Wonderswan Crystal - weird setup

[towmater]

I finally got around to trying this system, four years after buying it. One of the setup questions seems a bit too personal, I wonder if any of you know of what use this blood-type information could be to a game?

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

It's a Japanese thing... the bloodtype for them pretty much means your personality. lol

[DragonGrafx-16]

I know this system has a cult following and that there are some really good games on it... but I can't help but feel that those buttons look pretty bad... lol

[Steven Pendleton]

Yes, here in Japan lots of people are obsessed with blood types. Basically any famous person's blood type is written on their official website and some Japanese girls are really obsessed with finding a dude whose blood type works well with hers due to personality traits associated with blood types. It's all over dating sites and horoscopes, of course. They almost never bother with positive and negative for some reason, even though that's extremely important for medicinal purposes. As O-, I'll die if you put anything other than O- into me, but my blood works for anyone. Blood drives love me, obviously.

 

Anyway, I've been thinking about getting a SwanCrystal for some time, so I'm always curious to see anyone's opinion of the system.

[Video]

never had the crystal, but I got the original one, and a few games. Having never been localized, it's not very friendly to you if you don't know the squiggly language of Japanese. Of course, most text games (rpgs) don't particularly care what you select, so other than missing the story, it's still playable for the most part.

 

to my understanding, the games are the same, so if they were put in the crystal, they'd be the same, just colorized, kind of like neo geo pocket vs color, though I could be wrong.

 

the buttons are imo indeed terrible, but I did like the horizontal or vertical ability of the system.

[Steven Pendleton]

Yeah, the WonderSwan Color has color and then the SwanCrystal is somehow updated over that, but I'm not sure of the details. From what I understand it's the best version of the system by far and there's not much point in getting any of the other versions instead.

 

I'm actually going to Akiba in less than an hour to look at Saturns, but I'll look at SwanCrystal prices and WonderSwan game prices just to see what I can find.

[Tanooki]

I had an interest once in this, probably still would, if I could either read the games as many need it, or an active group translated them + a flash kit arrived to cover that.

[newtmonkey]

I had a Color and a Crystal; the Crystal features a higher quality screen with better contrast and faster refresh (no ghosting).  It's a significant upgrade over the Color, but the Color is still playable (way better than Game Gear/Lynx/OG Gameboy, for instance).

[Steven Pendleton]

4 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

I had a Color and a Crystal; the Crystal features a higher quality screen with better contrast and faster refresh (no ghosting).  It's a significant upgrade over the Color, but the Color is still playable (way better than Game Gear/Lynx/OG Gameboy, for instance).

How is the ghosting compared to something like the PSP 2000? People generally seem to dislike the ghosting on the 2000, but I've had 3 of them before I got the Vita and the PSP go and never had a problem with the 2000. I hope it's better than the Sega Nomad's screen, though.

 

For that matter, how easy is the screen to use in brightly lit areas? The Gameboy and GBC both need to have perfect lighting conditions. Only exception is when it's too dark to see the screen and you have the Worm Light or one of the other 6 million different types of screen illuminating things for the system.

[newtmonkey]

@Steven Pendleton

The ghosting on the Color is far worse than anything comparatively recent (DS/PSP/GBC/GBA) and probably closer to the Nomad than those; having said that, the Wonderswan library is mostly slower games so it's not as noticeable.  The Crystal is roughly similar to the GBA I'd say.

 

Both the Color and Crystal needed similar lighting conditions as the GB Pocket/GBC from what I recall, though I think the WSs were both a bit less finicky than the GBs.

[Steven Pendleton]

1 minute ago, newtmonkey said:

@Steven Pendleton

The ghosting on the Color is far worse than anything comparatively recent (DS/PSP/GBC/GBA) and probably closer to the Nomad than those; having said that, the Wonderswan library is mostly slower games so it's not as noticeable.  The Crystal is roughly similar to the GBA I'd say.

 

Both the Color and Crystal needed similar lighting conditions as the GB Pocket/GBC from what I recall, though I think the WSs were both a bit less finicky than the GBs.

I figured as much. The Nomad and the various versions of the WonderSwan were released closer together than most of the other handheld systems that most people think of (sadly, because the Nomad is really damn awesome aside from the ghosting), so I imagined the screen quality might be similar. I've found that even the Nomad's screen is mostly not too bad once you try setting the wheel to different settings, and most games are perfectly fine, if a bit blurry, but even that depends. Some shooters are difficult because enemy shots get lost easily in the blur, though.

 

I have been thinking about getting a SwanCrystal in the future. Not sure if I will get one yet, but maybe I will eventually.