Formerly Club Sega in Akihabara, since Sega pulled out all of the previous Sega locations have been rebranded as Gigo. Though honestly… there is no real difference in how the arcades are run or set up. I haven’t looked into it, but I’d be willing to bet that Gigo is just an offshoot of Sega for some kinda tax break or something.

The first three floors have always been full of ufo catchers and such, and that is still as it has always been, these things must make a fortune as people continually play them… when you can find the prizes in most used stores around… for about 1500 yen… so the choice is yours, can you win the prize before spending 1500 yen?

Moving on to the real meat and potatoes of any arcade is going to be the actual games, the former Club Sega’s 4th floor has always had a special place in my heart as I have spent many hours playing Wonderland Wars as well as several other games on this floor, its where the main action happens that is non Rhythm.

Home to most of the popular games out there, including some oddball ones, this is a great floor to visit, with minimal lighting other than the games themselves it has a really nice atmosphere. It can get busy later in the day though during the after work hours, though during the day, its pretty quiet, save for tourists and random salarymen.

Floor 5 was always home to rhythm games, with the odd exception throughout the years like Gunslinger Stratos back around 2016, though now its 100% rhythm and is very loud floor all things considered with all the rhythm gaming going on up here.

Theres a pretty large presence of Sound Voltex here which seems to have gotten an uptick in popularity over the pandemic and the old standbys Chunithm and Beatmania also being fairly popular. It’s pretty interesting to see the longevity of some of these titles, where as several years ago Love Live was massive here, though now its no where to really be found enmasse, though I have heard a sequel may be coming soon.

Moving on the floor 6, which was previous a VR Experience several years ago, its now a Retro game floor… which is not a bad thing in its own right, but this retro floor was all tourists. Nearly all of the games on this floor, are readily found back home in the US in most retro arcades, and while I can’t say about the other countries around the world and the arcade scene. I would find no real reason to hang out on this floor. Though nearly all the tourist here were very clearly American. So yeah travel 6600 miles to play Time Crisis, bravo.

That brings this arcade roundup to a wrap, Gigo #3 is still an amazing arcade to visit and still one of the best on the Akiba Strip. Though as I wrote years ago… give a Japanese game a try, the language barrier might be tough… but with the crazy tutorials these games have, most of them are totally playable.