Funny there actually is a TV digimon, so I can actually see a tamer with a Monitamon (Monitor Monster haha punny) using the Digivice to scan E-reader cards to play Donkey Kong.
And when we're all living underground and only 1% of the earths population is left from the fourth wave of rona in december it'll be the only thing keeping her hope alive :') will she ever see nitro again? find out next time!
Beyond thrilled to see this video come out: More than happy to have sold those cards and passed the torch after my collecting journey ended with those years ago. It was the start of me joining the internet, as I obtained most of my collection via ACC or NOA's online store selling unsold packs, but those two cards were really tricky to track down. I think Mario Bros came from a Series 4 pack, while Ice Climber was one I got from a trade on ACC. Now they have been bestowed onto you, for I've moved onto collecting limited edition video games instead and have other things in life to deal with. This was a very enjoyable video all around and while I made a vid on the e-reader itself as an accessory, I didn't go too much into the AC stuff since I aim to do that in the future when I cover the actual game. Still, the e-reader was one fun ride I enjoyed back in the day that I'll always miss. Maybe if there's a hidden trove of unopened packs and they get super common again, i'll join the fun, but for now I'm content with my collection being as-is and those cards heading to you. Thank you so much James for letting me help you out! And yes, I also treated it like a digimon tamers device as a kid, much to my dismay. Also kinda pretended it was a henshin device of some kind, like the Magna Defender from Power Rangers, but alas, it's too impractical to even use it as a fun prop!
Oh Im so glad of seeing you ocne again friend and its a loving and touching story! and I am sorry that you wont get to hurt for it but at least being happy that they are out in the hands of such a great and cool and awesome person such as Nitro here!... Wait..what even is his real name anyway?
6:16 On the contrary, the E-Reader was a success in Japan. Theres so many Gamecube/GBA games with e-reader support from Pikmin to Mario Kart Circuit, DKC, Megaman.exe and more. To the point that its pretty undiscovered in the west and hardly any info comes out for it.
What made the E-Reader so popular in Japan? From what Nitro Rad was saying, the E-Reader felt annoying to use and expensive to make it work. Do the Japanese have more tolerance for this type of stuff?
They used them since New Leaf at least, but the album covers use a bigger segment than the cards. So I guess they just kinda held onto those assets until they had more use for them.
The E-Reader is definitely one of the biggest regrets I have as far as Nintendo-related purchases goes. It wasn't very useful, hard to use, and getting cards in the USA was a lot harder than it was in Japan. The peripheral also wasn't supported long on top of all of that, so it never really went anywhere.
You can really tell when the video was made by a person passionate about the topic. This has been a joy to watch and I really learned a lot about the e reader, which I had only heard of online. Thank you for the effort and work it took to make this video, it really paid off!
1:19 wasn’t expecting a Tamers reference. Also glad to see that I didn’t miss much with the e Reader since I wasn’t into Animal Crossing. I always saw the cards but never the actual device itself
Beeing from europe, seeing all of this its really cool! The e-reader wasn't released in europe, and the post office basically looks like the one in doubutsu no mori 64
As much as I love NH, I kind of wish the characters had this much depth. I've noticed there is kind of a lack of variety in talking to villagers. Even in their letters. This may have been the case in past games and I just don't remember it, but, eh, I don't know. I just feel like talking to them doesn't offer what it used to. Seems like they don't visit your house anymore or give tasks either.
Thanks for doing this video. I had the e reader and a few packs of cards as a kid. They were gifted to me from a family friend so I didn’t feel any buyer’s remorse. In practice, it was kinda lame but the added functionality to AC was appreciated. I wish I knew where my cards went. I never knew that you could play mini games with the cards. I guess I never had those specific cards.
Tom The Fish SMA4 kicked ass. It’s the best way to play the best NES Mario game. Plus the e-reader added a tonne of unique levels, extra power ups and enemies from other games; even some new, one-time mechanics.
