The follow up to Senjou no Kizuna, is a rather hefty addition to any arcade here in Japan, its a rather nifty machine, and while the full pod that the previous game had was pretty neat to be in, the new version is a bit more accessable and comes with some tech upgrades as well.

Featuring two pedals, one which controls your forward thurst, and one that is a jump and vertical boost, in addition to two levers which do a lot, from strafing, to tackling, to dodging, there really is a lot of take in to this game, and its one I feel would need a lot of play time to fully master, the tutorial does cover the basics, but thats about it, from the gameplay I saw from some other players, a pro is going to floor a novice 100/100 times in this game.

You get the option to deploy in several different mobile suits, each with their own cost that takes away from your team score when you die, listed above are the GM, Gundam and Guntank, all of which serve different roles to play, there are also several kinds of attacks you can do such a standard shot, meele and tackle, theres also some others such as vulcans as well. The Guntank has its own special attack style where you need to manually set the angle when you launch the main guns, great for attacking the fleet ships that are on the field.

It’s a pretty neat game, I wish that I had the time to really sit down and figure this thing out, because it is really indepth, though I feel it would need a huge time commitment to get anything really out of it. It’s a very high end machine and you can tell Bandai put some money into it.

Moving on, one Gundam game I have been able to put some time into is Arsenal Base, as the tourist plague seems to gravitate towards Initial D, and they are usually loud and just doing random guest battles in groups, and Wonderland Wars doesn’t pick up until the after work hours.

Collecting the cards is always nice, and learning more about what counters what has been fun as well, and forming some weird combos. Theres several rarities including Common, Rare, Master Rare, Perfect Rare, and Ultimate Rare, I’ve managed to get 1 ultimate rare pilot in Athrun, and 1 ultimate rare mobile suit in ZZ Gundam…. Not exactly the ones I was looking for, but their power can not be understated.

One neat thing that can happen while your are in Card mode, is there is a chance for a EX Special battle to appear, these seem totally random and cost 200 yen to play, but you are guaranteed a Master Rare or higher, the battle itself is actually pretty hard, though does not need to be won to get the card… so its pretty much just a bonus high rarity if you want to coin up for one.

Theres a few other card types I plan to explore as well such as a Linkage card, so theres still more to explore, I am getting rather encumbered by crum cards, and I may need to pick up a carrying case now that I have a few cards that are worth something.

Anyway, a full Saturday is in front of me, and its rainy for the first time, so a good day to dive into the arcades (as long as everyone else doesn’t have the same idea)

Gundam Arsenal Base is a new type of Gundam collectable card game, some may remember the previous game that died out several years ago now, though this one seems to be doing much better. Theres always a novel aspect to collecting the cards and the rush of getting a high rarity card is something anyone can enjoy.

Like most arcade games over here in Japan, it features a rather lengthy tutorial to get you started, the tutorial does throw tons of information at you very quickly, and for those who may not have any Japanese ability, you may get a bit lost, thankfully though the actual gameplay is pretty straight forward if a bit hectic, though fun.

Each match consists of a 5v5 battle, with 5 Mobile Suits and 5 pilots to go along with them, the tutorial gives you a set of rental suits and pilots so none are needed to start, it also features a bit of a rock paper scissors mechanic with the different types, the image above shows the three types, essentially they are attackers with Char, Defenders with Hayato, and Suppressors with Amuro.

This image shows how it all works together, as Char the attacker can take out the defensive mobile suits, The Defenders can handle the suppressors and the suppressions are the best at attacking bases, so creating your team and balancing it correctly is key to success.

The main game screen has a lot of information, including the rock paper scissors style chart for reference and your overall health and your mobile suits. Each suit has its own special ability, as well as each pilot has their own special as well, so you can create some combos to go along with your own style. You gain CP as the game progresses and you can use that to either deploy suits to the field, or use a MS ability on a suit thats in the field.

The game uses a full touch screen, and you can deploy suits by simply dragging them on the transparent field below, where you can have them either attack the left side, right side, or hang back on defense. Using abilities is simply as sliding the pilot/suit image up to use the MS ability. There is also the pilot special, which is gained through combat itself, these abilities are pretty strong overall.

Using one of the SP Specials, you get a cut-in scene, followed by a gauge that you want to time up and press the only physical button on the entire machine, I think I remember a similar mechanic in the previous Gundam card game, though can’t fully recall, either way the special completely obliterated Dearka and his Buster Gundam here in 1 shot.

