Tag: game center

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Retrogaming at Video Game Museum Robot in Fukaya, Saitama Prefecture

It’s Halloween today. I drove to Video Game Museum Robot in Fukaya, Saitama Prefecture with my friend Adrian to play some retro games.

The place looks like a dump from the outside, but that adds to the charm. You might just drive right by without realizing that it’s a treasure trove of retrogaming.

The arcade is mostly Sega cabinets: Astro City, New Astro City, and Blast City cabinets. They have one Neo Geo Mini Cute cabinet. When we walked in, I was expecting to see row after row of glowing game screens. It surprised me to see that aside from the newer games in the front near the door, nearly all of these retro game cabinets were shut off. To play them, you have to switch them on. This really threw me off at first because for a moment I was wondering if most of them were out of order. Then I saw the signs printed in Japanese asking customers to shut the cabinets off after using. They had switches dangling on the top right corner. Apparently this is both an effort to conserve energy and to prevent screen burn-in. Some of the screens were in better shape than others.

The first game we tried was Capcom’s Dungeon and Dragons, and the first player’s two main buttons weren’t working. So I was afraid that the place was a dump. But the rest of the games turned out to be fine. It certainly isn’t on par with Taito’s HEY arcade in Akihabara, but we still had fun. Since D&D was a disappointment, we moved on to playing Gradius.

Adrian had never played a Gradius game before. He wasn’t used to the powerup system.

Under Defeat is one of my prized Dreamcast possessions. I think this was the first time I ever saw this game in an arcade.

Adrian grew up playing Raiden Fighters Jet at an arcade in Los Angeles.

YES! I got to play Arkanoid with a wonderful knob controller! This PCB is the North American version imported from the USA, a Taito game licensed to Romstar.

I played some Mushihimesama Futari next to Arkanoid.

They have an excellent selection of retro game magazines to peruse! I wish I had more time to look at them more. DOS/V was the Japanese version of DOS for Japanese PCs up until Windows 95 took over in the ’90s. I thought for a moment that this was an old magazine, but it’s from April 2018.

I played some Gal’s Panic 2.

They had the Konami classic multi-game selector, so I introduced my friend to Gyruss.

I had to do it.

I was surprised to see Puzzle! Mushihime-tama there, so I played a round.

It was surprising to see a 4 player Gauntlet cab! It’s always refreshing to see an Atari game in a Japanese game center. The Mikado in Takadanobaba has a Marble Madness cab and I got to play it, but the screen was pretty messed up and the colors were weird. This Gauntlet was in better condition. We could have given it a shot, but by that time we had to get going as it was getting dark and I wanted to get back before it got too late. We were hoping to play some Marvel vs. Capcom against each other, but they didn’t have this game. I did see Vampire Hunter and Vampire Savior and I had practiced this game a bit at home on Steam recently, but maybe next time.

Oh yes, and before we went to this arcade, we had lunch at a place called King God Burger in Maebashi. Fantastic food!

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The Mikado game center in Ikebukuro

On August 21st I returned to Japan from my trip to Arizona. I stayed a night in Tokyo before proceeding home. I looked up how to find the Mikado game center in Ikebukuro. This was my first time visiting there.

I didn’t take a whole lot of photos, actually. By then I was getting very hungry, so I went to Ueno and went to an Irish pub called The World’s End where I had fish & chips with two pints of Guinness. It was great.

That night I also went to Taito’s HEY game center in Akihabara and took these photos there.

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Pac-Man Battle Royale

This game has been around for a while, but today I played it for the first time. I’ve seen it before at game centers. This would be more fun playing with other people. I was kicking ass, but the CPU still beat me. Oh well. Four players can play as Pac-Mans (Pac-Men?) in a survival match. You can bump each others into ghosts and even eat each other (cannibalism!). Whomever survives 2 out of 3 rounds wins. I was focusing on eating the ghosts rather than my opponent for points. I’ll change my strategy next time.

