![]() She also had to flip the disk back over to Side A every time she wanted to save her game.Īs she settled into the gameplay, she soon learned that Idol Hotline-Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School is a classically styled romance simulator with a high school setting. Instead, it seems that the disk’s A side has various data that has to be loaded in for the game to get started, then draws data from the B side while you’re actually playing. Thankfully, this didn’t mean she was already half-way through a game that was only going to be 60 seconds long. She’d been playing for less than 30 seconds, though, and didn’t expect the flip-over point to come so soon. “I’ve transferred here because we had to move for my dad’s job,” the character explained, “and today is my first day,” As Ikuna hit the button to advance the text, she wondered what sort of colorful classmates she’d meet, when suddenly…įDS disks are double-sided, and so Ikuna had figured she’d be prompted to flip it at some point during the game. The on-screen graphics and text told her that she was playing as a teen boy transferring to a new high school. Ikuna inserted the disk, turned on the system, and after a loading screen… ▼ Even the strange indention on the plastic case near the tip of Nakayama’s nose couldn’t erase her charismatic aura.įDS disks are officially called “disk cards,” and this one is a bright blue, with “NINTENDO” written in relief at the top. Not only is it a game on a discontinued medium with Japan’s sweetheart from nearly four decades ago, the then 17-year-old Nakayama appears on the cover holding a corded landline phone receiver that’s startlingly large by today’s standards. Released in 1987, Idol Hotline-Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, or “ Idol Hotline-Miho Nakayama’s Heart-throbbing High School,” is now a time capsule in multiple ways. ![]() In total, almost 200 games were released in FDS format, but since Ikuna was completely new to this corner of gaming, she simply picked out a 580-yen (US$5.30) game that had the most attractive cover, which featured the attractive face of top ‘80s idol Miho Nakayama. Once she got to the electronics district, she made her way to one of its many shops specializing in great games of yesteryear. Luckily, though, SoraNews24 headquarters is in downtown Tokyo, which means it’s just a short train ride to the greatest retro game hunting grounds in the whole wide world: Akihabara. Unfortunately for Ikuna, she didn’t find any Famicom Disk System games lying around the office. While it’s possible to leave the Famicom main unit and the FDS disk reader side by side, most people chose to stack them, like this, to save floorspace. The disk reader, meanwhile, attaches to the back of the Famicom via a cord, and has another for its own AC adapter. The FDS is actually a pair of add-ons, one of which is a RAM adapter that goes into the Famicom’s cartridge slot. It’s a Famicom peripheral, and so it has to be used in tandem with the base system. Released about two and a half years after the Famicom’s debut, the Famicom Disk System, or FDS, for short, isn’t a stand-alone gaming console. The mystery was cleared up, though, when she examined the front of the red-cased box and saw the words “Nintendo Family Computer Disk System” written there. Ikuna had never seen the device before, and with the golden age of the Famicom being before her time, couldn’t imagine what it was. So to celebrate, our Japanese-language reporter Ikuna Kamezawa decided to slip into the SoraNews24 headquarters conference room, which also happens to be where the company Famicom is, to play some old-school games.īut when she got there, she noticed something else on the shelf where the Famicom is kept. ![]() July 15 marks 35 years to the day that the Famicom, Nintendo’s 8-bit video game console that became the Nintendo Entertainment System in its overseas form, went on sale in Japan. 35 years ago today, the Famicom everyone knows and loves went on sale, but what about its often forgotten upgrade?
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