King of Fighters XIII - Steam Edition

SNKPlaymore has been posting up on it's KOF-i Facebook page today about the closed beta test for the Steam edition of KOFXIII.

Only 300 people will be randomly drawn to take part, and you have to have the correct minimum specs to sign up for it. Given that my laptop definitely isn't powerful enough to run it, I don't think I will take part but if you do have a laptop/PC built for gaming then you can sign up to the beta test and read more details here.

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Pokemon Tretta discs - A Quick Look

It's been a while since I've written a proper entry on here about anything, so I thought I would start off with something that interested me lately, which is Pokemon Tretta.

Basically this is one of the many arcade games that you find in arcades/toy stores around Japan. You put in 100yen, and have a choice of either playing the game to earn a Pokemon disc, or you can skip the game and just get the disc straight away.

The game works very much like a Pokemon battle, you can either use your own discs to select your 3 Pokemon or use the default Pokemon given to you if you do not have any discs yet.

After playign the battle, you are given the chance to catch the 3 wild Pokemon you have just faced off against. Once caught you are given the choice to select which Pokemon you would like the disc to be dispensed for, if you have caught more than one than you are given the choice to insert another 100yen coin for the machine to dispense the disc for that Pokemon.

It's fairly straightforward, and I managed to play through it with a basic understanding of Japanese.

If you would like to read more about the game you can check out Bulbapedia.

So onto what I wanted to write about today. As you can see above these are the various discs that are dispensed from the machine.

As far as I am aware the different colours correspond to the different series in the game.
For example the white discs belong to series 1, green is series 3, etc.  
The orange ones though belong to the Promotional series, these are usually given out with magazines or, in the case of the Red Genesect shown, when you go to watch a Pokemon movie in the cinema.

Although the earlier series only have the Pokemon names written in Japanese, the latest series also has their names written in English.

Also you may notice the Chandelure is a bit shiny. In the case you catch a 'strong' Pokemon the disc that you are dispensed with have that glittery sticker instead of the normal one. 

On the side of each discis the name of each Pokemon in Japanese, as well as what I believe is the series number and the number or that Pokemon in the current series. Also if you look closely the spines for each disc contain part of an image of a Pokemon, meaning that if you collect a set you can see some pictures of various Pokemon. 

On the back are the details of the stats of each Pokemon.

On the top you can see what attacks the Pokemon is capable of doing, through the centre (depending on the series) is the HP level, energy level, and description, and finally on the bottom are the stats for attack, defense, speed. 

Generally speaking I'm not a Pokemon fan but after reading about the massive add-on for the 3DS game Pokemon Tretta Lab I was inclined to check it out. It's quite an interesting game, I'd never played one of these 'card' games before so it was a nice entry point into these types of machines.

At the moment I have a few of these discs up on auction on eBay, so if you are interested you can check out my current auctions here.

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It's been a while...

Hi everyone,

Not too sure if anyone still even reads this blog, I'm sorry I haven't been able to keep it up to date, unfortunately moving to Japan has meant a lot of changes in my life so it's been difficult to maintain a blog and adjusting to life here in Japan.

I'm still alive, now working as an assistant language teacher and living in Funabashi, Chiba. 
The pace of life has slowed down for me lately so I can probably try to maintain this blog a whole lot better, especially as I'm on summer holidays/vacation at the moment.

I've thought about updating the site for a while, but because I don't play much KOF nowadays I just don't have the motivation for it. I think not having a PS3 or 360 for over a year just made me lose interest.
Although I still intend to update with KOF/SNKP news, I think that I will change the direction of this site to adjust to my changes in interest and life.

As you may notice from the new banner, lately I'm really into Dragon's Crown as well as a lot of retro gaming. So I think I'll maintain this blog as the main theme just being general hobbies and such.

Anyway thanks to anyone who has maintained some interest in this blog, hopefully it'll get better in the future!!

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NG:DEVTEAM - NEO XYX

Just noticed that NG:DEVTEAM have posted up a teaser video for their new game, which I think is for the MVS, on their Facebook page.

Looks like an old-school type shmup, and I'm really interested in seeing more of this game.
Just a shame I don't have any Neo based hardware out here in Japan aside from the Neo Geo CD, though to be honest I can't really afford to play games much. xD

No ideas on how much or when it will be released but stay tuned to their website or Facebook page for more details.

Also I saw fairly recently that Amazon.co.jp has put up preorders for the Neo Geo X Gold system, the initial run of systems will include a special Ninja Masters game card!

Just a bit of a shame that it comes out so close to the release of the Wii-U.
At the moment I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I can upgrade my visa status to a working visa, so if I leave to go back to the UK I can only afford to buy one or the other and it will probably be the Wii-U since I already have a Neo Geo back home!

Anyways check out some more pics of the system from Famitsu that I found via Bordersdown.net.

Bit disappointed the portable doesn't mount into the cart slot!!

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Knights Chance, New AES Game ??

Recently a group called Neobitz has been teasing regarding a game they have in development for the Neo Geo AES, so far not much details have been revealed aside from the fact that it will comprise of four games and will be a puzzle/variety style game.

Check out their Facebook page for more details as they are released.

Also speaking of the Neo Geo, I was recently reading about the Neo Geo X portable which is due for release some time in the near future. The 'Gold Package' is looking rather tempting, which comes with a base unit designed to look like the original AES unit as well as a joystick.

At the moment from what I know the US version will cost $199, no idea on what the European price is at the moment.

Stay tuned to their website for more details.

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Yatagarasu coming to 3DS e-Shop???

Saw this posted up over on Tinycartridge this morning.

Although not an SNK title, members of the team who created this doujin game have previously worked on SNK titles.

I'm not too familiar with Yatagarasu myself, I've tried various old versions of the PC version but never played it properly and checked it out more out of curiosity than anything else.

The overall design of the game itself looks great though and whenever it's released I look forward to checking it out and playing it properly.

No release date or price that I can find information for so far but I look forward to being able to play more fighting games on the 3DS.

At the moment the only one I can play is Blazblue, which i'm not a great fan of, but the Squirrel character Makoto reminds me of Vanessa from KOF.

I'm still hoping SNKP get off their arses and release some games for the 3DS, I'd love to play some of the old NGPC fighters on the 3DS.

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Traders' Junk Corner

It's been a while since I've had time to write anything properly on here. 

As I've mentioned life hasn't been too easy living in Japan, working part-time and trying to do as much as possible within one year on a limited budget means I don't have much time for gaming or to do as many write ups. 

But tonight I'm going to write a little bit about Traders which is a used games store located in Akihabara. 

Why this store in particular ? Because for me it's been a treasure trove of SNK used games for the past few months. 

As you can see in the opening image, I've picked up these various PS1 titles in the past few months for the meagre amount of Y700. Equivalent to about £5 or so. 

Not only these games but I've also picked up a fair amount of Neo Geo CD titles, prices ranging from as low as Y20 (20p) to about Y200 (about £1.60). 

I was really happy to be able to pick up Puzzle Bobble for the NGCD for a meagre Y200!!! 

Although the items are sold as 'junk', I have yet to buy anything from there which has been faulty or in poor condition. At worst there may be some wear to the case or the spine card is missing. 

As well as SNK games I've also found other retro titles I was interested in for Y200 or less. 

I can't remember which one it is on the map but you can have a look at the locations of Traders in Akiba on their website. 

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