(Used to be) Satellablog: February 2009

On the Prizes the Satellaview gave out.

Recently on this BS Zelda thread we've been trying to figure out info on the prizes St. Giga distributed as rewards for Satellaview players. I decided to put up some of the info here as well for reference.

Most the information comes from the Satellaview History Museum, SFC MANIA, and Satellaview Heaven which I linked on the right.

From what I read, a lot of the games had certificates of victory for the high-scoring players. I haven't seen any of them with my own eyes but the SFC MANIA article on BS Fuurai no Shiren seems to have a low-res picture of it's specific one. These are likely highly collectible.

On the note of non-certificate prizes, Calling cards were common. For those who don't remember the days before the cell phone boom, calling cards were cards that were used to pay for phone calls. Satellaview Heaven has up a picture of a BS Shin Onigashima one, and on Yahoo Japan Auctions I saw descriptors for a Satellaview Tsushin calling card and a Samurai Spirits calling card.

St. Giga also gave out a lot of self-branded items. A watch and a purse were featured on Satellaview Heaven and descriptions of a purse were noted. The "Pin Badge" is also likely such.

Other than that, though, I am uncertain of what the others would be... either way, these prizes seem like little trinkets produced on the cheap. No trips to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, sorry.

(pictures are linked in the forum thread.)

EDITING THIS due to updates, thanks MadHatter:
First off, on Yahoo Japan Auctions (last I saw it) is a Satellaview Tsushin Parka. Anyone wanna buy it for me? ;)
But besides that, Madhatter's been translating the list of news articles from "Ge-mu Toranoana" (I'll need to update the articles I have that previously referenced this for the proper name - it's apparently based on Comic Toranoana.) listings on Kameb's Satellaview History Museum.

Along with what I mentioned, he's noted some of the more interesting items that were being given - apparently Golden Mario Statues, the imfamous Nintendo collectible prize, were distributed at some point - likely for BS Super Mario USA.
Game Paks were also distributed - nothing too collectible mind you, but Super Mario RPG and Kirby Super Deluxe were good games, don't you think? Already the prizes sounds a lot more interesting.

Koi ha Balance - Battle of Lovers

Squaresoft seemed to like treating the Satellaview like a little playground. Games like Treasure Conflix and Dynamitracer seemed to throw around a different atmosphere than their typical "Final Fantasy" work.

And then this came along and pushed it a bit over the edge.

Koi Ha Balance - Battle of Lovers is a board game. Yes, a board game.
It's about scoring with lots of girls. Literally (although not sexually).
It goes hilariously over the top in nearly everything it does.

This gameplay video I put up (recorded off emulating. Yes I am a cheap butt) shows only a fraction of gameplay, and already you see things like men emoing over being single, battles with muscle-bound homosexual stereotypes, and men stealing other guys' girls by the ultimate superpower of materialism!

Magazine Articles.

Excuse the long absence. This time, an actual crisis came up. I'm not gonna babble my personal stories here though. Instead, I shall thank MadHatter at the BS Zelda forum for picking up my pace in researching. I'm gonna have a few interesting articles to put up now. Let me start with this one.

For a while now I've been trying to nab old documents on the Satellaview - thanks to Madhatter I actually have some excellent little articles. I unfortunately am not the Master of French, but I can already see some news. :D

These have all been thumbnail'd so they don't actually clutter up the page too much...
(Mirrored on my own webspace for convenience.)