It Feels like 1997(and updates)

The Tokyo Game Show is going on this year, and I am getting a feeling I have not had for a long long time. In the olden days, Nintendo set the standard for what came from Japan and what stayed. Some times their decisions seemed rather arbitrary, with even hugely popular game series for the time getting passed up for localization(Secret of Mana 2 for example). It really took the Sony Playstation to open up Japan to us, suddenly the cost of localizing a game was pretty much the cost of paying for a translation. The hardware aspect was super cheap(Cd-roms), and so the cost of a translation team was justified. We are not quite in the 1995 era, a time where even Chrono Trigger barely got green lit to come to America. It does feel like 1997ish to me though. In 1997 you could get a magazine(websites written on thin pieces of mashed trees) and go through the Tokyo Gameshow pictures and say with confidence "coming to America, not coming to America, coming to America, NEVER coming to America". The cost of translation is starting to even become hard to justify to Japanese developers. If Japan is going to do it, then we need to do it ourselves. We are missing out on some wonderful games. Working Designs was an American company that pioneered translations by AMERICANS. They said "if Japan is not going to do it, then we will". Sadly Working Designs is not around any longer, and whatever new company they have made to soak up investing money does not really do a lot of games. Don't get me wrong, I love me some good American RPG's, but even the best of them are rooted in scifi novels and tv shows I have personally watched. I can pick apart even Mass Effect by revealing what Twilight Zone or Star Trek episode they got their bit of dialogue from. As much as Japan gets crap for having a "status quo" mentality, US rpg's have not evolved since the 80's. I guess I'll have to look to Europe for my Deus Ex's and Witchers. Of course all of this means small release numbers of some rare gems out of Japan.... sometimes the collector in me disgusts me :P Ok, rant off. Updates on. I have only a few PS1 updates to go before I feel like I've said all I can really say of it. Soon I will be adding to my Sega Genesis collection(FINALLY) and so I will have moved to adding info about that system. I know the Sega Genesis is not as well represented on the internet as the SNES was, but there are tons of missed out goodies on that system on par or even better than what the SNES offered. My next updates will include a guide to collecting manuals, as well as a resource for comparing manuals to make sure you have a real one and not a photocopy. Also a final statement on PS1 collecting.

The Science of Rarity: A Look at Suikoden 2

The number one rule of rarity is the amount of available product or commodity.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Suikoden had large shipments sent to America, but the sales were rather small in comparison. I started seeing cases of these games pop up in super markets being sold for 10 bucks, and this was before our super markets started carrying anything that wasn't from the rental area. Enough RPG-starved, early buying PS1 pioneers bought the game to warrant a sequel being localized. The sequel arrived, but gamers found that little had changed since Suikoden. In a world of RPG's with 3D fighting and long CGI cutscenes of important events, Suikoden 2 looked 5 years old upon release. A few people did not mind and they bought the game anyway. These people become important later...

From Game Collecting with Rick

Suikoden 2 sold badly. Well under what was expected when compared to its competition. If there was even a 2nd shipment of more copies of this game, it was a trickle. Not that it mattered, the internet was just getting started on word of mouth. Suikoden 2's success is pulled from those few people that loved the game making lots of noise about it over the internet. Soon everyone wanted to try it, and copies that were left over were snatched up. These were not collectors, these were people that wanted to play a hidden gem of a game. I remember when Suikoden 3 came out, a rumor came about that there would be no more shipped here... and players not wanting to be left in the dust like with Suikoden 2 stormed the stores and bought up every copy they could find. This proved to not be the truth, there was plenty to go around at that time. Either way, this tipped off Ebay. Ebay speculators ran up the price of Suikoden 2 to above $100 over night.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The price briefly dipped when it was announced Suikoden 1 and 2 were coming to the PSP. Only later we found out that it was not coming to America... price shot up again. Repeat this with Suikoden coming to the PS3's PSN network for download, there has yet to be a rating given to Suikoden 2, meaning we are no where near it coming to PSN. So let's look at the rarity checklist:

Small print run due to poor sales: Check

Players buying up unopened copies so they can PLAY them. Check.

Ebay speculators buying up remaining stock. Check

No additional versions of the game. Check.

Look at the other valuable RPG's on the PS1. Lunar came out on the GBA and Sega CD. Final Fantasy 7 sold MILLIONS and is on the PSN. Even Valkerye Profile has a re-release on the PSP. The only legal way to play Suikoden 2 in English is to buy a copy from the original pressings. That makes it rare.

More Than Games: Guides!

