Lightning strikes twice, a second rare Oswald item turns up on bidding sites!

Hello friends, had you heard the saying that “lightning seldom strikes twice?” Well I’m happy to say that lightning struck twice for me. As you might know I’m a huge fan of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I had an extensive collection of plush figures, and rare items from Japan, and the USA. Just a week ago, on February 11, 2026 to be exact I posted a blog about a rare Oswald watch that turned up on bidding sites. I talked about how the seller was very greedy, and was asking for hundreds of dollars for a watch that you could have won at Japanese arcades. Its original retail value would have been closer to $20-$30. Well because of that post I decided to jump on the same Japanese bidding site where the watch first turned up to see what was new. Would you believe that the second of the three watches was available for a “buy it now” price?! Even better the price for this watch (after I used a coupon) was $58. I did have to pay for shipping, and a stupid tariff, but given how rare it was I was happy to pick it up.

I now owned two of the three watches from the short time that Universal Studios Osaka was promoting the character in Japan. If I could land the one with the Mickey Mouse hand movement then I would own the whole set. I doubted that it would ever turn up, but if lightning did strike twice for me, then maybe the third time was the charm? Have you ever lucked out when collecting anything? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

When a rare Oswald the Lucky Rabbit item turned up on bidding sites

If you are a collector of anything; comics, music, toys, cars, clothing, etc. then you probably have a wish list. These might be things you are on the hunt for, things that are super rare, or even super expensive. On that list you might even have a handful of “holy grail” or “white whale” items. These are things that are so rare / expensive that they might never come up in your lifetime. For those that don’t know I am a huge fan of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I have a large collection of Oswald items, some going back to the origins of the character.

Oswald was the cartoon star that Walt Disney created before Mickey Mouse. Walt lost the rights to Universal Studios back in 1928, and the Disney company didn’t get the rights back until 2006. One of my favorite eras of the character were just before Disney got him back. Universal made a big push to reintroduce the character as part of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon reboot circa 1998. The Universal Studios Park in Osaka Japan released merchandise featuring a blue-colored version of Oswald. As a fan of the “rubber hose” style of classic cartoons I fell in love with this look. My goal was to acquire as many items that were produced during that era. Arcade developer Taito actually created many of these for the parks, but also as claw machine prizes in the arcade. They came up with some wristwatches for the prize machines.

Interestingly enough when Disney got the rights back most of their first collaborations debuted in Japan as well. The studio partnered with Citizen, and the designers at Hirob to release a watch. It featured Oswald with his arms as the minutes, and hours hands. This was a nod to the original Mickey Mouse watch by Ingersoll. More than 20 years ago I spent every day on the Japanese bidding sites tracking down Oswald items. Much to my surprise I eventually scored both the dark background, and light background versions of the Disney / Hirob watch. Unfortunately the ones from Taito never showed up. So I put them on my grail list, especially the one with “Mickey Mouse” movement.

When the Disney company in the US started releasing Oswald watches I wasn’t really impressed with their offerings. Almost all of the merchandise in the USA, from stickers, to pins, shirts, and hats featured Oswald in one of a handful of poses. Master animator Eric Goldberg made him black, and white, and changed his style from Universal. As cute as the art was, it lost its charm when it was stamped on everything. The variety of art, and products featuring the rabbit at Universal was much more diverse. To make collecting harder some of the first US Oswald items were limited to the parks. Imagine spending over $150 just to get into Disneyland, and then being told that the Oswald pocket watch would run you an additional $500. Like I said I was a huge Oswald fan, but I also wasn’t made of money. I had to pass on a lot of Disney’s official merchandise because it was priced out of my budget. Less expensive wristwatches would eventually show up at the US and Japan Disney parks. I was able to get my hands on a few of these over the years, but not all of them. Some watches I didn’t think were worth it.

