Akiba Insights

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Rounding up the first full day here in Japan after a year is always difficult since it’s usally very spread about between exploration and game centers. Awake oddly early due to Jet Lag and having nothing to do for 4 hours, I became acquainted with my Ipad and time killer mobile games before heading out. Day one started off at Sega Gigo with some serious Wonderland Wars action, having been sidelined for roughly a year, it was a harsh start as everything was going poorly at first, but that was expected, and eventually the games started going much much better.

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Always willing to try a new drink or two when in Tokyo, I came across a coke energy drink, it was very small, probably only 5oz, and tasted like Pepsi, but it did pack a serious punch, I don’t know whats in this thing but not too many caffinated drinks give me the jitters. Gigo has moved higher on my list so far as usually its more or less the forgotten arcade. But with the re-concentration of games at the other centers, Gigo gives the more quiet and darker approach. Club Sega is still good however, depending on how rowdy the Fate crowd is at the time.

Moving onto Fate GO, a game that debuted last year and was covered in the blog post, this game is still going super strong, though I am not sure as exactly to why. I suppose the waifu factor definitely plays a part of it, but unless I’m missing something, the gameplay is fairly shallow. Some of the rare and desired character cards can fetch $400-$500, so maybe that is a part of it.

I plan to branch out to some other games that have released like Sword Art Online and Chrono Regalia… though both are pretty much non existent in player base.

Onto Akiba in General, It is really crazy to see the vast increase in tourism that has happened just over the past few years. Back in 2013 the hotel options in Akiba proper were pretty much limited to the REMM and Washington Hotel. Now in addition to those two there is the APA, Hotel Resol, Hotel Mets (Opening Soon literally across the street from a Sega buiding), There’s even a Best Western and more look to be in construction. It also shows from a crowded point of view, as many of the shoppes and restaurants can get very full and difficult to navigate.

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They say Akiba never changes…

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And they would be right, a short little update on the shortened day after arriving in Japan. I made it to the REMM Around 4:30 in the afternoon, so there was a good amount of time to explore or otherwise re-familiarize with the surroundings. Jet Lag was a major issue this time around as it seemed to hit me a bit harder than usual, probably due to lack of sleep the night before.

One thing I was very curious about was the new SEGA building that sprang up recently… I knew beforehand that the majority was crane games, which is true. What I didn’t know however was what the mysterious 4th floor, that my research only listed as “games”, could be… and I was actually surprised for the first time in awhile…. Sega for some reason decided to put in an American themed arcade floor….

It was pretty corny and did remind me of something like Gameworks from the U.S. the only real interesting thing were the pong machines.

After a bit more exploring and Pepper Lunch, I wanted to find Starwing Paradox, a newer mech combat game. It wasn’t in any of the standard arcades I visit, so I thought I would check out Leisureland, since they normally have some odd games here and there. My hunch proved to be correct, and upon discovering the machine, I could more than see why it is not in many locations… The game is frackin massive.

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I sat down… put on the seatbelt (yeah there’s a seatbelt) and popped in my Yen. The game is very sharp looking and modern with very crisp art. I also got to take part in the 30 minute long tutorial. Usually I skip these things, but when faced with a control scheme of two joysticks, 2 foot pedals, a plethora of buttons and a touch screen. I felt it best to take part.

Without going too much into detail, that will probably come in a later post, this game is bananas. It has a very high level of complexity, plus the motion from the chair and force feedback really sold it. My Mech had a Beam Magnum type gun, and every time I fired it, I could really feel the force behind the shot as the entire chair would recoil.

Anyway, that’s all for the Day 0 post. Stay Tuned for more!

Akihabara Thoughts

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The fact that places like Akihabara exist, but are over 6000 miles away is both and exciting and painful one. Existing and constantly evolving through the years Akiba’s place as the worlds greatest anime mecca is certainly well known, but I feel it’s vastly underappreciated by tourists and even those who are on a pilgrimage of sorts to the Otaku Holy Land.

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Countless shops, eateries and other mostly otaku culture themed places sprawled throughout its blocks, yet for most the effort is just not made to discover what it really has in store. From the oblivious tourist who wander the floors of a club sega looking lost and only giving a random game a literal poke. To those whose giant backpacks who block the paths through a store. Their presence is only becoming more pronounced as Japan continues its major up-climb in tourism.

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There’s a massive amount of oddities and charming shops to be found with a little exploration, I discovered down a street I have not really traveled much in this most recent trip, what I could only presume to be the worlds first maid optometrist shop. I would have never guessed that such a thing would exist but there it was. It’s really easy to get lost down the main strip of Akiba, and while there is definite excitement in wandering up the floors of a Sofmap or trying to find something in Yodobashi Camera, coming across a mostly empty retro game store manned by a 90 year old lady is what makes exploring the Akiba area fun.

