0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Azito

Azito is a resource management and strategy game developed and published by Astec 21 and is the first in a series of three games developed for the original Playstation. The game released exclusively in Japan on the 28^th of February 1997. This is the only game in the series released by Astec 21 as an independent studio they were purchased by Banpresto soon after its release.

The game would receive a PSP and Playstation 3 release on the 27^th of September 2007 again both these releases were Japan exclusive. As was the Playstation Vita release of the game on the 28^th of August 2012, in addition the Nintendo 3DS received a remake of the game titled Azito 3d it released in 2012

The player takes on the role of a commander of a secret underground research facility, this facility develops weapons in the form of mechs which are used to defend the base from underground and above ground attacks while it is being constructed.

The player does not launch their own attacks on enemy bases but rather waits for them to attack building up their defensive forces, these mech soldiers attributes are chosen by the player with the help of specialized staff that work in the base as a result a variety of weapons can be developed.

The research facility is not government run so the player must find ways to find research and development this is done by creating commercial products which can be sold for profit. Depending on what is being developed in the base the look of the underground base will change, the game also allows players to exchange weapon designs with other players via memory cards.

This being a Japanese exclusive release critic reviews for this game are impossible to find, so at this point we would normally head over to GameFAQs for their user data, however even this is non existent other than 4 users own the game and nothing more.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, the same goes for Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland.com so we head over to Amazon.com in the hope of finding at least a few copies of the game.

In fact we find a decent number of copies available on Amazon.com both used and new copies of this Japanese import game. The first few copies are in just acceptable condition but you can quickly find better quality copies, a couple of very good quality used are available for $15.96 both of these also come with free shipping from Japan.

The price for a good of very good quality used copy are currently peaking around the $22 mark with the odd copy at a slightly high price, at the time of writing this there are no like new copies of the game currently available.

If on the other hand you are looking for a new copy of Azito, it is going to cost you a significant amount of money to acquire one. With prices starting at $209.53 which is around £156.57 this does at lease come with free shipping. New prices continue to rise from here with the current peak at $249.73 which is roughly £187.

  

Written by

P J Gibbon