I think I just fell in love with Japanese arcades again

[Administrator]

Martin and Aoife are in Japan for the Tokyo Game Show this week, and they spent their first day exploring the city's arcade scene, as well as paying their respects to Akihabara's retro gaming temple, Super Potato. Below you'll find a video podcast they recorded about their jaunt, plus seasoned arcade-watcher Martin's thoughts about the current state of Japanese arcades.
Are Japanese arcades getting their groove back? In all honesty, they never really lost it - it's just that the beat of more mainstream Japanese arcades has changed so substantially in recent years, it's been hard for visiting outsiders to appreciate what's happened and how they've evolved. There's an ideal of the Japanese arcade - the one where hundreds of candy cabinets are lined up, all playing curios and half-remembered treasures from our youth - that's been sidelined to multi-storey affairs in Akihabara, places where older players can go and reminisce while sinking 100 yen coins in well preserved classics. The game stations of Taito and Sega, though, which crop up in busy hubs like Shibuya and Shinjuku, have become stranger, more alienating places, where indecipherably dense games like Border Break and Lords of Vermillion make it hard for travelling tourists to get a hold on what makes these places special.
Over the past five years, when I've been lucky enough to spend time in Japan courtesy of Eurogamer for the Tokyo Game Show, I've become increasingly dejected about the arcade scene: Shibuya Kaikan Monaco, a smoky dive where all the yellowed candy cabinets asked for only 50 yen in exchange for a run at the finest collection of fighters and shmups, was an amazing discovery the first year, but in 2013 the shutters were drawn and now the building's been completely demolished. It seemed indicative of the whole scene. Finding traditional games in places like Club Sega or Taito Game Station has been harder and harder, with UFO catchers taking up more and more space while even the larger venues themselves seem to be dwindling in number.
Read more…


More...