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And to those who look through the arcades and stop and play a House of the Dead 2 game from the 90’s, give one of the modern titles a try. The rhythm section pretty much requires no Japanese knowledge and any of the modern games will have such a long and complex tutorial when you play for the first time, you will have no problem figuring out out to play after a short while. It sure beats looking rather gloomy and lost when its blazing hot and humid outside.

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To bring this all to a wrap, Akihabara still has all the charm and wonder than it did when I first visited a mere 5 years ago. There are parts that are different, and you can still get flooded by tourist traps and busloads of people at the wrong times. But there’s still so much to be had. As I was wandering about killing time before my flight back home, I came to the realization that there was a small section that I never even though about existing near Suehirocho station and gave it a look and found a few fairly neat stores that I may have bought from had I not been already packed.

 

tldr: Akiba is still awesome.

Ongeki

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The latest in rhythm game crazes to take over the arcades recently is Ongeki from Sega. For those who have been there, the rhythm game culture can be a bit intense as they often fade from existence as soon as they hit their time in the sun. Games like Love Live which used to have lines that extended for day, are now barely noticeable.

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Control wise, the game features 6 face buttons as well as two larger buttons on the side a few inches off the ground, as well as a joystick to control your character movement. The game is ambidextrous and will have at times swapping between left and right handed play and things can get really crazy on later difficulty levels.

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The general gist of the game is that you control your party on screen to dodge enemy attacks as well as navigate a course that you travel down as the song progresses. The notes that you hit on screen are you “attacks” so to speak that take down the enemies health gage. The character movement being controlled directly by the player is a nice touch and adds a level not often seen inside a rhythm game.

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Completing the various levels rewards you with cards! The game features cards you directly unlock in-game via spending currency that you earn though playing. It also has a gacha system at the card printing machine where you can spend credits to roll for super rare cards the easy way. One thing to note, the game is actually a pretty good value on Yen to play time if you avoid spending extra on booster items. Ongeki uses the new style GP system seen in most major titles these days. With a 300yen purchase (if the arcade allows it) easily being enough to cover 30-45 minutes of playtime depending on the song. The downside to this however is that the machines are often crowded with a line forming at every hour but the very early ones.

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Upon finishing a a song, your characters gain exp and relationship points which enhance their stats to various degrees, although only the story characters have the Relationship points. The various collaboration characters only had the standard levels.

All in all I had a blast playing this game, the side buttons do start to hurt your hand after a while and the game does recommend these rather hilarious fingerless gloves that can be found in many stores for a few hundred yen. All of the hardcore players seemed to use them as I found my hands hurting after about 30 minutes of play. Mostly due to the side button use. While I highly doubt we will ever see this game come to the US since it is a Sega developed one, I look forward to playing it again.

 

Odaiba Report

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Heading out to Odaiba to see the new Unicorn Gundam and check out the Gundam Base as well, the weather was kind of gloomy and raining but that wouldn’t be enough to stop a Gundam. Sadly though the ever faithful leisureland in Odaiba closed down with its wacky assortment of attractions and gimmicky games. So It’s hard to justify many trips out here unless you are into shopping malls and shopping malls.

Even so though every fan of Gundam owes it to themselves to make the pilgrimage at least once. While definitely not as iconic as the old RX-78 Gundam that was standing here till last year. They really upped their game with the work involved as the Unicorn Gundam is really rather stunning.

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It features the gimmick of being able to transform into its NT-D mode that is often featured during the Anime, as well as several video synced performances, one of which is pretty much a 5 minute summary of the Unicorn series that could very well serve as a place holder for watching the actual series.

But that is not all that is featured out here in Odaiba for Gundam fans. The Gundam Base has since replaced the Gundam Front, though it is quite a bit different in scope and scale.

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The Gundam Base serves primarily as a museum to all things Gunpla as well as what I would have to think is easily the worlds largest Gunpla store, as well as several other types of merchandise such as clothing and some trinkets. The size of the place is truly impressive, even though it takes up roughly the same space that the old Gundam Front did, the open atmosphere makes it feel gigantic.

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The store features essentially every single Gunpla in existence for sale, and carries on for as far as the eye can see. Many of the model kits are also featured on display so you know what you may be buying if you are unsure.

