Twinbee (ツインビー) Famicom Disk – Retail Release Reproduction

Following my popular Goonies for Famicom Disk ‘retail’ release reproduction, I grabbed a separate copy of the other Konami Disk Writer Kiosk exclusive release, Twinbee, with an eye to making similar packaging for it.

As with Goonies (and most Disk Writer Kiosk releases), it came with a proper printed disk label and fold-out paper manual. The manual sheet is in much nicer condition than my Goonies one, having been more carefully folded 30 years ago.

Twinbee was one of the earliest third party Famicom games, from the original Konami Orange Box line.

As such, the original box is quite boring, design wise. For more interesting design and logo ideas I looked at the MSX release:

As well as various flyers for the game.

I opened up my Goonies project and whipped up a Twinbee cover in that style.

But it looks a bit fancy for such an early release. Twinbee is old enough that its original cartridge release even had the old Konami logo, so looking so bold didn’t really fit. Instead I looked to its sequel, Moreo Twinbee, which was originally released on Famicom Disk System as one of Konami’s first games with their new logo.

This style would be more period-appropriate, given this edition of Twinbee on FDS was released in 1988.

Pretty soon I had it done and the result back from the printers.

At the same time and on the same sheet did a minor update to the Goonies print to adjust the size slightly, and remove Twinbee’s name from the spine.

Cut to size

Scored for the disk holder

And the end result, for both disc and outer box:

The two retail release reproductions together:

And Twinbee FDS with the sequel Moreo Twinbee.

Now both can be home with their Konami Famicom Disk brethren.

(Almost) every Nintendo console ever released in Japan

With my recent acquisition of a Color TV-Game Racing 112, My collection now includes almost every major revision of every Nintendo home console ever released, complete in box.

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  1. Wii U
  2. Wii
  3. Gamecube
  4. Nintendo 64
  5. Virtual Boy (I’m counting it as a console, since it is really not portable)
  6. Super Famicom Jr.
  7. Super Famicom
  8. Famicom AV
  9. Round Button Family Computer
  10. Square Button Family Computer
  11. Famicom Disk System (a separate platform, but not a console)
  12. Color TV-Game Block Breaker
  13. Color TV-Game Racing 112
  14. Color TV-Game 15
  15. Color TV-Game 6 CTV6G (orange)
  16. Color TV-Game 6 CTV6S (white)

A small confession: My Wii U is not a Japanese model.

There were a few more minor revisions of the consoles along the way – FF logo/non FF logo Famicom, output changes, different coloured consoles of various sorts (even shapes like the Pikachu N64), but these are all the major Japanese revisions. The Wii Mini revision was not released in Japan.

There’s one major item missing – the Computer TV-Game. I’ll almost certainly never get one of these. This ‘console’ is incredibly rare, insanely expensive, and its questionable if it was even a consumer product since it was literally an arcade game with TV out. It sold for ¥48,000 in 1980. For comparison the Color TV Game Racing 112 was selling for ¥5000 in 1980, and the Famicom launched in 1983 for ¥14,800.

The Sega set is on its way, but will take a few more years I think. So many revisions…

The Complete Konami Famicom Set

Following my complete Konami Famicom Disk System set, I have finally completed the other half of the full set, every Konami cartridge exclusive Famicom game.

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This set has taken over 20 years to complete. It was finally done when I managed to find a rare boxed copy of Exciting Boxing for a good price.

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The first Famicom game I ever got was The Goonies, since it wasn’t released in the west and I loved The Goonies II. I originally played it on my NES via a converter, but it started my Famicom obsession.

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Another early pickup was Parodius Da.

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The rarest item is possibly Geki Kame Ninja Den (Legend of the Radical Ninja Turtles) – the Japanese version of the first Ninja Turtles game. Or maybe the third party published Konami arcade game Circus Charlie. Most valuable could be Geki Kame Ninja DenBucky O’Hare or Exciting Boxing.

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I don’t have the DoReMikkostyle big box for Exciting Boxing, or the late-era cartridge re-releases of the FDS games Akumajou Dracula, Bio Miracle Bokette Upa, or Moreo Twinbee, so there’s a small amount of room to grow the set. Unfortunately all four of those items are hilariously expensive.

Here’s the full set with the Famicom Disk Games added to the photo, including the large DoReMikko box up the back.

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As for favourites, it’s pretty hard to go past the Contra games, Arumana no Kiseki, and Akumajou Densetsu.

KonamiFami_Contras KonamiFami_Kiseki

KonamiFami_Densetsu

Also Akumajou Dracula, Ai Senshai Nicol, King Kong 2, Gradius II, Salamander, Crisis Force, Maze of Gallious, Wai Wai World 1 and 2, Tiny Toon Adventures 1 and 2, Bucky O’Hare, Metal Gear, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, Exciting Soccer, Exciting Basket, Ganbare Goemon 1 and 2, Meikyuu Jiin Dababa, Falsion, Dragon Scroll… so many classics.

Konami were at their peak in this era, and I believe the single greatest developer in the world at that point. How the mighty have fallen.

