I'm off to Japan next month and am trying to get together a small shopping list to take with me when I hit Akihabara (and particularly Super Potato).
I was looking for some recommendations on what games might be nice to pick up there particularly for my modded SNES and Saturn or indeed for any of my multiregion handhelds.
If anyone wants to see what I have already then head over to my backloggery. Otherwise I'm keen to hear some suggestions. I know next to no Japanese so the games can't be too reliant on text sadly but I have no problem navigating menus.
Just a quick suggestion if you've never been to Akihabara before. When you go to Super Potato, look but don't buy....at least at first. They have a lot of rare things, but chances are you can find it in other stores nearby, and for half the price. There may be a few things that Super Potato has that you just won't have luck finding anywhere else, so if you really need/want it, then I guess it's worth it to buy it from there.
Also, if you're good at UFO catcher games, definitely keep an eye for some cool ones in Akihabara. A lot of them have amazing video game related prizes inside, and unlike the UFO catchers i've played in North America....it's actually not too difficult to win at the ones in Japan.
winds wrote:Just a quick suggestion if you've never been to Akihabara before. When you go to Super Potato, look but don't buy....at least at first. They have a lot of rare things, but chances are you can find it in other stores nearby, and for half the price. There may be a few things that Super Potato has that you just won't have luck finding anywhere else, so if you really need/want it, then I guess it's worth it to buy it from there.
Also, if you're good at UFO catcher games, definitely keep an eye for some cool ones in Akihabara. A lot of them have amazing video game related prizes inside, and unlike the UFO catchers i've played in North America....it's actually not too difficult to win at the ones in Japan.
Thanks for the tip, I'll be staying in Akihabara for several days so will have a good opportunity to scout around. Are there any stores in particular you can recommend.
I'm looking to pick up a couple of SwanCrystals and some games for the system while I'm there, are they fairly common do you know?
i dont know what everyone bad mouths super potato's prices because, whereas rare games and common games that they know westerners are going are going to want (zeldas, final fantasys, etc) are more expensive there than other places, they have tons of stuff for 50 and 100 yen that is way cheaper than pretty much everywhere else. i got a complete copy of grandia for saturn there for 20 yen (probably around 30 cents US). I also got a working turbo duo-r system for $55 because it had third party hookups, so there are deals to be had.
Also, if you see random sealed cardboard boxes by the register area with a bunch of writing on them, BUY THEM, because those are their grab boxes and there were probably 300+ games in the two boxes that I bought for 1000 yen each). They give you a insane amount of disc only stuff, but its actually cool games!
The WonderSwan line of systems should be pretty common, but most of the games I've seen are either ports of Square games, which have English ports already stateside or games based off of different anime/tv franchises. I'd recommend Gunpey, though it has ports as well, and Blue Wing Blitz, a TRPG by Square's team that designed Front Mission, which hasn't been ported yet. Maybe the Guilty Gear Petit games as well, since fighters don't require that much English knowledge.
But like other people said, shop around for the best deal before just buying at Super Potato.
EDIT: GB/GBC/GBA/DS games aren't region protected. See if there's a few you'd like that are JP-exclusive.
MrPopo wrote:The life lesson here is jobs will come and go, but Earthbound will always be there for you.
I can't really remember any other stores that I went to while I was there, at least by name. But one of the best things to do is just go in every store that you can. You're bound to find almost 100 things in every store that you'll want to bring back home with you haha. Actually thinking about it now, there are 2 stores I can recommend. Animate in Akihabara is definitely worth a look because they make a lot of video game/anime merch that you can't find anywhere else, and it's all officially licenced stuff. Also there was a building in Ueno right near the station exit that is like....8 floors? and every floor has a theme of something. Me and my friend spent literally about 3 hours in just that one store. They even had a life size statue of Snake from metalgear 3, but the thing must have weighed over 100 pounds. Cool to looke at none the less.
Also if you want to see some awesome things (not video game related) that are just hillarious and you won't see in any other store in the world, look for a store called Donkey. It's similar to a joke store in the US like spencers gifts, but a million times better and definitely worth your time haha. There are a few of those around as well. I think I saw one in almost every district I went to. The one in Akihabara is like 5 floors too.
One last thing I can recommend is always try to see if the store you're in has another floor. Since Japan has limited amount of space most of the stores has several floors in them. And 99% of the time each floor has amazing things.
Edit: I just remembered another thing haha. I never been to one myself but watching Lukemorse1's videos on youtube, he always goes to a used electronics store called Hard-off. In there you can find literally boxes upon boxes filled with every video game players/collectors wet dream. All for ridiculous prices like 300yen. The one bad thing though is sometimes some of the consoles have something needed to be fixed on them, usually it'll be written what the problem is on a sticker, but obviously written in japanese. They also have a huge selection of games on the cheap. If you're into cheap manga or anime figires they also have stores called Book-off and Hobby-off.
If you happen to have time and money, hop over to Hong Kong.
Kowloon side, the Hong Kong version of Akihabara. Look in particular of a piece of Gaming Heaven called Golden Computer Plaza. Right across from the reptile (I kid you not) restaurant.
Super Potato is a bit overpriced. You'll find cheaper prices at Liberty across the street.
But since Super Potato price matches, I would go to Liberty and get their prices, then buy the game at Super Potato only because I have a point card there and they are pretty generous with the points.
If you have access to a car, then I can recommend some pretty kickass retro game shops that are not easily accessed by train.
