So, I Bought a WonderSwan Color

If you've read some of my previous blog posts, you'll quickly get the sense that I have an affinity for vintage electronics, especially video game consoles. The sweet spot for me are the devices that held third place or so in market share in their hayday. Those are the ones that were fairly well supported and relatively more available to find these days, but still unknown enough to feel unique and interesting. I recently decided to invest in (read: splurge) a handheld console that had a fair amount of adoption in Japan, but remains completely obscure here — Bandai's WonderSwan.

The WonderSwan was released in 1999 as a collaboration between video game publisher Bandai and Gunpei Yokoi, a Japanese engineer best known as the designer of the Game Boy. Despite the Game Boy being immensely successful, Yokoi quietly left Nintendo after his later project, the ill-fated Virtual Boy, proved to be a flop. He then went over to Bandai to develop a competitor to the Game Boy, although he wouldn't live to see it, dying in an automobile accident in 1997. The WonderSwan would eventually release in three hardware iterations, each available in a variety of colors. Despite having some interesting hardware ideas, one idea that proved somewhat shortsighted was for the original WonderSwan to only have a monochrome display, despite launching after the release of the Game Boy Color. While the strategy of using a monochrome display to extend battery life worked well for Nintendo against the Sega Game Gear, things had changed by the late 1990s, and within less than a year Bandai announced the WonderSwan Color, which would release in late 2000. This is the hardware version I picked up, as it's fully backwards compatible with original WonderSwan games, and had a larger library on its own to boot.

The WonderSwan Color actually did pretty alright for itself for a few years, boasting a better resolution than the Game Boy Color, as well as some interesting hardware concepts (we'll come to those). However, the WonderSwan's success largely died overnight with the release of the Game Boy Advance in 2001, which was a technologically superior product, although more expensive. Bandai wasn't quite done with the WonderSwan though, and created one final hardware revision in 2002, the SwanCrystal. The SwanCrystal wasn't a new console itself, but a redesigned WonderSwan Color with improved screen. Ideally, these are the products most sought after by collectors, but due to being the best of all worlds on the platform, are understandably the most expensive.

So why did I find this thing fascinating enough to purchase? For one, I like the marketing. I think "WonderSwan" and "SwanCrystal" are great names. That might not sound like a good enough reason to buy one, but that sort of evocative naming made the system stick in my mind, enough for me to research and become interested in the system, in a way that other less cool-sounding products have not, like the Neo Geo Pocket Color (yet). The available color options are also rather well-chosen, although I regret to inform that I did not end up with a model with translucent plastic, instead getting the "pearl blue" color. Perhaps the most interesting feature the product itself provides is the ability to play games in either a landscape or portrait layout. An initial glance at the device would probably imply that it is meant to be held horizontally, with two A and B buttons on the right, and a D-pad on the left (which are labelled X1, X2, X3, and X4, rather than Up, Right, Down, Left, respectively).

The positions of the Power, Start, and Volume buttons would support this, as would the "WonderSwan Color" label and the position of the cartridge slot. However, this device also has a second D-pad (labeled Y1 through Y4), which allows for the device to be held vertically with a thumb on each of the D-pads. The D-pads themselves aren't in the same fashion as Nintendo's or Sega's, where a rocker can press only two buttons at most, but instead are four distinct buttons that can be pressed in any combination. At least on my unit, they have a very good feel to them. Quite springy, with the shell of the unit molded up between them to allow for that rocking motion found on other systems. I think this is a really clever concept, and it allows for games to choose which layout serves their gameplay best, rather than being locked into a single position. Even today, shmups or puzzle games often feel a bit silly playing them on a modern landscape monitor, with large letterboxing on the sides.

I mentioned the other buttons on the front, and those are a recessed Power button (to avoid accidental presses), a Start button, and somewhat strangely a "Sound" button. Unlike the Game Boy, which had an analogue wheel to select along a volume spectrum, the WonderSwan Color only has three volume states — high, low, and muted. However, the enhanced SwanCrystal did spoil players by raising this to four volume states. On the back, there are two features which are somewhat striking to one accustomed to a Game Boy Color. The first is the battery compartment, which takes only a single AA battery, but encloses it rather snugly. In fact, while the battery cover was simply cosmetic on Nintendo's products, on the WonderSwan the battery cover actually holds the battery, meaning that if you lost it, your console would be unusable. While losing your battery cover might've been common for Nintendo owners (my GBA cover went missing at some point in the mid-2000s), it's a lot less likely you'll lose your WonderSwan's, as it's such an integral part of its operation, and because it's surprisingly difficult to actually remove, at least on mine.

