Living Vicariously Through My Brother - Gifts And Purchases From Japan

With my brother running around abroad in Japan, he not only filled my text messages with photos, but questions of if I wanted him to pick up some things for me. Some were given as gifts. Others with the understanding that I was going to need to reimburse.

Upon his return, we met up in Baltimore, a nice little halfway point for both of us, where I handed him a check, and he in turn handed me three bags. Two were from Tower Records, and one from Nintendo Kyoto.

The first item was a pair of Monchhichi dolls, which he purchased for me and my sister as a gift. We had these as kids, and today I of course have the full cartoon series on DVD. He thought it would be a fun little surprise for us.

Next up was a used, but presumably complete, original Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo Famicon. Despite being used, it's sealed in shrink wrap to protect the contents inside. He actually picked up two, one of which he kept and opened. I think I'll leave mine sealed up.

He also gifted me an exclusive Nintendo Kyoto glass, which features a selection of Nintendo characters on it. I don't think I'll be drinking out of this. Instead, I'll add it to my Nintendo collection.

Lastly, he gave me a copy of Nintendo Magazine, which was available for free to customers at Ojamakan Fukakusa.

He also grabbed me a copy of the program / catalog from the Star Wars Galaxy In Shibuya event.

Then came the CD's. When my brother initially told me he was going to Japan, he asked if there was anything I would want him to hunt for. I told him that if he came across a Tower Records, that I'd love for him to find me a list of CD's which were exclusive to the country. I didn't expect he'd find and go to three different Tower Records, especially considering he was using his precious limited time abroad to do so.

Unfortunately, he didn't find many of the items on my list. In fact, he only found one. However, he did find a whole slew of other items that I asked him to pick up.

The biggest thing on the list was Queen. I put on my list, "Anything from Queen as long as it's exclusive to Japan." Well, he found a lot.

Unfortunately, the majority of these are bootlegs created by King Street and Coda Publishing. Admittedly, I was a bit surprised to see that Tower Record would allow these to be sold in their shops. Equally, I was disappointed in the sound quality on some of them. Frankly, there seems to be more quality put into the packaging and CD imprinting (artwork wise), than the actual content of the discs.

Fortunately, not everything was a bootleg, such as these two Prince CD's. I didn't necessarily need yet another copy of Purple Rain, and really only asked him to grab this as an afterthought we he returned to take (a lot of) photos of the first Tower Records location. The other Prince album, His Majesty's Pop Life, was the only CD on my list he actually found.

Also not bootlegs were these pressings of Europe's first and second albums. Granted, these were available in the USA, but definitely not as cheap. Though I definitely enjoyed hearing them, in hindsight, I maybe should have opted for US releases, and paid the upcharge to do so. However, the catch 22 to that is that I probably wouldn't have ever gotten them.

Next up was an official re-issue of Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. This not only features the original intended cover for the album, but a handful of live bonus tracks. The second item is unfortunately a bootleg of their live show from 1990. The sound quality is pretty poor on it.

I was surprised, but all over it when he found this We Bop: Nippon Budokan CD from Cyndi Lauper. It's apparently just been "released", in quotations because it's yet another bootleg. It not only showcases Cyndi at her best in 1986, but the sound quality if phenomenal. The second Cyndi item is a legit release, but nothing more than a greatest hits, which is also available in the USA. In hindsight, I would have skipped on the latter had I know this prior to committing to him grabbing it. Frankly, I didn't even open it.

I so badly wanted him to find the original (and legit) Live From The Jungle CD from Guns 'N Roses, but sadly, he never came across one. He did, however, find two massive boxsets, and individual live album, all bootlegs, and their hard to find legit EP, and even harder to find legit single. Yes, please to all!

Two other CD's which I didn't necessarily need, but asked him to pick them up with the above note Purple Rain were Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad. Much like Prince, I don't necessarily need more copies of these albums in my life, but opted for them because they're uniqueness.