In early fall 2025 a grail watch popped up. While checking for items on eBay I noticed a Japanese seller had posted a Taito watch, complete in the box! It wasn’t the Mickey Mouse movement that I wanted, but it was still on my list. After 25 years of searching I never thought that it would turn up, let alone include the box. Unfortunately the seller wanted over $250 USD for it. The item may have been rare, but it did not warrant that price. There were only a handful of people that I could think of that would even be interested in collecting it. I was hopeful that the seller might budge on the price because the item was listed “Or Best Offer.” So I started with what I thought was a generous offer of $125. It was declined right away.

If you don’t know how the bidding works on eBay you only get five “best offers.” If the seller does not accept your offers then you have to pay the “Buy it Now” price if you still want the item. I’m on a strict budget. There was no way that I would spend over $200. I doubted that anyone else would either. As the weeks went on I would offer a little bit more, at the same time the seller would begin dropping the price. From $250, to $245, to $240… The seller stopped at $200, and I budgeted myself for $175 including taxes, and shipping. So there was still a gap in my maximum price, and the seller's minimum. Then one day the seller sent a private message. He said that he noticed I had made multiple offers. He then said he would be willing to extend to me a special offer of $180. I asked my family if I could tap into our holiday budget a little for this and they said of course. They knew how much the rare Oswald items meant to me.

I waited, and waited. Sadly the offer never came, and the seller never responded to my follow-up messages. He eventually put the watch on “sale” where he dropped the price to $193. This was still too rich for my blood. I used my final offer for $180, and that was also declined. I had to step away from this grail item. The seller was simply asking for too much. Fast forward to the end of 2025. I was surfing various Japanese bidding sites looking for Sonic Team, Namco, and Oswald items. I discovered that the eBay seller had listed the same watch on Japanese auction pages, except he was asking for ¥10,000 Japanese Yen which was about $65 USD. This was probably double how much he actually paid for the item to begin with.

I was shocked that it hadn’t been snatched up at that price. With taxes, shipping, and handling from Japan the total would be just over $80. Oswald's luck must have rubbed off on me. Needless to say I bought it right away. I was willing to pay almost three times that price when it was on eBay, but the seller’s greed cost him in the end. As far as collections went 2025 had been extremely kind to me, and to my family. I’d like to know if you ever lucked out when chasing a grail item. Tell me about it in the comments section! If you want to find out more about Oswald then click the links below.

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 1...

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 2…

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 3…

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 4…

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 5…

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 6…

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, final part…

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a list of Taito products featuring the rabbit!

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit turns 98!

Oswald & Homer, two rare cartoon characters reunited!

When was the blue Oswald the Lucky Rabbit created?

The many almost returns of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Oswald finds a new home, at his old home? 

As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit turns 98!

Hello friends, in the previous post I mentioned that the blog hit more than a million views. That milestone actually happened on the same day as my favorite Disney character celebrated a birthday. That’s right, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was now 98-years-old! I had to create an illustration to mark the occasion. Now I have to think about what I’m going to do for the 100th birthday. Maybe have all sorts of classic characters splitting cake with him?

In case you didn’t know I am a huge fan of Oswald. Like a super-huge fan. I’ve been collecting Oswald merch for decades. One of the nicest gifts I received recently was from my sister-in-law. She created an Oswald cross stitch for me. It was a brilliant piece with well over 16,000 stitches in it! Can you imagine the patience it took to make something like this?

She created this piece because she knew I was a huge fan. In case you didn't know how obsessed I was about the character I was interviewed for the I Want that Too podcast on Jim Hill Media. Which you can see below.

   

In case you are not familiar with the character I did a deep dive on him many years ago. The links are below, including snapshots that I talked about in the interview with Jim Hill, and Lauren Hersey. 

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 1... 

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 2…

Warren Spector can't stop looking at my Oswald figure during his Epic Mickey presentation.

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 3… 

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 4…

Warren Spector's Oswald crib toy next to my own.

