#wonderswan color

[caterpie]

Digimon Adventure: Anode/Cathode Tamer (2001)

[heartnosekid]

for @und3rsc0r3!

🎼-🕹️-🎼 / 🕹️-🎼-🕹️ / 🎼-🕹️-🎼

[slutpoppers]

Digimon Digital Monster

Anode Cathode Tamer - Wonderswan Color (2000)

I started this game and I havent finished the first boss Devimon yet 😭 But I made these gifs to compensante the under representation for those retro ah games ❤️💕

Featuring from left to right: Tentomon, Palmon, Gabumon, Tailmon, Agumon, Patamon, Piyomon, Gomamon.

Botamon, Mojyamon and Tyranomon, Pabumon, ToyAgumon and Petimeramon.

[seraproto]

The Wonderful Mr. Wonderswan

A little while ago I decided to finally fix my Game Gear. Previously I had no soldering skill but I'm one of those people who can do anything if I see someone else do it first. So I decided to teach myself to solder and do tech repair in general. I fixed my Genesis as a practice thing and then decided to see if I could find some cheap electronics to repair. Well if you know anything about the gaming market these days you know that retro gaming device prices are incredibly inflated right now and likely will never go down. Prices are so high here that people from other countries will sell their stuff on our auction sites because they know they'll get more.

I learned about a site while watching another YouTuber that lets you browse Japanese auction sites and place orders. Then they'll pick up the stuff and ship it to you. So I started browsing and found the Wonderswan. This was the perfect device for me to start with and I wanted to share with you this cool device. It's perfect for me because the Wonderswan is both plentiful and cheap, gameboys are certainly cheaper in Japan but other Americans can bid on them making them more expensive. So I chose the Wonderswan because it's Japan Exclusive.

Let's talk a bit about the history of this device since many of you likely haven't heard of it. On YouTube I talked about the Pokemon Mini and many didn't hear about that and that even released in the US. So:

What is the Bandai Wonderswan?

The story starts with the man who made the Gameboy, Gunpei Yokoi. After completing the gameboy and the massive success it was Gunpei moved on to make the Virtual Boy. Gunpei had said previously that once he reached 50 he was going to retire from game design and so he did. This didn't last long though as he and bandai entered a deal to make the Wonder Swan. He made and helped design the system and Bandai was going to produce it an bring it to market. But before the system could release Mr. Yokoi was struck by a car, cutting his life short. 2 years later the first Wonderswan hit the market.

At this point the Gameboy had gone through a few revisions and released in Color. But the Wonderswan's original system could only display in black, white, and 8 shades of gray. Just 42 short of the amount of grays we have today. It wasn't back lit either. But it had some very impressive features that made it stand out. For one the price made the Wonderswan very competitive costing only 5,000 yen at release, while the Gameboy Color was 12,800 yen. Making Wonderswan a budget console.

The Wonderswan also boasted 16 bit gaming despite being black and white and could run for 40 hours on a single AA battery. The system could also play games in vertical mode. That's why there are so many buttons on the left. Games like Gunpey (named after Gunpei Yokoi) play in vertical mode and use the top four buttons as the D pad. But being backed by Bandai also gave them some sweet benefits. Bandai even that far back had a lot of anime licenses and Japanese kids love anime. The Wonderswan was the go to system to play anime games on. Inuyasha, One Piece, Digimon, and even Square saw their potential in the midst of their falling out with Nintendo. At its peak the Wonderswan managed to carve out 8% of the gaming market in Japan and that's after being late to market.

The Wonderswan kept it light on revision consoles, a year after the first release they made the Wonderswan Color. For a while they focused primarily on getting games, making them, and offering bundles and console recolors themed after popular licenses like Gundam and Final Fantasy. But even after the release of the Color it was still cheaper than the gameboy color. Then the GBA came out. The GBA was offering massive gaming potential being a portable 32bit console. But the Wonderswan stayed 16 bit and offered one more revision, the SwanCrystal.

Each Swan revision had no backlight, and the crystal wasn't any different. But what's special about it is that its screen didn't really need one. I don't know how they did it but the screen was still very easy to see even in low light despite not having a backlight. This final version was also still dirt cheap costing only 8000 yen. Despite this the Wonderswan could no longer compete, the GBA was a powerhouse. Double the bits, double the power, much larger games, it was hard to compete. By the end of it's life cycle the Wonderswan was left with only 109 games.

Maybe things would have been different had Mr. Yokoi been alive still, and there is even a conspiracy that Mr. Yokoi was assassinated by hit men Nintendo hired. Many people I've mentioned this to were surprisingly willing to believe Nintendo would do that. But Nintendo had the international market and the Wonderswan stayed in Japan. I don't think Nintendo ever saw Mr. Yokoi or his wonderful device as a threat.

After all of this the Wonderswan has flooded Japanese auction sites. You can find tons of working Wonderswans selling for around $30, color for $50, and Swan Crystals for much more. You can find backlight modded versions in the $150 range, and junk originals for just under 10 dollars. This is why I'm buying them to work on the broken ones are very cheap. Even after shipping it'll only cost about $20 a device. But they're also easy repairs, like most Gameboys the broken ones mostly have easy fixes. Sellers will say stuff like "Leaking lcd" and in reality it's a polarizer that's adhesive is wearing away or the polarizer is burnt. After opening the repair is as easy as applying a screen protector. Corroded battery contacts are also common but an Alcohol bath fixes that.

Should I get a Wonderswan?

