Inside The Most Underrated Games Shop In Wales

[Music] in the club I always keep that sh my we are back baby with episode two of the Retro show supported by our patrons this time we are in a totally different country over the bridge in Welles Cardiff checking out an incred rible Retro Game Shop called super tomato ran by a lovely guy called Tom who has been doing this for 16 years if you love seeing content like this and want the Retro show to continue head over to patreon to get some extra benefits and without further Ado let's check out Tom's shop up [Music] it'ss hi I'm Tom I run super tomato a store that sells retro video games old toys and general odd Japanese ephemera that we pick up from Tokyo about every 4 months or so we've been here 16 years on the outskirts of Cardiff and we do our very best to provide a nice atmosphere and safe space for people to come and see things they enjoy that they might not see anywhere else we have been here a long time we've only been going to Japan for about half of that period prior to that um we had some good relationships at some shops over there some wholesale saers but we'd always thought it would be um financially difficult to travel over there I suppose you always think in your minds I to Grand a ticket at least that kind of thing and we found pre pandemic at least that it is so much easier to go over that it's a tremendously accessible place that it's just the most lovely place in the world so once we'd established I guess um a pattern of doing that we started going back three or four times a year um it's obviously a wonderful place to find things that are very very unique that you wouldn't find readly in the UK by any stretch um and that's what we're always doing when we're over there we're not necessarily looking for things that are common or garden I suppose as cool as those are you're looking for the really sort of um the odds but interesting bits and pieces things like the Game Boy Pocket Sona um the you know the Bomberman gold Coro Coro cartridge things that are things you wouldn't necessarily even find online just very very um exciting and unusual bits and Bobs and that's the sort of real Joy of going over there it's um look ostensively I'm going there for the shop obviously it's a business thing but I cannot emphasize the level of catharus you get just shopping and by God I mean I bring back a huge amount for myself as well because you would wouldn't you so this is our cabinet of uh relative Rarities the slightly more obscure stuff so you have a few Neo Geo on Orthodox bits of Hardware a few special edition consoles a few particularly rare games um we have our coroo prize draw Bomberman cartridge which again it's gold what's not to like it is a gold chrome cartridge there are minor differences to the game itself so it is a slightly different version of bom Man 2 there's actually bigger differences on the car reverse the bonman 5 um but that is even within gold priz cartridge is tougher the track down um but whenever we go to Japan there is always the cabinet of luxuries and video game stores over there always has a gold bomman cartridge in there so when I had the opportunity to grab one for the shop myself absolutely bit the guy's arm off so this is our Game Boy cabinet we keep it closest to the door purely because it is the most popular thing in the shop um there's normally a few other Game Boy special editions in here but the Highlight we have at the moment is our Tokyo yamori Giants Game Boy Advance which is that one right there um slightly less rare but I think far more interestingly is this amazing Game Boy carry case that we have behind it which is a Mario Kart Advanced one that I just think is the greatest thing ever it's like a we little lunch boox but obviously Game Boy advanced shapes and love stuff like that um we're forever trying to pick up um there's a lot of official console stands and things like that little cradles for super famicom and things in Japan which are an absolute pig to take home but I mean just wonderful wonderful stuff anything Nintendo branded that is a bit weird is always a winner we do a lot in the way as well of handh Helms gaming watch things like that Tomy tronic Grand stands um crazy Kong yeah you got things like Munch man in its various incarnations that occasionally is officially licensed as Pac-Man occasionally isn't depending on exactly what period in time it is released um it's always unusual to get something with cardboard these days as well when it comes to the LCD so it's always nice if something's in a box you just don't see that sort of thing a lot these days titles by code Masters tend to be slightly RAR they come in a unique shape of cartridge as well um there are a few different ones they're all quite difficult to get hold of these days so this is a Bambino kick the gong uh electronic handheld game it is actually surprisingly playable as far as handheld soccer games go for whatever reason a lot of the handheld football games are reasonably compulsive and a age reasonably well um and anything by Bambino is always it's always quite lavishly constructed in terms of I guess the design of the system itself the form factor how big and chunk junky it is how vibrant the light tends to be uh behind the screen as well um again unusual to have it with the packaging um and paperwork and stuff like that so this is just the barcode battler but it is a Japanese barcode battler um now the concept behind these um in the UK this is proper Argos clearance photo but the idea is that you scan barcodes and in essence use the barcodes like you would Pokémon or anything like that like a sort of slightly more advanced top trumps um where as the empasis over here we scan your baked beans and get your barcode off of that um in Japan they lean rather more into things like um well a lot of these are very much gun damnes and things like that there you've got your iron Cola beer themed robot there Ramen themed guy spoon there are blank cards for you to make your own ones as well just as they were with the Western machine um but you see it says conven Wars at the top so the notion is Con convenience store um yeah convenience store stat-based combat um but just so much more appealing even in it's you know white colorway versus the black one we got over here which is very door and very um what does I say very argust Bargain Bin fod so this isn't necessarily a particularly uncommon thing to see within the UK but the interesting thing about that particular Pokemon console the Pokemon Battle Set is the States and Japan didn't get that one um we also in Europe got the molded Pikachu with his little light up cheeks that version of the console but the Pokemon Battle Set is only a UK Sweden and Australia release rather bizarrely now you would just assume it being a PO on themed N64 that that would be available absolutely globally because of course why wouldn't it be but it turns out it is actually geographically a relatively limited release so I'm a Mega Driving Super Nintendo guy I very much grew up with the Super Nintendo people tend to have a transition from machine to machine to machine for me it was Z spectum Sega Master System Super Nintendo and then PlayStation N64 stuff like that but the one that resonated with me the most in St does to this day is Super Nintendo and in tandem with that you then I guess