Wonderswan Box Shots

Andy's Lofi Gaming Museum is a site dedicated to retro gaming machines. He keeps a nice inventory of his game collection, including clear pictures of games boxes, which provides a good opportunity to have a look at soem great Wonderswan artwork.

eBay Roundup

Been a bit of a quiet week this week on the Wonderswan front, as I've not got anything new. I'm letting my funds replenish and hope to go on a game buying spree in the next couple of days, using some of the recommendations that came through in response to an earlier post.

I thought I would just point out a couple of really interesting items on eBay at the moment though.

Tare Panda With Gunpey Boxset
Tare Panda - meaning lazy panda - is apparently with the most popular cartoon characters in Japan. I'm not entirely sure what this is, but it seems to be some kind of Tare Panda branded version of the popular Gunpey puzzler, in a limited edition box set. Definitely looks like a great item for a collector. It was released in 1999 and the console & game are both monochrome.

Just as I was about to post this, I saw that another of these box sets has just been put on eBay, so keep an on this one too if you're interested.

Judgement Silversword
Any Wonderswan item on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £125 certainly must be interesting. And it seems this is definitely a title for the collectors, but I must admit I'm not entirely sure why. According to the Encyclopedia of Games Machines, this was the very final Wonderswan cartridge. Mysteriously, it doesn't appear on the official Wonderswan list of software, which Bandai maintains. But if this is Judgement Silversword: Rebirth Edition, could it be that this is the software title that won the Wonderwitch developer's contest? I don't know if the Rebirth Edition is some home brew sequel to an original title, or if this is one and the same game, so if anyone can shed some light, any replies would be welcome.

Wonderswan Game Recommendations

So I now have two Wonderswan consoles, and have discussed the accessories available, but now want to spend a bit more time checking out the games for the Wonderswan.

One game that I really want to get is Gunpey EX, and I'm also keen to get hold of Tetris. But if you stumble upon this page and can tell me what other Wonderswan games you would personally recommend, please feel free to use the comments section below to post details of what games you think are worth checking out and why.

The blog isn't massively read, so I'm not expecting to be overwhelmed with suggestions, but I'd really like to hear from anyone who has a view on the "must play" Wonderswan games.

Final Fantasy II Boxset

I've just got hold of a gorgeous Final Fantasy II Wonderswan boxset!

For those that don't know, Final Fantasy is a hugely popular RPG franchise from Square Enix which has appeared on almost every console format going, as well as in online games, mobile phones and has also been the subject of two full length movies.

It was the success of Final Fantasy I and II on Wonderswan that helped the console get an 8% share of the handheld market. To mark the release of these landmark titles, Bandai released a couple of boxsets.

Inside the boxset is a special white Final Fantasy edition of the Wonderswan color, a copy of the Final Fantasy game and a Final Fantasy premium phone strap.













The console itself has a Final Fantasy illustration above the screen, and the words "And, we meet in the truth" - in English, interestingly.

The console has a matt finish and feels a bit more weighty than the SwanCrystal. It actually feels more satisfying in the hand I have to say.

I managed to get this box set from eBay and they seem to come up fairly often, so keep your eyes peeled if you too want to get a white box of Wonderswan loveliness.

Play Wonderswan on your DS

One day I will do a posting with a complete listing of the Wonderswan emulators available for various systems. I already mentioned previously about the Swan emulator on PSP, and have now found an emulator for the Nintendo DS.

Visit WonDerS - WonderSwan Emulator

One of the things that got me interested in the Wonderswan in the first place was the fasinating story of its creator, who was instrumental in the design of the Nintendo Gameboy. To play Wonderswan games on one of the Gameboy's successor consoles seems almost touching somehow...

What is Wondermagic Color?

In polite society, we refer to Wondermagic Color as a "backup device".

But in reality, devices like this are used to download ROMs from the net, copy them to the flash memory cartridge using a parallel cable and then play them on the console. You can get similar things on most cartridge based systems. I don't know about the morality of it, but as Wonderswan could probably be described as a dead and unsupported format, is there any harm to it? Feel free to argue the pros and cons of that in the Comments section.

The Wondermagic Color is pretty rare and I found this picture whilst continuing my trawl of Yahoo! Japan's auction site.

Talking of pictures, I have fond a picture of the Handy Sonar device and added it to my earlier post on Wonderswan accessories.

More on Wonderswan Accessories

A recent question to the blog about the availability of accessories made me think how rare it is to see Wonderswan accessories in import shops, or even on eBay.

So I got to thinking that the place to get info on these bits and pieces is to go straight to the source itself. I'm reliably informed that in Japan, eBay is not the dominant force it is elsewhere, so I checked out the Yahoo auction site for Japan and found tonnes of cool Wonderswan games and also some accessories.