@Tom The Fish I mean... sure, it's up to you if the exclusive features are worth getting either platform for. Obviously getting an e-reader and every card now is impractical, but most of us have a WiiU at this point or can get one cheaply, so the virtual console alternative is a good one, regardless of what you thought of the WiiU...
Great video! I love the e-Readers cards. I doubt there's many collections around. Also, I'm curious, how are you capturing your Gamecube and Gameboy gameplay? Would love to know which components you're using. Thanks. I’m hoping to do some AC e-reader card content on my channel. Keep up the great work. Top class video!
Wow. After that fantastic series retrospective on your Animal Crossing memories, you had a tough act to follow and honestly, this video is just as awesome as the Animal Crossing Memories video. Fantastic presentation, dude!
This is such a random video to discuss this on, but Nitro Rad is a rare kind of RU-vidr. All of his stuff is consistently fresh with a formula, laid-back, with lots of moments of really great cinematography and general technical polish. The only other RU-vidr I can think of that is similar to my descriptions is Ahoy.
This was such a well made video! I really was expecting to just come in here and leave immediately but the great production value and the charming way you genuinely seemed to enjoy talking about this kept me engaged and I ended up staying here through the whole video! It didn't even feel 21 minutes long.
Those shots of the cards getting swiped looked amazing! And holy crap my jaw dropped seeing that Digimon gag!!! Nitro Rad, you're so freaking talented!!!
I had an eReader as a kid (which I still have to this day along with at least half of the 500+ cards that I amassed for it in the short 2 - 3 years its cards were on the market). My eReader was sold as an EB Games bundle that came with Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Donkey Kong 3, Ice Climber, and Clu Clu Land, while my dad also bought me the enormous powerup/stage expansion packs for Super Mario Advance 4 (Super Mario Bros 3) and a Pokemon Battle-e expansion pack containing over 40 eReader-exclusive trainers (along with over a half dozen exclusive berries) for Pokemon Sapphire. The actual use of the thing was *INSANELY* convoluted and *required that I use a multiplayer cable and connect my GBA to my sister's GBA using the eReader in order to download all this DLC to my SMB3 Advance cartridge.* (I think the method was the same for Pokemon but I can't quite remember) But the end result was super cool because I had special berries and trainers to fight that none of my friends had in R/S/E, and I had powerups and fever-dream levels that none of my friends had in SMB3 Advance.
Honestly I like the videos when you just talk about games you love like Animal Crossing and just share your experiences with it. Just a nice, casual video, and I love it.
One of your best episodes to date. Almost every piece of info you mentioned I did not know. Like Animal Crossing was on N64 initially in Japan? I did not know that.
Thank you so much for this informative video! It's far past time for an informational video on this topic in the fandom, and you killed it! This comment will probably get lost, but one thing I wanted to add: If you send the code to the animal who's featured on the card, you get a *different* card than the one if you sent it to a different one. This means that each card has *three* in-game letters it can send you! (in addition to the cute mini e-reader story)
I tried taking a shot every time James scanned something through the eReader, but I gave up for health reasons. In all seriousness though, fantastic video! I completely missed this era because I was getting into video games when I was way older. Love that we can learn about and remember this stuff through these videos though :)
Thank you so much for this video. You are not the only one who was passionate about these cards. I too wanted to see everything this game had to offer. I spent way too much money tracking down every single card to have a complete set. I remember paying $15+ on single character cards just to get my complete set. I am fortunate enough to even have those two NES cards. I feel sad saying this, but my collection feels like my most prized possession, outside of my wedding ring. To this day, I still feel like I'm missing out on things because I didn't send letters for every password. It was just too tedious. Anyway, thank you again. I rarely leave comments on RU-vid videos, and this one got me to do it.
