NOW IT IS BEGINNING OF A FANTASTIC STORY

December 28, 2011 8:41 PM

Here are fan-translated Game Center CX (previously) Episodes on YouTube: #1: Atlantis No Nazo, #2: Challenger, #3: Ghosts 'N Goblins, #4: Konami Wai Wai World, #5: Metroid, #6: Solomon's Key, #7 & #8: Prince of Persia: Part 1 - Part 2, #9: Mega Man II, #10: Super Mario 3. Much more after the break....

#13: Tokimeki Memorial
#19: Milon's Secret Castle
#20: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
#21: Ultraman
#22: Final Fight
#23: Hudson's Adventure Island
#24: Actraiser
#25: Quiz: The Feudal Lords' Ambition
#26: Doraemon
#27 & #28: Super Mario 64: Part 1 - Part 2
#30: Kid Icarus
#31: Umihara Kawase (THIS GAME IS AWESOME)
#32: Contra
#36: Shadow Lands
#37: Street Fighter 2
#38: Castlevania III
#40: Gargoyle's Quest (in three videos): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
#41: Mighty Bomb Jack (second attempt, live)
#42: Adventure Quiz Hatena's Quest (in four videos): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
#43: S.O.S.
#44: Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (in four parts): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
#45: Ultra Seven
#48: Out Of This World
#49: Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Ganbare Goemon)
#50: Arino in Korea
#53: Clock Tower
#54 & #55: Ki no Bouken: Part 1 - Part 2
#60: Bonk's Adventure
#61: The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido
#64: Sonic the Hedgehog
#65: Trip to Cannes
#66: Arino Gets Out of the Hospital
#67: Zombie Nation
#69: Legacy of the Wizard (Dragon Slayer IV)
#73: Lemmings
#80: Kirby's Adventure
#82 & #83: Mega Man 3: Part 1 - Part 2
#86: Punch-Out!!
#96 & #97: Ninja Gaiden II: Part 1 - Part 2
#101: Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode
#105: Hokkaido Serial Murders (in four videos): Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
#132: Battletoads (untranslated, but pain is a universal language)

Special: Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels: First - Later

Extra challenges:
Kunio-Kun Samurai (The best-known U.S. Kunio games are Super Dodgeball and River City Ransom)
Super Mario Kart
Super Metroid (untranslated)
Transformers: Mystery of Convoy
Door Door
Galaga
Star Force
Roommania
AstroRobo SASA

Arino in the USA (2 hour special)

posted by JHarris (32 comments total)

Awesome. Well, there goes my week. :)
posted by zarq at 8:50 PM on December 28, 2011

I adore GCCX. Bonk's Adventure (#60) was one of the first episodes I ever saw, and I still consider it a great intro point to the show - a goofy game that's sort of halfway between obscure and well-remembered, difficult without being painful, and Arino's reactions both to the game and to the other stuff that happens (like the dinner they bring him) are wonderful.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:00 PM on December 28, 2011

The DS game that came out in America a couple years back was excellent. I'm going to have to make time to watch these!
posted by jsnlxndrlv at 9:05 PM on December 28, 2011

I was skeptical, but i liked the contra one. Brought back memories... surprised he didn't use konami code, though.
posted by empath at 9:38 PM on December 28, 2011

Holy crap. I thought, "Man, I guess I should give this a shot. Maybe I'll watch a minute or two of one of them." Then I watched the entire, 42-minute Metroid episode, straight through. I don't know why, but it was pretty great.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:45 PM on December 28, 2011

Yeah, I should have warned you about that, oops. HEH HEH HEH HEH
posted by JHarris at 9:58 PM on December 28, 2011

These are crazy and I love them.
posted by Theta States at 10:14 PM on December 28, 2011

Evidenceofabsence, exact same thing happened to me. Casually click on Metroid and watch the whole thing through. The store looked phenomenal. Damn you, JHarris, I needed to do things today!
posted by davemee at 2:21 AM on December 29, 2011

Since two people mentioned watching the Metroid one already, I'll throw this in. The music you hear in that one is not exactly the same as that as the NES version. The version Arino is playing is the original for the Famicom Disk System, which had extra sound hardware and thus provides subtly better music. The same is true for the original disk system versions of Zelda and Kid Icarus. I'm glad that, when Zelda was converted to cartridge, that they gave it a battery save, because the password for that game would be very large.

