Have you ever played a Wonderswan game?

[Tailzo]

I never owned one, but did play a port? On psp you have a version of the game Gunpey, named after Gunpei Yokoi. I know that 2d Klonoa was also released on the Wonderswan before the GBA, but I don't think we can think of it like a port?

Anyone ever played a Wonderswan? I saw one in a used videogame store in Japan, but did not buy it.

Aske
this thread is for you.

 

[Bing147]

Ya, but this is probably the first of this type of threads where it's a barely. Gamestops (might have still been Funcoland at the time but probably this was shortly after they became Gamestop) sold them here in the US for a very short time when they were trying to sell some import stuff. I never bought it, I knew of it from a few mentions in EGM in the era but outside of the Final Fantasy ports nothing I heard was on it ever really interested me and I didn't speak Japanese so trying to play import RPGs sounded like a nightmare.

One of my friends though who was super into RPGs ended up getting one of them. I didn't know until we were hanging out playing Ogre Battle 64 on N64 and I was looking around his room and noticed it in his closet. I commented that he'd bought a Wonderswan, confused since I hadn't really even considered doing so. He mentioned that ya, he'd tried it to try the Final Fantasy ports, but without English he couldn't get far. I think I played like 10 minutes of the first Final Fantasy, which I knew pretty well since I'd had it on NES, and then put it down. That's my experience with it. Never even bothered emulating it.

 

[Tailzo]

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[Qikz]

Weirdly yes - I didn't know it existed until I met my partner a few years ago who's Japanese.

I played Super Robot Wars compact very briefly at his house last time I was in Japan.

 

[drtomoe123]

Yes, because naturally all of the original handheld Digimon games were Wonderswan exclusives.

 

[NTMBK]

Nope, total blind spot for me.

 

[Why would you do that?]

Judgment Silversword, but that's basically it. It's a really good, yet brutally hard wave-based shmup. It had ports to Steam and I believe some consoles in recent years.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wbRlQ6ajMro

 

[Fushichou187]

Yup. When I lived in Japan i had a WS Color and played FF2, FF4, and Front Mission on it obsessively.

 

[bushmonkey]

I was in Montréal last year and found this retro game shop full of wonderswans and games. I mean it must have been hundreds of them. I regret not getting one.
To this day, I'm perplexed as to what the story is behind this.

 

[Clive]

The only thing I've played was the ports of Cardinal Sins and Judgement Silversword which were included as a bonus for Eschatos on the Xbox 360 (and probably the more recent ports of that game too).

I'm under the impression that the Klonoa game for the Wonderswan is a completely different game than the GBA games. Never played it though and it's the only game I would play if I had a 'Swan.

 

[Tailzo]

Judgment Silversword, but that's basically it. It's a really good, yet brutally hard wave-based shmup. It had ports to Steam and I believe some consoles in recent years.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wbRlQ6ajMro

Click to shrink...

The only thing I've played was the ports of Cardinal Sins and Judgement Silversword which were included as a bonus for Eschatos on the Xbox 360 (and probably the more recent ports of that game too).

I'm under the impression that the Klonoa game for the Wonderswan is a completely different game than the GBA games. Never played it though and it's the only game I would play if I had a 'Swan.

Click to shrink...

Thank you. I kinda remembered it had some game ported to other systems, but google and Wikipedia did not help me much 🙂

 

[L Thammy]

Yes! I have achieved my lifelong dream of becomin a guy who owns a Wonderswan.

I've got Gihren's Greed, Namco Super Wars, One Piece Swan Colosseum, Vaitz Blade, Rockman.EXE WS (unfortunately this cart isn't working), Final Fantasy (came with the Wonderswan). Maybe a few others that I've forgotten; I'm not at home right now so I can't check.

 

[Turnabout Sisters]

Well I've listened to the Working Chocobo OST

 

[Freshmaker]

The port of Golden Axe is awful.

 

[Kazooie]

No and I do not think I ever will. I do not know of any Wonder Swan game that I would want to play (outside of ports of other games, where I would still not want to play the Wonder Swan version in particular).

 

[HandsomeCharles]

Yep! I have a small collection of Wonderswan games and a few consoles.

The screen on the WSC is truly terrible, one of the worst colour screen I've ever seen - it's near impossible to see under normal lighting conditions. Pop an IPS in that bad-boy and it becomes much better!

I'd say Wonderswan is probably one of the least friendly to collect, since not only are all of its games in Japanese (Bar one - a digimon title which has a full english translation) , the majority are RPG or otherwise text-heavy games so it's somewhat lacking on the games you can "just play without reading".

That said, there are a few titles out there that are worth having a look at. One Piece Grand Battle Swan Colessuem is a solid fighting game based on the first few arcs of One Piece, and Digimon Battle Spirits is another one which is a fun fighting title (Which was later ported to GBA I think), and the sort of rhythm-platformer Rhyme Rider Kerorican

There's also some cool strategy titles out there, like Blue Wing Blitz (WW2-style dogfighting turn based stategy with a FF:tactics style aesthetic).