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 5… 

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, part 6…

Meeting Disney animator / art director / toy designer Tara Billinger at Oswald's debut in Disney's California Adventure.

The evolution of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, final part… 

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a list of Taito products featuring the rabbit! 

 

Do you have any favorite classic cartoon characters? What about comic book characters? I’d like to hear about it. Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Japan and the mysteries of the FPS format - A 1UP classic from February 17, 2010

On the gaming front, I was wondering why the Japanese and USA gaming aesthetics were so different. Let's take a quick look at the FPS genre. It sells millions of games across many different titles in the USA. Yet there aren't that many, if any, great FPS games coming from Japan. What gives? Why does the west seem to appreciate the genre more than Japan? In the arcade the frenetic "bullet hell" games are a popular genre but the "bullet time" games don't get a second glance.

In trying to get the average Japanese gamer interested in the genre, publisher Taito has taken to translating the popular game engine to the arcade. In Japan Half Life 2 has an arcade counterpart with its own control system, using a left and right controller for aiming and shooting and foot pedals for running, jumping and strafing. Plus the arcade game is not an adventure as much as the focus is on multiplayer maps. The control and approach are something that you would find on a robot combat game, it's not quite the FPS format that we are used to.

Taito is about a year into the release of the newest update for the game. This time the entire experience is being redone and all of the look and feel of Half Life 2 are gone. Instead there are decidedly anime-inspired archetypes in the game. Titled Cyber Diver, there are gothic lolita schoolgirls, cyborgs and ninjas all with their own special weapons and abilities going at it in decidedly Japanese aesthetic locals.

We might not make heads or tails of the characters they are putting into a FPS title, the control scheme they are going with, or even that these games belong in the arcade. What we cannot deny is the approach that they have for the genre and their own artistic cadences. They might not get the look and feel of the Team Fortress 2 characters but they should be able to recognize that our sense of humor in shooting games can be just as surreal.

Perhaps identifying our similarities is the first step in bridging the universal game challenge. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Married to the Sea, part 3 - A 1UP classic from February 8, 2008

Welcome back to this final part of the sea fairing adventure. Before I cast off let's take a look at the underwater games you might have missed. What makes this group different from yesterday's is the loss of the submarine. There is no metal barrier protecting the heroes of these games, no torpedoes or missiles to shoot at enemies. Just the player and wide open ocean. The majority of these games are based around free diving or small watercraft vehicles. Like the titles featured yesterday most of these games have their roots in the arcade. Early on they relied on a gimmick, like the periscope, to get players interested. The first ones were mostly about swimming around and shooting things with a harpoon gun.

Some of the oldest games were inspired by the movie Jaws, which demonized the great white shark. Atari was the first to make the connection with Shark Jaws released in 1975. A few years later Shark Attack by Pacific Novelty put you in the role of the shark, chasing around divers and eating them whole. The tables were turned and the seeds were planted for one of Scott Stoddard's favorite Shockwave creations Mad Shark.

Not all of the games were in the same format, some tried to mix things up by changing the objectives. K'K Tokki's Kaitei Takara Sagashi aka "Underwater Treasure Hunting" was released in 1980 by Namco. In this game players had to navigate a deep sea diver as they descended from the ship to the ocean floor. Along the way they were expected to avoid sea creatures. Once at the bottom of the screen they had to locate a treasure chest and then bring it up, again avoiding obstacles en route to the surface. This was a fun game but like the submarine titles, the SHUMP format seemed to work perfect here. Sea Fighter Poseidon by Taito was released in 1984. I believe it was the first SHUMP using the personal watercraft in place of the sub.

