Anyone Here Familiar With the Wonderswan?

[Luther]

I've managed to get a Wonderswan Crystal fairly recently while shopping at a second hand shop one day. Just happened to chance upon it by pure luck! And I ended up snagging it since I've always wanted one, ever since I've heard about it. It was competitor to the Game Boy Color, but it was released only in Japan. It ended up losing out to the Game Boy Advance, but it still had some interesting games on it. Heck, even some of the Wonderswan remakes that Square developed ended up being ported to the GBA, especially the Final Fantasy 1 and 2 remakes.

So far it seems really neat, but... man, did we really play on dimmed screens like this back then? Sometimes it's pretty hard to see what's on the screen, unless you get a good angle with the light. But I do quite like it so far... even though Final Fantasy 2 is the only game I have on it so far TwT

[Booyakasha]

Yes! I got a lot of a SwanCrystal and five or six games at a swap meet maybe twenty years back. There were an RPG and a Mario Party-style game based on One Piece, a tactical-RPG based on Space Battleship Yamato, and an Ultimate Muscle wrestling game, among others. I haven't played it in ages because, where you could kind of just coast through the Ultimate Muscle game, the others required loads of reading in Japanese. (I mean, I knew that was a possibility when I got it, but ehh.)

It had some cool ideas (having buttons such that you could play games along two axes was really innovative, as was needing one single AA to power it). Don't know if I could ever do a non-backlit system again. I really liked my varied Game Boys and Neo Geo Pocket Colors, but you just couldn't play them in the dark.

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

I'm familiar with WonderSwan but never actually seen a real one. I've emulated a few games, but they were all in Japanese which diminishes the experience for me even in titles that are technically playable. There's English patches floating around for some games, but I haven't bothered trying to use them.

I think it's really interesting device, and the library seems to have a few gems I'd like. There were several Mega Man games, Tekken Card Challenge, some Inuyasha games, and a couple exclusive Squaresoft JRPGs (Wild Card & Blue Wing Blitz). It seems like we missed out over here in the west.

As for dim screens, it never bothered me much as a kid but that's definitely something I probably couldn't go back to, especially with my diminishing vision.

[Shane]

I researched all of the portable systems but never ended up getting one that was not from Nintendo other than the PSP.

With the original Game Boy, I had at least one accessory that was supposed to help with the lighting issues. I don't remember it being very helpful.

[Booyakasha]

^^Jeez, sounds like I had an unlucky draw. I'd have played a Mega Man game on WonderSwan.

...suppose it comes a little bit down to the company, too. Bandai Namco was loaded with anime licenses when the WonderSwan came out, so it makes sense the games were story-driven. Compare and contrast to the NGPC, which was was almost entirely SNK. Like, even if the NGPC had been the one that had been Japan-only...presumably you wouldn't need to know a word of Japanese to play the Japanese version of 'SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millennium'. (I might actually prefer not having it English. You do not gain anything from knowing that Yuri Sakazaki tells the horrible possessed version of Ryu "I will bop you!" before their final battle, aside from further confirmation that Yuri Sakazaki is an imbecile.)

I tried out two different GB peripherals to illuminate the original GB's screen, and neither worked better or had better battery life than just holding a flashlight in the crook of your neck and shoulder.

[Luther]

I feel like anime and Japanese media was always Bandai Namco's thing. I always tend to see their logo on a lot of Japanese media and products, especially on model kits. Oh, that even reminds me that in one of the Kamen Rider series, Ex-Aid, there was a scene where one of the characters was handed a Wonderswan. Makes sense, since I do believe Bandai Namco owns the rights to produce Kamen Rider merchandise.



And man, that does remind me that I have heard that there a mod kits to add a backlight to the Wonderswan, but admittedly I'm super nervous about doing that. Would be really nice to add, but I am terrified of breaking it lol

(Also man, this kind reminds me that I wish Square ported the SaGa/Final Fantasy Legend 1 remake to the GBA...)

[I REALLY HATE POKEMON!]

^^Jeez, sounds like I had an unlucky draw. I'd have played a Mega Man game on WonderSwan.

...suppose it comes a little bit down to the company, too. Bandai Namco was loaded with anime licenses when the WonderSwan came out, so it makes sense the games were story-driven. Compare and contrast to the NGPC, which was was almost entirely SNK. Like, even if the NGPC had heen the one that had been Japan-only...you don't need to know a word of Japanese to play 'SNK vs Capcom: Match of the Millennium'. (It probably would actually help if you couldn''t speak a word of English, either. You will not gain anything from knowing that Yuri Sakazaki tells the horrible possessed version of Ryu "I will bop you!' before their final battle, aside from further confirmation that Yuri Sakazaki is an imbecile.)

I tried out two different GB peripherals to illuminate the original GB's screen, and neither worked better or had better battery life than just holding a flashlight in the crook of your neck and shoulder.

The games you got sound pretty cool too, but Mega Man would be a lot easier to play for sure.

Yeah, NGPC could have been a Japanese exclusive system and you'd only be missing out on a handful of decent RPGs, most of the library would be pretty playable regardless, especially the games I like most. Sonic Pocket Adventure doesn't have a lick of story in it, I think I'd live not being able to read the credits.

I love the graphics on NGPC, it's like an interesting midpoint between GBC and GBA. It would be more fun to play if anyone actually wanted to play obscure decades old fighting games with me, I don't really enjoy the single player modes for fighting games and that's like half its library.

[Booyakasha]

I feel like anime and Japanese media was always Bandai Namco's thing. I always tend to see their logo on a lot of Japanese media and products, especially on model kits.

Oh, yeah. I dabbled in Gundam model kits, and I remember always seeing that Bandai logo. (Didn't get too deep into Gundam kits---------I never watched Gundam, plus I was more of a Lego guy.)