Misconceptions, misconceptions misconceptions. Strategy guides are considered glorious to some and reprehensible to others. Some claim that game makers started putting in activities in their games that would force you to buy a strategy guide to figure out(wrongly accused is the chocobo racing in FF7 for example). Others call them a crutch that bad game players use to make up for their lack of skill. I myself kind of look down upon using a guide on the first time through... but I game for the surprises, and hate spoilers with a passion. I can accept that there are people out there that just do not play the way I do. But this post is about collecting, and strategy guides are just as collectible as anything else in the industry. Some companies have made limited runs of a guide, or made special hardback editions of the guides, and if you like to collect, it is viable to go for these. Monetarily? Probably not. You're probably going to pay more than you'll ever get back for these, but there are reasons to collect.

From Game Collecting with Rick

What I have here is an art book, Final Fantasy 9's US artbook. Most art books of the PS1 era stay overseas. They are hard to come by, so for those that love "the chase" will love importing this kind of stuff. For the average collector, that is just a bit too far. Once you pay 40 dollars for an art book, you have to import it from Japan most likely, and what happens if your book is damaged in the transit? Not a happy thought to a collector.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This beautiful page of Vagrant Story artwork is not from an art book. This is the strategy guide. Many strategy guides are wonderful collections of character and landscape art. The hunt comes in because you have to find the ones that actually have this kind of stuff and not just screenshots of the game.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Strategy guides are also useful to breath some new life into a game you have played many times and years before. You can find stuff you did not know about, and perhaps even find whole stories you had never found before. Suikoden is a series where people want the strategy guides to gather all the characters. Suikoden has a kind of Pokemon collector's line to it, and if you collect all the characters, you open entire chapters of game play. Bad translations, especially in the first and 2nd game, have made it almost impossible to get all of them without a strategy guide. Sure there are Gamefaqs, but why not get some excellent artwork found in the guides as well.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Guide hunting for the average game is cheap. As I said, this is not a monetary collection market(as of 2011). Five to seven dollars will get you the guides to most games. There are a few famous guides, but they almost always are more infamous than famous. The Brady guide to Final Fantasy 7 spoils the story of the entire game in the first 10 pages. Why not own that little bit of game history? The newest is the Mortal Kombat guide. A guide with very high quality photo paper and binding, but almost no helpful information. Its production cost is so high, they confirmed they will not be printing another set. So it will become rare, and even if it is not particularly helpful, it is very pretty. Cheap, plentiful, tons of options, beautiful artwork and even rares to track down. Sounds like another home run for a collector's market to me.


I need a banner down here, I dont how the end of my posts get lost in the legalize.

Collecting Guide: PS1 Fighting Games Part 2

The Playstation was made for the future... and the future was all polygons. A Playstation disc had enough memory to hold 10x the amount of any 2D fighter of this era. The problem was it did not have the ram to hold all the character animations during play.

This lead to Arcade ports that basically lost the draw to the game. The "Capcom Vs" series was the most hurt by this. You could not have true tag-team fighting in this series on the Playstation 1. Poor sales and a low number brought out in the USA means these are collector's gold. Using 1 on 1 combat in these might not be arcade perfect, but they are fun. Plus any kid from the era will love hearing the voice actors from the Saturday Morning cartoons doing the in game voices(Dodd will always be Wolverine to me).

From Game Collecting with Rick

Street Fight Alpha will be collectible in the same way Final Fantasy is. That was THE Street Fighter to have during this era. Three is my favorite and is also interesting because they replaced a lot of the special effects with polygons, freeing up memory for more animation. Genius. It is also the only way to get a Street Fighter Alpha 3 done this way and with the single player challenges, a great game with tons of content.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Guilty Gear came out of left field. Unlike other 2D fighters on the PS1, it had HUGE and DETAILED characters that were not supposed to be possible on the PS1. Its music was not the classic fighter fair which was stuck on early techno and blips and bleeps. Its music was like a Motorhead album, it was fast, it was guitar heavy, it was METAL. Later their makers would become 2D fighter juggernauts, but the original is rare, collectible, and fun.



The Mortal Kombats sold very well on the system, but aren't in high demand. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is probably the most sought after, but I personally do not consider it a good game. Originally Mortal Kombat 3 was supposed to be a "killer app" for the Playstation, its nice to have the original rectangle case for historical reasons.

SNK's offerings are also sparse, but lack the real high praise editions of their franchises. Samurai Shodown 3 is rare enough, but not remembered very fondly by series fans. The King of Fighters releases are also rare, but their wide availability in better versions on other systems just does not lend itself to be sought after.