The other interesting thing to note is the game cartridge itself. These are slightly taller and wider than a GBA cartridge, but provides no protection for its pins, which are completely exposed. Even when in the unit, only the pins actually insert into the device, leaving the rest of the enclosure (which largely contains the label) exposed. It reminds me a bit of the Analogue Pocket in that way, except the WonderSwan has a nice plastic rail guiding the cartridge and holding it firmly in place, while the Analogue Pocket always makes me vaguely nervous it'll accidentally be bumped out (while I'm on the subject, I'm somewhat surprised/annoyed that the Pocket doesn't offer an adapter for the WonderSwan in the same way it does for the Game Gear and Atari Lynx. I guess there's not enough demand for a Japanese-only system).

The sides of the system are fairly sparse, with a contrast wheel on the left (left when held horizontally that is, which also makes the lack of a volume wheel odd), a "LOCK" slider on the bottom, which I assume locks the battery compartment in place, and an exposed proprietary data port on the right. This port was used for a number of different accessories, such as an infrared module or PC data connector, neither of which I have. The speaker is also on the front right-hand side of the unit, which highlights another oddity of the device — there's no headphone jack. I imagine this must have frustrated parents everywhere, who had to listen to the beeps and boops coming from their child's devices.

Enough of the hardware, what can this thing actually play. Due to it being a Japanese-exclusive system, the majority of the games feature only Japanese text. Arguably the most famous releases on the system are remakes of Final Fantasy I, II, and IV. Square had had a falling out with Nintendo over moving to the PlayStation, and decided to throw their hat into Bandai's ring. These versions would actually form the basis of the GBA ports of the games a few years later (once relations between the companies had improved). Despite not knowing a word of Japanese, I actually picked up copies of all three of these games, with I and II being complete in box no less. I don't know if it's because they're inaccessible to English players, but these games are surprisingly cheap. There are a number of other recognizable IPs as well, such as Mega Man, Front Mission, Digimon, and more. Aside from Final Fantasy, I also picked up two other titles.

The first is Gunpey EX, a puzzle title named in memory of the system's designer. Gunpey was originally an original, monochrome WonderSwan title, with the EX version released for the WSC shortly after (ala Link's Awakening and Link's Awakening DX). It's a simple enough puzzle game where you try and flip tiles to form a solid line across the screen. The game was popular enough to receive versions on the DS and PSP as well. Lastly, I bought a reproduction cart of Cardinal Sins. This is the game I've been playing the most, it's a short, almost mini-game-esque schmup where you have to complete objectives based on each of the Seven Deadly Sins each level. I mentioned the WonderSwan's dataport could be used for PC connection, and this title was actually some of the original homebrew released on the system, via the "WonderWitch" SDK. Bandai held a competition each year (they only did it for two years, but still) where the winners would have their games released as official games. Cardinal Sins is the sequel to the winner of the first competition, a game called Judgement Silversword. Unlike JSS (which is extremely expensive today), it never received a proper release, meaning it's only available via reproduction cartridges, although both games are on Steam.

It's a really neat system, and one I'm pleased to see has a surprisingly amount of enthusiasm around, even to this day. The only real downside of the system would have to be its screen, which I would describe as "oh, this really reminds me of my Game Boy Color". IPS screen mods are very common in these, and it was improved in the SwanCrystal, but I think I'm going to live with the experience. The whole point of buying old hardware is to experience the system as it was, if I wanted to simply play the games it's much easier to just emulate them (speaking of which, Ares has solid WS/WSC support). It's always dangerous for me to buy a new system, as it's now a new, fresh vector to sink money into, and I'm pleased (kinda) to admit that I like the system enough to continue investing in its library. It's a fun device that perfectly encapsulates the late 90s/early 2000s period, and has a solid library of games to boot. I do really regret not getting one with transparent plastic though, so don't be surprised if you hear I've gotten a SwanCrystal in a few years to remedy that.