Barcode Battler II
Barcode Battler is a handheld game console released by Epoch in 1991. The original Barcode Battler featured a white casing and was only released in Japan. It contained a barcode scanner that would allow you to scan any of the 21 cards the console came with or the barcode of any other product.
The console then decoded the numbers into statistics for either heroes, enemies or one of a number of types of item. You then fought with these in either a campaign against the computer (COM mode), a series of fights against the Enemy cards (B1 mode) or a one-on-one multiplayer duel (B2 mode).
Barcode Battler II
Following the popularity of the Barcode Battler in Japan, Barcode Batter II was released worldwide in 1992 and marketed as “Barcode Battler” outside of Japan.
The new system was similar to the original Barcode Battler but black in colour with purple buttons and different LCD screen. The concept was the same, with three different game modes: C0 corresponding to B2, C1 to COM and C2 to B1, but with added features.
The Original Japanese Barcode Battler (1991)
A set of 31 cards was included with every machine, however the characters and objects depicted were changed for the western market. Other special cards were included with various video games such as Nintendo’s Mario (1992), Zelda (1992) and Spider-Man (1995).
Unsurprisingly Barcode Battler wasn’t a huge success outside Japan. Having been released globally in 1992, three years after the release of the Game Boy and two years after the release of the Game Gear, it’s primitive gaming which featured nothing but numbers felt like a step backwards rather than something to compete with these two systems.
Today you can find a Barcode Battler I or II on eBay for anything from $40 to $180 dollars each. However, the rarer Barcode Battler cards can sell for hundreds of dollars.
