2026-08-29 · blog
Money Idol Exchanger (1997) — five 1-yen coins make a 5, and that is the whole tutorial
Episode 42 of “Today Is Release Day”: Money Idol Exchanger, published by Athena for the Game Boy in Japan on August 29, 1997. It began as an arcade puzzle game that Face put on the Neo Geo in January 1997 — SNK’s own page calls it the company’s first Neo Geo title. The rules are simply Japanese money. Line up five or more 1, 10 or 100-yen coins, or two or more 5, 50 or 500-yen coins, and they exchange into the next denomination up. Two 500-yen coins have nowhere left to go, so they vanish. There are only two buttons: pick up, and throw. You can start playing before you finish reading the manual. Japanese scores at the time were middling all the same: Famitsu gave the Game Boy version 22 out of 40 and the 1998 PlayStation version 26, and a Family Computer Magazine reader poll returned 19.4 out of 30. The reason lies in how chains work. The Japanese wiki Game Catalogue lists “accidental chains happen easily” as a strength while also noting that you cannot read where an exchanged coin will appear, which makes deliberate chains hard to build. Abroad it has been placed next to Puzzle Bobble and Magical Drop. Since June 28, 2018 it has been on sale as an ACA NEOGEO release for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One, and since April 6, 2019 on Windows 10 (as of 2026-08).