Another difference: Metroid and Kid Icarus saved game data to the disk, meaning those were not password games in their original formats. So, there was no "JUSTIN BAILEY ------ ------" cheat in Metroid. (Extra fact: that name has no significance to the game code whatsoever. It's just a random selection of characters that happens to work. It's easy to remember and seems like it should be significant, though, so it spread quickly through the playground grapevine.)

Anyway, the FDS version does show Samus without her suit in various degrees of undress depending on how fast you win. In the very fastest she's wearing a bikini, but good luck doing that on an initial run. After you win however you can play again with some of the stuff you had before, which makes it easier. This is true of both versions. However, and this part is "if I remember right," it is not possible in the FDS version to *play* as Samus without her suit; the sprites aren't in the game. This is possible in the NES version (and the JUSTIN BAILEY cheat has that flag active, another reason it was so popular).
posted by JHarris at 5:54 AM on December 29, 2011

Oh man, I can't wait for the second half of Battletoads next week.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:26 AM on December 29, 2011

Man, do I love this show. I think Arino is very charismatic, and watching him playing video games is so much more entertaining than it should be.

In one of the shows I saw recently, he exclaims that "the timer is scary," and then a moment later that "actually the concept of time itself is scary."
posted by heatvision at 6:29 AM on December 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

Discovering "Retro Game Challenge" on the Nintendo DS led me to learn about this series, which I wanted to watch but couldn't find translations for at the time. I therefore deem this post fantastic and I'm really looking forward to watching these.

(Retro Game Challenge, by the way, is like this awesome nostalgia machine and definitely worth playing if you grew up in the Nintendo era)
posted by Monster_Zero at 6:30 AM on December 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

You keep 1uping yourself with these posts, JHarris. Great work.

I think your Super Mario 64 links are borked.
posted by SpiffyRob at 6:58 AM on December 29, 2011

Most of these are the work of some fantastic people on The Something Awful Forums. The first post serves as an excellent primer for the series as well as collecting all currently translated episodes (including several not in this post).

I love, love, love this show. My recommendation: the best episodes are for games you're unfamiliar with. The well-designed, expansive games don't lend themselves to this format (The Zelda episodes, for example, seem to focus only on the boss fights and they're exactly as fun as that sounds). The bizarre one-offs you've never heard of are the best of the series: Umihara Kawase, 53 Stations of the Tokaido, Tokemeki Memorial, etc.


The exceptions: games that are designed to be frustrating: Prince of Persia, Mighty Bomb Jack, Lemmings. If you see a two-parter, you're usually in for a good time.
posted by unsupervised at 8:12 AM on December 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

They've fixed the Mario 64 links, hooray!
posted by JHarris at 12:40 PM on December 29, 2011

I love you JHarris. I remember downloading one of these episodes years ago and was unable to find more translated episodes. This is just gooooooold!
posted by pyrex at 1:47 PM on December 29, 2011

Also, I want some of those cold compresses. Do they even exist outside of Japan?
posted by pyrex at 1:59 PM on December 29, 2011

After I started watching the Ghost N Goblins one, I busted out the emulator to play it. Dear lord, what a nearly impossible game to do without cheating.

I love the segments where he visits arcades and shops around Japan.
posted by Theta States at 4:18 PM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh and the Out Of This World one was fabulous, as his confused reactions to the puzzles perfectly mirrored my own. Except now I don't have to play that game again, I can just relive that trying experience.
posted by Theta States at 4:19 PM on December 30, 2011

pyrex, I have wondered that myself. Those seem awesome.
posted by JHarris at 8:23 PM on December 30, 2011

I skimmed through the Battletoads one. I've played the arcade version of Battletoads, and it was awesome.
But right now I want to punch the developer of the NES port in the face.
posted by Theta States at 9:18 PM on December 30, 2011

