Pokemon Mini

[Tupin]

So I recently managed to pick up one of these with every single US-released game(!) and am quite enjoying it. It reminds me of games a little better than what you'd get on a VMU. Anyway, I was wondering if the other Japan/Europe exclusive games were worth picking up? They seem to command insanely high prices.

[tom]

Tetris was also released in Europe and it's a good version of the game, I still play it nowadays.
http://www.videogamecollectors.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=201194&g2_serialNumber=2

[8-Bit Archeology]

Not to sound negative but why so expensive. Is it a rights kind of thing, or very low production. Also what style games are they. I am very ciurious.

[bigbacon]

so its a mini original gameboy?

[Tupin]

Not to sound negative but why so expensive. Is it a rights kind of thing, or very low production. Also what style games are they. I am very ciurious.
Very limited release, yes. The games are mini-games. If you've ever played a VMU game or a Pocketstation, this is similar.

I know the Tetris game is hard to find, but what about the Japan-only releases?

[importaku]

Hmm a tough one, the games are fun to play but the prices people are asking for them it's harder to justify how much fun you'll get out of them for the cost of getting them. At one point most of the Japanese versions were reasonably easy to get but nowdays certain ones are really hard to find especially in decent condition. Togepi's adventure been the hardest to track down, rare is an understatement it's genuinely next to impossible to find. There was one recently on ebay with a ridiculous price attached to it. It took years of daily searching on yahoo auctions japan to finally get hold of one.

Still i love this little machine i still play on mine often, even have a modded version to play in the dark. Just wish more games had been released for it. Here is all the stuff i have collected over the years, i was lucky to be around at the right time to get most of it but even back when it was released it was hard to find a few of the games. At one point i had to get a friend to go into the pokemon center in Tokyo to pick some of it up.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jasonmuir/cab4.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jasonmuir/storage/S6303227.JPG
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jasonmuir/mini%202.JPG

As for the games theres a mix of genres in there, there are a few minigame collections, a rather fun card game, a race/platform game, pinball game, a virtual pet game, couple of puzzle collections & a version of tetris plus togepi's adventure which plays a bit like marble madness with a scattering of puzzles thrown in. I can't imagine any of the games had a massive print run some definately lower than others due to the difficulty in finding some titles. Most are simplistic with the graphics/sound but they have a lot of fun content in them too.

[Tupin]

Wow. I'm jealous. Apparently getting more than these four games for a decent price is going to be out of the question...

Love that complete Motoko-chan no Wonder Kitchen too. That couldn't have been easy to find.

Also, how did you do that backlight mod?

[Tupin]

Just looked it up, there's a flash cart for it out now, apparently $120:

http://www.pokemon-mini.net/development/flash-carts/

[Suikoman444]

I think the thing is pretty cool. I have one as well and am only missing Pokemon Puzzle Challenge as far as US releases are concerned. Been trying to track that one down by itself CIB forever.

[Baloo]

They're a cool little system, I used to own one myself. Got rid of it a few months ago...guess the price has shot up on that too. :| Not worth it for whatever they're asking on-line these days. The games were just so simple that it wasn't really worth it to keep around vs. a Game Boy.

[Tanooki]

Back in the later 90s I had one of these. At the time I had a long distance relationship going with this cutie from down under who decided to gift me one of them along with the 4 games that the aussies down there were gifted by their local Nintendo office. It was that clearish blue unit in the other pictures here and I don't remember what all of them were, but I did have that pinball and puzzle collection, one game came with it, and then I had another which I'm fairly certain was zany cards. Always wish I had the Tetris game but that never happened. It truly sucks they go for as much as they do today but they were produced in such small numbers for a short window of time it is no surprise they do.

For what they were capable of doing with the controls and that teeny low pixel screen was simply amazing as it really wasn't a Gameboy but it did surpass what a VMU could do easily. As cool as it was I can't justify that price ever for it, but if they ever fall out of favor and get back into that stupid cheap throw away fun again I could see messing with one once more.

[Tupin]

Had no clue that it was as rare as it turns out it is. Any idea in number of systems/number of each game manufactured?

[importaku]

Wow. I'm jealous. Apparently getting more than these four games for a decent price is going to be out of the question...

Love that complete Motoko-chan no Wonder Kitchen too. That couldn't have been easy to find.

Also, how did you do that backlight mod?

Suprised anyone would know what wonder kitchen is hehe, i love that weird quirky game, it wasn't easy to find one in like new condition thats for sure. Usually just play the rom of it & keep the original safe in my cabinet.

