I'm not sure how helpful this is, but I didn't see it mentioned on the LMW. There was allegedly another listing of this game for auction in 2016 and it has different pictures from the listing that went up in 2021: aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/o155166864/
You might be better off working backwards, GungHo bought all of NEC Interchannels game assets in 2007 apparently, if anyone responds to you there they might be able to figure out if they received anything in relation to Noah's Ark, even if only names of people involved in it, it would be a lead at least.
Okay, I didn't know about the GungHo thing. I will most likely be contacting them soon. Thank you.
I assume your reach out to GungHo JP did not go anywhere? I just sent them an "Others" inquiry in (mostly machine translated) business Japanese and hope for any information regarding the game even with slim chances.
Just posting here again to keep the thread warm since my messages in the LMW discord may be buried.
Apologize for my lack of activity, life has been rough this past year and I stopped researching back in August. I'll be updating the wiki tonight, hopefully, and I'll be posting multiple game articles with their translations on here. 20 pages in total that I've edited on photoshop. Counting the Gameblast article that was first uploaded, 13 pages will be descriptions of the game. The other 7 are advertisements and so on.
I'll be posting a link to my dropbox with raw .tif scans, photoshop .tif edits, and article/review translations tomorrow. Still writing up the update to the wiki, and converting the .tif files to .jpg for uploading alongside the edit to the site
I'll be posting a link to my dropbox with raw .tif scans, photoshop .tif edits, and article/review translations tomorrow. Still writing up the update to the wiki, and converting the .tif files to .jpg for uploading alongside the edit to the site
Great to hear. I was going to update the wiki article with what we had, but it seems like you've come across a bit more sense then, unless I'm misremembering. Anyway, thank you for helping overcome the language barrier when it comes to this search.
I mentioned it in the LMW discord but I will be in Japan from the 9th-24th of this month in March. While not my main focus, I will be searching for a secondhand copy wherever I can on this vacation.
I'm curious if it has any notable following in Japan at all or if its so underground in Japanese online retro collector spaces that we can't pull up much online. Given how cheap this title went online the two (2) whole times it did, my hope is that its one of those things where enough copies are lying around if you bother to look since I don't know that many people from overseas have actually given it a try in-person.
I will be visiting Tokyo, Chiba, and Yokohama for the first week and going to Osaka and Kyoto in the second week.
Akihabara will be one of the first places I'll look but if you have any recommendations of other places to scavenge on the way, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you have any other advice for me on my search, please feel free to let me know!
I mentioned it in the LMW discord but I will be in Japan from the 9th-24th of this month in March. While not my main focus, I will be searching for a secondhand copy wherever I can on this vacation.
I'm curious if it has any notable following in Japan at all or if its so underground in Japanese online retro collector spaces that we can't pull up much online. Given how cheap this title went online the two (2) whole times it did, my hope is that its one of those things where enough copies are lying around if you bother to look since I don't know that many people from overseas have actually given it a try in-person.
I will be visiting Tokyo, Chiba, and Yokohama for the first week and going to Osaka and Kyoto in the second week.
Akihabara will be one of the first places I'll look but if you have any recommendations of other places to scavenge on the way, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you have any other advice for me on my search, please feel free to let me know!
Thank you, Nider
On one hand the game sold for very cheap on YAJ so it's likely to be overlooked by many collectors. On the other hand, Japanese PC game collecting seems to mostly focus on systems like the NEC PCs and the Sharp x6800 so finding this game will be quite difficult. Also, it seems to have sold very poorly, so there's probably not many copies just out there in the wild. Best of luck to you, and I hope you have a good time in Japan, even if you don't find the game.
I'm just a simple man, trying to make my way in the universe.
I mentioned it in the LMW discord but I will be in Japan from the 9th-24th of this month in March. While not my main focus, I will be searching for a secondhand copy wherever I can on this vacation.
I'm curious if it has any notable following in Japan at all or if its so underground in Japanese online retro collector spaces that we can't pull up much online. Given how cheap this title went online the two (2) whole times it did, my hope is that its one of those things where enough copies are lying around if you bother to look since I don't know that many people from overseas have actually given it a try in-person.
I will be visiting Tokyo, Chiba, and Yokohama for the first week and going to Osaka and Kyoto in the second week.
Akihabara will be one of the first places I'll look but if you have any recommendations of other places to scavenge on the way, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you have any other advice for me on my search, please feel free to let me know!
Thank you, Nider
I'll be doing the same thing when I go to Japan in May-June, so my only request is to try not to draw Japanese collectors' attention to the game... If they start searching for it and buying it up, it's very unlikely the files will ever appear online. I have a few niche secondhand shops on my list to visit but I probably won't mention the game's rarity to the owners, haha.
I mentioned it in the LMW discord but I will be in Japan from the 9th-24th of this month in March. While not my main focus, I will be searching for a secondhand copy wherever I can on this vacation.
I'm curious if it has any notable following in Japan at all or if its so underground in Japanese online retro collector spaces that we can't pull up much online. Given how cheap this title went online the two (2) whole times it did, my hope is that its one of those things where enough copies are lying around if you bother to look since I don't know that many people from overseas have actually given it a try in-person.
I will be visiting Tokyo, Chiba, and Yokohama for the first week and going to Osaka and Kyoto in the second week.
