The games consoles which came out of Japan in the 1980s are the stuff of legend, with the offerings from Nintendo and Sega weaving themselves into global popular culture. Most of us can recite a list of the main players in the market, but how many of us would have Epoch and their Super Cassette Vision on that list? [Nicole Express] is here with a look at this forgotten machine which tried so hard and yet missed the target when competing with the NES or Master System.
Before the arrival of the Sega and Nintendo cartridge based systems, one of the better known Japanese consoles was the Epoch Cassette Vision. This was something of a hybrid between single-game TV games and an Atari 2600 style computing device for games, in that it used pre-programmed microcontrollers in its cartridges rather than the ROMs of the 2600. For the late-70s gamer this was still hot stuff, but by 1983 as the Master System and NES hove into view it was definitely past its best. Epoch’s response for 1984 was the Super Cassette Vision, a much more conventional 8-bit console with on the face of it some respectable graphics and sound hardware.
The article looks at the console’s capabilities in detail, highlighting the multi-colored sprites and smooth sprite movement, but also the tilemap limitations and the somewhat awful sound chip shared with handheld games and sounding very much like it. Coupled with its inferior controllers and TV game style aesthetic, it’s not difficult to see why it would be the last console from this manufacturer.
If forgotten consoles are your thing, have a read about the Fairchild Channel F, the machine that gave us console cartridges.
Awesome! Never heard of it before, though.
I like the name, also. Who needs a Super Famicom, if there’s a Super Cassette Vision! 😁
Seriously, though. I remember my friends and me calling game cartridges “cassettes” when we were young.
This held true throughout the NES days, at least.
It wasn’t too uncommon back then to refer to the NES or Mastersystem games as “cassettes”.
Also probably because there was a German name to it; spelled Kassette or Cassette (as in Spielcassette), depending on were you lived*.
Using the English terms “Cartridge” or “Game Pak” was sounding odd.
Saying “Gamepad” or “Joypad” for the controller was enough English in real life already.
(*Way back in the 80s and 90s, the East Germans often used what felt like a more modern/less traditional/less cultural spelling: Telefon vs Telephon, Delfin vs Delphin etc. That was before one of the various spelling reforms, even, which took away a part of our writing culture by nullifying the old “ph” variants.)
Just checked the specs, there also was a girl’s version – in pink.
The graphics specs seem better than that of the C64 or PC’s lo-res CGA/EGA, even.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Cassette_Vision
https://muuseo.com/henly/items/191
Featured in Paper Tiger earlier this year (Lady Super Cassette Vision) as part of the 24 X 24K for 2024 series
https://paper-tiger.ghost.io/epoch-lady-super-cassette-vision/
Trivia information – this game console had the first Dragon Ball themed game!
And the first battery-backed save RAM ? Dragon Slayer ? 😎
As a trivia consumer, thank you for that tasty tidbit!
The game looks quite decent, I must say. Thanks for the info!
Still, I had to chuckle a bit when I read that first.
Because, it did bring back some funny memories of watching YouTube reviews years ago.
Here, a French version of another 8-Bit Dragon Ball game (NES) did read “Les balles Du Dragon”.
I mean you technically can translate it that way.. ;)
https://youtu.be/NxbJTW74HbY?t=245
I spent several days hunting down the game images and the emulator for this system. Was it worth it? As a collector, yes. Unfortunately the games were crappy.
Star Speeder was okay, though? It’s like a proto F-Zero?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2yb5c1MGcY
Also, Mappy doesn’t look worse than NEC PC-6001 port, rather better.
It’s close to PC-8001 port, I would say. Sound was better on home computers, though.
But that being said, early Japanese console games perhaps weren’t that, um, sophisticated, I’m afraid. :(
The Sega Mastersystem predecessors were modest, too. SG-1000, SG-1000 II and Sega Mark III.
I mean, they couldn’t draw anything meaningful in terms of text, because resolution and storage capacity was too low for Japanese character set.
Which in turn meant that games with a plot or narration wasn’t easy to implement, reducing gameplay to simpler games.
Using English was not much of an option, either, past simple character names and a scoring system.
The average Japanese wasn’t so English savy beyond basic vocabulary.
Computer users were different, of course, because English was sort of a requirement in computing around the globe.
The Famicom (NES) meant a change here, I think.
It had the capabilities to draw in-game texts in various languages and allowed to use of a separate character ROM in game cartridges.
The various mappers in the cartridges helped improving capabilities further.
All in all, early-mid 80s text adventures on FM-7, PC-8001, PC-8801, MSX and Sharp X1 and Sharp MZ-1500 had more to offer in terms of addicting gameplay, maybe.
Cutesy adventure games such as Harry Fox or Japanese ports of English games such as Sierra’s Hi-Res Adventure series.
Or something like Eldorado Denki. ;)
Western adventures were sort of a role model, anyway in the early-mid 80s of Japan.
They eventually turned into visual novels (hi PC-98!). ;)
Real arcade games were being sophisticated in the 80s, too.
Or let’s take Japanese PCs such as IBM PC JX and PC-9801 which ran MS‐DOS ports and typical DOS games (Flight Simulator).
Speaking under correction, I’m thinking out loud mostly.
Unusual to have CPU on the cartridge but not unique. Microvision also used the same idea.
the original Cassette Vision had the CPU on the cart. Super Cassette Vision didn’t.