By Lorfarius

By Deuteros

By HammyHavoc

By Zenszulu

But, I got one as a kid on holiday, from Argos in Hastings! I almost got a C64GS that holiday too, Woolworths were selling them off for £15 each. But dumba$$ me bought a Catwoman poster instead >.>

By Guru_Larry

The funny thing is, despite the simplicity of the screen, it has a stupidly obtuse abd complex set of mechanics beneath.

You can cast magic spells. They're not listed on screen, but in a manual, so you can look up F5 and see what it does and through a bewildering series of button presses activate one of the 10x function spells (they just augment numbers).

You can also get "passwords" from enemies. And inputting the 5 digits activates stat boosts.

And some cards have hidden strengths against others.

None of this is displayed. The reliance on the manual reminds me of Temple of Apshai on the TRS-80.

In 2025 it's archaic e-waste.

In 1992 it was outdated and crap.

In 1985 though...? If it had released much earlier, it would have been more interesting.

I do kinda love it.

Has anyone reverse engineered it? Because barcodes carry hidden parameters, based on how the official cards interact. (Hookshot item triples Link's damage against the Wart enemy card for example - how? Why?)

By Sketcz

Now my personal museum of esoteric nonsense includes:

• Barcode Battler II main unit
• Barcode Battler II C0² unit complete in hardshell case w/outer retail sleeve
• Barcode Battler II C2² unit complete in hardshell case
• Barcode World for the Famicom, boxed, including cards and the interface cable
• Barcode Battler Senki bundle box combining the complete boxed Super Famicom game and complete boxed interface peripheral
• Unused packs of blank cards
• Blank cards filled out by a previous owner in Japan in the '90s, including illustrations
• An envelope of vintage barcodes clipped by the same previous owner
• Other random merch

I'm going to do a YouTube video at some point.

By Bakamoichigei

By JayJ

By BulkSlash

By Zenszulu

Still remember scanning everything in the kitchen. lol

By Soupbones

If you want to dive in more there is a incredible fron my colleague https://barcodebattler.co.uk

On the other side i manage a site with my scanned cards for the device here https://cards.bimbiribase.xyz

We are just a few fans preserving cards and merchandising for this short fever in the early nineteys.

By VITIMan

In a very high level concept, it's a very crude form of collectable card battling that became Pokeman and the like. Although the randomness of your deck being based on what you had off packages at home is comical; though about the same as the randomness of what's in a booster pack.

By Daggot

By KingMike

By Arcata

I did get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it if I remember correctly and have made up several of my own character cards using barcodes from food items in the kitchen. I think a packet of rice was quite a good code but I can't remember if it was a character or an item to help out?

Anyway, around 10 years ago I took the Barcode Battler into work and played with some colleague's who loved it! Honestly, they did... the rose tinted spectacles were out in full force that day.

As a kid, I longed for a Gamesmaster challenge to be on the Barcode Battler...

By RossoftheRobots

By Peteykins

The only one I ever saw (sort of) in the wild was one we had in one of our shops. It gathered dust for many a year, in fact it was still there gathering dust when I sold my share of the business years later. I actually can’t even remember how we came to have it, it’s definitely not something I would have put an order in for, so I’m going to blame my partner.
Quite a few people asked about it over the years, there was many a discussion in the shop at lunchtime when the school kids came in (I wasn’t much older than them) but alas, not a single person ever liked the concept enough to actually buy the thing.

By Stwert

I've been wanting to drop the hammer on a Barcode Battler for ages now. They're about £25. But so many are missing cards.

Also... The idea is probably cooler than the reality.

I do want to play that Zelda game though.

I really like the idea behind the BCB. If it could have generated simple graphics it might have worked better.
The concept was better realised with:

1) Ultraman on N64, where GB carts and the transfer pak would generate characters

2) Monster Rancher (PS1), where CDs would generate monsters

3) Vib Ribbon (PS1), musics CDs generated levels

I'm just fascinated by the idea of other objects in the world creating the gameplay inside your game, depending on what you put in.

There was a PC game called Virus (I think?), which was supposed to create levels based on your HDD data, but it never really worked as advertised.

By Sketcz

By HammerGalladeBro