Found this "Pocket Sakura" in my garage

[InvertMouse]

During a garage clean up the other week, I found this gem from the year 2000:

Sakura Taisen was a hit back in the late 90s. You know the magazine NewType? It has been around since then, and I recall so many issues with Sakura or other members of the cast on the cover. Sega, of course, made the most of its popularity with countless merch and spin-offs.

This Gameboy spinoff is different from the console versions. It is about raising stats, there are mini-games, and combat takes more of a backseat. Though Sega has released so many spinoffs (card games, puzzle games and the like), it is nice to see they made an effort and didn’t simply pump out lazy ports.

But here is the relic that made me smile:

This is the companion “Pocket Sakura”. Tamagotchi was a big thing at the time (as my primary school teacher said, “You can’t bring those digital watches into school!”), and you can see the result right here. The Pocket Sakura connects with the Gameboy via infrared, and you use it to exchange data with the cartridge.

Unfortunately, I have never owned a Gameboy Color! Thank goodness we are in the YouTube era, and Erica Griffin has put together this awesome review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moJ4M6Gfy5I

Honestly, I cannot even recall the last time I have put a battery into anything. The 90s and early 2000s will always bring back great memories for me.

Do we have companion gadgets like these in visual novels today? I played through Mass Effect Andromeda recently, and that game comes with an app that you can download to send troops on missions via your phone. It might be fun to see that explored in visual novels. I am not aware of any titles that make use of this, but if there are, I would love to know about them. Do you think that is a cool idea, or is it just a gimmick?

Thank you!

[Akimoto Masato]

i didnt even know that they made games like this for the GameBoy Color

[Okarin]

1 hour ago, Akimoto Masato said:

i didnt even know that they made games like this for the GameBoy Color

There have been "anime-themed games" since the 80s. Visual novels came around later, but Japanese have been making this kind of games for a long time.

Only that the art with 8-bit technology was very poor, and most of them never came out of Japan (probably the Japanese, foolishly, thought no one but them had an interest in them).

The explosion may have been in the times of the Sega Saturn, with all those adventure games featuring anime cutscenes.

[Akimoto Masato]

1 minute ago, Okarin said:

There have been "anime-themed games" since the 80s. Visual novels came around later, but Japanese have been making this kind of games for a long time.

Only that the art with 8-bit technology was very poor, and most of them never came out of Japan (probably the Japanese, foolishly, thought no one but them had an interest in them).

The explosion may have been in the times of the Sega Saturn, with all those adventure games featuring anime cutscenes.

explains a lot i didnt know that because i didnt look for GameBoy games i was more intrested in DreamCast, NES, and PC games