The Japanese have silly arcade games like this one, that revolves around flipping over a table in anger.
The next gaming related entry that I can share from my Japan trip is how the arcades are fairing. Unlike America, Japan still has a relatively large number of arcades. It’s not uncommon to find a major arcade center in any large shopping district. I poked my head into every single one I came across during my two weeks in Japan and for today I will provide my observations on what the Japanese are currently playing in arcades.
Japanese Arcade Centers
A typical Japanese arcade is spread out across several floors and not some small little room like I’m used to seeing in America. The floors are usually separated by genre: ground floor is often the UFO catcher games and girl friendly arcade games (music type games, etc.) The other floors tend to be car racing games, fighting games, baseball games, and card-based games. Some arcades also have pachinko and slots in them, but often times pachinko and slot centers are full on complexes of their own. But if an arcade also had pachinko and slots, one or two floors would be devoted to them and there would also be a horse-racing arcade game that players could bet on.
Fighting Games
Practically every popular fighting game ever released is of Japanese origin, save for maybe Mortal Kombat. What did I see in Japanese arcades? Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5 R. Pretty recent and big fighting series right? However, no one was ever playing them. These arcade cabinets were set up in arcades with the works – several of the cabinets were networked, and there seemed to be a large hanging LCD screen that provided updates for the particular games. It looked pretty cool and competitive! So why wasn’t anyone playing them?
Instead, I see players on older fighting games: Guilty Gear, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, and even the original Street Fighter II games. Why were the Japanese playing much older fighting games when the newer stuff was out? Maybe they were cheaper? Easier to pick up and play? I have no idea.
Sega’s Border Break seemed to be the “in” mech arcade game I saw at several arcades.
Mech Games
If it’s anything that the Japanese love that Americans aren’t as into, it’s mech-based games. These games look far too complicated for me, but the Japanese eat those twin stick flying around mech games up. I had never heard of any of the mech games these guys were playing, but one of the more popular and recent releases that seemed to be getting the most attention was a mech game called Border Break by Sega. It was a 4-player networked setup, and it looked sort of like something you could play on the PC or console so I’m not quite sure what the big deal was. Maybe as an American gamer that grew up PC online gaming since Quake 1, I couldn’t understand the fuss.
Card-based arcade games, such as Lord of Vermilion seem to be quite popular in Japan
One of the more popular card-based games was Square Enix’s Lord of Vermilion II. Lord of Vermilion II looked pretty interesting, and I’m actually hoping that it comes out for the PS3 at some point and makes use of the EyeToy as rumored. It looks like some sort of action-RPG game, but honestly, even after watching the game for several minutes, I could not understand what the heck was going on. Still, the sequel is pretty cool since cards you can potentially get come from Final Fantasy IV characters, Romancing Saga 2 characters, and Magic: the Gathering. I guess this is what happens when Magic finds its way into arcade games.
The other card-based game that was popular was Sega’s Sangokushi Taisen 3. The game’s graphics engines paled in comparison to Lord of Vermilion II, but nonetheless, the Japanese were constantly playing it. The game is based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and looks very similar to Kessen. I had no idea that a military army game could be played in the arcades, and on top of that be card based. It’s actually a game I would consider trying out if it was in English. (I’m a big fan of strategy games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and really wish a new one would come out for the current generation.)
Project Diva Arcade looked like Elite Beat Agents with Playstation icons.
Music Games
Finally, the last thing I want to mention about Japanese arcades are the music games – well, one game in particular. When my wife and I were strolling through Akihabara (Tokyo’s “otaku” haven) on a Friday night, we noticed a line wrapping around a block to play an arcade game. The game was Project Diva Arcade, and I think it’s not scheduled to be released in Japan until July this year so perhaps that explained the line. I did find it comical to see a long line of otakus waiting to play a music game that didn’t even look like it was worth waiting over half an hour to play. I think the Japanese are in love with some virtual idol that looks like a little girl for this game, and maybe that’s why the play it? In any case, it looked like musical notes flying around and you just had to hit one of the big buttons at the right time.
Did you get to play anything? I’m interested to know if you felt satisfaction playing that table-flipping game.
haha no i didn’t get a chance. my wife was with me most of the time when i went to check out arcades and i felt bad having her with me since apparently in japanese arcades, you can still smoke. she hated being in them for any longer than a few minutes.
the table-flipping game looked amusing though. i think it’s a pretty old game so the japanese probably don’t play it anymore. i was watching the intro video and basically, it was from the viewpoint of the father of a family. you’re seated at a table and your daughter is talking on her cell, your son is playing his portable game system, and your wife is just zoned out or something. basically – everyone is ignoring you and each other during the family meal time – no respect!! so at that point, you’re supposed to slam your two hands on the table, and then lift it and the screen shows you dumping all of the dishes of food on the table onto your wife. i actually felt guilty seeing that – i mean come on – who would do such a thing to their wife?! but i guess the japanese salarymen have a lot of pent up anger. maybe this game is the best way to deal with it, but i’m not at that level yet where i want to do such a thing to my wife – in game or not!
Interesting article on the layout of the arcades. A shame you couldn’t stick around and play some stuff! The teal(?) haired character is Hatsune Miku, center of the Vocaloid craze in Japan. It’s a vocal synthesis software that’s developed into a sort of musical sub-genre.
The Care Bear game in the top picture amuses me. So much pink haha.