Sega Saturn nearly had a video phone. Worked on by NTT Docomo
https://web.archive.org/web/19961224090605/http://www.sega.co.jp:80/sega/check/tv_phone/tvphone.html
13 Likes
You just opened up a new rabbit hole for me to enter. Excellent post.
1 Like
Oh? What rabbit hole is that? I love rabbit holes, if that wasnāt clear haha
And thank you ^^ Itās so much fun to see stuff in a pile you donāt normally get at all once, I love putting these together, Iām glad everyone else enjoys it too :D
2 Likes
I knew Sunsoft had the console rights to Myst, but I did not realize, until watching a YouTube video recently (which I canāt link to because I donāt remember what video it was) that Sunsoft actually bankrolled the creation of Myst and only held onto the console rights and not the US computer rights. Apparently Sunsoft was interested in Myst due to The Manhole, which they published in Japan.
10 Likes
Not only is it cool seeing Waluigi in pixel form, itās very cool seeing the variations in pixel Waluigis. And more importantly I wasnāt aware of the Spriterās Resource site you posted a link to. So now Iām looking forward to checking out that site and a lot more pixel art.
3 Likes
Heck yeah! Iām glad I mentioned it then, the site is awesome :D If you find anything real cool you can post it here or dm me, Iād love to see
2 Likes
I already had a list of video game sites I use a lot that I made for my friends, may as well share it here. Lemme know if thereās any cool video game sites I should know about!
Databases:
https://amiibo.life/ - database of all amiibo and their uses ^^
http://femicom.org/ - Documenting girly video games up until 2000
http://www.thecoverproject.net/ - Collecting scans of every single video game box
CollectorsEdition.org Ā» Game Database - Documenting collectorās editions
https://consolevariations.com/ - Image database of every console and controller in every colour, as well as box variants
https://www.dekudeals.com/ - The BEST way to browse the eShop, you can easily browse and search and make wishlists and sign up for sale notifications! Even works for PS5 and Xbox Series. I personally check Recently Released | Deku Deals every week to keep up with what new weirdo games are on switch
https://delistedgames.com/ - Documenting games that are no longer for sale digitally
https://howlongtobeat.com/ - Database of average player time to beat pretty much any game
https://www.lucklessheaven.com/ - Database of every single known first-party Nintendo game, download, and accessory (skews towards newer stuff, site is in progress on getting older stuff)
NinDB: Information on First Party Nintendo Games - what luckless heaven is trying to continue as itās no longer updated, but a fantastic list of every nintendo game with descriptions and tidbits of info :)
https://www.pricecharting.com/ - Documenting prices of all sold ebay listings for pretty much all games (not so good with Japanese ones though) since 2007
https://www.spriters-resource.com/ - Rips the sprites from games for your admiration! Thereās also models, textures, and sounds in the top banner
Family Gaming Database - Guides, Ratings and Suggestions - Family Gaming Database - Database of recent games with tons of searchable tags such as console, ESRB rating, number of players, genre, similar games, and accessibility aids
https://www.thevideogamelibrary.org/ - Cataloguing every non-guidebook video game related book
https://vgmdb.net/ - Documenting physical releases of video game soundtracks
My My Nintendo - all My Nintendo rewards, ever
Other:
beforemario: List of Toys and Games - blog documenting what Nintendo was up to prior to 1985
https://downloads.khinsider.com/ - Download music from loads of different games
https://gamehistory.org/ - Organization trying to preserve game history, run by Frank Cifaldi and formerly Kelsey Lewin. Blog and podcast are pretty cool!
https://legendsoflocalization.com/ - Clyde Mandelin aka Matoās (the guy who did the Mother 3 fan translation)ās blog about the journey of translating!
https://nintendotreehouse.tumblr.com/ - abandoned, but Nintendo Treehouse staff use to do write-ups about different games
https://shmuplations.com/ - translations of Japanese interviews with game creators
Shonumi: Main Page - Edge of Emulation, goes over games that are particularly difficult to emulate for a wide variety of reasons, great list of unusual games
https://wiifactsplus.tumblr.com/ - Nifty snifty facts about the Wii and Miis!
https://www.fangamer.com/ - official merchandise store for many video games especially indies, stuff is high quality and really cool
16 Likes
Mario Party-e is so, so delightfully stupid. Let me tell you about it!
Mario Party-e is a North American exclusive Mario Party board game from 2003. It is called -e because the main gimmick is its use of the GBA e-reader to play minigames. (The e-reader is a peripheral that plugs into the GBA and scans dot codes on special cards Nintendo released at the time. Thereās uh, several thousand of them across many series for those asking. Mario Party-e only uses 11 e-reader cards, thankfully!) It is mostly a board/card game though, and in fact you can play it without the e-reader, though thatās kinda boring cuz you just do coin flips instead.
