21 carts to go
9/30/2017 edit:
Added three more carts to the collection. Now I am missing 21 games. Things are starting to wind down, excited to put this to a close.
Last 30 needed (I cross them off as I obtain them):
30. Max Warrior
29. Ushio to Tora
28. Keroppi to Keroriinu no Splash Bomb!
27. Dynamite Batman
26. Bubble Bobble 2
25. Chiisana Obake
24. Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3
23. F-1 Sensation
22. Dunk Heroes
7/11/2017 edit:
Just added Bubble Bobble 2, now down to 25.
2/28/2017 edit:
I started towards the end of 2015, and 2016 overall was a terrible year for me, in all areas. I really miss my old apartment, it had a lot of fun memories attached to it and that game room was a lot better than small "closet" I dedicate to my gaming stuff now. Priorities change though, people need to start growing up, etc, and I don't feel a need to throw my gaming hobby into everyone's face anymore, anytime I have company at the house. I still have a lot of stuff to go through and sort out too, a lot of fat to trim off, so to speak.
By now, I have 30 games missing from a (licensed, cartridge) full set of Famicom games, still missing the same unlicensed stuff that I was missing three years ago. Also am missing about 100 disks, and some other odds and ends, for what I would consider a full set on steroids, lol. Two or three of the licensed carts I am missing, I thought I had, but can't seem to find anywhere.
-------------------------
Original post:
I eagerly await a few packages to arrive in the mail, from some very trusted sources. I consider them an early Christmas present to me. But at that point, I will "officially" be less than 80 Famicom games to go for a (licensed) full set, but they're on the way so...
To obtain a Famicom full set is a crazy thing, a journey I seem to have embarked on in the beginning of 2014, after a trip to Hawaii with my family. Before then, I had only been collecting the unlicensed Famicom originals, but the ones that I had needed for my collection became harder and harder to find, and I also started to feel "guilty" about having such a large collection of unlicensed games, with only a small amount of my licensed favorites. So it seemed fitting to extend my collecting goal and go for a licensed Famicom set as well.
With such a large library of games (around 1051, a few more or less depending on what you decide to "count"), going for this full set feels almost like running a marathon of sorts. There have been times where I just felt like throwing in the towel, frustrated at buying heaps of games and still not "making a dent" in the progress. On the other hand, there were also other times of excitement, when I found a great deal here or there, and it has thus far been one hell of an adventure.
Will I ever truly have a complete set of games? Probably not, since there are also tons of limited promos and obscurities, junk in the same league as the NWC carts, which most collectors feel are not really necessary for a "complete set". Being the OCD type of guy I am, I do feel that these carts are necessary, but at the prices they go for, they are not the sort of things I would ever seriously contemplate buying, unless I won the lottery or something.
Moving to the other side of things, with my unlicensed collection, I basically need the same 50 titles I did two or three years ago - some of them I think I will eventually find, but the others are so obscure that it will take a miracle to ever find them.
Then I also need about 40 Waixing game cartridges and maybe around 80 from Nanjing, but I see those just as fluff, but something I hope to eventually get, maybe even next year.
Regarding Famicom Disk System software, I have very little software for that device, but it is at the very bottom of my collecting interests, due to so many reasons (unreliable to play, faulty disks, disks that were rewritten with other games than what the label says, etc). So maybe in the future I will attack that set, but I see it sort of as an addendum to the Famicom set, something that might appeal to some collectors but also isn't really in the same category as the cartridge set.
Well that is my news for the day. I wonder if I ever get that set complete, if I can get a badge here at NA for it, lol.
Added three more carts to the collection. Now I am missing 21 games. Things are starting to wind down, excited to put this to a close.
Last 30 needed (I cross them off as I obtain them):
30. Max Warrior
29. Ushio to Tora
28. Keroppi to Keroriinu no Splash Bomb!
27. Dynamite Batman
26. Bubble Bobble 2
25. Chiisana Obake
24. Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3
23. F-1 Sensation
22. Dunk Heroes
7/11/2017 edit:
Just added Bubble Bobble 2, now down to 25.