I wish the Ninja Gaiden episode was available. I can't think of anything that produced as much rage in me during my childhood as that game. I don't think I played the second one, but assuming it's similarly frustrating I don't know that I'll relate as well to his experience playing it as I would watching him encountering the exact same tear-your-hair out situations I did 20 years ago. Actually it might be better that I can't watch it; I don't want to have some rage flashback-induced meltdown!!!
posted by palidor at 10:51 PM on December 30, 2011

OMG After 8 hours into Milon's Secret Castle, Arino forgets to continue properly and starts the game over! OMG! I can just taste his anguish. I want to hug this man.
posted by Theta States at 11:13 PM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

What I find truly interesting about these videos is the translation of gaming culture, not to mention the comedic divide.

I think everyone, no matter your origin, can identify with the frustration Arino goes through with each game, and while Japanese comedy can at times feel alien in one way or another, Arino (and the wonderful translators) manage to find a way to make each situation feel universal in a sense.

The feelings of loss, frustration, unfairness, anger, skill, luck, outsmarting the AI, overcoming ridiculous odds, etc are all emotions we've personally experienced at one point or another thanks to something as silly as a game.

And that is why I why I still play.
posted by pyrex at 12:59 PM on December 31, 2011 [2 favorites]

I skimmed through the Battletoads one. I've played the arcade version of Battletoads, and it was awesome.

Really? I've played it in MAME and was less thrilled with it.

But right now I want to punch the developer of the NES port in the face.

Battletoads would be a wonderful, amazing game if it weren't for the insane difficulty. (And the bug in the second speed level that kills off player 2.) It's got loads of charm, tons of variety, uses damn near every trick in Rare's loaded NES toybox, has great music and graphics. The game has it all, except it's way too difficult, and I say this as someone who has won Zelda's second quest completely on his own, NES and arcade Athena, Nethack many times, Rare's other NES masterpiece Solar Jetman, Adventures of Lolo II, and too many other games to count.

I should tell you -- the NES port is the original. The arcade version is rather an obscure game, I didn't even know it had ever made it into arcades until I saw it on MAME's ROM list.
posted by JHarris at 4:23 PM on December 31, 2011

(I am still watching these and enjoying them immensely. I love the parts where he visits shops and game centers. If I enjoy the game, I'll watch the playthrough. I'll skip the other stuff.)
posted by Theta States at 10:04 PM on January 6, 2012

I'm chiming in super late to say that I've been watching these for the past couple of weeks and absolutely loving them! My favorite segment so far is the museum visit in Arino in the USA. Some of the mechanisms and games he encounters there are totally absurd, and his reactions to them are priceless. The part where they challenge the Uncle Fester machine is just incredible.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:59 PM on January 9, 2012

What episode does that take place in?
posted by Theta States at 8:59 PM on January 9, 2012

That one is Arino in the USA.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 8:57 AM on January 14, 2012

#11 Kato-chan & Ken-chan was released in the USA as JJ & Jeff for the NEC Turbografx-16 and the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console with the scatological humor sanitized/censored.
posted by plokent at 3:41 PM on January 14, 2012

Takeshi no Chousenjou (Takeshi's Challenge) was released only in Japan for the Famicon (NES). It has been ranked as the number one kuso-ge (crap game) by Famitsu magazine. This is the first episode of GameCenter CX's first season. I hope someone can find and post the live special version of GameCenter CX's Kacho and staff challenge for this game.

Kacho and his staff head to Hokkaido in search of the northern most retro game arcade in Japan. Hokkaido Part 1 Hokkaido Part 2 Hokkaido Part 3 Hokkaido Part 4

Tekki (Steel Battalion) for the Xbox is played with joy sticks and foot pedals and since some dedicated players use large screen TVs and 5.1 stereos, they opt to play this game challenge in Fuji TV's multi-theater.
posted by plokent at 12:49 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

#56: Flashback: The Quest for Identity shares the same look and gameplay as #48: Out of this World since they were both developed by Delphine Software International.
posted by plokent at 8:06 PM on January 19, 2012