He was also able to find on Jermaine Jackson studio album, which I asked him to grab. I don't know why, but Jermaine gets no love from Motown. The majority of his albums aren't available on CD. This one appears to be legit, released in Europe in 2022.

Last up was a couple of free gifts from Tower Records for purchasing Queen and Guns 'N Roses items. They appear to be cellophane folders, but they're pretty thin, and fragile.

Did I spend more than I should have? Yes. Do I have buyer's remorse? Well, considering the majority of these turned out to be bootlegs, kind of. I'll put it this way. If I had a bit more time to think about the purchases I was making, rather than frantic texts in the early hours of the morning, I probably would have passed on a lot of.....Ah, who am I kidding....I would have still gotten them all.

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Shelf Revisions

 

I call this post, "Shelf Revisions", but in reality, it's a new shelf in general. In the past, my NES games were stored in two drawers. However, due to the hefty weight of them, that was not going to be a long term solution. It actually got to the point where I stopped playing my Nintendo Entertainment System because I didn't want to put the stress on the drawers.

This new setup not only puts the games on full display, which they absolutely deserve, but makes them far more accessible.

It also gives me the opportunity to display the games with my complete in box stuff, as well as provides a place to store my extra controller and zapper.

This is great! I can actually see, and read, all the titles. Now I just need to hunt down the remaining sleeves I need to properly protect them from dust.

There's just one single game left on my want list from my childhood, and that's Wrecking Crew. I'll pick it up one day. For now, I have plenty to play.

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The Official Nintendo Sticker Book And Stick-Ons (Imperial)

 

The Official Nintendo Sticker Book And Stick-Ons
Imperial
1988

Stickers were a big part of the 80's. Kids collected them, traded them, and in general horded them. If it was a brand, you could rest assured a sticker set was out there somewhere. I've often wanted to put together a collection of some of my favorite sets, and though it's a slow (and somewhat expensive process), this is definitely one of my favorites.

The Official Nintendo Sticker Album and Stick-Ons were released in 1988 by Imperial. Yes, that company known for producing all of those generic action figures found in grocery stores. Each page of the sticker album featured a unique theme to it, based on some of the most popular games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, such as, Super Mario Bros. The Legend Of Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and more.

In correlation with the album, Imperial released twelve different sticker sets. However, six of them are only subtly different from the first half of the set.

It's unknown if Imperial released the above six sets first, or the below six. If you take a close look, you'll notice that the majority of the stickers included are the exact same as those shown above with one very subtle change. One of the stickers from each sets has been removed, and replaced with one based on the Nintendo game, Rad Racer.

The reason I believe the Rad Racer sets to be the latter of the stickers is because of how rare they are. This would coincide with industry standard practices of releases towards the end of a series being the more difficult to find due to the low production run. These ones are definitely challenging to obtain.

In addition to the "Official" series of stickers, Imperial also produced a set of six packs based on SNK games of the era. Of all of the stickers shown in this post, these are by far the easiest, and subsequently, cheapest, to come by.

It's fun to think about what further stickers could have been made had Imperial gotten the license to Konami, Data East or Capcom, just to name a few of some of the most popular publishers of Nintendo Entertainment System games. The possible sets could have been endless.

Though these stickers are both challenging and fun to collect, they're also a bit pricey for what you get. The SNK sets can easily set you back fifteen dollars per pack, and the six sets of the "Official" ones, without the Rad Racer stickers, can go for fifteen to thirty dollars a pack.

The packs with Rad Racer stickers are so rare that it's impossible to set a price point for them. They rarely show up on secondary markets, and there are several collectors looking for them. Prices can get incredibly high when a bidding war is occurring.

With that said, due to the age of all of the stickers noted in this post, it's fairly common for the adhesive to wear off or disintegrate. This is a common problem with collecting vintage stickers, and something you need to be prepared to accept if you pursue this particular hobby. The bright side to this is that rubber cement fixes any sticker you want to adhere to an album, and even a tear. It's not like they're designed to be stuck and removed anyway.