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Many limited edition exclusive gunpla are here as well such as the RX-0 Diver City version which is a real grade style kit… with two types of internal lighting for both versions of the NT-D that are featured. I can only imagine the difficulty of piecing this kit together matching the hefty price tag of 10,800 JPY. A note to buyers though, aside from the various limited editions that are only sold here, many of the kits can be had in places such as Akihabara for much cheaper.

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While the Gundam Base is neat, I do miss the old attractions that the Gundam Front had, such as the entry video or the Photography section. It does look like the Base has various time limited tie in events. The current one being a Gundam Build Divers event which I have not personally seen, though it looks kind of strange. I could see a main stream event with a UC series being worth seeing.

Soul Reverse

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A newer game to hit the arcades is Sega’s Soul Reverse, using the same cabinet that Fate/GO uses without the card printing ability. The control layout is similar but a little more complex with 4 buttons instead of 2. It’s not bad value wise as everyday you get a free credit to play with, on top of being able to buy more “time.” Time being the system inplace that newer titles have been using such as Kantai Collection and Fate/GO, where you can buy a limited amount of time to play and then that timer ticks down constantly as you play.

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Soul Reverse features a pretty standard console like equipment screen where you can change out your settings and view stats. Your characters appearance dynamically changes as well. I should mention that the character creator is actually pretty good for an arcade title.

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Gameplay plays out on a rather large map with two teams fighting in real time to take over territory and capture objectives. A few bosses exist through out the map for each side as well that are actually quite strong can obliterate you with ease. Throughout the map a few action spots exist where you can mount a raptor or man a cannon, though they didn’t seem to have much use in the early stages.

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As you fight forward you can fill your special Soul gauges which allow you to transform into a several types of heroic legends and you gain some pretty massive bonuses. They seem to be pretty much required to have a chance at killing the enemy’s bosses, at least at the early levels.

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At the end of every match your rewarded with what everyone loves, loot. Your not guranteed loot for your main class, but it also allows you to switch classes whenever you feel like it so that’s not really a bad thing. You can liquidate any excess loot as well for materials to strengthen your equipment as well.

All in all it’s a fairly fun game, but I feel like it’s just short of being awesome. It doesn’t seem very popular currently, but I would like to see it gain some legs, maybe the upcoming Persona collaboration will help.

 

 

Fate/GO Arcade

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Riding off the massive success that is the Mobile Game, it was really only inevitable that an arcade version would be in the works. And it sure is something, Aside from everything being rendered in decently sharp looking anime style 3D as opposed to the 2D sprite based mobile game. It offers rather simple gameplay that even non Japanese speaking players should be able to handle without much difficulty.

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The controls consist of two buttons, the smaller attack button which is mashed and mashed to attack and the larger Noble Phantasm button which unsurprisingly unleashes your current servants Noble Phantasm, aka Super Move, for those who are unfamiliar with the Fate franchise. As well as the fake joystick which is controlled with the smaller joystick on top to move around. I often tried to pull the entire stick. A pretty odd design choice.

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As anyone who has played the mobile version will see, the UI is practically identical with few arcade only exceptions such as the GP meter or card reading button. Thats right, card reading button. Using the same system as Kantai Collection, at the end of every mission you complete you are offered the chance to summon a servant or craft essence for 100 yen. You can also do a 10 pull gacha for, you guessed it, 1000 yen. When you do your summon, you get a rather nice looking card printed off that you can then take with you and use. The downside is the game can be ridiculously expensive if you start pulling after every mission. I would recommend scouting out several card shops in the area and direct purchasing the card you want. On the flip side, once you have everything you need you can play for a long period of time off the 100 or 300 yen buy in.

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Noble Phantasm in action.

I haven’t seen the full card list yet, but It seems like currently a lot of the popular “waifu” class servants are missing in action. I suppose it is smart of them to roll them out slowly so the whales spend hard every so often.

To go back to gameplay, it’s controlled in a full 3D space where you can run around and dodge at will the incoming attacks. You only control one servant at a time as opposed to the three in the mobage, each with their own attacks. The Arts Buster and Quick system also makes a comeback as your attacks are chosen randomly from your servants stock and those effects from the mobage also take place.

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Caesar got the short end of the stick with his character…

Right now I feel as if this game is a bit too shallow in story mode, there is a PVP mode which I have yet to try that seems to be fairly popular that I will need to give a go. For now though, unless your a major fan of the Fate franchise I wouldn’t invest a lot of time in this game, there are simply better out there.