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KonamiFami_2   KonamiFami_3

KonamiFami_FDS2   KonamiFami_FDS3

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Famicom games with insane packaging: Relics: Ankoku Yosai (レリクス暗黒要塞)

Quite a few Famicom games, in particular Famicom Disk games, came in very fancy packaging. Many came in large boxes with extra stuff like figurines, cassette tapes, large format manuals, and in some cases even more outrageous things, like Exciting Boxing‘s giant inflatable controller. These are not like modern special editions, as in most cases these were the only release of the game.

For classy packaging, it’s pretty hard to go past Bothtec’s Relics: Ankoku Yōsai.

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Inside the huge PC-game style outer slip is a metal case.

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And inside the case, you have a large full colour manual, a sticker sheet, a disk-sized full colour monster manual, and the disk itself.

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The disk case and monster manual fit inside foam slots, presented as valuable items.

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The case allows removal of some of the foam, so if you want you can use the metal case to store 4-6 FDS games in style.

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The monster manual gives every character in the game in a two page spread.

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And the large manual is even nicer. Beautiful artwork is used throughout the presentation, and it does its job of making you excited to get into the game.

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The game itself is almost as ambitious as the packaging. A Metroid-style sprawling action-adventure, it features huge sprites (for the time), large environments and a huge list of enemies and items. Set in a post-apocalytic world where dark forces have enslaved humanity, in the game you play as some kind of robot spirit guy who can possess the bodies of the dead. You must defeat all the enemies in a ‘sun fortress’ to free the good spirits (as well as the ubiquitous princess) to save humanity.

Relics.000  Relics.001

The graphics are pretty good for the time, and the music is catchy. Despite the immediately noticeably clunky controls, it is not hard to be impressed early on, as the world of Relics is intriguing.

Unfortunately the game doesn’t live up to its ambitions. Bothtec’s roots were in PC games (including some predecessors to this game) and it Relics plays very much like a home computer game of this type, it’s quite rough around the edges. Controls are not only clunky but glitchy, and it’s very very difficult to outmanoeuvre many enemies. It gets better as you power up later on, but getting to that point is a huge slog.

Relics.005  Relics.008

Worse than this are the load times. This game is always loading, I have not experienced any other FDS game like it. It does big loads every time you change screen, but there are small loads even within a loaded scrolling area when a new type of enemy appears. It’s really quite horrendous.

Despite these flaws, the adventure and exploring elements work quite decently in the traditional ‘try every direction in every order with every item’ classic 80s kind of way. Finding keys and power-ups in order to progress and remembering paths is always kind of fun when the world looks this mysterious, it’s just that it’s buried under layers of clunk.

Relics.011  Relics.014

It still feels like a somewhat genuine retro experience, playing a game like this with the large manuals and packaging in front of you. But I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone except 80s adventure fetishists.

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19/20 Konami Famicom Collector Cards

This is a follow up to a previous post on the Konami collector cards.
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Recap: At some point starting in 1987, Konami decided to include a collector card with all their Famicom titles. Each card had an illustration related to the game; some cards featured screenshots or pieces of screenshots, others had artwork of scenes in the game.

After much searching, I have now almost completed the set! While there were multiple cards per title in some cases, I’ve only collected one per game.

It seems unlikely I’ll ever get a complete copy of Exciting Boxing. It came in a huge box with a novelty inflatable controller, and commands insane prices online now.

Here’s my set:

Ai Senshi Nicol and Arumana no Kiseki

 KonamiCards_Kiseki KonamiCards_Nicol

Dracula II and Contra

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Do Re Mikko and Dragon Scroll

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Exciting Baseball and Exciting Basketball (Double Dribble)

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Exciting Billards and Exciting Soccer

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Falsion and Getsu Fumaden

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Konami Wai Wai World and Majo Densetsu II (Knightmare II)

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Meikyujin Dababa and Metal Gear

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Salamander and Tetsuwan Atomu (Mighty Atom aka Astro Boy)

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Top Gun

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Update:

I managed to get the card for Exciting Boxing!

Updated article here.

The Complete Konami Famicom Disk System Set

This is the full set of Konami Famicom Disk System games.KonamiFDS_1Up front you can see the two games I covered recently –  Smash Ping Pong (which was published by Nintendo), and my custom designed Goonies/Twinbee ‘retail’ box, housing the official Disk Writer releases of those two games. There’s also the DoReMikko box up the back, and disk at the front.

Some true classics here. There’s the obvious brilliance of Arumana no Kiseki, Akumajou Dracula, and Ai Senshai Nicol, and the awesome shooters Falsion and Gyruss.KonamiFDS_2The sports games are top notch as well, I love Exciting Soccer and Konami Ice Hockey in particular, while Exciting Basketball has fantastic music missing from the NES version. Exciting Baseball and Exciting Billiards are great too.

Really every game has its merits, from the cutesy platformer Bio Miracle Bokette Upa, the creative spin on the Breakout formula in Nazo no Kabe: Block-kuzushi, the alternative layout of NES Jeep shooter Jackal in Final Command, to the flawed but revolutionary Dracula II.KonamiFDS_3Konami. In the 80s and early 90s they were Nintendo’s equal.