Anyhow I think this sort of multimedia video game stuff is totally awesome! I love when games are used to augment an experience and this uses it in a pretty cute way by having you play games during a game :D
If youāre interested, you can watch all the minigames here:
Also!! Itās entirely possible to emulate and do online multiplayer now because of many amazing people ^^ If youāre interested in that, hereās how you get it set up
Hereās the rulebook, which apparently Nintendo hosts on their site to this day: https://csassets.nintendo.com/noaext/image/private/t_KA_PDF/mariopartye?_a=DATC1RAAZAA0
Buy Tabletop Simulator on Steam ($10 not on sale) and in the Workshop tab search and follow āMario Party Card Gameā. Start Tabletop Simulator and hit the ācreateā button, name your server, hit friends only and set your player count. Select Mario Party Card Game from the workshop row and the board and cards will be there! Then in the upper right hand corner hit the plus button and invite your friends over Steam. Thatās the board part of the game down!
Next, everyone who wants to play should get the emulator mGBA, legally dump the rom for the e-reader device, as well as the Mario Party e-reader cards (as .raw files), I got them from the full set thatās available online. To play the games, boot up the e-reader in mGBA
and then press A, and then press A on scan card, then go to file then āScan e-reader dotcodesā
and select from your files the first half of the card, then the second half to play that cardās minigame.
I recommend using Discord or something to chat and screenshare during the e-reader parts as it makes it more fun to watch and make fun of your friendsā gameplay ^^
If anyone actually follows these directions please let me know and give me feedback on if it works for you and makes sense so I can finally publish it after like two years (I have been unable to find any volunteers in that time)
Secondly, slightly related and slightly unrelated, Mario Party Advance had a cut-out game board included in the manual
this is a cut up game manual
thatās insane to me
what other game manuals are actually arts and crafts
From Bonus Board - Super Mario Wiki, the Mario encyclopedia
And then, in Japan, they had another whole board on the website you could grab:
PLUS
Extra players piece options!! Internet-exclusive DLC for a physical board game that augments the Mario Party Advance experience. What. A. Delight!
Yeah so for the longest time I thought this was related to Mario Party-e. It is not at all. There are in fact TWO physical dinky Mario Party board games relating to the Game Boy Advance.
I hope you feel as happy as I do knowing your brains now safely contain this knowledge :>
14 Likes
this thread might be a good place to share those links also!
5 Likes
Oooh, yes thank you! I looked at every single thread title on this forum but some of them are not clear what they are just from that, and donāt stand out in a list of hundreds. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction :D
6 Likes
Iāve been a huge e-reader fan since 2003 when it was new. I never had this board game but always wished I had it when I saw it! I had the NES games, some PokĆ©mon cards, some PokĆ©mon ruby/sapphire trainer battle cards, and a ton of animal crossing cards, which I still collect!
4 Likes
You know the Song of Time blocks in Ocarina of Time - pretty much the only reason to ever play the Song of Time in that game? Each one has two locations it can spawn in; all playing the Song of Time does is switch which location a given block spawns into.
Except thatās not the whole story. The blocks occupy both locations at once, and only differ based on which time period (child or adult) Link is presently in. One way of thinking of this is playing the Song of Time sends a given block to where it already is, but in the opposite period youāre occupying. Or, to put that more simply: the Song of Time allows for an extremely limited form of time travel.
Most players donāt notice this because almost no Song of Time blocks appear in locations that Child Link can access.
12 Likes
You (and everyone reading this) do know plenty of interesting things that few people know, you probably just think itās common knowledge because you know it! Common attribution error.
10 Likes
Sure, but it sometimes feels like everyone here is a videogame deep-lore researcher. My experiences with gaming have been pretty mainstream in terms of game selection and metatextual studies.
I can admit when Iām out of my depth on a subject.
12 Likes
Some people are, some arenāt - hopefully theyāre happy seeing the research others have done and enjoying that theyāre sharing it, plus learning something new. Thereās plenty of mainstream games which have amazing facts to them which I am sure most people donāt know, doesnāt make them any less worthwhile because theyāre mainstream games!
I donāt know who knows this, but Iām guessing everyone here knows Majoraās Mask. But maybe people didnāt know it had voice support with the N64 Voice Recognition Unit:
Even the English version worked with Japanese speech
9 Likes
@Death_Strandicoot: I am out of my element in this area of sharing interesting video games facts.
Also @Death_Strandicoot: check out this great Punch Out information that people responded positively to!
You proved my own point!
Said for everyone: The forum community literally doesnāt exist if people donāt post. Take it from someone who has more misses than hits. Nobody is going to hassle you about sharing something. And if they do, Tom, Captain, myself, or whomever is on the mod team at the time will take care of the situation for you.
10 Likes
For me I adore this thread specifically because of the framing TomoftheFog gave: āwhat other amazing pieces of gaming information history do people know and donāt share, assuming everyone else already knows them.ā
Itās basically just free reign on post anything you think is cool, regardless of if people know it already or not. Iām sure some people here already knew about several of the things Iāve posted about, but thatās okay! Sometimes itās fun to just think about cool stuff in games. And who knows, maybe some people donāt know something either and get to learn! Bonus!
I know for me if I approached it from the angle of āwhat do I know that I bet nobody here else knowsā that would be paralyzing, where do I even begin? So I just share some facts I like :) Feel free to do whatever you want though, no pressure!
6 Likes
when i got a copy of majoras mask for christmas as a wee lad, the initial stress of the 3 day time limit overwhelmed me to the point of tears. howās that for a video game fact.
12 Likes