2/28/2017 edit:
I started towards the end of 2015, and 2016 overall was a terrible year for me, in all areas. I really miss my old apartment, it had a lot of fun memories attached to it and that game room was a lot better than small "closet" I dedicate to my gaming stuff now. Priorities change though, people need to start growing up, etc, and I don't feel a need to throw my gaming hobby into everyone's face anymore, anytime I have company at the house. I still have a lot of stuff to go through and sort out too, a lot of fat to trim off, so to speak.
By now, I have 30 games missing from a (licensed, cartridge) full set of Famicom games, still missing the same unlicensed stuff that I was missing three years ago. Also am missing about 100 disks, and some other odds and ends, for what I would consider a full set on steroids, lol. Two or three of the licensed carts I am missing, I thought I had, but can't seem to find anywhere.
-------------------------
Original post:
I eagerly await a few packages to arrive in the mail, from some very trusted sources. I consider them an early Christmas present to me. But at that point, I will "officially" be less than 80 Famicom games to go for a (licensed) full set, but they're on the way so...
To obtain a Famicom full set is a crazy thing, a journey I seem to have embarked on in the beginning of 2014, after a trip to Hawaii with my family. Before then, I had only been collecting the unlicensed Famicom originals, but the ones that I had needed for my collection became harder and harder to find, and I also started to feel "guilty" about having such a large collection of unlicensed games, with only a small amount of my licensed favorites. So it seemed fitting to extend my collecting goal and go for a licensed Famicom set as well.
With such a large library of games (around 1051, a few more or less depending on what you decide to "count"), going for this full set feels almost like running a marathon of sorts. There have been times where I just felt like throwing in the towel, frustrated at buying heaps of games and still not "making a dent" in the progress. On the other hand, there were also other times of excitement, when I found a great deal here or there, and it has thus far been one hell of an adventure.
Will I ever truly have a complete set of games? Probably not, since there are also tons of limited promos and obscurities, junk in the same league as the NWC carts, which most collectors feel are not really necessary for a "complete set". Being the OCD type of guy I am, I do feel that these carts are necessary, but at the prices they go for, they are not the sort of things I would ever seriously contemplate buying, unless I won the lottery or something.
Moving to the other side of things, with my unlicensed collection, I basically need the same 50 titles I did two or three years ago - some of them I think I will eventually find, but the others are so obscure that it will take a miracle to ever find them.
Then I also need about 40 Waixing game cartridges and maybe around 80 from Nanjing, but I see those just as fluff, but something I hope to eventually get, maybe even next year.
Regarding Famicom Disk System software, I have very little software for that device, but it is at the very bottom of my collecting interests, due to so many reasons (unreliable to play, faulty disks, disks that were rewritten with other games than what the label says, etc). So maybe in the future I will attack that set, but I see it sort of as an addendum to the Famicom set, something that might appeal to some collectors but also isn't really in the same category as the cartridge set.
Well that is my news for the day. I wonder if I ever get that set complete, if I can get a badge here at NA for it, lol.
Comments
Good luck with those remaining carts. You definitely would deserve a badge.
Can't imagine the amount of research and probing it'd take to get a full set. It seems like only a small fraction of Japanese games get offered up to the international market, which makes it even harder...
It's always interesting seeing people's remaining 80, 60, 40, 20, 10 lists, especially the common/low uncommon games that somehow eluded them after finding so many rares.
That's quite a feat, but what is your goto resource as a checklist? I haven't heard of a really great list for FC, but would like to go after some of the exclusives for the system. Crazy there are so many licensed titles.
This is my goto checklist resource:
https://fcgamer.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/complete-famicom-game-list.pdf
I had compiled this guide, based on my own findings and research, as well as the hard work of others. With this (first) edition though, there were a few glaring mistakes, I think somehow I missed Final Fantasy 2 for example, and I probably should have stuck with using one Japanese Romanization scheme instead of it being mixed.