Collection Spotlight: Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition

I came across my Final Fantasy 12 Collector's edition in a happenstance situation. I had went to buy Suikoden 4 and Dragon Quest 8, in used condition. Even though it looked in nice condition, the Dragon Quest 8 was actually flawed and would not even spin up in my PS2. So I returned them the day that this Collector Edition showed up new in the store.

Let's first look at the packaging.

From Game Collecting with Rick

While this Collector's Edition does not really have the flare of a Working Designs set, it does have some really cool features. First off, the case is metal. What you're seeing there is inset lettering, stamped into a metal case with a aged copper/bronze patina. It LOOKS like some epic before you even touch the game.

Opening up the case we find just a single extra disc of content, along with the game disc and the manual. The bonus disc is rather nice, and has some short documentaries on the making of the game. Nowhere near that of the Working Design sets, but still very good if you are a fan of the game.

From Game Collecting with Rick

DO NOT WATCH IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS! Its definitely for post-game watching.

Also included with those documentaries is a documentary about Final Fantasy the series as a whole, and has some really cool, if brief, information. The documentary is relatively spoiler free and safe to watch.

Continuing the tradition found in Final Fantasy 7, the case itself is adorned with some really nice artwork. I do not have the regular edition, so I do not know if it has this artwork on the inside.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The game itself is one of my favorites of all time, but it does have some real flaws to it. It has a side-quest system of quests that is as long as the main story... without actually having anything to do with the main story. People get caught up in this non-story, expecting a payoff, only to find out they've spent 60 hours and forgotten what the story is.

Then old school fans were upset that it was not Final Fantasy 6. New school fans were upset that it wasn't Final Fantasy 7. Still others were just glad it was not Final Fantasy 10-part3.



I think the game is wonderful. If they had strung the story together a little better it would be positively epic. Its story is political at first, but leads to a great mythological Xenogears-esque story about man choosing his own destiny in a world controlled by forces beyond his comprehension. The characters are a bit of a let down, but there are several gems in there including Balthier and Basch. Basch being one of the best characters in a Final Fantasy game ever. Balthier will remind you a bit of Locke and Setzer from FF6.

Pick it up if you're a fan of Matsuno's other work, its a can't miss. I can recommend it to open minded and patient gamers of RPG's also, and Final Fantasy fans that have gone through most of the other games. Newbie RPG players should probably steer clear.

Either way, grab the Collector's Edition. It is currently not all that rare to find, and costs perhaps 5 bucks more than the regular non-greatest hits edition of FF12. It is highly worth it for the "wow" case alone.

Collecting Guide: PS1 Fighting Games Part 1

Fighting Games, my second favorite genre. Here in part one I am going to go over the 3D fighting games because the Playstation 1 is the golden age of 3D fighters.

When the Playstation came out, it was famous for being much more lax than Nintendo with its licensing. The real challenge came if you wanted to make a game using 2D sprites or hand drawn graphics. Sony wanted the 3D.

Virtua Fighter never came to the Playstation 1, but it kicked off the 3D fighter craze. Namco was a huge Sony supporter in the early days and brought their less technical 3D fighter, Tekken. Just like any new genre, the 3D fighting Golden Age is full of experimental concepts, thrown together hogwash, and rare gems that no one played because the high budget stuff took the spotlight.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Rival Schools pictured above.

So if you're looking for fun 3D fighters I would suggest looking at the Tekken series. People argue over if Tekken 2 or 3 was better, you can't go wrong with either. Also great was Soul Blade, aka Soul Edge, aka the first in the Soul Caliber series. Capcom's best came in the form of Rival Schools, a game about Highschool students and teachers teaming up to beat the crap out of each other. Tons of characters and variety, a very fun game. Then we also have the Bloody Roar series, part 2 being my favorite. Your characters basically have 2 move sets. You start out as human, but you can work up a gauge that allows you to turn into a animal human hybrid(or Furry) during the match.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Let's get to some rares though.

Tobal No 1 was Squaresoft's first foray into the fighting genre. It featured the ability to move all over the place while fighting. I liken it to more of a 1 vs 1 beat'em up, but your mileage may vary. Anyway, its Squaresoft, so its collectable. Historically speaking, its "adventure" mode later inspired Tekken to include them, as well as several others. Other notables, this was Square's first PS1 game. It came with the Final Fantasy 7 demo. It's character designs are by the Dragon Ball Z artist.

