Review: Konami Book, The Legend of Konami

By MSXArnhem

Expert (82)

MSXArnhem's picture

07-04-2013, 23:14

I just bought the book from Bitwise in The Netherlands. Here's my concise review of the book (please bear in mind that I'm not a professional book critic.)

It's a relative small book. It's about 1/2 A4 (approx. 21 x 15 cm). But it's quite thick: 1,5 cm. It's a very colorful book with some fantastic pictures and art work. It's real eye candy.

I haven't checked, but I have no doubt that all Konami MSX games are in the book. The games are in chronological order and it's very interesting to see how Konami games have developped over time (with Nemesis as the first Megabit game and Vampire Killer as the first MSX2 game).

It looks like the book has been written with the Konami game collector in mind, and not so much the gamer. There's a lot of Konami box art in the book and pictures of different cartridges. The book contains screenshots as well, but I would have liked more and bigger screenshots. Don't expect maps, walk throughs and cheats. However, the book contains some passwords.

I paid € 34,50 (including shipment) for the book. If I saw a book of this size at the book store, I would expect it to cost between € 10 or € 20. But there's a very small market for this book (how much MSX Konami fans are there?), so I understand a somewhat higher price. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it worth it? If you're a Konami fan like me: yes!

To sum up: I'm glad I bought the book.

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By Capitan_Goto

Master (168)

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09-04-2013, 08:47

I have one and i´m very glad of having it. If someone is interested in MSX and can afford it, it´s a must.

By ray2day

Paladin (752)

ray2day's picture

09-04-2013, 12:54

A while ago I made a book review about this book also.
Visit my website to read it; http://www.raymondmsx.nl/spelbesprekingen_konami_book_eng.html

By supmsx

Master (158)

supmsx's picture

09-04-2013, 13:40

Mine is a little bit different (and incomplete) Konami Story Book

:P

By MSXArnhem

Expert (82)

MSXArnhem's picture

09-04-2013, 21:34

Thanks for the link to your book review, Ray2day. Looks like I'm not the only one enjoying the book.

By nanochess

Master (222)

nanochess's picture

13-04-2013, 16:17

It's a great book Smile, in fact I didn't knew of some Konami games until this book.

By shwaikh

Expert (84)

shwaikh's picture

30-07-2017, 08:15

Amazing reference .. its clear that the author(s) did a lot of research work .. in all directions .. i didn't see any mention for the Arabic region although there was a pirated copies over there

great job
great book
great memories

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

TheKid's picture

31-07-2017, 07:48

Yep, I would recommend this book to every konami lover. I bought it with a few relatives to save divide shipmentcosts, cause they are high if you only order one copy (to the netherlands). I have the second release which apperently has better english then the first edition. I don't know how the first version was, but I don't mind the english, it's understandable and doesn't bother me so much. And like others wrote here, it is a real treasure chest of facts. Some cheats are discribed I never knew (although I thought I knew them all Smile ).

By Feiraco

Master (140)

Feiraco's picture

30-08-2017, 20:23

There are soms topics on the book, and I absolutely agree about recommending it to everyone. Especially if the language did have some corrections:

https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/general-discussion/legend...

And nice to see that this thread was started by MSXArnhem. I might want to change my forum-name to the city that I was raised in, MSXZevenaar :-)