The SHUMP format seemed perfect for the genre, as divers could now swim as fast as sharks and their mini vehicle could shoot harpoons in the place of machine gun fire. One of the most well thought out games using this format was Thunder Jaws, released by Atari in 1990. Players swam around portions of the sea shooting a harpoon gun at enemies and trying to locate underwater lairs like caves and pipelines. The game then switched from swimming to running and gunning. Not quite the high action of Metal Slug but instead the slower pacing of Rolling Thunder. It was a unique concept but neither the diving nor the gunning was really superb.

this game was recommended to me by Marc and is quite good. Treasures of the Deep by Namco was released in 1997 for the original Playstation. The game allows you to explore the sea floor for hidden treasure. At the same time you have to fight off all sorts of sea creatures and pirates with their own personal watercraft and mini sub. This game is very much like Sea Fighter Poseidon in 3D. You get to travel all over the world, upgrading your equipment and buying different mini subs for certain missions. You can revisit levels and try searching for artifacts to unlock a secret level.

Of course the greatest ocean adventure game came out a year later. I've already said that the Ocean Hunter was one of my favorite games of all-time. What else could I possibly add about the Sega title from 98?

It's tough to put the experience into words unless you followed the game from beginning to end. It captures all of those themes that I had grown up with, including the amazing underwater world, awesome subs, sea monsters, sunken cities and wrapping them into a complete adventure. This is the only underwater game that trumps In the Hunt. It was the perfect design from the get-go. We are presented a steampunk world where science and myth collide. Sea monsters are attacking ships and ports and it's up to you to collect a bounty on these creatures by traveling the world with your hot air balloon and mini harpoon craft. This is a shooter on rails, akin to the other Sega titles Gunblade NY and Gunblade LA. Visually this game is still among the more impressive arcade titles you'll ever see. The only decent Ocean Hunter footage around is not very clear and does not give you a sense to how well made this game is.

The character designs, levels, music and bosses are all amazing. They help create a great atmosphere for the title and help pull you into this world. Too bad Sega never followed up with anything else on this title. I'd put my money down to get this on an arcade classics collection. This was truly one of Sega's unknown gems and worthy of a spot on the real top-100 games of all time list (especially since some magazines rank the dismal Bubsy the Bobcat on their list).

So does this wrap-up my never ending love of the sea and water videogames? Well it would if the genre didn't keep sparking new ideas. Undertow by Chair is a popular Xbox Live arcade shooter. It takes many themes featured in both the submarine and diving genres and mixes them in a western SHUMP format. Japanese SHUMPS are usually linear, the level moves left to right or top to bottom. SHUMPS over here from as old as Robotron to computer titles like Wingnuts 2 or as recent as Geometry Wars have allowed us to move freely all over the screen. While I don't own an Xbox 360 I still like to keep tabs on the genre and the video I've seen has me very interested in it. It also gives hope that developers haven't given up on the sea-based titles.

Well this brings me to the end of another series. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and didn't get turned off with my crazy fascination with the sea. I didn't talk about all the popular boat games because those you are more familiar with. Although Aqua Jack by Taito and Hydra by Atari did take the high speed boat and put machine guns and missiles on them... hmm... maybe I should mention them at least.

Plus I never did get Blood Wake for the Xbox, was it any good?

Ah, enough of that. Have a great weekend and let me know what you are up to! As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Married to the Sea, part 2 - A 1UP classic from February 7, 2008

Welcome back ye land lubbers. When we last left off I was speaking in general terms about my love of the sea and the boats and subs that inhabit it. What makes the sea so great is how much it can change. One minute it's calm and smooth like a sheet of glass, the next it's 70 foot waves and a dark tempest that could snatch away grow men like leaves in a strong wind. But just under the surface the ocean remains calm. Quite and interesting dynamic. Today we'll take a look at this mysterious world under the sea to some history-defining games. A good number of these titles are older than you, some are older than me but I've played almost all of them in the arcade or console as the case may be.

You can break down a sea adventure into one of three types, those with a submarine, those with an underwater personal watercraft and those based on the surface of the ocean. I won't talk about the third because few are adventure games and most are boat or jet ski racing games like Wave Race or Hydro Thunder. Those you should already be familiar with. The first two sea adventure genres have had a few sleeper hits in their time. I'll highlight the submarine ones today.

