My Super A'can Adventures

[fcgamer | 4,723]

@OptOut and I always had an agreement whilst game hunting together: if any N64DD stuff was found, he got first dibs, any Super A'can stuff, I got first dibs. We also had a tacit agreement of sorts, to let the other person buy an item we already had if they had wanted it for their collection, rather than to screw them and buy something they wanted just to resell. Gentleman's agreements, relations between friends, whatever. Either way, although we've found tons of neat scraps when going hunting, we never did find any N64DD or A'can stuff.

My relationship with the Super A'can is an interesting one - some parts are joyous, some sad, but it is what it is, and I have no regrets.

I first became aware of the machine around the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012, which is when I discovered the so-called "dust shop" in my hometown. The owner had a few Super A'can games for sale, but I didn't pay much attention, as I didn't know what they were, and I was too busy scooping up his Famicom (and eventually Sega) goodies.

It was only a year or two later when I would realize that the Super A'can was an original, Taiwan-made 16-bit gaming console. Thursdays I'd get off work at around 12:00 noon, so I'd generally explore neighboring areas over my lunch break. I took a train one day about forty-five minutes north, to a small coastal village. I dipped into a 7-11 to grab a beer, after leaving, was approached by the owner of a school asking if I would work to teach for them. I went over to their place to see what it was about, but the schedule just wouldn't fit my current schedule, so I eventually declined. Walking around further, I found a hole-in-the-wall game shop, and although the remaining wares were few, the old woman had a boxed Super A'can, as well as a Famicom bootleg of Legend of Zelda. I bought the latter, passed up the A'can as I didn't know what it was, though it somehow became ingrained in my mind.

Less than a month later, while researching Taiwanese games and companies online, I came across some posts mentioning the A'can by a guy named Barver, and I realized that I had passed up something good. I took the train back up to the shop, and then I also ordered a game online to play. When the game finally arrived, I was excited to take it home and try it, so I stopped off after work to grab some stinky tofu for dinner (didn't want to waste time going back out again) and then went home to start gaming. Anyways, the machine had some overheating problems, so that put the end to my exciting gaming session. 

So I then bought a new gaming machine from a seller online for about $50, and after it arrived, finally got to try out the Journey to the West game properly. It seemed fun enough, but it was difficult. I wanted more games but when I revisited the dust shop, there were no A'can games to be found.

Flashforward to 2014 or 2015, I walked into the dust shop one day and the owner approached me and said he finally found some A'can games laying around for me (I had been requesting these for months). He had eight games, so I bought them all, and then I finally had something to play on my Super A'can. 

By 2016 though, I found myself in a terrible situation. A new manager took over where I had been working for the past five years, and she started putting her crew in the school, cutting my hours back drastically and also giving me the crappy working times to boot. It was how I was repaid after five years of loyal service at a private school in a rural area, where teachers had quit left, right and center, not wanting to work in such a rural environment. For me, I loved it there, as I grew up as a country boy, and ironically enough I hope to move back down to that area away from city center next year. Back to the A'can story though, I really had to dip into my savings during this time, and eventually it just made sense to sell my A'can games to help pay the bills and what not. I sold all of them aside from the Journey to the West game, which was the first A'can game that I owned, and also the most appealing to me (action platformer).

Later I'd move up to the city center, and I started recollecting the Super A'can games. About two weeks ago I finally got the last one I was missing, Formosa Duel (I think that's roughly what it's called). I'm still missing one manual and a single game, Rebel Star, but that game was likely made in super small quantities as a test product, so people don't really count it towards completion. Furthermore, I am certain I'll eventually get it, I mean westerners generally are willing to pay more money for games than locals

In terms of the Super A'can itself, here are my thoughts. The machine and its games (12 in total, though people generally consider a set to max out at 11) are not worth the price of admission. There's a fighter, a board game, a couple clone platformers, an RPG - there's nothing particularly exciting though, since so many of the titles are derivative or generic. With that being said, I feel this is one of those machines that every true Taiwanese game collector should have in his or her collection, since it is a national exclusive machine; ironically enough though, I'd reckon that there are by now more machines and games sitting abroad than left on the island itself.  

Even living locally, aside from the games I got from the shopkeeper, I wasn't getting these cheap, more around $100 - $150 a piece. 

Enjoy the collection pictures, it feels good to be more or less done with this one. Also a fun fact - the game boxes all had a sticker on them denoting which region (North, South, East, West, Central) the shop was in, in which the games were being sold. So if one really wanted to collect variants, one could strive to get a box from each region.

[OptOut | 8,884]

Congrats on piecing this set together dude, over so many years! 

Most people won't realize what an accomplishment it is to have achieved this set, but if you know, you'll know this is an incredible collection and an immensely impressive feat.

Kudos! 

[Tanooki | 4,934]

Holy crap.  You've showed me this or that, we've talked about it spread out over a good decade I think after reading all that now.

That's insane you pulled that off given enough people would deny its existence and probably call it a joke, crapware, vaporware, dumb hack or photoshop dickery to drive a global collector nuts.

Any shot you have a youtube account because documenting this would be amazing, not so much the RPG as I have no clue the depth there, but some longplays or 10-15min long reviews of the stuff?   It would be amazing to have that all preserved in video format, but also some individual quality imagery too, a mini database of sorts to fill the void after so long.

Me sitting here with my regionally exported from there gem the Supervision with a multicart and a few real ones, and here this is, nuts!

 

Gloves I demand he get a bauble for this, need a new one made for the A-Can, at this rate unless Optout joins the fanclub it'll be a single affair probably for years if not permanently. haha

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

@fcgamer very impressive! What can you tell me about this Romance of the 3 Kingdoms looking game??