The GHZ Forum

In Tokyo, there is an electronics district called Akihabara. In said district is a store with three slightly cramped stories called Super Potato. It contains our collective childhood, all for sale at reasonable prices. For about $140, I got the following:

Surprising deals: Nights for about $5, All the Panzer Dragoons for about $35, Burning Rangers for $15, incredibly detailed Panzer Dragoon Zwei art/guide book for $10, and the best damn N64 controller ever for $18. Other deals included Eternal Arcadia, Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story 0079, Jet Set Radio, FFV art/guide book, two PSO guide/art books, and a Shenmue guide book. In short, if you're ever in the area, I highly recommend Super Potato. It is like stepping into pure and unadulterated nostalgia, in retail form. Photos of the actual store will surface if there's any sort of demand for it.

That place must love nerdy white guys.

It was probably about 25% nerdy white guys, 74% nerdy Japanese guys, and 1% unreasonably hot girl accompanying one of said nerdy Japanese guys.

Game stores are pretty fucking ridiculous over there. I still don't understand why the U.S. doesn't have more older video game shops or, even more rare, game shops with decent stock. I walked into a few shops in Osaka and they all had titles readily available that I simply had not seen since 1999. I guess they just must be more popular there.

Owning Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG would be quite awesome, yes... provided you read Japanese.

Which, considering you actually went to Japan to get the item for purchase, you probably do. I'm forgetting the point to this post again. Blah.

And, as cliche as it has become for me to mention both titles in the same post, I'll ask anyway: how much does Silvergun go for down there?

Super Potato is rad! When I went there, there was an old woman sitting at the counter playing an arranged Kirby soundtrack, and she acted happy when I recognized it.

There's an "older games" store in Seattle called Pink Godzilla. It's very similar to used/old game stores in Japan, right down to storing their excess games and controllers on the ceiling. Gotta look up in those places!

I saw a video of Super Potato once, I almost went insane. One day I'll jet to Japan and buy all that stuff!

But NiGHTS for 5$ isn't really surprising, I got mine on ebay for about the same price (excluding shipping). Buy It Now, mind.

Shadow Hog wrote:Owning Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG would be quite awesome, yes... provided you read Japanese.

To be fair I already own it in English, I just wanted to practice my Japanese with a game I could probably make it through blindfolded. I'm hardly conversant, and I'll probably be referring to my kanji dictionary every other second. That it is my favourite RPG in the whole wide world is really just a bonus.

Shadow Hog wrote:And, as cliche as it has become for me to mention both titles in the same post, I'll ask anyway: how much does Silvergun go for down there?

I totally forgot to check up on it, but I didn't see it in the sooper-expensive case (where some of the original Super Mario Bros. hacks were being kept among other things). I can't imagine it goes for more than $30-40.

Sweet. I'll be in Tokyo in just over a month. Must remember to stop by there.

Shit, those are the kind of game stores we desperately need here on the east coast. There hasn't been an ounce of dignity and pride at Gamestop since the the beginning of the last console generation. They were great back when they went under the alias' of Funcoland, Babbages and Software Ect.

Something I feel like sharing with you guys, 3 months ago I ordered several Sega CD, Saturn and Dreamcast games off of this one seller on eBay, well he was kind enough to send a Funcoland receipt that dated back to 1995 along with the games I ordered. I decided to keep the receipt as a reminder of how great Funcoland was.

Yeah, Funcoland was pretty awesome... makes me regret that GameStop has literally taken over every mom-and-pop game store in existence around here, except for, like, ONE store in Glen Burnie. And that store is made of pure win, aside from how damn far away the thing is.

Honestly, GameStop's bad enough with all their profit-driven "trade your games in" BS, especially how they don't care about their own employees... I worked a seasonal shift. All of one day, because they didn't have any hours for me. And all my money went onto a proprietary debit card which I couldn't use pretty much anywhere, from which my funds were removed just for checking the damn balance. And naturally all my coworkers aren't even at that store anymore, three years after the fact. And yet this is the same company taking away all the stores which would have games from older consoles I still play? Life's unfair.

I mean, seriously, they only carry consoles that came out after PS2. That's waaay too recent. Honestly, if it weren't for backwards compatibility, they'd be rid of PS2 as well...

Shadow Hog wrote:And all my money went onto a proprietary debit card which I couldn't use pretty much anywhere, from which my funds were removed just for checking the damn balance.

Wait, what? Is that legal?

Probably not, but it's a little late to sue them. Not to mention I think I lost out on all of $20, so the legal fees would not be worth it.

Also it was either for checking the balance, or for not removing it in time. Either way, I lost most of the money I earned and wound up only making, like, $5 off that job.

And now Gamestop (the ones around me at least) put those damn stickers on the spine so that even if I wanted to buy from their poorly maintained used collection, there's no way to get those [price stickers off without ripping the cover. (They put it on the coverartwork itself, not the clear plastic covering on top).

I've even seen this on some new games.

Way to go guys.

That bugs the hell out of me. They've changed their sticker glue substance several times. Last year I remember the stickers would peel off like magic, then they started sucking again recently.

Having worked at the store for more than a year now I can say from experience that any qualm you might have with them is probably rooted in a deep bed of stinginess. Take for example the "Comchek" card, which I've seen other employees lose days' worth of salary through. Not that they lost a lot since the company pays them minimum wage!

Hey locit is there anything worth scanning in those two PSO strategy guides? Lord knows we're all PSO junkies here.

Well, there's lots of stuff worth scanning in the Panzer Dragoon Zwei guide, but I haven't opened either of the PSO guides, as both are reserved for others, one as part of a SegaNerds contest. That said, I don't think anyone would mind too much if I took a peek inside either of their mylar bags, since it's not like they're the original sealed slips or anything. Super Potato seems to have its own, extra-thick model reserved for game guides, though all the games came in their original packaging, little paper covers on their spines and all.

It took some time to gather up the courage to rip them open, let me tell you.

*Points to the N64 controller and laughs loudly*

Other than that, great stuff. Some Hyper Duel or Soukyugurentai would be really nice, too.

Isuka wrote:*Points to the N64 controller and laughs loudly*

Are you serious? This thing is like, a billion times more ergonomic than the standard crappy trident model. You can use all three shoulder buttons at once! Plus its analog stick isn't a crappy little twig that will inevitably wear out and become useless. It is amazing.

The N64 controller was the worst first-party controller ever. Yes, ever.

Segaholic2 wrote:The N64 controller was the worst first-party controller ever. Yes, ever.

My rebuttal:



Your Honor, I rest my case.

Well, I was just looking at the relocated d-pad, but I just thought that most games don't rely so heavily on it, so yeah, it must be better that way.

The Doc wrote:My rebuttal:



Your Honor, I rest my case.

Your case fails because unlike the N64 controller, two-handed human beings actually have immediate access to all functions of the 5200 controller instead of just 2/3rds of it at any given time.

Were there any N64 games that required you to use more than two thirds of the controller?

Immediately off the top of my head, taunts in Smash Bros. required hitting the L button, which is kind of vital for a Kirby player. The move was usually performed by removing your right hand entirely from your action buttons to smack the opposite side of the controller.