The Japan Hobbyist: A New Adventure – Gaming

My blog has been around for a long time. When I first started out, it served as an outlet for things I found interesting and cool in Japan but eventually it became solely a Magic the Gathering blog. I want to remedy that. While I still think of myself as a fan of Magic the Gathering, the drive to share that hobby and all that it entails has been dwindling. Maybe it will come back one of these days when I have more free time and find it enjoyable once more, but until then I want to continue on with my blog and change its focus.

Video Games

I’ve been a gamer since I was 6 years old. I played DOS games on my Dad’s computers, I played my sister’s Atari 2600 and 7800 in elementary school, and I remember the first Nintendo Entertainment System my siblings and I got in the late 80s. I remember the Super Nintendo my brother and I shared from the end of elementary school to middle school. After that It was the Nintendo 64, and soon after I got my own Playstation for my 16th birthday in High School. As a part time job my junior and senior years of high school I worked at Electronics Boutique at the local mall (and then EB Games when I went to University). I was one of the first people in my college dorm to have a Playstation 2 and people were constantly coming over to play Madden 2001 with me and my roommate that year.

You think my gaming would have slowed down when I moved to Japan in 2005 but due to the isolation of the countryside, I would say it intensified. My collection in some shape or form always followed me, either fully or partially no matter where I went. When I moved to Japan the first time, when I moved back from Japan, when I moved back to Japan again in 2010, and now in its complete form in the Tokyo area of Japan. While the struggle has been real to keep up collecting as I lived in Japan (I imported lots of Nintendo DS and Playstation 3 games during the dark ages of modern game accessibility) I feel like I’ve finally gotten back to what I had or what I would like to have in terms of my retro game collection. I say “had” because in order to finance part of my first move to Japan I had to sell pretty much all of my Gameboy Advance games and GBA SP, a chunk of my Playstation 1 and 2 games, and countless other things. To kick off my blogs about video games (and gaming in Japan) I’d like to share my collection.

Playstation One

Role-playing Games have always been a big part of my gaming collection. When I had a Super Nintendo, I’d always play games like Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and the Final Fantasy series. But as I grew up I didn’t hang on to any of those and instead sold them or traded everything in to get more Playstation games. While I lost many a game to trade-ins over the years, I managed to get quite a few games while working at EB games and was always able to get first dibs on used ones that came into the store. Also, thanks to my employee discount at the time, buying games with my hard earned cash was a breeze. One of my biggest regrets though is selling away some of my games like Legend of Dragoon when I downloaded Digital versions on to the PS3 thinking I’d never need them again. Boy was I wrong. I’d still love to get a few more games like Brave Fencer Musashi, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Parasite Eve, and a few others I sold away but living in Japan makes it hard to search for them (in English) and get them shipped over safely. I believe this is only about 60% of what I had at the peak of my PS1 collection.

Gameboy Advance and Gameboy

I was able to pick up a large chunk of Gameboy Advance games that I used to have prior to moving to Japan when I moved back to the USA in 2008, but sadly most if not all were without boxes. Luckily I was able to snag some boxed games towards the end of the system’s life cycle (as well as a Gameboy Micro for about $30) because the DS and DS Lite were still gaining their footing. Since getting back into game collecting I have shored up my collection with Japanese versions of games I wanted as well as replacements of ones I used to have (the Advance Wars combo cartridge is especially nice since I sold my original boxed ones!). I also started collecting Gameboy games in Japanese too, mostly focusing on games I played when I was in elementary school before I got rid of my Gameboy for a Gameboy Advance in High School/College. However, since Nintendo started to offer old games through their Switch online subscription service, I’ve found myself laying off of collecting these. The big problem with Gameboy games is the battery dying out and being unable to save your games. They can be replaced but it doesn’t seem worth it for some of them.

Aside from the Gameboy Advanced Micro that I picked up almost 20 years ago, I also picked up a silver GBA SP 001 recently while in Japan to play my games like I used to back in the day.

Playstation 2

My Playstation 2 collection is probably the pride and joy of my entire gaming collection. It has stayed largely intact over the years but I did stupidly sell a few games away thinking I didn’t need to play them again (I sold away Silent Hill 2, .hack 1-3, and more over the years). I’ve been able to pick back up some old games I had that I liked (the Onimusha games), some new ones I had always wanted to play (the Prince of Persia series), but most of these games are the originals I picked up while I still worked at EB games in university. As with my PS One collection, I absolutely loved my RPGs on the PS2. I managed to complete quite a few series but there are still some games I’m missing and would like to get my hands on: the rest of the dot hack games, Suikoden IV, and Wild Arms 5 for starters. I’m hoping that in future visits to the USA I’ll be able to secure some if not all of them.

Nintendo DS

I remember getting the DS Lite when it first went on sale here in Japan (I didn’t have a portable system before that since I had sold all my Gameboy Advance stuff prior to moving here). My first game was Mario 64 DS and after playing that I was sold on the system and back into handheld gaming. It was one of the reasons I started collecting Gameboy Advance games again from 2007. While I had a few games sent over to Japan prior to moving back to the USA, I built the majority of my collection while I was home. It was a great system to have in Japan, to be able to take with me and to play anywhere. It is also the system that got me back into Pokemon. I actually had picked up Emerald and Leaf Green on the GBA when I got my light blue DS lite, but have since sold them because of their high value. All that’s left now are my DS Pokemon games which you see above. Before the DS, the only other Pokemon games I had played were Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy back in elementary school. I’ve picked up a few Japanese games as well (Taiko drum master is AMAZING on the DS), but have mostly stuck to English versions of games. There really aren’t a lot of games I still want for it. Sadly I wasn’t able to get a 3DS while it was available because it was region locked in Japan and I couldn’t get it or games easily while I lived here my 2nd time from 2010 to the present.

Play Station Portable

I originally got a PSP when I first moved back to the states in 2008. FFVII: Crisis Core sold the system to me, and after that I got into Silent Hill and the God of War games. Later on I picked up other games that were continuations of series I liked (Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Ratchet and Clank), but to be honest up until about a year and a half ago I was thinking of getting rid of it and all my games. It wasn’t until I learned I could stream games from it that I really grew to love my PSP again. I went out of bought hard to get games in Japanese or games I thought were interesting for pennies on the dollar (most can be had for less than $7 complete), and I actually spent more money on the PSN to get other digital versions of games I had never played as well (like Suikoden 1 and 2). I’m enjoy the second renaissance of this system and hope that the disuse for a long time means that it won’t break for a while (if ever). Full disclosure, I bought Persona 2 years ago and thought I’d play it but never opened it nor played it on the PSP. Peacewalker and Crisis Core are probably my favorite games on the system.

Coming Up Next Time

That’s going to do it for my initial installment on gaming, but I hope you’ll be back when I post part 2 about all the gaming I have done since I returned to Japan in 2010. Next time I’ll be talking about everything from the Playstation 3 to the current time as well as how the Covid pandemic spurred my collection to reach new heights.

But wait, there’s more!

Do you like this type of content and want to see more? Be sure to let me know by joining me on various social media and dropping me a line. I hope to bring hundreds of articles to this website about not only about my gaming experiences, but also about gaming in Japan, game collecting, and even game stores over here! If you plan on visit and are big into gaming (be it on modern systems or retro ones), be sure to bookmark this website and stop back from time to time for updates!

How to contact me:

• Twitter: @YoJapanHobbyist
• Twitch: TheJapanHobbyist
• Instagram: thejapanhobbyist

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