Introducing: Swan of Wonders

I may not yet own a WonderSwan—which, for those of you who are out of the loop when it comes to Japan-only handhelds, is a portable gaming system that was first released in that region back in the late 1990s—but I still know a lot about this curious contraption.

Of course, I guess you could say I should know a lot about the WonderSwan, as I already own 11 games that were made to run on it. (I wrote about—and shared some photos of--10 of those titles in this recently published post.)

Even so, I’ve enjoyed perusing a just-launched site--called Swan of Wonders--that’s devoted to Bandai’s answer to Nintendo’s line of GameBoy products over the last few days. 



Admittedly, Swan of Wonder is a bit thin content-wise at the moment, but I’m sure that will change in due time. Thankfully, the little amount of text that’s currently available is a joy to read—with the site's "Top 15 WonderSwan Games" post being the highlight, in my opinion.

Are any of you also WonderSwan fans? If so, don’t be shy about it—share your WS pride in the comments section below.

While you’re at it, let me know which WonderSwan game most tickles your fancy or piques your interest. Or, let me know which WS system—three different iterations saw the light of day between 1999 and 2002, and each of them came in a wide array of colors—you like best.

See also: my WonderSwan-focused Flickr album

Come join me in the Rainbow Games community

I know it may not be all that wise for me to push people in the direction of a "competing" website, especially when I'd love for those same folks to start and participate in all kinds of interesting discussions right here, but the fact is that my blog is only ever going to attract and retain a certain percentage of the gaming population.

So, if you don't quite get your fill of retro, niche or Japanese games on this particular blog, or if you're just looking for another online outlet for your Japanese, niche or retro gaming obsessions and thoughts, you may want to head over to rainbowgames.dreamwidth.org, which bills itself as "a community geared toward niche and retro game discussion and celebration," and set up an account.

You'll find me there using the handle "thegaygamer," of course. If you follow suit and start using the community, too, let me know here or via some sort of direct message sent through the dreamwidth site what your username is so I can properly connect with you there.

On a related note, if there are any additional blogs, communities or other sites out there that also focus on retro, niche or Japanese games that you think I might enjoy checking out, please let me know about them in the comments section of this post.