Really have to thank you for this video. Here in Europe the e-Reader was never released and all the e-Reader features were removed from the games, like in Animal Crossing. We also had the codes with the key that could be sent to a villager (at least for the NES games), but they were generated on the official Animal Crossing website, where you had to look them up and write them done. But the e-Reader features were always a mystery to me that I never had the chance to see (except if I imported that stuff but that would be kind of expensive for curiosity's sake). So I'm happy that this video kinda solved that mystery for me, at least for Animal Crossing.
fun fact: you actually can use character cards at the wishing well to move villagers into your town in doubutsu no mori e+ (and if you know how you can even make your own custom character cards to move your own custom villagers into your town)
Thanks for making this! I was just about to buy some Ereader cards thinking they worked like the Amiibo cards! I saw this video within the hour I bought them and saved $20! I guess I just have to wait until Twirp decides to move into my village...
I'd just like to add that over here in Europe we never had the E-Reader so my copy of AC's post office just had that table like in the N64 and pre-e-reader versions. Sad it was never released over here but we still had the island. Just hook up the GBA with the Gamecube link cable and Kapp'n would be waiting for ye.
you had to use the cards the same way Japanese players did- scan it into an e-reader, get the code, then use that to get the item. They worked indirectly- at least Nintendo of America was smart enough to realize not everyone owned a GBA, so they included the password (remember that message he got on the GBA after scanning it? That was how you got the code to get the item in the Japanese version).
I had no idea this existed... I love it :D I'd forgotten about this channel (thanks a lot yt notifications), so much great stuff I never watched here, thanks :)
Yo this video had me laughing so fucking hard when you did the digimon e-reader sequence that I felt the need to make my first comment on your videos even though I’ve been watching for years, thank you
2:05 Moral of the Story, Listen to your mom. Once I almost Traded in my GameCube for a DSi and my mother stopped me from doing so. The DSi Broke 3 months Later But that GameCube is still running to this day.
I have to say, Nitro, this video turned out FANTASTIC! You did a spectacular job with the crisp recording, the awesome fade-ins, the solid focuses on all the different items with your voiceover...everything is just so smooth and flows so well, you're really doing a phenomenal job with improving your videos! It's honestly so much fun listening to you talk about Animal Crossing- you really have such a great connection with the game and there's so many memories and interesting factoids you have to say, it's awesome. I really love the idea of the "who-dun-it" game and I REALLY wish that could be incorporated into a future AC/DLC. Honestly I feel like it'd be a fun game to put together with friends and have little prizes to give out for people who can guess a character first! (I'm also a sucker for Detective/mysteries/puzzles---so besides the fact that the mini-game seemed to be the most solid out of the cards you had, I'm also slightly biased-) I know young Nitro may have a bit of regret buying that $40 piece of plastic...but future Nitro was able to give us a really, REALLY awesome video with so much great little tidbits of information. There are a ton of "did you knows" and throw backs to old things, but this one was an excellent and solid choice. I hope we can see more videos like this in the future!
You had me so invested in what childhood game soundtrack you used for the first part of the video that I had to rewatch the whole thing. I put WAY too many hours into Paper Mario TYD, yo.
Saw on Twitter this was your favorite video to work on, it's easy to see why, it's so cool to see you talk about cool niche things you really like in between the bigger games, things like your Yume Nikki video years and years ago are some of my favorite of your content, and now, with the super high quality of your new content, it's so nice to listen to. Keep up the good work!
Thank-you so much for making this video! I have wondered for YEARS what it looked like to actually use the e-Reader features in Animal Crossing, so it was awesome that you showed us all the ins and outs of such a weird peripheral. If you ever decide to make more videos about the e-Reader I would absolutely love to see how the Pokemon tcg cards functioned (I remember some ruby & sapphire sets that have those scannable bars on the sides, NO CLUE what those are for).
The ereader was my OBSESSION when I found out about it in middle school... To the point I collected all the cards for Super Mario Bros. 3! (Them level cards tho 😜) Only owned a couple AC cards, and never knew most of these minigames! Anyway, the staggering production value and just good humor without trying too hard like certain Nintendo youtubers is much appreciated and earned you +1 to your sub count ;)
I remember reading about the E-Reader Cards in Gaming Magazines, not Nintendo Power but I used to read lots of gaming magazines as a kid. That GameCube Trailer disk is so nostalgic even if I never owned it. I loved Starfox Adventures a lot.