Star Gladiator received a limited run here in the states. It was Capcom dipping their fingers into 3D fighting. As part 2 of this guide will tell you, they had some problems with the PS1, and Star Gladiator was meant to try and save them in the home market. It is a fun 3D weapon fighter, but its presentation pales in comparison to Soul Blade, especially with Soul Blades vast array of game modes.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Bushido Blade... ok, anything released by Square is collectible right now, that's just how it is. Bushido Blade was a unique, semi-historical fighter where one move could end the game. Two master of the game would fight for 10 minutes, parrying, blocking, and never scoring a hit... then in an inspired move, kill the opponent. Not made for people with ADD, this fighter is a cult classic... part 2 is collectible too, but not as fondly remembered... it was much more main stream.

Battle Arena Toshinden was one of those early games that was released in the larger rectangle PS1 cases. If you collected Magazines in the mid-90's, then you know there were about a billion covers with this game. Largely forgotten in time to better games, it was quite impressive looking when it was released. Full 3D backgrounds, impressive looking weapons and special moves. Voted Best Fighting Game of 1995 in Electronic Gaming Monthly, it was also voted their most overrated game they ever awarded.

There were several licensed fighting games that use pre-existing properties as their base. Star Wars: Masters of the Teras Kasi. Dungeons and Dragons: Iron and Blood. X-men Mutant Academy. Despite their gameplay, they are collectible because of their license.

There are several other 3D games you can find that are more rare. These just have not gotten on the collector's radar yet, or are so bad that no one wants to remember them.

The real collector's market is in the Playstation's 2D fighting games. Coming up in part 2, the Playstations lack of ram and generally bad 2D performance results in some of the rarest fighting games on the planet.

Science of Rarity: Green vs Black

Green vs Black is something that ignites some weird hostility. Venture outside of game collecting forums, and you will read some of the worst insults directed at collectors when someone brings this up. Perhaps I should start with telling you what it means.

When games in the Playstation 1 era came out, they were generally released with a black border down the left side. If a game sold around 250,000 units, the publisher had the option to release it in a new, cheaper variation with a green border and "Greatest Hits" title.

From Game Collecting with Rick

In the PS1 era, most if not ALL Green Labels have the exact same game on the disc. This is what you will encounter on said forums. Someone will say, "get the green label" then proceed to bash collecting. The usual collector stuff comes up, "if I had that kind of money to blow" or "only rich people" blah blah. I would be quite interested in seeing how much money these people throw away on renting movies or apartments. Everyone has the expenses, their hobbies. Anyway.

Yes, Green Labels do not change the game play at all, but then why not just get the PS1 download from the Playstation Network? Black Labels do cost more. The rarity is built in, as some of these games sold close to 10 million copies, with only the first million or so being black label. But there are more differences.

From Game Collecting with Rick

I am fortunate enough to have two copies of Xenogears and Final Fantasy 7. Each one I have a black copy and a green copy. I bought these before I became a collector, I just wanted to make sure I had the games in the future. Because of this, I have them both open.

I have always liked disc art, be it CD's or video games. My examples do not have incredible disc art, but it does show enough to prove my point here. On the left is the original black label discs. Final Fantasy 7's big difference is that the Green Label has a mirror finish over the whole thing, though it still has the frosted outlines of a meteor. The original is white painted with mirrored details. Xenogears is a little different. The black label has this wonderful mirrored image of the main character and the X/Cross, the Green Label is just white coated with zero detail.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Here with the manuals is another difference. In Xenogears we see that they add a green label on the side of the manual. I have heard that some companies ship a black and white version of their booklet with their green labels. Both of my examples do not.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This is interesting for a reason. I have come across 2 posts that I have to assume are 2 different people that said their Final Fantasy 7 Green Label had a black and white book, one even said "mostly greyish". That leads me to believe there are 2 possible explanations. My earlier generation FF7 got an old left over FF7 booklet... or someone is faking FF7 booklets to get more money.

From Game Collecting with Rick

And then I found this. The original black label game is on the left. It has the copy right text ending BEFORE it reaches Aeris' dress. The Green Label booklet has the text ending AFTER her dress! Its a different FONT! That is the ONLY difference I could find between the two. There is no FF7 green label booklet because it would ruin the artwork.

This also means the FF7 Green Labels had their own booklets printed for them! Someone IS faking FF7 booklets out there and selling them as "complete" sets!

Aside from the disc artwork, the rarity, and the manuals looking better for the black labels, there are also a few that came with sound track discs. These discs are largely excluded in Green Label.

I am not advocating being black label exclusive. I am merely pointing out that if you are a sound track fan, an artwork fan, perhaps you should look into it. If you just want the gameplay, then by all means go Green Label. I have several Green Label games that I do not care to track down the original. I just want my readers to be informed, and to not accept blindly a "there's no difference, get the Green Label" you might get at gaming forums.