DoReMikko (ドレミッコ) – Famicom Disk System

DoReMikko (ドレミッコ) is a game I never thought I would ever be able to obtain. It usually goes for hundreds of dollars. But a few months ago on I unexpectedly won an auction on Yahoo Japan for a complete copy, far below usual price!Doremikko_1

The name DoReMikko is a play on ‘Do Re Mi’ – the anglicised versions of the first three notes of the Solfège scale (probably most well known from the song in the musical The Sound Of Music).

It’s a music game/software package for the Famicom Disk System that came with a keyboard controller. The keyboard is pretty nice quality, if a bit small.Doremikko_3

There are three main modes.Doremikko.000

First up is Concert Mode. Here you can play along with a Gradius melody medley with a full band accompaniment.Doremikko.001

You can select the instrument the keyboard sounds like, and set tempo and style, everything from rock to country to techno (and a strangely 4/4 waltz). More options are available in a menu, allowing you to adjust various parameters of yours and your accompaniment’s instruments. You can also record your performances to disk.

If you’re into 8-bit music, it’s pretty fun to fiddle around with the instrumentation, limited as it is.Doremikko.002

The instrument you pick affects the animation that plays. Including a full Chuck Berry/Back To The Future style stage rock-out if guitar is selected.Doremikko.006

Next up, Solo Mode is a simple keyboard-only mode. You can only select Piano or Organ, and play without accompaniment.Doremikko.008

So what’s the point? Well, this mode gives the entire system’s audio capabilities to the keyboard. Effectively it allows you to use your Famicom (with extra Disk System audio channels) as a digital keyboard, allowing up to 10 notes to be played at once in full synth quality. It also features the recording functionality of concert mode.  It’s fairly limited, but would have been impressive in 1987 for the price, quite a decent way to record your compositions.Doremikko.009

Finally, there’s ‘Play Along’ mode. Each of the boxes contains the accompaniment to a song, and these songs have their music written out in the game’s manual. The keys light up on the keyboard on screen, helping you learn to play the piece. Of course the highlight is once again the Gradius medley.Doremikko.010

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Overall there isn’t too much to it. It’s actually more useful as a tool to write music on than as a game for entertainment. It’s so trivial today to make quick digital recordings, but in 1987, on the cheap Family Computer, it must have been some budding musicians’ dream come true.

DoReMikko is also one of the Konami games that came packaged with a collector card.

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Smash Ping Pong (スマッシュピンポン) – The Secret Konami Disk System game

There’s one Konami game on Famicom Disk you probably didn’t know about – Smash Ping Pong (スマッシュピンポン).

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Originally released as ‘Konami’s Ping Pong’ in the arcades, Nintendo published the Famicom Disk System version as part of the Famicom Disk launch library. As such, the FDS version is not part of the Konami catalogue, though it is Konami branded on the disk and title screen, and it maintains the official Konami artwork from the arcade and MSX releases.

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It’s a pretty nifty and quite realistic take on Table Tennis. The simple graphics bely a quite sophisticated and challenging control scheme and physics system.

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Unlike most tennis-based games, you don’t hit the ball with A or B and move around with the d-pad. B throws the ball up for service, and A changes between forehand and backhand. Your disembodied hand moves around automatically to meet the ball. All hits are done with the d-pad left, right and up, and the timing controls the angle and power.

It reminds me a lot of Wii Sports Tennis, released 20 years later.

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It’s a very faithful translation of the arcade game, the biggest change being he swapping out of Konami’s Pentaru (from Antarctic Adventure and Parodius) for Donkey Kong in the crowd! Disk-kun (the FDS mascot) also appears in the title screen in his first ever digital appearance.

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The Goonies (グーニーズ) Famicom Disk – Retail Release Reproduction

There were two Konami games on Disk System which were not released at retail, and only available as re-writes via Disk System Writer Kiosks – The Goonies and Twinbee. After much searching I managed to get my hands on a single disk with both games on it.

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Disk Writer games came with a nice official printed disk label and fold-out paper manual.GooniesFDS_3

But it doesn’t match the rest of the otherwise beautifully consistent Konami Disk System catalogue.GooniesFDS_5

Since FDS inserts are just thin cards, I decided I could make up a reproduction retail release for Goonies, based on the cartridge box.GooniesFDS_6

I scanned the nicer quality image from the cart label, and got going in photoshop.GooniesFDS_7

GooniesShop1

For the logo, black looked a little bland, so I took inspiration from Goonies 2 and Akumajou Dracula, and went with red, using the original black logo from the cart release as a drop-shadow. I used Akumajou Dracula and Exciting Basketball as templates for the basic formatting of the disk case label and outer-box label.

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I had it professionally printed on 200gsm satin printing paper, and here’s the result! Goonies on side A, Twinbee on side B, so Goonies gets main billing.GooniesFDS_11

Looks great in disk-case format and full case format!GooniesFDS_12GooniesFDS_13GooniesFDS_15GooniesFDS_14

Now Goonies/Twinbee can take its place with the rest of the Konami FDS set!GooniesFDS_16

And I can finally play Goonies with additional load times!Goonies1 Goonies2

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Goonies Family (Computer) photo.GooniesFDS_17