What is your most RECENT import? Post often!

[MrSmiley381]

I just got a japanese Clock Tower prototype for the Super Famicom, and it is different than the released version. I'm very excited about this. I hope to put a review on my site sometimes before the end of the year if anyone's interested

Yeah that sounds cool. I didn't even know that it was ever planned for the Super Famicom.

Post a link to the reveiw when you get it, I would like to read it.

Yeah, the original was a Super Famicom game. But I've never heard of a proto. Sounds very, VERY cool.

[dj898]

my final pick up before big trip...

[Whiskers the Wonder Cat]

Real bout best collection-Saturn
Cyberbots-Saturn

[Whiskers the Wonder Cat]

Dracula X-Saturn
Waku Waku 7-Saturn
Samurai Spirits Best Collection-Saturn
Marvel Vs Street Fighter-Saturn

[Spartacus]

Night Strikers S is a Ving port of a 1989 Taito arcade game. With a 1st person view, ala Space Harrier, you fly around in a futuristic hover car and shoot enemies while trying not to run into anything else. I've seen no power ups and I don't know if it was just the Saturn trying to do something it's not real good at, namely pseudo 3D, or if that's the just the way the game was, but it looks pretty dated! On a more upbeat note the framerate was very smooth. Oh, by the way, the "S" stands for "Perfect Arcade Port". I have some respect for Taito so I don't have any major regret in getting it, but it's just not my cup of tea.
I found this one for $24 on Ebay.
GAMEPLAY: 7
GRAPHICS: 6
SOUND: 7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 10 (English text and voices)
OVERALL: 6




Gun Frontier is Xing's port of another Taito game under its Arcade Gears lineup. It has a rather interesting intro that shows people who are dressed like they are in the Old West. I didn't quite get the story to the game, but the players and the enemy ships are all styled like Wild West Guns, which certainly makes it different. Power ups come in the form of silver coins and gold bars. It's not a dazzling beauty, but it's far from ugly. The explosions are certainly well done. It's not an easy game either, I was wiped out before I got anywhere near the second end boss in my first go. Some interesting notes that I've read about it have it connected to another Taito game on the Saturn called Metal Black that I have seen referred to as "Project Gun Frontier II". I can't make the connection myself, as Gun Frontier is vertical and Metal Black is horizontal, but they are both from Taito. There's also references connecting this games style as being similar to Battle Garegga. Supposedly this games not easy to find, though there were at least a half a dozen on Ebay when I searched. On this particular copy the seller had "Make an Offer" on his listing page, so I offered $35. He accepted. I guess I did okay.
GAMEPLAY: 8
GRAPHICS: 8
SOUND: 8
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 6 (All Japanese, but on screen HUD's in English)
OVERALL: 8



Steamgear Mash is by Takara, a company famous for it's fighting games. In this game robots are called Steamgears and our hero is a Steamgear called Mash. The plot is about rescuing a girl (friend/owner?) who has been kidnapped. You'll have to blast your way through to get her back using a variety of weapons you pick up along the way. The world is a mildly interesting isometric playing field and the characters are well animated, plus the explosions are colorful & satisfying. There's allot of exploring to do both horizontally and vertically. Little cut scenes are dispersed through out the game that tells the story well enough without understanding Japanese. There's also supposed to be two classic isometric shooter levels in the game, one under the sea and one in the air. I didn't get to them yet, but that was my primary interest in picking up this game. But heck, the rest of the game was all about shooting and blowing stuff up, so I dug it! $10 BIN on Ebay. Very good game for the price and well worth owning.
GAMEPLAY: 9
GRAPHICS: 8
SOUND: 8
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 6 (All Japanese, but on screen HUD's in English)
OVERALL: 8.5



Batsugun is considered one of Toaplan's greatest works and I can well see why! Gorgeous game with excellent music! I would consider this to be one of the A games in Saturn's stable of shooters. The game is supposed to be fairly difficult, but I made it through two end bosses on my first go with it. Loved every minute of it! $40 on Ebay. I just got tired of waiting to find a cheaper copy!
GAMEPLAY: 9
GRAPHICS: 10
SOUND: 9
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 9 (Menu selections & voice's in English)
OVERALL: 9.5