Akihabara will be one of the first places I'll look but if you have any recommendations of other places to scavenge on the way, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you have any other advice for me on my search, please feel free to let me know!
Thank you, Nider
I'll be doing the same thing when I go to Japan in May-June, so my only request is to try not to draw Japanese collectors' attention to the game... If they start searching for it and buying it up, it's very unlikely the files will ever appear online. I have a few niche secondhand shops on my list to visit but I probably won't mention the game's rarity to the owners, haha.
While you're over there would you mind also searching for this ultra-rare single Japanese single "In the Distance" by Yasuko Endo? Sakura Stardust goes into more detail about it here:
I have returned from vacation and unfortunately have to say I had no luck. I went to endless secondhand game stores both chain and mom-and-pop across Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuyama, and Hiroshima for the last two weeks. (I'd say about half of my time was dedicated to shelf scanning but I did enjoy the rest of it and came back with some good personal finds in terms of CDs and figurines.)
Windows PC/Mac games are indeed extremely hard to come by with most shops that have retro games tending to have titles for PC Engine, CD-ROM², Hu-Card, PC-FX, MSX, etc. When you do come across stuff for Windows PC or Mac, the sections can barely be called sections when its like 1-12 games tucked away near the PC Engine shelves. The Windows PC/Mac titles you'll find tends to be stuff like puzzlers such as PoiPon for PC, Mahjong games, train simulators, or a stray copy of Halo: Combat Evolved for Mac.
I am unsure of what advice I can offer other than for future travelers searching for the game to prioritize exploring shops that seem unassuming. Shops outside of the more populated hubs or ones that are simply just overlooked etc. You'll be likely to have less luck at chains like Surugaya, Mandarake, Book-Off etc. given that they have some semblance of inventory search on their websites and Noah's Ark doesn't pull anything up there. (I certainly didn't find it at these locations either so-)
While I will continue to search on all my future trips back to Japan, I’m convinced at this current time that Noah’s Ark only exists in private collections.
I have returned from vacation and unfortunately have to say I had no luck. I went to endless secondhand game stores both chain and mom-and-pop across Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuyama, and Hiroshima for the last two weeks. (I'd say about half of my time was dedicated to shelf scanning but I did enjoy the rest of it and came back with some good personal finds in terms of CDs and figurines.)
Windows PC/Mac games are indeed extremely hard to come by with most shops that have retro games tending to have titles for PC Engine, CD-ROM², Hu-Card, PC-FX, MSX, etc. When you do come across stuff for Windows PC or Mac, the sections can barely be called sections when its like 1-12 games tucked away near the PC Engine shelves. The Windows PC/Mac titles you'll find tends to be stuff like puzzlers such as PoiPon for PC, Mahjong games, train simulators, or a stray copy of Halo: Combat Evolved for Mac.
I am unsure of what advice I can offer other than for future travelers searching for the game to prioritize exploring shops that seem unassuming. Shops outside of the more populated hubs or ones that are simply just overlooked etc. You'll be likely to have less luck at chains like Surugaya, Mandarake, Book-Off etc. given that they have some semblance of inventory search on their websites and Noah's Ark doesn't pull anything up there. (I certainly didn't find it at these locations either so-)
While I will continue to search on all my future trips back to Japan, I’m convinced at this current time that Noah’s Ark only exists in private collections.
Were you also able to check around for that CD single I mentioned?
Hi guys, I recently toured all around Japan looking for Noah's Ark. (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Okayama, Tokushima, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kita-kyushu, Kurume, Osaka) Unfortunately I didn't find it, but here's some info for other people who might look: Hard Off was the most likely place to find retro PC games. Different Hard Offs specialise in different things, so sometimes they didn't have any, or sometimes they'd only have a few in the "junk" (untested/damaged) section. I found sizeable PC game selections at a few random Surugayas. Usually PC games are just in the "retro game" or "other games" sections rather than a section labelled with the console. I had a conversation with the owner of a retro game store who gave me some advice about finding PC games. First of all, most places (even specialist retro game stores) don't stock Windows/Mac games and they're more likely to be sold on Yahoo Auctions (or Mercari less often). He then suggested Hard Off, Mandarake and Surugaya. Mandarake sometimes have things tucked away in the back, so you can call stores or go in and ask if they have a specific item. Places like Super Potato only have console games and don't stock PC games. Some places (i.e. Surugaya) may look like they only have 18+ PC games but they do have all-ages games mixed in with them so check the ノ section just in case. Other times they have the all-ages part tacked on at the end of a shelf. There was a good selection of PC games at a retro PC store called "Pau" in Nagoya if anyone's in the area. Unfortunately there was no Noah's Ark when I went, though.
In summary, however, if Noah's Ark comes up for sale it's most likely to be online. I think this game just sold ridiculously poorly back in the day, which is why no Japanese people even talk about having played it when they were younger online. I found one (1) guy on Twitter who'd mentioned playing it, but I talked to him and he'd already given the game to a Hard Off a year prior. I later messaged him again and he said he checked the Hard Off in Tokushima that he'd sold it to, but it was gone (after a long time of no one buying it). I went there in person just in case but all I found was a Noah's Ark-shaped hole in the shelf of PC games, lmao.
(I really loved the vibes and the future aesthetics)