The submarine genre is one of the few that can claim to have a deep-rooted arcade legacy. One of the earliest electronic games was Sega's Periscope, released in 1968 and Midway's Sea Raider released in 1969. The gimmick for many of the submarine games has been a reliance on the periscope, a form of control unique to actual submarines.

Unlike traditional arcade screen where everyone could see what you were playing, gamers on sub games could peer into their own screen which displayed a CRT or mini LCD. The player had the firing buttons at the thumbs of the periscope handle with some crosshairs on the display to help target enemies. While this gimmick worked in arcades for over 30 years it was not always the most popular format for players.

It didn't take too long for companies to begin applying the SHUMP (or shmups) formula to the submarine genre. While the flying ship in most SHUMPS can only fire forward the submarine was unique because it could fire torpedoes forward and missiles straight up. This allowed developers to come up with games that could be played like Space Invaders but with attackers from the side as well. Early adopters of this format included Midway's Submarine in 79, Taito's Polaris in 1980 and Helifire by Nintendo also in 1980. But it wasn't until 1981 when the side-scrolling aspect of the SHUMP was also applied to the submarine game.

The Battle of Atlantis by Comsoft featured colorful underwater environments where ships and sharks would attack you. Amenip's Mariner game (aka 800 Fathoms) also came out in 1981. This game expanded on the the themes of exploration and diverse locations through which you had to pilot your sub while also taking on advancing enemies. While not as memorable as their sky and space contemporaries, the submarine SHUMP would survive for decades.

A fast-paced arcade FPS shooter using the periscope was released by Taito in 1989. It was called Battle Shark and was probably better remembered for having a main character that looked just like Charles Bronson.

The designs in Battle Shark were all great, plenty of sci-fi subs battling it out over sunken cities. The only sticking point was the periscope. It was large and clumsy, it also felt dated. So the remaining classic sub games were all played with traiditonal joystick or game pad. The best of the early console adopters was Submarine Attack, released in 1990 by Sega for the Master System. It was a throwback to the classic arcade SHUMP and had a quiet following.

Over the next few years we would see all sorts of attack sub games for the Genesis, PC and Nintendo. Some console titles based on popular movies like the Hunt for Red October. One of the more original titles from recent years featured a mini sub that controlled like a combat fighter. The series was called Aquanox and it was set in the near-future so the tech was semi-believable. Plus it was a nice change of pace to be fighting in underwater cities rather than storming through the clouds or off in space.

Of all the submarine SHUMPS ever made, my favorite by far has to be Irem's 1993 sleeper-hit In the Hunt aka Kaitei Daisensou. This game should look and feel very familiar to fans of the Metal Slug series because it was made by the same people.

Here is where I have to make an aside as to what makes In the Hunt and Metal Slug such a classic. It goes back to 1990, before the Irem and SNK designers joined forces and founded Nazca to develop the Metal Slug series. Most SHUMP developers are looking for a hook, a gimmick to make their game memorable. It's hard to come up with something memorable when Japan cranks out so many SHUMPS year after year. In some cases it is the design of the ship and enemies that stick with fans. The large grotesque monsters and falcon-like hero ship featured in R-Type helped put Irem on the map. Other developers rely on cartoony, anime-inspired designs with soft bubbly graphics like Cotton by Success.

The people at Irem had been experimenting with a fusion of hyper-realistic designs and cartoon-like animation. The "style" that they were working on began to gel in the early 90's. Air Duel was a SHUMP that featured traditional air combat with hundreds of enemies and gigantic bosses, what set the visuals apart was the highly-detailed graphics on every plane and even in the backgrounds. The attention to detail was nothing short of maddening. For the next game they took this level of detail and then threw it in a blender with an artistic style that can only be called genius.