Galaxian 3 is a port of Namco's gigantic Galaxian 3 arcade game in which six people manned gun turrets and protected a space ship as it flew threw enemy formations and installations. This Playstation port trims the number of players down to four. You aim your crosshairs at the enemy and fire away much like Playstations Starblade Alpha. Most all of the enemy ships are bland flat polygonal shapes, but the capital ships and installations are computer generated and have a reasonable amount of detail. There's plentiful use of colors and the gameplay experiences zero slow downs, even though there's always allot of stuff on screen. The game is VERY short and it's more like a movie experience than a game. I found it in a local pawnshop for $3. Heck, I'll take just about any import game I find around here for $3!
GAMEPLAY: 4
GRAPHICS: 5
SOUND: 6
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 8 (English menus with Japanese voices)
OVERALL: 5



Pulirila is another Taito game from Xing's Arcade Gears lineup. The absolute weirdest game I have ever played! Extremely short beat 'em up, but I'm glad I got to play it. If I ever have someone over to my home and want to give them a brief taste of how strange Japanese games can be, this would do nicely! A $14.99 BIN on Ebay for this PS1 version.
GAMEPLAY: 7
GRAPHICS: 7
SOUND: 7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 0 (All Japanese!)
OVERALL: 8.5 - I'll give it a high score just for the kookyness



X2: No Relief is a shooter from Team 17 and published by Capcom in Japan and Ocean in Europe. This game is an update of Team 17's "Project X" released for the Amiga. For a pure shmup it has a long and quite well done intro to the game. The game has everything I want to see in the genre. Beautiful to look at, generous assortment of weapons/bombs and shields - including lightning bolts and a flame thrower! Big well animated end bosses cap off each of the ten levels and in between is filled with plenty of interesting looking cannon fodder. I really enjoyed this effort and I've seen a lot of these types of games. The game rotates from horizontal to vertical and there ARE objects/terrain you can run into. Some people don't like that in a shooter, but it never bothered me. The PAL version is cheap and found easily. I would like to correct my previous post where I stated I paid $3 for the PAL version. That should have read 3 pounds. Where's the pound symbol on this frackin keyboard!? Anyway, the games dirt cheap over there. I just couldn't get the thing to play on my TV. After a SHORT look on Ebay, I found a new copy for $89 from Japan. Whoa!! Can't afford that! Saw a used copy listed by somebody in California with a starting price of $24.99. I suspect that's on the high side too, but I threw in the only bid and that's what I got it for. The game is well worth it, even at that price, in my unejimacated opinion.
GAMEPLAY: 9
GRAPHICS: 10
SOUND: 9
ENGLISH FRIENDLY: 10 (Everything is in English!)
OVERALL: 9.5

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Cool imports

Sweet hall there, Spartacus good sir. Gotta keep my eyes peeled for a couple of those.

[Ed Oscuro]

Gun Frontier is Xing's port of another Taito game under its Arcade Gears lineup. It has a rather interesting intro that shows people who are dressed like they are in the Old West. I didn't quite get the story to the game, but the players and the enemy ships are all styled like Wild West Guns, which certainly makes it different.

What do you mean you didn't get the story?! NO PIECE OF BREAD WAS GIVEN, go kick ass!!! Needless to say this is one of my favorite mistranslated pieces, right up there with Zero Wing (and since nobody's been going on about Gun Frontier or making Flash movies about it, I can stand it much better). Gun & Frontier for the US F3 arcade release.

[luffy744]

Just recieved my first order from Akiba Games, and it will likely be the first of many!

Japanese Sega Megadrive (brand new )

Along with the following games for it

Sonic the Hedgehog
Golden Axe
Space Harrier 2

And my Megadrive collection is off to a sweet, sweet start.

[davidbrit2]

Just snagged Battle Gear 3 (PS2) from a friend that was selling it.

Overall, I like it. It reminds me of a slightly more realistic take on Initial D's style. In other words, it's a lot more demanding, but has a lot more depth to the physics that way. It plays like a dream with the Logitech Driving Force Pro.

A few words of warning...
It has online features, which are mostly time attack related, but you can't use them from the US. Period. ;_; Also, to even get into the main mode of the game, you have to enter an "Entry ID" and "Entry Password". This would then become the login info for online play, I believe. However, if you've got a used copy, or the Asian release of the game, you might not have either of these! Fortunately, I dug up a dummy ID and password on the Sony Hong Kong site.

Battle Gear 3 support article
Entry ID: 28180728
Password: U34DFQ4Z

Once you've punched those in, you're set. The game doesn't offer much over the arcade version, so don't buy it expecting a deep career mode. It's only got 9 tracks total, and a couple additional challenge modes where you just do a series of one-on-one races. It's totally worth it if you enjoy playing the arcade version, though, especially if you've got someone that wants to take you on with vs. mode.

