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Times are tough, and videogames are expensive, but determined hunters can still bag a bargain in Tokyo’s busy electronics district.
When I was in Japan last September for the Tokyo Game Show, I dove through the city’s used-game bargain bins and assembled a ragtag assortment of 10 games that cost less than 100 yen each. While many were crap, I ended up with a couple of solid finds, like Galaga ’88 and the baffling Götzendiener .
Other gamers were intrigued by the idea and took up the challenge themselves, seeing what they could find for the equivalent of $1 a game.
On a recent trip back to Tokyo, I caught the cheap-game fever again, exploring more boxes full of 100-yen castoffs in stores like Mandarake and Trader. There were so many deals that I just kept going, ending up with 25 games total.
Here are the titles I dug up for less than a dollar a game during my annual pilgrimage to Akihabara. Some were legitimately good, but I probably should have spent my money on five Mega Macs.
Above:
Castle Excellent, Daiva and Hissatsu! Dojo Yaburi
First up: Three duds for the 8-bit Nintendo Famicom, released in 1983 (and known as the NES in these parts). “Hey,” said a friend as I was picking up Castle Excellent, “you could always do the old game-journalist thing and say, ‘ Castle Excellent isn’t so excellent after all.’”
Which it is not. It’s a platform game where you explore a castle, killing enemies and opening doors and such, but mostly you die while listening to music that makes you want to set your eardrums on fire. You might know it as Castlequest .
Daiva is a downgraded version of a PC shooter that actually looks pretty OK. This version, meanwhile, sucks. There is an interesting feature that lets you select areas on each level’s map where you want to deploy power-up items and air strikes, letting you place them for maximum effectiveness. But that’s the only thing that struck me as interesting.