look at the Mega Drive stuff as well because those are very much what you would call the peak of the 2D pixel type um game that at that stage sort of plateaus and disappears for a while with the Advent of 3D with the PlayStation with the N64 with the Sega satin so in terms of sprite work and gameplay design and things like that those are the games that are very much at the very um top of what potentially Nintendo or Square or Sega we doing at the time and those are the ones that I still hold very dear to my heart and still I guess have the most Joy when they come into the store so um this is the most mundane of things but something that I really really adore so this is a cleaning cartridge for both famicom and super famicom and you just flip it upside down or the other way to use one way or the other the reason I like it is anything that's in that old school famicom colorway of the burgundy gold I think is just absolutely Divine so even the most mundane things like a cartridge cleaner is super super interesting if it has that sort of old school Nintendo aesthetic this is the later slim down version of the super famicom the Super famicom Junior um now fundamentally it is just a Japanese Super Nintendo I like this a lot just because the Aesthetics of it very much Put Me In Mind of the Nintendo PlayStation prototype that was found a few years ago um so although obviously this is very much not that it has that same kind of um minimalist aesthetic that I think they're going for at the time and we don't see these particularly often in Japan um I just think they're super super cool I think of all the super famic coms you see which is a lot it's nice to have one that at least looks a little different and Visually distinct um and is just just a little bit more obscure as far as the import stuff go it's mostly Japanese because of course we're going to Japan but there's a large student population initates and that's sometimes where a lot of our American stuff comes from whether that is students from the North American content itself or there's a lot of South American students so again they tend to have similar stuff so that's where things like this amazing box Pocky and Rocky will come from which is one of the harder games to get boxed whether it is European or American and I mean a delightful really really Lush pixel based shooting upk um but yeah we don't sell a huge amount of American stuff but what we have I mean as with anything Super Nintendo it's just nice to have it with the cardboard have it with the Box these days that has become a tougher thing to do particularly in recent years in Japan this was really rather successful and you have a number of rather more exciting versions of the system like this wonderful yellow one here um whereas there is a very limited software offering within the West in Japan you get all sorts of amazing things like these Ultraman games um you get cartridges in a number of vivid colorways the way the Pico works is you plug the games in and turn the pages of which there are literal pages so it works like a book in tandem with the console itself there's a stylus um there's interactive ele elements there's all sorts of exciting devices peripherals and things you can get to go with it as well like this amazing Sega steering wheel um now again what I adore about this is apart from the wheel itself which is absolutely wonderful and clips onto the system the game it comes with comes in this amazing Vivid blue cartridge um I'm a sucker for a bit of colored plastic so this is very much up my street you can even get Pokémon games for it as well so it's a really interesting um I guess cultural artifact of a very early period where Sega and Nintendo were working together for the first time the way this would work let's grab one of the games so game plugs in there it does connect to the TV works just like a Sega Mega Drive um so you have an output to the television a display but also as you turn the pages of the book that interacts with the game as you use the touch pen with the book that interacts of what you see on screen that's your control pad there it's sort of a fascinating um lost bit of sagga I guess home history that no one really talks about these days so we do get these traded in pretty regularly um I always aspire to get hold of one of these like when I had an Xbox I just could not find one um and of course once we started getting them in yeah you think this is phenomenal way I get to try this again um but it is absolutely the driest thing in the world I mean it's the video game equivalent of being a jcv driver so it's not the most stimulating action-based game and of course it only works with Steel Battalion and Steel Battalion line of contact so you have a choice of two games which are in it's interchangeable um you know it's great it's a collectible it's enormous it's uh heavy to say the least it's a real Hefty bit of Kit would I recommend it as a gameplay experience yeah probably not no I mean the goal ultimately is to have a space that celebrates all that wonderful stuff that perhaps you don't find anywhere else and I cannot emphasize this enough like anyone who step over that threshold and walks into the shop you don't have to buy anything you know you're more than welcome to come and look around we're grateful for everyone who just walks in through the door the whole notion is that this is a place that is safe that is nice that is calm where you can see and explore things that are within your field of interest that you perhaps would not be able to elsewhere and that's all we really want to do to have a space where people can enjoy and celebrate that um because there are so few of those left these days a big thank you to Tom for opening up his store and letting me film for the day it's truly an incredible place and this is why I wanted to make this series to shine light on these awesome stores across the UK and the globe I did pick up a couple of things I had to pick up that game boy advaned lunch boox I think you call it a lunch boox you just pull the triggers back and you get like a mini lunch box in there but I am 100% going to store my cartridges in this and it's a Japanese uh product as well which just looks a little cooler as well so big up Tom for bringing that back from Japan on his trip and then I picked up a box version of a Game Boy Pocket case you don't often see these boxed so I wanted to add that to my collection as well all reasonably priced I did as well put an official retro dodo t-shirt behind the counter so the first person that comes into Tom's store in Cardiff and says they've watched this video will get a free t-shirt so so again thank you for watching in the next episode we are going to a totally different country again so that should be three episodes three different countries I have two episodes lined up that I will be filming over the next month or so so do subscribe if you want to see more and if you do enjoy them please support on patreon that's the thing keeping this Channel and this series alive as per usual thanks for watching I'll see you in the next episode bye-bye

Channel: Retro Dodo

Views: 7,353

Keywords: retro games, super tomato, the retroad show, retroad show, retro gaming, super tomato wales, retro game shops, retro game shop tours

Id: XjMiUMszpEU

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 02 2024