Saturday, April 7, 2012

Arcade Archetype

Hi everyone! Enjoying Easter? I actually forgot all about it until my mom wished me a happy Easter a few days ago. Chalk that one up to Japan, I suppose.

Speaking of Japan, one place where you are likely to find giant, anthropomorphic animals chucking eggs and stuff around would be in one of the many game arcades they have here. (If that sentence doesn't win me the prize for most far-fetched segway ever I will eat my own hat.) Being from Sweden, the concept of a game arcade was quite foreign to me, having only been to one in my home town before it closed down about twelve years ago. Because of this, I was living under the impression that game arcades were a thing of the past, no longer able to sustain themselves in today's climate, with home consoles and computers packing more power than the arcade machines. After coming to Japan, however, I saw that I was wrong. I am so glad I was wrong.

It's a lot of fun to go down to the local game center and play a few rounds of BlazBlue or Persona 4U (which is really good, by the way), or pound on the drums to your favourite anime theme song. (And if your favourite anime theme song is from Evangelion, even better.)

But one of the most unusual arcade experiences has to be a game I tried the other day. Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna is a multiplayer first person shooting game based on the popular mech anime in which you control one of the titular mechs in battles against other players around the country. The game itself is decent, fairly standard both in terms of graphics and gameplay. What makes it so unique is the way it is played. You sit down inside the booth with is made to look like the cockpit of one of the giant robots, and control it by using two handles and two pedals. It takes a while getting used to, but it is awesome.

No, that is not a fancy public toilet. It's a fancy arcade machine.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen these around in Kyoto, so once I go back there I probably won't be able to play it any more... Oh well, yet another excuse to go in to Nagoya, then!

That's all for now. Until next time, have a good day!

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