It's a quirky console. The hardware is actually pretty powerful, and the fact that it runs on one battery is impressive! Just a shame the library isn't particularly diverse.

 

[andymcc]

The exclusive Makaimura is pretty neat.

Judgement Silversword is really freaking good.

 

[Kyle Cross]

Only one.

 

[Saikyo]

 

[q4core]

Yup I own a wonderswan color and FF I and II as I was living in Japan when they came out.

 

[panda-zebra]

Still got my WS and WSC. Gun-Pey is one of the best game ever. We remade it on out old Ataris we loved it that much.

 

[Skulldead]

The only wonderswan game i own is arc the lad, a pretty good side/sequel to the second game. Never own a real console...

 

[Indelible]

Never played it, came out between the GBC and GBA when I wasn't playing handheld games.

 

[Tailzo]

Yep! I have a small collection of Wonderswan games and a few consoles.

The screen on the WSC is truly terrible, one of the worst colour screen I've ever seen - it's near impossible to see under normal lighting conditions. Pop an IPS in that bad-boy and it becomes much better!

I'd say Wonderswan is probably one of the least friendly to collect, since not only are all of its games in Japanese (Bar one - a digimon title which has a full english translation) , the majority are RPG or otherwise text-heavy games so it's somewhat lacking on the games you can "just play without reading".

That said, there are a few titles out there that are worth having a look at. One Piece Grand Battle Swan Colessuem is a solid fighting game based on the first few arcs of One Piece, and Digimon Battle Spirits is another one which is a fun fighting title (Which was later ported to GBA I think), and the sort of rhythm-platformer Rhyme Rider Kerorican

There's also some cool strategy titles out there, like Blue Wing Blitz (WW2-style dogfighting turn based stategy with a FF:tactics style aesthetic).

It's a quirky console. The hardware is actually pretty powerful, and the fact that it runs on one battery is impressive! Just a shame the library isn't particularly diverse.

Click to shrink...

Yup I own a wonderswan color and FF I and II as I was living in Japan when they came out.

Click to shrink...

Still got my WS and WSC. Gun-Pey is one of the best game ever. We remade it on out old Ataris we loved it that much.

Click to shrink...

Btw, offcourse Wonderswan Color is accepted as real hardware.

And I have read that Final Fantasy was great on the system.

 

[Deleted member 36578]

Of all these threads you've made, I owned and played every single one until now. The Wonderswan totally passed me by. I'm in the US so that's probably not surprising.

 

[balohna]

Never real hardware but dug in a bit on the MiSTer core. But I pretty quickly realized a lot of the games I was enjoying were actually downsized ports of games I could find elsewhere. There are some neat exclusives too though, and they don't all require knowing Japanese.

 

[Tailzo]

Of all these threads you've made, I owned and played every single one until now. The Wonderswan totally passed me by. I'm in the US so that's probably not surprising.

Click to shrink...

Let's see how you answer next weekend then 🙂

 

[julian]

Oh shit! My first no!

 

[Orayn]

The WonderSwan Color remake of Makai Toushi SaGa (The Final Fantasy Legend) is really, really good. It's a nice SNES style overhaul of the visuals with lots of bug fixes and added quality of life features. I really wish Square would remaster/port this version at some point, it's so much better than the Game Boy original.

 

[Taco_Human]

I've known about it but never bothered to emulate. Nope. Remember seeing the name on the old ign site with the list of game consoles. It always sounded neat.

 

[hanshen]

I played Gunpey on analogue pocket. I'm on a lookout for a real WSC.

 

[Atolm]

Yeah, the Guilty Gear Petite games and FF, all on emulators.

 

[Recluse]

Yes, Judgement Silversword, fun vertical shmup... but very expensive and hard to find, so I do not own a physical copy.

 

[OdjnRyu]

I came close to impulse buying an IPS screen modded Wonderswan Color once, but apparently these screens do 60Hz and not the native 75Hz of the original Wonderswan Color soooo I guess I'm never playing one. I wanna see that kind of fluidity that you can't get via emulation, but I need a backlight!

 

[Shiz Padoo]

Not to my knowledge. Never seen a Wonderswan IRL but I've always loved the name.

 

[DaveB]

Nope. I used to see the consoles at Babbages and had no clue what it was. In hindsight I wish I had bought one and some games, seems like it's up my alley.

 

[KingDrool]

I wandered into a used junk shop in Seattle about 15 years ago and they had one sitting in a cardboard box with a bunch of random stuff. It also had one game. Pretty sure it cost me about $10. I still only have that one game. But I've played a few of the others mentioned in this thread via emulation.

 

[Rawky]

Nope. The only reason I knew what the Wonderswan was is because there's a Mega Man and Bass game on it, after reading about it on either Rockman PM or Sprites INC back in the day. Thought It was an obscure handheld that never made it to the states or something.

 

[Harry Potter Obama]

Got a Wonderswan Color and a Swan Crystal to play the Digimon games back in elementary school. I wanted the Mega Man Battle Network game for it but never got around to it.