That really depends on your ability to speak and read Japanese. The vast majority of these titles are in Japanese with around only a fifth being able to be enjoyed without understanding it. If you're a collector I'd say go for it, even if you get a broken one they're easy to fix. If you're trying to flip them for a profit I don't see the American market being too great. Buying them can also be a pain as some resellers on Japanese auction sites want you to contact them immediately after winning. I don't know if it's xenophobia and they don't want to sell to westerners or if it's to prevent scams. Either way it's annoying. One reseller said in its description that if I don't have at least 10 purchases on my account that they'll cancel the sale and leave a bad review on my account. Don't know how I'm supposed to get more successful purchases if they won't accept mine. But what ever, if they don't want my money there are plenty of other sellers.

As for which model you should go for. If you're wanting to play games you should get at least a color with a flashcart. The color had exclusive games and a flashcart means you can play translations. Color games will say "Color" on the cart. But flashcarts for the Swan are very recent so the tech is expensive costing $120 on average. If you want the best screen possible and don't want to have to deal with a replacement or repair then you'll want a Swan Crystal but those are the most expensive and harder to get aside from IPS screen replacement models. If you can solder get a color and do an IPS replacement, it's easier to get a hold of than a Crystal. Don't bother getting an original unless you want it for collection's sake.

If you want to play the games but don't care about the system then get an emulator handheld like the RG28XX. They sell for around 30 on Anbernic's site and can handle Wonderswan emulation. Make sure whatever handheld you get though has at least 10 buttons because vertical games require the d pad plus 4 buttons.

What games should I try?

We'll save this for a part two as it requires a little more research, I'll also show some repair stuff in a future one. Once mine arrives. But I do know for sure that Gunpey is mostly in English.

[wsc-kurapika]

Pages from the official strategy guide for Hunter x Hunter: Sorezore no Ketsui/Each One's Determination.

[digimon-v]

I finished translating a full playthrough of Digimon Tamers: Brave Tamer and I wanted to share it here.

This isn't translated in-game. What I did was play it through in Japanese and then, using a translated script, made text box images to overlay in a video editing program.

I am no a video editor, I'm barely a let's player, but I wanted to be able to have a series of Brave Tamer with the English subtitles. I wanted to be able to read along with the action like the other WonderSwan games that were translated.

The script I used came from here:

Please, give them thanks and support for translating this game ♥

[jolikmc-thoughts]

This is something I've been thinking about, lately.

There are so many versions of these games so oh so many tweaks – some minor, some major. (Looking at you, Pixel Remaster Series.) But, whether you're intimately familiar with the games and their revisions, or you just know about them through some casual encounters, it boils down to one question for me:

Of the five six major releases of the game, which do you prefer?

This isn't a poll about which version is "the best" or which version has the most content. This is purely a poll about preference. So, which versions of these two games are your "cup of tea", as it were?

Further Research (if needed): - "Which Version of Final Fantasy Should You Play?" by AustinSV @ YouTube - "Which Version of Final Fantasy II Should You Play?" by AustinSV @ YouTube

[fganniversaries]

22 years ago today, Guilty Gear Petit was originally released as a WonderSwan Color exclusive only in JP. It was developed by Arc System Works and published by Sammy Studios.

[invisibletinkerer]

WonderSwan Color

I unpacked this little gadget from my store of "things I bought when I lived in Japan but have barely touched" and played Final Fantasy II (2001 graphics update of the 1988 NES game).

This is a WonderSwan Color. It's a very tiny early 00s console that was never released outside Japan. And when I say very tiny - I mean, look at it! My hands are small for an adult. This seems to have been sized for 5-year-olds. But I have now finished FF2 after some 35 hours on this machine.

Perks:

Very tiny! It weighs almost nothing, and half the weight is the one AA battery and the game cartridge.

Did I mention it runs on a single AA battery? And that it runs for 30 hours on that one AA battery? The "battery low" indicator didn't start blinking until I was well past 29 hours of gameplay time.

Made from that transparent plastic that was so popular for a while around 2000. It's an artifact of an era.

Not so perky things:

The sound quality is not good. And worse, there's no analog volume control, so you have to set it to high, medium, low or none. But the low setting was still loud enough to grate my ears, and I didn't want to play completely soundless. I solved it by taping some tissues on top of the speaker to muffle it. (Relatedly, there's no headphone jack.)

The screen is crisp and colorful, but it blurs some when scrolling, and it's not backlit. That's common with early handhelds, but it's still a bit of a bother. You have to play in a very well-lit place to see the screen properly.

[technoplanet]

mr driller - wonderswan color, 2001

[foreverfandom50-50]

This is definitely worth emulating and is way better than the Gameboy Advance version. I used Oswan Emulator with a SNES controller and it plays great.

[caterpie]

Naruto: Konoha Ninpouchou (2003)

[leojrthetanooki]

so i attempted a thing

based on chopper's sprite from one piece battle colosseum

sprite made by dimps and ripped by grim of spritedatabase.net

[humor-y-videojuegos]

Mr. Driller 🏢 Namco 📅 1999 🖥 Arcade, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, PS1, Windows, WonderSwan Color #videogames

[griffinsspike]

Cardinal Sins, originally released for the Bandai Wonderswan Color, is a game that truly appeals to my inner(?) edgelord.

What a cool aesthetic. Love the final boss, too.

And by that, I kinda mean boss(es). Still haven't beaten the Mirror of Cardinal Sins, but what a cool fight. And as far as the Wrath fight - just that apparition of a boss from Judgement Silversword, what a cool concept.

[wsc-kurapika]

Pages from official guidebook for Hunter x Hunter: Sorezore no Ketsui/Each One's Determination.