Collection essentials #310: Konami Antiques: MSX Collection Ultra Pack (Saturn)

If you’re an American and not a gamer who loves Konami, odds are you don’t know what an MSX is. It was a type of home computer that was popular in the 1980s in many parts of the world, but not North America. I don’t know much about its history so I’m not going to say a lot about that here. But of course, various companies made games for MSX computers. The great Konami was one of those companies, and in fact they were quite a prolific MSX developer. By the mid-’90s MSXs were no longer on the market, and before long Konami thought it was appropriate to rerelease compilations of their MSX library. On one of the consoles out at the time they released three different volumes with 10 games each. And then for the Sega Saturn, they decided to lump them all into one release, with a whopping 30 games on one disc! Eventually large compilations like this became more common, but in the ‘90s it was pretty unusual to see one that included this many games. Perhaps surprisingly, Konami’s most famous MSX games, which started a certain very popular series created by Hideo Kojima, are not among the 30.

Even in the ‘90s, the games on offer here generally felt dated at least to some degree, sometimes greatly. You aren’t likely to be wowed by any game on this disc, and it mainly serves as a neat little taste of Konami’s past. 

While I am a big fan of old-school Konami, I have no history with the MSX being an American myself. So why is this compilation on my list? Well, it’s really because of one of the 30 games in particular…and that game is the original Parodius! You already know from my recent posts how much I love that series. Many people overlook the fact that this first Parodius game even exists, mistakenly thinking that “Parodius Da!” was the first in the series. Now, the original Parodius obviously doesn’t hold a candle to its sequels, but it still stands out as one of the better games on offer here in my opinion.

Being a Konami and Parodius fan, it just feels right to own this disc, which means I have all five Parodius games in existence for the Sega Saturn. I suppose you could call it an MSXsential.