Game Panic is one of the new arcades to open up in Akihabara over the course of the Pandemic, for those who remember, this was previous an Adores building that had 3 floors of Crane Games, a small goods shop and then Karaoke rooms for the other floors, now however its a quaint arcade featuring 9 floors, the first 4 of which are of the Crane variety, though with some prizes that I have not seen else where.

The top floor consists of pretty much all gundam type games, with Arsenal Base and Extreme Vs, its also fairly well lit, which is not my personal preference, but some do like that atmosphere, a big plus are the chairs with back support on them, it may not seem like much… but during some long sessions it is definitely appreciated.

The 8th floor, has more arcade type games, mostly all by Konami on this floor who have been trying to make a comback into the arcade scene. Chase Chase Jokers is featured pretty heavily on this floor, which is a team vs team combat style game, using characters from their Bombergirl universe (sorry Bomberman… I think you’ve become permanently a waifu now) also making an appearance is Fate Grand Order and Kantai Collection.

Floors 5-7 are all about the rhythm games with each floor having a specialty between Ongeki, Sound Voltex and Beatmania, with a mixing in of the newest DDR machines, these floors like most rhythm game floors were pretty hapening places and featured better lighting than some of the arcade style floors.

This leaves floor 1-4 as being set up for various UFO Catcher prize games that you see in most other arcades, there were some prizes that I haven’t seen at Gigo’s or other arcade brands like Namco Bandai, so thats nice to see at least some variation out there.

It’s good to see a new arcade right on Akiba’s strip, it will be interesting to see how this place evolves over time, now that tourists are back in force and are a huge revenue stream…. Though honestly most tourists will stick with games that require little Japanese knowledge like the UFO Catchers and Rhythm style games.

Bonus late night Akiba Car Show.