The backlight mod was done by someone over at the pokemon mini.net site (mr blinky) i managed to convince him to part with one of the units he had modded for 3 of my spare pokemon mini games.

Love the small amount of homebrew available for the mini, want a flashcard at some point but they don't come cheap however you can mess about with some pretty cool stuff once you have one. Might work out cheaper though to get a flashcart for people who dont have the other games, would be cheaper than trying to get the originals.

The bad apple demo still blows my mind with what can be done on pokemon mini hardware
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_pVfFXcrk

[Tupin]

Suprised anyone would know what wonder kitchen is hehe, i love that weird quirky game, it wasn't easy to find one in like new condition thats for sure. Usually just play the rom of it & keep the original safe in my cabinet.

The backlight mod was done by someone over at the pokemon mini.net site (mr blinky) i managed to convince him to part with one of the units he had modded for 3 of my spare pokemon mini games.

Love the small amount of homebrew available for the mini, want a flashcard at some point but they don't come cheap however you can mess about with some pretty cool stuff once you have one. Might work out cheaper though to get a flashcart for people who dont have the other games, would be cheaper than trying to get the originals.

The bad apple demo still blows my mind with what can be done on pokemon mini hardware
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_pVfFXcrk
WOW.

Reminds me of music videos running on the old Timex Sinclair 1000. I might have to get a flash cart.

And yeah, Wonder Kitchen is pretty quirky. Is there a translation hack of it anywhere?

[Tanooki]

The bad apple video that is complete and entirely INSANE. I coud never image the little Pokemon Mini I had ever doing that. Goes to show how much even Nintendo gimped the potential of that little device if it could run on screen stuff that fluid and pull off audio other than asinine beeps. Sheesh, makes me wish I had one still and a flash card, but that would go behind in a line of hardware wants with the virtual boy up front which is going through some new release reniassance lately.

[importaku]

Makes me wonder what Nintendo could have really done as the years went on if they had just kept with it. The mini obviously had more power in it than people imagined, hehe i would totally buy another if they made some form of updated version with a colour screen and new games but that kind of novelty i doubt Nintendo would risk making anymore.

Anyone curious how it originally got hacked should watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrZ0DBDM3LQ

And this is the graphics demo team pokeme released (lots of shrill beeps, might want to turn your speakers down)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he6oLBwVNms

And seeing as there isn't much in the way of video on the other games in the mini library besides the constant reviews of the common stuff like party mini i recorded some short clips of some of the other games, these are quite old now as i did them years ago but they might be worth watching if your curious of the other games. Really want to go back at some point & record longer & more indepth videos of all the games. Here are the ones i did...

Shock tetris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw8XdKb_1NE

Togepi's adventure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEPbmXdDVc0

Pichu bros mini
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7Pe1v2PHQc

Race mini
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O-GIVL-OLA

[Tanooki]

Holy crap dude that beepy thing is a total lift on a lot of it. That demo is a rip of Future Crew's old Unreal and Second Reality demos from back in the early 1990s and I'm stunned to see the lifted pieces from both up on that little screen.

[Tupin]

I don't think Nintendo would ever make something like the Mini again. Pokemon isn't the cultural giant like it used to be and they already have enough handheld confusion as it is.

[Blitzwing256]

When Pokemon channel came out, this was bundled with it, I remember buying two and never getting around to opening either, in fact I think it's still in the amazon mailer I got it in ;-)

[Mr. Gimmick]

Very cool! This does remind me of the VMU for the Dreamcast but with a Pokemon theme obviously. I had never even heard of this until I read this thread.

[importaku]

Looks like shock tetris might become a bit more affordable as a massive box of them has appeared on ebay, they'll probably end up been split. Already a few on there for reasonable money but not many, im guessing they are getting snapped up as they appear.

Here is the auction for factory sealed cases of them, really expensive but cool to see the outer shipping box, that's something i haven't seen before.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-RARE-Nintendos-Pokemon-Mini-TETRIS-EUROPE-version-BOX-WITHE-96-GAMES-/231051720289?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35cbc17661

[Tanooki]

You're right that is something new to see but at over $70 a piece on them and with 96 good luck getting a buyer who thinks they'll make money off that over a reasonable amount of time.

[slapdash]

Pokemon Race and Pichu Bros were available in Europe and Japan, but not the US, right?

[importaku]

Nope neither of those 2 games got a european release.

Europe get the same 3 games as the USA and also shock tetris in certain european countries.