 

[zoodoo]

The WonderSwan Color remake of Makai Toushi SaGa (The Final Fantasy Legend) is really, really good. It's a nice SNES style overhaul of the visuals with lots of bug fixes and added quality of life features. I really wish Square would remaster/port this version at some point, it's so much better than the Game Boy original.

Click to shrink...

I want to start that series and was hesitating between this version or the gb one.

 

[Glimlocker]

What's that? MORE niche video game hardware?
Yes, I do own that. And a decently solid library of the games!

If I recall, the system was developed with commutes in mind - making it a quick and easy lil' system to play for 10-15 minutes, then put away.
The battery lasts forever, too.

Love the WonderSwan. If I had to choose between WonderSwan and NeoGeo Pocket, I'd probably choose the WonderSwan series.
Really fun little library that has some super unique takes on video games.
Also, built-in TATE mode! What could be better?

Some interesting games include:
An excellent, exclusive Klonoa game
Exclusive Ghosts n Goblins game
Exclusive MegaMan platformer
Unique port of Rainbow Islands
A port of Crazy Climber
Solid handheld port of Beatmania (complete with little turntable attachment)
Rhyme Rider Kerorican (from creator of Parappa the Rapper)
Star Hearts - great action RPG...but all in Japanese.
Flash Koibito-Kun

And SO. MANY. PUZZLE GAMES.
Such as:
THREE versions of Gunpey
HAL Laboratory developed exclusive puzzler
Port of Xi Sai and Engacho! of PS1 fame
Sen no Millenium
Magical Drop (in TATE)
Tane o Maku Tori

 

[Liam Allen-Miller]

Absolutely! Fucking awesome system, actually. It's so cool how close the games feel to being technologically GBA quality with an incrdibly trim and novel form factor. Klonoa was tops, but I also really dug the Tekken card game and a lot of the interesting Square Enix titles like Blue Wing Blitz. Rockman EXE WS is really cool too, and I wish I could find a copy at a good price. Rhyme Rider Kerorican still has possibly the best/most interesting packaging on a video game, despite the game being kind of not great (It's by NanaOn-Sha and is basically a worse version of Vib-Ribbon, which they had released the year prior iirc).

I was in Montréal last year and found this retro game shop full of wonderswans and games. I mean it must have been hundreds of them. I regret not getting one.
To this day, I'm perplexed as to what the story is behind this.

Click to shrink...

I know exactly which shop you're talking about! Around the time they originally got them, the first model of Wonderswan could still easily be found in bulk in Japan at comfortably under 1,000 Yen per unit. I highly suspect they just bought a big lot of them for reselling. A lot of the ones at the store you're talking about are in bad shape, so they probably paid very little for the whole batch (which I think they were reselling at CAD $40/unit or something super inflated).

 

[ghibli99]

Actually don't think I have... not even via emulation out of curiosity. However, looking at some of these posts has piqued my interest, especially those exclusives.

 

[Regiruler]

Just Judgment Silversword and it's sister game. They were in a bundle with eschatos on steam, and someone in the gaf shmup community spoke highly of the latter so I just bought all of them.

 

[Goddo Hando]

Back in the late 90's the import shop by me got a wonder swan and Neo Geo Pocket at the same time. I demo'd both and decided on the Neo Geo Pocket.
That's the last time I've seen a real WS with my own two eyes/held one. While I don't regret my decision on the NGP, I've recently started playing WS via emulation and have discovered it has a nice little library. The frame rate is surprising good too.

Klonoa on it has a real bite to it. It turns into somewhat of a sokoban puzzler, so it can get pretty frustrating towards the end, if that's not your thing-- but still worth a look

 

[TaySan]

Never played or seen one in the wild. I'm not much of a handheld gamer though so the system doesn't hold much interest for me.

 

[krae_man]

I have a Swancrystal and Klonoa Moonlight Museum. Easily the best Klonoa game. It is just awesome.

The GBA games are similar but they are not the same. The GBA games have some of the BS of the PS1/PS2 games. In the Wonderswan game, there is just the 30 gems to collect per stage and not a single one is missable. If you mess up, you can leave the room and come back to reset the puzzle elements. None of those stupid snowboarding segments where you miss a gem and have to replay the entire level over again.

 

[Aske]

Yes! I have achieved my lifelong dream of becomin a guy who owns a Wonderswan.

I've got Gihren's Greed, Namco Super Wars, One Piece Swan Colosseum, Vaitz Blade, Rockman.EXE WS (unfortunately this cart isn't working), Final Fantasy (came with the Wonderswan). Maybe a few others that I've forgotten; I'm not at home right now so I can't check.

Click to shrink...

That's my dream too! I'm just fascinated by this little machine with its absurd name. I keep watching YouTube videos about it and imagining it in my hands.

Thank you Tailzo!

 

[butalala]

Do the GBA ports of ff 1&2 count as wonderswan ports?

 

[xir]

seen one in person back in the day, but never played a physical one. messed with some roms, there's a weird ass "sim" game based on uzumaki (!) and that famous shooter that i forgot the name of....silver judgement?