you Sega 🙂

So, what else? The scenario’s an alternative-universe Europe during WW2, with all sorts of tips of the hat to actual history, and plenty of silliness to expand it further into the realms of atypically Japanese storytelling. Some found the fantastical nature of some of it rage-inducing, but I found it charming. But I like my anime, so that explains my weakness in this regard. The character interaction was strong, even though it could probably be criticised for playing to stereotypes.

Much of the game reminds me in spirit of the Sakura Taisen games, which I adored on the Saturn and Dreamcast, so I think this also adds to my love of the game. There’s also the handy option to play the game with the original Japanese dubbing, which was a welcomed and crowd-pleasing choice, even though the dubbing was actually really good for the game. In itself, such good localisation of the voicework is unusual given it’s a Sega title, but I’m probably still stuck in the 32-bit era where there were some dreadful dubs, and the DC wasn’t much better to be honest (thankfully, Skies of Arcadia didn’t have too many spoken lines!).

But beyond all these is the atmosphere of the game. I’ve waxed lyrical on this intangible feeling a game can have on the player in other places – I had the same feeling playing Mirror’s Edge and it’s EU-centric vibe reminiscent of EU development in the early 90s. Valkyria Chronicles stirs the kind of empathy and vibe I haven’t felt in a while – it was classical old-school Sega, with dashes of the original Sakura Taisen, Phantasy Star 2 and 4, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Skies of Arcadia.

It was also great to see a game using a military subject matter without dipping into vats of testosterone and inserting expletives all over the place. Yes there’s a place for all of that, I’m just saying it was nice that it didn’t feel it needed to go there. As such, it was a pleasant counter-point to the typical Western approach. It would also explain why the game never reached critical mass with its market, as it lacked the “action movie” factor that colours a lot of other successful games.

Technologically, the CANVAS engine is, in my irrational mind, the most impressive game engine, visually, of this generation. I’m aware there are some gorgeous and flexible engines out there at the moment, but what they achieved with this one was stunning. The frame-rate very rarely dips, it allows for stunning in-game visuals and cut-scenes, the animation is clean and there’s only the occasional bit of screen-tearing, one of my pet-hates of the current generation of gaming. The game deviated from shades of grey and gave amazingly colourful vistas despite its subject matter, but the engine was flexible enough to go with the shades of grey and dirt-brown when the situation called for it.

And critical to a game’s success, the ending brought closure, a feeling of accomplishment and felt incredibly satisfying.

So that’s my call – you’re welcome to disagree of course, but there it is. Now I have to work out which game to sink my teeth into next 🙂