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Nintendo Entertainment System (Lego)

Ah Lego. How I hate thee. Don't get me wrong. Lego has a lot of creative sets. I just don't have the patience or desire to build any of them. It's work. Annoying work. Fragile work.

A set that I was intrigued with when I saw it today at the local Lego Store was this amazing looking Nintendo Entertainment System. However, for how cool it looked, I simply lost interest in it fast. That was when I saw the price tag of $230.00. Coupled with my lack of desire to build it, I had to walk away.

Here was my biggest problem. The price may have been justifiable if it was a functional console. However, it's not. Not at all. While the television boasts a crank feature to scroll through a level, playing a physical cartridge is a no go. You could also potentially get sound effects out of the set. BUT, in order to do so, you have to have a Lego Mario figure...Which is going to cost you more money since it's only available in the Adventures of Mario starter set. Go ahead and drop another sixty dollars for that.

Lego has always been far more expensive than it really needs to be, and the bottom line is that it's driven by greed. Lego knows customers will pay up, so what is their incentive to lower prices?

Hear me out.

In business, a standard line of profit is considered ten percent. High profit is twenty percent and low profit is five percent. Lego not only collects higher than the standard ten percent profit, but in most cases, exceeds high profits at a whopping twenty-five percent profit margin per set. That means for every one hundred dollars you spend, twenty-five dollars is all profit to Lego. That's crazy!

To make matters worse, most of their "toys" are no more than glorified display pieces. Even the ones that can be played with are typically so fragile that a lot of people wouldn't - Unless they want to keep rebuilding them.

Maybe it's just me. I mean, I've long since accepted that Lego isn't a toy for me. Maybe this is just a continuation of that understanding. What do you think of sets like this, or Lego in general?

Since I'm on a role of complaining about things I hate, I'll go ahead and throw out there that I hate the new Blogger. It's irritating to use. I reverted back to the "Legacy" format. However, if they make it so I have to use the new version down the road, I can honestly see myself parting ways with the site. The new model is garbage.

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The Dirty Dozen - My Top Twelve Nintendo Entertainment Systems Games

Hello, and welcome to a new "test" segment here at The Toy Box; The Dirty Dozen. This won't be a weekly type post, but rather a here and there as they come to me one.

The spirit of this "series" is to come up with a list of top twelve based on a specific genre, so to speak, and to encourage you as readers to leave a comment with your own list. For the first one, I chose my top twelve all time favorite NES games. 

Number twelve is a game I've talked about before here at The Toy Box, The Legend of Kage. What makes this game one of my all time favorites was that it was the first NES game I ever played. Sadly, I never owned this as a kid, and it wasn't until my adult years that I was finally able to play it again. However, all those years later, and it has stuck with me as one of the most memorable games from my childhood.

Number eleven is somewhat of an obscure one. Rescue: The Embassy Mission was a game my dad randomly brought home one day for us. It features all sorts of various play mechanics from side scrolling to sniping to first person shooter. As I grew older, I actually ended up forgetting the title of this game, and it somewhat drove me mad trying to remember it. Fortunately, my memory prevailed in the long run.

Number ten is where things start to get a little familiar in terms of titles. In fact, you probably won't be surprised at the majority of the games remaining in this list.

Castlevania was a game I never beat as a child, and only in my adult years did I manage to get through it - Thanks to cheat codes, and a desire to simply see the ending to a game I'd been playing for twenty-plus years. The furthest I ever got in my youth was the Grim Reaper. Timing was everything in this game, and the slightest mistake inevitably lead to death, be it from getting knocked off a ledge or simply not having the health for the long haul of a boss battle.

Number nine on my list wasn't technically a game I ever intended on beating - Nor ever did...Does it even have an ending?

