Super Potato Adventure Excursion Crazy Fun Time GO!

I'll take that one, and that one, and that one . . . and that one.

Okay, this is getting kind of ridiculous. This place needs some TLC, and I feel like giving it. I'm going to reach way back into the archives of my memory and devote this post to Super Potato. It was some time ago now that I went, but that place really deserves a mention.

It's ostensibly a retro gaming shop in Akihabara, but it's more like a retro gaming museum. The entire place is stuffed floor to ceiling with games, systems, and merchandise ranging from modern items to those from the '80s. The store itself is rather inconspicuous, tucked away on an upper floor of some alleyway building. Actually, it's more like it's tucked away on a few upper floors of a building.

Maybe I should go back for that Famicom...

The store itself is divided into three floors, the lowest of which is devoted to NES, SNES, N64, and PS1 era merch. There was a Virtual Boy kiosk set up, and I got to play some Wario game (which seems to be just about the only Virtual Boy game anyone knows). I can see how using one of those things for more than about 5 minutes could result in eye failure and permanent insanity. There was also a shelf completely packed with original Famicoms. They were only like 3,000 yen, and I almost bought one. There was a sealed Japanese copy of Smash Bros. 64 that was calling my name too. This whole store was pretty much filled with collectors items I wanted but had no practical use for. I actually got out of there only about 1,000 yen lighter and one nifty deck of official Zelda playing cards heavier.

The next floor was more familiar to me, as it was stocked with Gameboy, Gamecube, and PS2 items. There was a Pokemon Gold/Silver special edition Gameboy Color for about $30 my friends had to pry me away from. If there's something I've taken from all of this exposure to Japan's games, it's that their boxes are way cooler than ours. Pretty much system for system up until the last generation, where packages finally became somewhat uniform between regions, the Japanese game boxes are just way cooler than ours. They're generally smaller, thinner, and more dense with artwork.

Of course they had a boxed copy of 1994's
Super Metroid. What store wouldn't?
(Every other store)

The final floor was interesting, but nothing too special. It was packed with arcade machines, but also cigarette smoke. I walked around and checked out some of the machines before I felt my lungs start to give out. It would have been more interesting if every other building in Akihabara didn't already have like three arcades in it.

It's hard to explain just how ridiculous this place was, but I'll let some photos do the rest of the talking for me.

I feel bad about not updating for so long, so I actually have a few more posts ready to go up right now. I'm going to wait a day or so between each of them though, because I'm a tease like that. See you in a day or two (for real this time).