In the Hunt was the first title that Irem made featuring the fantastic, over-the-top vehicles and levels that eventually made Metal Slug so great. All of the obscene detail was in the game, every billboard, car, truck, railroad tie and sewer could be counted individually. On some levels if you looked closely you could even make out pedestrians running for their lives, they could not have been more than a few pixels in height! This unique style of presentation, superb animation combined with the classic submarine SHUMP formula and fantastic bosses made In the Hunt the best sub game ever made. Fans would clamor for a sequel but Irem had other plans.

They took the stylized world featured in Air Duel and In the Hunt and applied them to a side-scrolling run and gun game in 94. The game is better known as Gun Force II / Geo Storm. While the designers still hadn't made the main characters completely cartoony, nobody can deny that the template for Metal Slug had been created between those two titles.

I am not a super fan of Metal Slug but I do like the designs. My favorite Metal Slug level takes place in Metal Slug 3 because it is the only time we are introduced to the Metal Sub, a nod to In the Hunt. What you might not notice is that the Metal Sub and scale of Metal Slug is much smaller than that of In the Hunt. The sprites featured in both games are relatively the same size, however proportionally they are different. The sub in In the Hunt is about five times bigger than the Metal Sub. It would be great if the next Metal Slug game could begin incorporating more scale in their series so that if a player jumped into a larger tank or a larger plane then the camera would pan back and allow us to see more of the world like In the Hunt. Of course even if the camera pans back you would still keep the same level of detail that Nazca is famous for.

But that is just me thinking out loud again. Making a sprite-based game is a lost art and it seems that nobody has the dedication to keep the format alive. If Nazca wanted to have a complete meltdown then they would take my advice and feature a scalable world with infinite detail. They wouldn't get far before running out of time and money, but damn would it be a pretty game.

Let's end this aside and finish with In the Hunt is the best submarine SHUMP ever made. I hope that you have played it and if not go track down a copy online or in the arcade. You won't be sorry! If you think my blog on underwater-based videogames is over then you don't know me very well! Tune in tomorrow for the final part of this series.

As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A glimpse at the psychic fighting games

I had originally posted a blog on this topic on my old 1UP page, but sadly couldn’t save the HTML before the site was disabled. I did however have the images, and will try to put together the topic as best as I can remember. If you’re a regular on this blog you know that I like to talk about different types of fighting games, and bring back some little known titles. One of my favorites was based on the manga, and anime BASTARD!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (The Dark God of Destruction). My brothers, and I enjoyed playing import games in the early ‘90s. One of the benefits of living in the southland was being able to visit Little Tokyo where they had import games for a reasonable markup. We were literally watching Dragon Ball Z on VHS a month after they aired in Japan. Plus we were playing DBZ fighting game on the Super Nintendo while kids were waiting for Super Street Fighter II to come to come out on the same console.

The manga was high fantasy, with lots of violence, and nudity thrown in for good measure. It predated Berserk by years, and is owed its flowers. What separated it from other violent fantasy titles was that the characters had magic, and psychic attacks, in addition to their traditional swordplay. Adapting the series to a game format was Cobra Team, and SETA Corporation. They actually did a fantastic job recreating the flying/fighting mechanics on the 16-bit console. Most games based on a property were platform titles, you would follow the main character from stage to stage fighting the various bosses, in a Castlevania-tyope quest. Sometimes a licensed game would be a fighter, but those were sloppily done. But this was different. It was actually a brilliant game with a lot of originality.

You had a sort of behind the back mechanic where you could see your opponents in the distance, flying over the various kingdoms. You could circle each other, fly at each other, and change elevation slightly. As fresh as the gameplay was, it also made a clever use of the special attacks. In order to perform a special move you would use button combinations, and these were inspired by the magical seal attacks from the manga. You know, where the main character draws a sort of spell over a pentagram? These were things that had been seen several times in manga, and anime. Most notably in Fullmetal Alchemist. I was lucky to have picked up an issue of V-Jump magazine which let me know all the magical seal combinations of the main characters. It became intuitive after a few rounds of battles with my brothers.