Recorded in the Apina game center in Iida, Nagano Prefecture.

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New buttons I got at the Mikado Game Center

Mikado had these pin badge buttons in their gachapon capsule toy dispensers, so I got three. One big one that says “PUSH START” (I’m not sure why it says “2006” because according to the Japanese Wikipedia, it started in 2009), and a set of buttons for the Mikado location in Ikebukuro (top) and the original in Takadanobaba (bottom). As I mentioned in the previous post, Mikado is a legendary spot for retrogaming.

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“Fun Fun Cup” Cup Noodle arcade game

Mayu and I went to a game center today and we played this Cup Noodle game called Fun Fun Cup. Insert 100 yen and the game releases colored plastic balls which you toss into the cup. the lid opens and closes… sometimes fully open, sometimes partially open. We scored 53 balls in 60 seconds.

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The Sega World game center in my town has finally been renamed to Gigo. No more Sega Game centers…

Before:

After:

It was bound to happen eventually. The Sega World in my small town is finally being rebranded as Gigo. The iconic Sonic sign is in the process of being replaced and you can already see the Gigo sign above the door. Granted, nothing is changing except the name, but still, Sega has divested their arcade management division. You can read about this here:

https://www.nintendo.destructoid.com/sega-to-remove-its-name-from-arcades-in-japan-to-rebrand-to-gigo

I asked the manager if they were going to toss out the Sega flags, and he said no. He said that several others asked about the flags already, but he said that they will remain as decorations. The staff’s uniforms still say “Sega” on their backs. This rug is still in the front doorway.

I’d love to have a brand new rug like this in my home. I’m sure the female spouse unit would protest, though.

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A trip to Mandai in Takasaki

We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on the basement and second floors. Mandai has its own area of UFO catchers.

There were xenomorph figures from Alien in one UFO catcher. I gave it one shot and gave up. Those larger, heavier boxes are difficult to grab. I went into the main store area to look at figures and models while Mayu checked out the dagashiya/candy store area.

Amuro Rey figure, apparently from Char’s Counterattack.

A figure of the Serbine. I’m currently working on the Serbine model by Max Factory.

Plenty of Gundam models. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t focusing properly on some of this stuff.

Next I went to the third floor to check out the video game stuff.

Neo Geo AES and Mega Drive games.

Boxed Super Famicom and Saturn consoles.

Here are the Super Famicom Mini and Mega Drive mini consoles, plus plenty of handhelds: Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan, Game Boy Advance, etc. I bought my first NGPC for only 1000 yen about 21 years ago in a cramped shopping alley under the train tracks in Kobe called Motoko. This shopping alley stretches between Sannomiya Station and Kobe Station and is home to many used clothing, used appliances, junk electronics, antiques, and retro game shops. At least that’s how it was when I lived in Hyogo Prefecture at the time.

Check out the prices on these Saturn games. Crows 18,000, Twinkle Star Sprites 10,000, Hyper Duel 60,000, Castlevania SOTN 16,000 (I think), can’t make out the price on Radiant Silvergun, Rockman 15,000, Doom 10,000 (NOT worth it), and I see a loose HuCard Parasol Stars for PC Engine laying in front of Dodonpachi. I really wish I had the chance to get Hyper Duel back in the day, but now it is incredibly expensive.

I guess not all retrogaming is terribly expensive. Here are Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and After Burner for the Famicom, cart only, for decent prices.

I decided to check out their anime soundtracks and found several records for sale: Castle of Cagliostro, Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Macross, and Gundam. Pretty cheap, too. I guess the hipsters are leaving the retro record market alone.

At Leisure Land, I played some air hockey with Ulan. There are two lonely Sega Astro City cabinets in the back corner with Shanghai games running on them. 100 yen gives you two credits, so I played this one. Shanghai III was next to it, but an older woman there playing on it.

So what did I buy that night? I bought this nice figure of Mai from King of Fighters, loose, for 1700 yen. It was a fun night.