Wonderswan Link Cable


Wonderswan Headphone Adaptor


Worm light for Wonderswan

This is a 3rd party accessory from a company that has a logo with an uncanny likeness to the logo used by Nintendo on the splash screen of the Nintendo 64!

If you wanted to order anything like this from Japan, you should be aware that many sellers wont trade with international buyers. One useful service you can check out is Mail Order Japan, who will act as an intemediary for you, taking possession of the item in Japan iself from the seller, and then posting to you.

What is Wonderborg?

Wonderborg is a cool little robot kit which works in conjunction with the Wonderswan.

The kit comes with a robot, in the general shape of a bug, that you assemble, and a game cart which you plug into the console. The cartridge has an Infra Red transmitter embedded into the cartridge itself, so when it's plugged in, you can beam instructions directly to the borg.

From what I have read, the cart offers English language menus which makes it usable for those not in Japan, and lets you have a Pet Mode which turns it into a Tamagotichi-like toy, or beam instructions directly to it. You can also create programmatic routines for the the cute bot.

Bandai have a page dedicated to the Wonderborg within their Wonderswan pages, but the best resource is over at Caz Robots Factory. There's a really detailed look at the Wonderborg including videos of it in action. The author's coming at it from a Robot perspective rather than as a gamer, but it's a great read.

I had hoped to have a Wonderborg of my own to show you, and I did actually win an auction on eBay to get one but the final price of over £41 (GBP) didn't meet the seller's reserve price. No idea how much he thinks its worth but the market doesn't seem to agree with him at the moment!

Wonderswan Vs GBA

This isn't a general comparison of the two consoles, but I just thought I would put a picture up showing the difference in size for anyone that's interested.



Sorry for the quality of the picture, the lightings not very good at all. I'm going to create some kind of photo tent or lightbox soon using the cool instructions I found on this site to help me take better photos.

[Edit]

Many thanks to Anime5ever who has contributed this picture below. Clearly the man is a connoseiur of fine handheld consoles, with a Nintendo DS, Nintendo GBA SP, Nintendo GBA and Nintendo GBA Micro all pictured alongside a Wonderswan Colour.

What is WonderWitch?

Wonderwitch is an official development kit for the Wonderswan which lets hobbyists and enthusiasts code their own homebrew creations for the console.

It was distributed soley in Japan by mail order, by a company called Qute. The kit includes a manual and CD with the development tools, cables to connect your Wonderswan to the PC and a rewriteable cart for you to download your creations on to.

From what I can gather, it seems there was a healthy development community and contests were held to see who could create the best stuff.

Getting hold of info on the console itself is pretty hard, but getting info on the development community is even harder due to it being an almost exclusively Japanese thing. The picture below shows the contents of the Wonderwitch kit.



The pic was taken from http://www.atmarkit.co.jp/fitbiz/column/spec001/wonderwitch.html

Wonderswan Accessories

The Wonderswan comes with an intriguing port at the side marked "EXT.", so I thought check out the various hardware accessories that are available.

Headphone Adaptor

Plugs into the EXT port and then you connect headphones, so you can play without disturbing other people. It seems like a design flaw because using headphones is common, but you can't use headphones and also use the other hardware accessories that use this port.

Communication Link Cable

You need this cable for playing against another Wonderswan in two player games.

Digimon Connector

This lets you connect up Digimon keyring games to the Wonderswan console. It was given away free with the special limited edition Digital Monster Wonderswan set.

Wonderwave

Wonderwave connects up to the "pocket station". Whatever that is! I am going to try and find out more about this in a later post. I know there was plans for some kind of connectivity with the PS2 and this may be related, but will report back when I know more.

Wonder Coin

The Wonderswan doesn't actually have a D-Pad like most controllers, but four directional buttons. If you prefer the feel of a D-Pad, just slip a wondercoin over the buttons. Manufactured by Sammy, the Wondercoins were shipped with the Guilty Gear Petit game.

Handy Sonar

So you want to see whats happening in a river but all you have is your Wonderswan? Well never fear because using the Handy Sonar device, and game, you can get a reading of underwater activity! Apparently there was a version of this for the Nintendo Gameboy too.


Wonderborg

A remote control robot bug kit that responds to commands from the Wonderswan. Worthy of a whole in post in future.

Rechargeable Battery Pack

The rechargeable battery pack can be used in lieu of a AA battery.

Dokodemo Hamster 3: Odekake Saffron

My own Hamster died in the hurricane of 1987. Despite efforts to revive his frozen body the morning after - including taping him to the boiler - he was gone.