Since that time, I have corrected some mistakes (like the FF one), and also added maybe 20 or 30 more titles that had been "discovered" ... not in the licensed section, but in the other sections. I hope to tweak that list and upload it sometime soonish, maybe sooner rather than later if people are interested.
I know that this guide is somewhat to NGD's NES list - almost too complete for the casual collector, but I sort of view Famicom collecting like Atari collecting, i.e. there is too much out there to truly have it all, but there are certain levels that people would accept as "complete" despite all this.
I'd be glad to take some pics, my game room is such a mess right now. Maybe on Sunday if I have time, I can take some nice pics for everyone's viewing pleasure. I'm about to step out of the house soon, but I'll comment more on this later
Missed this comment before I posted.
Incredible! I'm looking forward to seeing those multicoloured shelves.
I wish I had many shelves set up displaying the games, but I couldn't find the type of shelves I wanted in my area, so I resorted to storing most of the games in bins with slide-out doors for easy access. I hope that in two years I will have my own house instead of living in an apartment, and then I hope to get some custom shelves or something of a better fit for displaying the games properly.
With unlicensed games, I need about 40 more until I have all of them too, if you exclude the fringe stuff like the Waixing and Nanjing catalogs. But my primary focus now is completing up the licensed set, and I am so excited to be so close to having that set finished.
*i.e. everything sans the ridiculous promo carts similar to the NWC situation with NTSC USA sets
**By unlicensed I exclude the Waixing and Nanjing stuff, since their catalogs are over 100 games each.
Would love to hear more about those Arabic language carts. Wouldn't mine picking up some myself if they're not ridiculously hard to come by.
Famicom always felt like collecting for the Atari 2600 to me. It has so many unlicensed, hacks and bootlegs it makes my head spin.
Out of curiosity, what are the 50 unlicensed ones you still need?
Speaking of impossible to find, I still wonder if the supposed Terranigma FC port from Nanjing exists or if that list of their stuff circulating the net all these years is full of titles that didn't actually get released.
By now, I have 30 games missing from a (licensed, cartridge) full set of Famicom games, still missing the same unlicensed stuff that I was missing three years ago. Also am missing about 100 disks, and some other odds and ends, for what I would consider a full set on steroids, lol. Two or three of the licensed carts I am missing, I thought I had, but can't seem to find anywhere.
Now that you have it under 30, post a list of the remaining titles!
Yes. This thread needs lists and pictures!
Edit: I found the pictures. They're as sexy as I'd imagined.
I also really like your pull out draw system for carts.
Now that you have it under 30, post a list of the remaining titles!
I'm not going to do that, since some (about half) of the final titles I need are either rare or expensive, sadly. A few of those are carts I thought I had, but now can't find, wonder what happened to them? In the end, what I probably should do is take a trip to Japan and try to knock out a lot of these in one fell swoop. I see at the beginning of April I have a holiday coming up, maybe I could make the trip then, or at the end of May (probably the end of May is better timing, in preparing to save money, haha). We'll see.
I'll edit the beginning post, and do a countdown, from 30 to 1. When I obtain a title, I'll post it and folks can see. So we can see what my last 30 are, but also in a way that doesn't potentially create hype and cause difficulty for me.
Now that you have it under 30, post a list of the remaining titles!
Yes. This thread needs lists and pictures!
Edit: I found the pictures. They're as sexy as I'd imagined.
I also really like your pull out draw system for carts.
Thanks for the comments
Those pics are about a year old, and sadly things now don't look nearly as neat. The pull out drawers are a must though. I have the licensed games roughly in alphabetical order, so they can be easily found, and the unlicensed games I organize by developer. Since most Famicom games never had top labels, sticking them all on a shelf would be a nightmare I think.