This mechanic of drawing special attacks would pop up in RPGs, and other titles some years later, when touchscreens had entered the mainstream. But the idea for creating spell patterns with button combinations? That was all thanks to Bastard!!. Speaking of which, the manga, and game ended up setting a sort of standard that would predate the evolution of the Dragon Ball Z fighting games. The downside was that 3D flying, and fighting mechanics were difficult to present accurately using 2D sprites.

While Dragon Ball was known for its impressive fight scenes, there were other manga, and anime shows that showed combat that was equally unique. One of those was X / 1999, a series by CLAMP. The main characters looked like typical high school teenagers, however they fought using awesome psychic powers. Think about how Tatsumaki from One Punch Man, or Mob from Mob Psycho 100 fight in their respective shows. They’re able to fold buildings, and turn cities into rubble with just a glance. Mind you these archetypes were made popular in the early 1990’s. It was about that time when 3D models were replacing sprites in arcade games.

Taito took a chance on free floating 3D psychic combat in their cult hit Psychic Force. The arcade game from 1995 was a breath of fresh air. In a sea of 2D fighting games this one truly stood out. The characters had a heavy anime design to them, and players battled within psychic cubes, this contained the force of their attacks, and prevented innocent civilians from getting hurt. You could float in three dimensions, and direct close, and ranged attacks at your opponent. It was an even more polished version of the Bastard!!, and Dragon Ball flying mechanics. Its sequel Psychic Force 2012 came out in 1998, and was published on multiple consoles including the Sega Dreamcast. I urge you to track down a copy if you have a DC, or play on an emulator. It’s still a fresh game.

With the exception of the more recent Dragon Ball games the free-floating fighting game genre seemed to hit a dead-end at the end of the 20th century. That was until Psy-Phi was announced by Sega, and actually demoed in 2005. It was the first new fighting game designed by Yu Suzuki, the legendary mind behind many of Sega’s biggest hits, including Virtua Fighter. His goal was to completely rewrite the fighting genre, while at the same time making it more accessible to audiences. He saw the limitations of gamers using frame data, and other gameplay nuances to take the creativity out of fighting. So he designed a touch screen interface. And rather than rely on quick reactions like a martial arts game would demand, his characters had psychic powers, so there was more strategy involved in each battle.

It was a good idea in theory, but for more than a decade I worked in a computer lab. I knew how reliable touch screen technology could be. Not only that, I knew how filthy monitors would get after a few hours of playing. There was no way you would have convinced me, or my brothers to put our fingerprints all over a display, and pick up some nasty germs. I had no idea how Sega was going to handle that question, or how much it would cost arcade operators to buy touch screen games. What would the maintenance have been on these screens, or whether the technology was even viable in the arcade.

The character designs in Psy-Phi were nice, but not memorable. They didn’t seem to break any new ground as far as influences went. I’m glad that Mr. Suzuki, and Sega were willing to try out new ideas, but it seemed so far out of left field I couldn’t help but wonder if the studio was simply trying to see if their technology was even viable. Shortly after this demo Sega, and a number of other studios started releasing card-based games in the arcade. Where you could play your physical cards on screen, these included sports games, as well as RPGs. In futbol / soccer games you could actually field your players, and choose what formation you wanted to use based on the card placement on the screen. This allowed you to change formations in the middle of the game, as a good manager would be able to do in real life. These mid 2000’s games seemed to last a while, but never took off outside of Japan. I think it had something to do with relying on the technology.

Psy-Phi would be hard to bring to consoles without touch displays as well, or some sort of new controller. For anybody that has a stack of unused guitars, conga drums, and dance pads in their collection could tell you that games with peripherals did not usually last very long. What do you think? Would you have liked a chance to play a touch screen fighting game? Were you a fan of psychic characters in games, or pop culture? Did you ever play any rare import games at home, or in the arcade? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!