So I was pleased to revisit my brief youthful interest in hamsters with "Dokodemo Hamster 3: Odekake Saffron", which I picked up off eBay for about a fiver.

This is essentially a pet simulation game, of which there have been many over the years including the highly successful Nintendogs that recently came out on DS.

Turning the game on for the first time, you are guided through naming your hamster and setting his blood type (eh?). Once you have set him up, the main screen shows him pacing around a room. You control a pointer, similar to a mouse cursor, which lets you and point and click at things in the room. There's a large hamster wheel which you can click on to spin, a chest in the corner and the hamster itself.

By clicking on the chest, you get what seems to be an option screen. You can look at the calender, look at the food available, look at what tricks your hamster can do, set colour schemes, and, oddly enough, draw pictures in a basic graphics app, like MS Paint.

Click on your hamster itself and you will be asked what you want to do: you can rename him, feed him or make him do a trick. Each day that he is alive, a new piece of food and a new trick become available for you to make him do.

This is just a gentle piece of fluff but there's some quirky little screens in there, such as taking the hamster for a walk in the woods or watching him perform in a circus, which make it a kind of funny little oddity.

Wonderswan Price Watch

Is it me, or is the price of Wonderswans rising?

First there was the Gundam Zeon Boxset that went for 67 quid, as reported last week, and now there has been a sale on eBay of the Final Fantasy Limited Edition Pack (with white Wonderswan) for £47.50.

I've been watching out for these boxsets and this seems like double the price that some went for a few months ago.

There's also a Final Fantasy II boxset which seems to have less value at the moment, selling for £31.50 at about the same time.

GP2X

If you're here because you take an interest in obscure handhelds, then you might want to check Miss_PSX's new blog about the GP2X.

It's an interesting sounding new handheld which is a follow up to the GP32. Using an open source OS, the machine is perfectly designed to be a home to emulators of tonnes of other systems.

Find out more at the GP2X blog.

Wonderswan Importer

Google is my search engine of choice and usually serves me well, but sometimes its interesting to try different search engines just to see what different results are brought up.

I tried searching for "wonderswan" on MSN.co.uk and came across a decent little Japanese game importer called Genki Video Games.

From their website, it seems they have stock hardware and software from all the formats you'd hope to find including Nintendo Virtual Boy, Famicom Disk System, PC Engine, Neo Geo and of course, the Bandai Wonderswan.

They have as good a selection of Wonderswan games as I've seen anyone have, with some great looking titles as pretty affordable prices. They also have cool details of the games along with box art and screenshots.

Also check their Hardware section for some ultre desirable items and oddities.

eBay Watch: Wonderswan Gundam Zeon Boxset

I was quite interested in this Gundam Zeon Boxset that I spotted on eBay, with an original monochrome Wonderswan in a "zeon olive" green case with yellow buttons, and a copy of Gundam MSVS bundled in a limited edition presentation pack.

This is one of several Wonderswan limited edition boxsets that I hoped to get hold of, but the bidding got a bit too rich for my blood and ended at £67.13.





Other special limited editions of the monochrome Wonderswan include:

Digimon Blye
Digimon Orange
Chccobo Yellow
Tarepanda White
MSVS E.F.S.F - SkyBlue
MSVS Zion - Olive
Coro Coro Comic - Camouflage Colour

SwanCrystal Personal Data Screen

In the SwanCrystal user manual, there are details of a "Personal Data" screen that allows you to store information about yourself, such as name, date of birth, gender. Interestingly, you can also specify your bloodtype, which implies that maybe its for use in an emergency and if somebody needed to check your details should you be unable to provide them.

You get to the screen by holding down the Start button whilst pressing the Power button to turn on. This only works if you have a game cartridge slotted in at the time.

So to really make use of this in an emergency, you would probably need to accompany your SwanCrystal with a note along the lines of:

"In case of emergency, make sure there is a cartridge in my SwanCrystal and press the power button whilst holding down Start in order to get my personal data."

Though it might be easier to put your personal data on the note.

An intriguing feature nonetheless and I'd be interested to know if it's just the SwanCrystal that has this or if previous versions had it too. If you have a Wonderswan or Wonderswan Color, please feel free to use the Comments section to let me know.

[Edit]

I just did some reading and found some info which was kind of useful regarding the Personal Data screen. It seems, from this review by Euro-Asia GameBoy, that the Personal Data is for use in games, which may customise the gaming experience based on your gender and age.

"As soon as the WS is turned on, you must enter your personal data. If you don't enter your personal data, the game will not begin. This might seem rather troublesome, but it is required for some games that adjust the degree of difficulty according to your age and sex"