 

Akihabara Report – Day .5

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Arriving around 5pm to my hotel, I wanted to settle in and deairplane myself for a bit before getting down to business. Wanting nothing more than to hit Pepper Lunch before heading to any arcades that was the first plan. There’s no image or anything special because it was gone just about as quickly as it came. With that in order, it was time to check out some stores before they closed at 8pm, nothing major just some scouting.

Night one was just a brief reintroduction to the arcade culture as its been a year since the last visit. And a year makes all the difference. new games come and old games go with new games such as Fate GO popping up based on the mobile game, while others like Border Break have dwindled considerably.

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Fate/GO…More to come later.

While the old standbys like Kancolle and Love Live still have their space, they are old news. Kancolle mostly due to Azur Lane supplanting it as the Ship Girl of choice mobile game, and Love Live’s in a downturn between series.

My personal favorite Wonderland Wars is still going strong, while not as promenant as it used to be at my primary arcade, its still notably popular and the other Sega Arcade nearby having many more machines than it used too, my guess is they moved several over.

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New Character event in progress!

The hot rhythm game this year is Ongeki, it looks like it has a very interesting style setup where its almost like a cross between Theathrythm with Museca. As you have a party of characters who fight towards an end goal but its much more intense.

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It comes with a Joystick and 8 buttons to deal with, the gameplay looked neat an I look forward to trying it out.

That about covers it for the few hours that I had for the first night. Many more hours to come!

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Akiba @ Closing

 

 

Initial D Zero – Location Test

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Today marked what I think is the final location test for Initial D Zero before it releases in March. I had missed the August one, and I was certainly not going to miss this one. I arrived early to the arcade where it was being held. The Sega nearest the Akihabara station exit. There was a decent sized line for being midday, but I guess a lot of Tokyo’s residents don’t really have much to do.

First things first some impressions on DZero and how it has changed from its predecessor D8.

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Absolutely the most prominent change is the addition of a full gated shifter, It was actually much higher in quality than I thought and expected something along the lines of what Wangan uses, but this felt much more like an actual car’s transmission. Its easy to select gears and it opens up a whole new method of technique by being able to straight shift from 6th to 2nd instead of having to progress downward sequentially.  If you make a mistake while shifting the “neutral” position switches the car to Automatic until you fix your gear shift so you shouldn’t have any races ruined via a shifting mistake either.

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The cabinet itself is also much sharper since its the first time the cabinet has been upgraded since Initial D 4 back in 2007. The speakers are better, the seats are nicer and the screen is 100x better than D8 which can be seen next to Zero in the above image for comparison. My only complaint would be that the wheel felt just a touch too small, but that can probably feel normal after playing for a bit.

The game also runs a good deal smoother and sharper, I believe the general engine is roughly the same as D8, but the framerate is boosted and the resolution got a serious bump up, My guess would be from 720p to 1080p

The small but noticeable changes to the screen really do bring out the detail in the courses though as well as increase the sense of speed while racing.

Gameplay wise, its hard to judge the game with a Spec 0 car, but even from Spec 0 you can tell the entire physics are overhauled, it seemed like Sega wanted to take away a lot of janky techniques are are so commonplace in D8 and trying the execute them would pretty much torpedo your race as observed even with people with higher spec cars (they upgrade pretty quickly, though this could just be for the test). The cars in general can really drift around corners without much effort and it felt much more like Initial D than the prior entries to the series.

Also the speed range has been dramatically shifted on a lot of courses. Hakone for example runs a great deal faster than it had in D8 while Akina runs a great deal slower, owing for more along the lines of the anime than the games.

The only downside to the entirety of DZero is the elimination of Eurobeat to some generic trash, I wasn’t the only person who felt this as some would opt to turn off the BGM completely, maybe Sega will realize what their fan-base enjoys and go back to some Eurobeat? Though I suspect this may be more inline with what the Studio behind the D movies wishes and not so much on Sega’s end.

Overall, DZero is a dramatic upgrade from the previous iterations, I really hope it comes to the U.S. sometime, but I’m really not holding my breath. As the addition of the gated shifter and overall enhancements to gameplay and making the entry barrier a lot easier to cross. The Aime card addition is nice as well as it’s one less card to carry around. I am glad they kept the driver portraits and the character customization as well.

 

 

A Wondrous Poem

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The world has been prone to terrible power once.
The “oblivion” the force. It took the hope from the human mind,
it took the mind to believe,
take away also future heart and love, it was a great ruin.

Match fight people exposed to “oblivion” lamented,
and doubt each other, in order to destroy all visible.

Love you hope to their hearts,
no longer to be “I want to cherish”also, memories also,
I had not left everything.

-Wonderland Wars

Sega really should invest in someone who can… translate engrish to English.