[KJN]

Got Pochinya a while back.


PS2 version of the NeoGeo / Namomi puzzle game.

[luffy744]

I went a bit crazy shopping for new goodies for my Megadrive over the last week, got two packages today contianing (all complete, all japanese):

Alisia Dragoon
Musha Aleste
Strider Hiryuu
Bare Knuckle 2
Sonic 2
Golden Axe 2
Thunder Force 3
Raiden Densetsu

God Japanese cover art is so much better than the US versions.

I am in 16-bit Sega heaven right now.

[Spartacus]

Atlantis no Nazo (Mystery of Atlantis) -Japan only by Sunsoft 1986
This is one of the games in the Japan only NES games thread, so I picked it up. I have a Pitfall II for my Atari 5200, so it's nice to have a completely different and much better looking version for the NES. In the game you're an explorer who's looking for treasure chests and a door to get out of each level within a time limit. You can jump/duck and throw bombs and you meet up with plenty of enemies who can kill you with a single touch! You get just 7 lives to get through (I'm told) 100+ levels! So far, I haven't found any way to increase the number of lives I have or even the amount of time I'm given to complete the level. Nice enough game, but just way to tough for me!
On a side note, it was interesting to read that DreamTR has the only known proto type of a planned US version called Super Pitfall 2. I've heard that name before somewhere.
GAMEPLAY:8
GRAPHICS:8
SOUND:8
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL: 8 - but way too hard!!!




ASO: Armored Scrum Object by SNK 1986 aka Alpha Mission
Well OK, so I didn't know this was their version of Alpha mission until after I got it. [shrug] Well, at least the artwork is different, but I actually prefer Alpha Missions!
I think this game would be a lot better if you didn't have to completely restart the level when you get hit.
GAMEPLAY:7
GRAPHICS:7
SOUND:7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL:7 old school




Astro Robo Sasa -Japan only by Ascii 1985
Now this game is FUN! In a nutshell, the game is about collecting all the energy cells on a level before you run out of energy, in order to move onto the next level. You control an armed spaceman looking fellow with the D Pad. On the land you can walk left or right. If you push up you'll lie on your back. If you push down you'll lie face down. Each time you fire the gun while you are off the ground you'll move in the opposite direction you're facing/firing in a low gravity type situation. One single shot will not shoot you across the screen, but will start to give you momentum in that direction until gravity takes over again. Your energy level decreases by one point every time you shoot and the game will end when your energy is depleted, so the trick is to get all of the energy available using the least amount of shots. That would be simple except that the game throws in something interesting at you on each level that keeps you from just standing around not using up energy. Plus if you come into contact with any of them, you will give you an electrical shock that REALLY reduces your energy. You'll see cows wandering around, rolling barrels, flying scissors, and shooting helicopters, just to name a few. It's pretty cute and lots of fun!
GAMEPLAY:10
GRAPHICS:9
SOUND:7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL:9




Attack Animal Gakuen -Japan only by Pony Canyon 1987
Here's a game with a Japanese schoolgirl and it's about the closest thing I have to an upskirt video. The gameplay is identical to Space Harrier and you'll be blasting away at animals that attack you. Six levels with an endboss at the end of each. The Japanese are certainly fascinated by schoolgirls and if you are too, it may have some charm, but the animals aren't very interesting and the game is short and hard.
GAMEPLAY:5
GRAPHICS:4
SOUND:3
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL:4




Bird Week -Japan only by Toshiba EMI 1986
Another game from the Japan only NES games thread. I think if I wasn't a parent I would have liked his game more. You play as a momma/pappa bird that hunts for insects to bring back to the nest to feed baby birds that fly off when they've been given enough to eat. There are enemies in the air and on the ground that can kill you with one touch, but you can pick mushrooms up off of the ground and bomb them. Everything in the air has an up/down floaty aspect to it and the controls take some getting used to and seemed a bit unresponsive at times. If the game didn't remind me so much of real life, endlessly feeding kids, I might have liked it more.
GAMEPLAY:7
GRAPHICS:8 nice pastel colors
SOUND:7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL:8




Cosmo Genesis -Japan only by ASCII 1986
A cockpit view space shooter that I simply could not figure out! Wish I could tell you more about it but, even though it appears simple enough, I couldn't shoot down anything in the game. It has a space map screen to guide you, frickin lasers and a throttle, but I got nowhere in the game after several attemps!
GAMEPLAY
GRAPHICS:5
SOUND:5
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:0
OVERALL




