Living Japanese: Tenjin Trip and a Project

First off a few days ago I went for a walk over to my favorite recycle shop and it turned out that she had got some new game items in. It had been about a month or so since the last time I had visited and the shop keeper was happy to see me again. There wasn't really too much new, about 4 games and a N64 controller. I picked up the controller which was the clear blue with clear white and it had a Memory Pak in it for $2. I also grabbed Final Fantasy VIII on the Playstation also for $2, the price increase was because it was a 4 disc game still not a bad price.

Yesterday I went into Tenjin for what seemed like the first time in a while, though it was probably only a week or so. Of course I hit up the regular game stores and picked up a few games. The first stop was Super Book Off where I found a few games for the Saturn, Gale Racer ($1), another copy of Street Fighter Zero 2 ($1) and Virtual On ($1). Finding Virtual On was kind of annoying as I had recently picked this game up, in sub par condition, for $5. I had not seen a single copy the whole time I had been in Japan and need a copy for my twin stick controller. Normally it wouldn't be that big a deal but I won't be able to get that much for it if/when I sell it. I also picked up another copy of Sega Rally 2 on the Dreamcast ($1).

I headed off to Mandarake to see if they had anything new in, come on Saturn *fingers crossed*. When I got there they did not have a Saturn, it was a long shot anyway. While I was there though someone bought the Dreamcast that had been sitting next to where the Saturn had been. I pictured that it was a reenactment of the Saturn being sold.

I made my way to the Super Famicom section which was pretty bare, it was Sunday but a lot of the boxed items were gone. I then went over to the Saturn section, it looked like there wasn't going be much to find, it looked pretty much the same as the last time I saw it. However taking a closer look I could see a few sections of games had moved, which means something had been added to the shelf. Is it sad that I can tell where games are suppose to be on the shelf?

Looking though I found a few good games with prices that were also, surprisingly, pretty good. The first game I found was Shadows of the Tusk ($1) a game I had seen last time and wanted to do some research on before picking it up. Then I came across Vampire Savior, this is a really cool fighting game but the resell value is only around $20 so I was a little torn at $8 but I grabbed it anyway. Next up was Gunbird they only were asking $2 so that was an easy yes, then I got Fatal Fury 3 for $1 had it been more I would have passed on it. I also got The King of Fighters 95 in the box with the 1MB Ram cart, I would have passed because I knew the resell value wasn't that great but they only wanted $3 so in the basket it went. I also came across Darius Gaiden ($5), Star Fighter 3000 ($4) and Galaxy Force II ($12).

I took a quick look at the Neo-Geo AES section and found that they had got another copy of Fatal Fury Special and were only asking $5 for this copy so I grabbed that. Then I turned back to look at the Dreamcast games. I found that they had Street Fighter Zero 3: Saikyo for only $2, I had just spent $9 at another store last week. I also got Marvel vs. Capcom for $4 but the case had been replaced with a black one, it should have been in a white one so I will need to look into getting that changed. *Update* I swapped the black one for the white one in my second copy of Incoming.

Finally going over to the PC Engine section I found another copy of Gradius ($6), I had recently sold my other copy so I picked this up.

When I left I didn't feel like going home just yet so I headed over to the arcades. I had forgot that it was Sunday so they were really busy. I had been having a Street Fighter Zero 3 urge and was hoping to find it at one of the arcades that has a lot of new and old fighting games but I was out of luck. Even if they had it I probably wouldn't have been able to play it, it was busy due to the weekend but it was even busier due to the fact that they were holding a tournament at that time. It was really cool to see a arcade that alive though.

I went to another arcade but this place had more new games I did see this one guy playing a rhythm game with pretty fast hands.

After that I left but still wasn't ready to go home so I made my way to another Book Off close by. This place is pretty small so I wasn't really expecting to find anything. I did however come across another copy of Rez on the PS2 for $2.50, it was just the game no trance vibrator accessory this time, and I picked up a copy of I.Q. on the PS1 for $1.

I also found a Xbox 360 20GB hard drive in the case, they only wanted $15 which was pretty good usually these go for around $60 or so (at least around here). I needed to get one for my system, I already had the enclosure for it so I picked that up too.