Duck Hunt was superb for its incorporation of the classic Nintendo Zapper, the most accurate light gun to date. It was simple to pick up, have a few rounds, and then go about your business. Yet at the same time, it was always a ton of fun. To bad the Zapper doesn't work on modern televisions.

Number eight is one of the handful of sports games I enjoy even today. Pro Wrestling brought with it a great mix of characters, and of course all the fun of suplexes, back breakers, tossing people out of the ring, body slams and more. With a turbo controller in hand, victory was undoubtedly assured in every match. One of my favorite ways to play this game was to brutally punish my opponent until they simply couldn't get up on their own. Then I would finally ease their suffering, and pin them.

Number seven - Now we're really getting into the classics.

The Legend of Zelda wasn't one of my favorites when it first came out. However, as I watched my brother play through the game, it quickly earned more and more of my favor. Now, it's one of my go to games of choice. It took adventure gaming to a whole new level, and set a bar which I don't honestly believe to this day has ever been surpassed.

Number six is yet another sports game, which is really surprising for me because I honestly don't like sports. Mike Tyson's punch out brought with it a whole slew of good times. Fun opponents, all with varying styles of fighting, and a pick up and play ability which made the game fairly accessible to a broad audience. Everyone could be a boxer...Until you reached Tyson. I never did beat him without a Game Genie code, but I was, at times, able to get to him on my own merit of skill.

Number five is a game I got introduced to at a "friends" house back in my childhood, but soon ended up owning my own copy of.

Mega Man 2, in its own right, is a perfect game. Each level is crafted superbly, and each boss brings with them their own challenge. The key to success was finding the right weapon for the right boss. It remains one of my all time favorite platformer style games, and my all time favorite in the entire Mega Man series.

Number four got my attention in the arcade, where it is known as Kung Fu Master. The port for the NES, known simply as Kung Fu, while not as incredible graphic wise is still one of the best games out there. I remember getting this on the NES as a kid, and enjoying every minute I got to play it out of the limited hour of game time we got each day. It's also one of the first games I ever beat as a kid, only to find out the game kept looping, and there was no real ending.

Number three - Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start (or Select Start for two players). It's the code I put in every single time before starting Contra, and the only way I ever beat it as a kid.

Contra was side scrolling shooting perfectness, and to this day remains a staple in my rotation of NES games. Too bad it was never included on the NES mini, but thank goodness for a working Nintendo and vintage cartridges - or XBOX Live where you can get the arcade version.

Number two is probably the first role playing game I ever played. Coincidentally, it's also the first time I ever used an NES Advantage, which would become my controller of choice.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was so different from the original game, and I think that's what made it all the more appealing for me. Nintendo wasn't afraid in those days to take sequels in s completely different direction, and for me, that made them all the more appealing.

You get the limited, but great introductory for non RPG players via the level up system. Then on top of that, you have all those great magic spells to hunt down and use. Coupled with a fun adventuresome map, great dungeons to tackle and hidden magic / heart containers to find, and you get one of the most unique experiences from the NES you'll ever have.

Number one, and no surprise to many of you I'm sure, is Super Mario Bros. From start to finish, this game is a masterpiece. It's no wonder Mario grew into the beloved Nintendo mascot he is today.

This remains my all time top played game, even today. What's not to love about a game you can beat in six to ten minutes (thanks in part by warp zones)? When I have time here and there, I'll often find myself having a go at this classic.

Super Mario Bros. was crafted meticulously into a perfect game. There's really no less of an honor it deserves. Mario ushered in a new era of gaming, and with it brought both children and adults. With over forty million copies sold worldwide, it remains one of the all-time best sellers in gaming history.

There you have it. My top twelve NES games. Not a bad round up, huh? Feel free to drop your top twelve in the comment section.

In closing, don't forget to throw your name in for for a chance to win a Solo Blu-Ray / Digital Code combo by joining the contest "HERE".

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