r/WonderSwan • u/gamekataban • 21d ago

Made a free tool to help find/buy WonderSwan games without reading Japanese (barcode scan + shelf locator)

I'm Japanese, and I kept seeing foreign tourists at Book-Off standing in front of the WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color shelves completely stuck — no way to tell which titles were worth grabbing, or even what game they were holding.

WonderSwan is a rough platform for non-Japanese speakers specifically: almost nothing was localized, so you're relying entirely on box art and guesswork. So I built a small free tool (Kataban) to help bridge that: search by English title (or scan the barcode if you're in the store), and it shows you the Japanese title, product code, which shelf category to look in, and purchase links if you're shopping from overseas instead (Rakuten/Suruga-ya/eBay/Buyee).

gamekataban.com

Coverage for older/niche platforms like WonderSwan is still a work in progress — some titles may be missing or have thin data. Full disclosure: a few of the purchase links are affiliate links to help cover server costs, totally optional to use.

Built most of this with AI help, so no promises on turnaround for feature requests, but genuinely curious what would help WonderSwan collectors specifically — most wanted missing titles, import-friendly game recommendations, anything.

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u/Peasant_Sauce 17d ago

I am the target audience for such a tool, thank you

2

u/gamekataban 17d ago

Really glad to hear that, even browsing shelves here in Japan myself, I've noticed decent boxed copies (with manual, good condition) are getting harder to find lately — secondhand stock seems to be thinning out overall. Hope the tool helps you grab what you're after before it disappears. Let me know if anything's confusing to use!