I loved that digimon parody thing you did there that was awesome rofl. It's crazy how the ereader cards and the amiibo cards were so cheap and now the go for so much now T_T
Dude, this video flew by! I really really enjoyed all the 4K eReader shots. It added a layer of detail to the video that I very much appreciated. Awesome job man!
'95 here and I was in the same boat as you. All my family had for a while was an NES and a hand-me-down computer with a bunch of games my Dad played before he got old. I also got the E-Reader when it came out too for some inexplicable reason.
Hey that's pretty neat. I've never really thought about the e-cards beyond their existence, but seeing what they actually do is interesting. I like games a lot more like this, looking at them like a piece of history, rather than sitting down and playing them, so this video in particular was really cool as I also like Nintendo and Animal Crossing a lot even if I don't play Nintendo games or Animal Crossing as much as I probably should. Even if it's not every card, you gathered quite the collection and showed off a lot for this video, thanks for the effort in everything you do. I've fallen behind a bit on a lot of RU-vidr's I'm subscribed to, currently caught up with a few of them and I decided I wanted to watch you today. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore, but again, the e-reader is a really interesting piece of technology, and this is a great video for talking about what it does and how it relates to Animal Crossing specifically, ultimately leading up to amiibo cards.
I think the coolest thing about the e-reader to me is all the gen 3 pokemon events tied to it. It makes it possible to legitimately access these events that were released decades ago as long as you have the right e-reader cards.
I gotta say I think these card's uses are actually way more interesting than the amiibo cards. I get why you don't think so, but I've never liked being able to scan an amiibo card and have that villager move in personally! Great video!
I never even knew the eReader was a commercial failure before this video. I remember actually enjoying it a lot as a kid. Pokemon got a lot of use out of the thing as well. Even still have mine old eReader sitting around in the same case as my GBA. And now I'm tempted to dig it out again and see what cards I still have.
I had actually never knew about these mini games, I thought it was only the Animal Island. I can’t believe after so many years of playing this, I’m still finding info about it!
I liked playing my e-Reader back when I was a kid! The novelty of sliding cards through it wasn't lost on me. I used to scan Pokemon cards through it often, just to see what each card would do. I also liked playing Donkey Kong Jr., Pinball, and Excitebike on it. The idea of being able to swap whatever game I wanted on it was so cool to me. And Super Mario Advance 4, I almost forgot! I liked scanning in new items for myself, especially Cape Feathers! The password system in AC was really cool to me, too. I used to have the 30,000 bell code memorized so I could just get money whenever I wanted something. I wish it was that simple in real life, but maybe I just haven't found the right code to achieve that yet...
So funfact in E+ you COULD invite villagers to live in your town just not at the terminal, had to go to i think the wishing well for that (dont know if it works like that in the western release or not)
I am so glad you mentioned Digimon Tamers, that's probably a big reason why I ended up buying (and then never using) the e-reader when it came out. Also... is that a Maritime accent I hear?!
I loved my e-reader when I had it, probably because it was a gift and I didn't use my own money on it. The Animal Crossing stuff was cool, but my absolute favorite thing was this platformer minigame you could play by scanning certain Pokemon cards. They came in normal packs of Pokemon tcg cards, but you weren't guaranteed to get one so I begged my parents to keep buying packs until I did
I might be one of the few weirdos that actually collected all of these cards and really played with them. Fun fact: you could invite villagers to your town with the e-reader cards from the Doubutsu no Mori e+ game (the second japanese gamecube version of the game, which had some extra fun features we never got here in the west). The e-reader was actually pretty successful in Japan and was supported for years. Many games that had e-reader features in Japan saw those features removed when they were brought to North America after NOA stopped supporting the e-reader here.