Gyrodine -Japan only by Taito 1986
I liked this game! A simple scrolling helicopter shooter with a pretty good weapons scheme. You'll fly across various terrain and come up against gun emplacements, ships, tanks, jets, dirigible balloons, and other helicopters, of course. You're given machine guns and (I believe cannon - of sorts) that can be aimed at air and land targets depending on which button you press. Pressing two buttons together will launch a fire and forget homing missile. Cool! I liked the fact that you can outrun/out maneuver enemy shots, including their homing missiles, so you have a decent chance at the game. Moby games says it has no levels, but there are points in the game when the scrolling stops and you have to take out an end boss like scenario, be it a fortress of gun emplacements or big ships firing cannons.
This is a Taito arcade game that was also released on the MSX and NES.
On an interesting note, this was the only game developed by a company called Clax before going bankrupt. Some of this team would go on to form Toaplan.
GAMEPLAY:9
GRAPHICS:8
SOUND:7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL:8.5




Penguin Kun Wars -Japan only by ASCII 1985
A game that I really enjoyed! I wish I knew what Kun means though. You are a penguin who plays best of three timed rounds to win a match against an opponent across the table from you. There are 5 balls on each side of the table when the game starts and whoever has the most balls on his side of the table when the time runs out loses. So you're trying to chuck all of your balls over to the other side while your opponent is trying to do the same thing. You can move from side to side on the table while you chuck a ball to put some angle on the ball and bounce it off a side rail. You can also throw a ball and deflect an incoming ball coming right at you. If you hit your opponent, it will temporarily stun him, giving you a second or two to really chuck a lot of balls over to his side. If he hits you, you get stunned and can fall behind quickly. If either of you gets all the balls on the opponents side before the timer runs out, you win automatically with a perfect score. Simple to play with a lot of strategy! I love games like that. The penguin has good animation and will cry when he loses and clap with glee when he wins. The game will show you climbing up a hierarchy with each match, with variations on gameplay as you win matches, until you reach the championship game. Up to eight people can play, by taking turns. The game is a port of a UPL arcade game. Great fun!
GAMEPLAY:10
GRAPHICS:9
SOUND:9
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:10
OVERALL:9.5




Ucuusen: Cosmo Carrier -Japan only by Jaleco 1987
This game seemed pretty promising and I did enjoy screwing around with it, but it has so much depth to it that it pretty much requires being able to read Japanese. It's a space shooter with an almost RPG type quality to it. It's a shame, because I really think I would have enjoyed it if only I could have understood.
GAMEPLAY
GRAPHICS:8
SOUND:7
ENGLISH FRIENDLY:2 (Some menus in English, but not enough!)
OVERALL



All of these games were listed individually by a single seller on Ebay. After contacting him, I negotiated a deal that I would pay $3 each for the games, plus $4 each for shipping.
I certainly don't mention what I pay for games to brag. I buy on Ebay, where there's seldom any reason to brag about. I just figure that somebody who's considering getting into imports can read my post and have some kind of reference to cost.

[Julio III]

Hanagumi Taisen Columns 2 for Dreamcast arrived today however it doesn't support VGA so can't play it at the moment. Hopefully Puyo Puyo 4 will be arriving in the next couple of days also and hopefully that does support VGA

[luffy744]

My Sega rampage continued yesterday and today, when I recieved:

Monster World 4 (Megadrive)
Sonic CD (MegaCD)

Still waiting on a couple more packages, hopefully they arrive this week.

[Aridyme]

Received my Berserk, Final Fantasy Tactics, Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy, Taiko no Tatsujin 3, Wanda to Kyouzou, and Nico DVD!

Also have Virtual On Marz on the way.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Recently bought complete copies of Shin Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio Tachi no Banka, Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Douchuu and Mickey no Tokyo Disneyland Dai Boken for the Super Famicom off of Gaijinpunch.

[Tron 2.0]

Since i, got both imports threads mix up i'll mention it again

PCE
Chiki Chiki Boys

[Julio III]

Couple of Dreamcast games:

Puyo Puyo 4
Ikaruga

[Tachikoma]

Just got a new non-arcade style IIDX controller.

[luffy744]

Nabbed the following off ebay for a total of $22 shipped:

Japanese Saturn:

Burning Rangers (didn't come with the extra music cd, but I knew that going in)
Detana Twinbee Yahoo Deluxe Pack