If a mobile suit is destroyed they get sent back to base and enter a repair cycle which seems to take a good deal of time, so using your suits wisely is always recommended.

Of course the game does give you the opportunity to buy a lot of cards after you win, and can be useful for building up a collection quickly, the most expensive cards that have been seen in the various second hand shops around Akiba have been the UR Nu Gundam and Sazabi from Char’s Counterattack (which also seems to have a lot of TV commercials with Char and Amuro advertising random things on TV… weird) the current campaign is based on Gundam Seed, and the UR Freedom and Kira Yamato are pretty expensive as well. From what I have seen they are totally busted with its ability to Lock on to everything, but thats just how Freedom rolls, and I can imagine the card will be more expensive once the next set comes out and it becomes harder to get.

That wraps up a quick overview of Arsenal Base, a pretty fun game that I plan to play a bit more of soon, the overall first impression was pretty positive and I hope to score one of those busted cards at some point.

I write this on the morning of my full second day, as after yesterday I was 100% exhausted and pretty much just went kaput back in my hotel room. Most of the day was spent in Exploration mode, as I really needed a full day to scope out the new places and changes that have happened. And I’m still not done, as theres still some more places to scope out.

The afternoon part of the day was spent with a solid Initial D session, I was able to get my car up to Full Tune… but now a whole different tuning mode opened up that I haven’t been able to play around with yet. Suffice to say the difference between 0 Tune and Full Tune is not at all like in previous games, in D8 the game was pretty much entirely different once you got to FullSpec or Ex. So its nice to see a lower hurdle… though I am intrigued by the new tuning mode… I’ll be trying that out soon.

Lunch today was this Pork Cutlet sandwich or Katsusando for short from a Vending Machine located on the southern edge of Akihabara, It was 750 yen and came in this neatly packaged box. It was pretty good and definitely more than I would have expected from a vending machine, the restaurant that supplies this machine is pretty famous and they make the sandwiches fresh each day and stock the machine, its good to get here early.. and it can sell out, I would have grabbed picture of the machine.. but there was a crowd hanging around it and I really did not want to photo some random French guys.

After lunch I set out looking at all the old standby shops around Akiba like Sofmap, which actually set up little paths to avoid walking through the 18+ hentai floors and you can now bypass them, so atleast in Sofmap you can avoid any surprises. Though thats not the case in all stores though…

I really want to try out Arsenal Base, the new Gundam card type game thats got a large presence throughout the arcade scene. I picked up a voucher for a Starter Deck and some sleeves at Leisureland, the starter decks were sold out in a few places, and none had the sleeves, so I thought it to be a good idea… Then I remembered why I rarely play at leisureland, you need to turn these in to the fourth floor staff and they give you the actual pack… However… I spent about an hour playing random games on floor 4, and well as wandering and saw no one. I asked the Third Floor staff if they could help, and they told me that it has to be the floor 4 staff who doesn’t exist. I tried several more times throughout the day with no luck… maybe things will go better today lol, or I might just cobble together a deck of the junk cards people leave at the arcade for others to use… who knows.

Rounding out the night for dinner was Teppan Oukoku, which is a little place located on the main strip, this place was one of my favorites back in the day, and I was glad to see it was still around, It’s similar to Pepper Lunch in concept, though with a few touches, they have the Jumbo Sized drinks which are fantastic after walking around all day, and was actually the main reason I dined in here, nothing like an America sized melon soda to quench the thirst. Their steak sauce is really good too.. and it was all had for 1600 yen… about 13-14$.

Looking ahead to today, as I woke up around 7 am thanks to jetlag.. and for any familiar with Japan… good luck finding anything to do until around 10am… More Arcades and exploration, I plan to focus on D and Arsenal Base if I can actually redeem my starter deck during the afternoon with some Wonderland Wars at night when it starts getting popular. I have a reservation at the Eorzea Cafe in Akiba tonight at 8pm, which is the Final Fantasy 14 cafe for dinner so that should be pretty fun.

It’s still about 90 minutes till anything opens up, thankfully the Cubs are on TV for some reason here in Japan today so I’ll watch a bit of Baseball before heading out!

For the first time since August of 2019 before Covid froze the world over, or atleast Japanese tourism, I have returned to the promised land of Akihabara. Much has changed, some has stayed the same and we will be exploring the new areas of Akihabara, as well as several others like Shinjuku and Shibuya in the coming days.

Arriving to Narita around 3pm Japan standard time, I was greeting with an absolute flood of tourists also entering the country, now to be fair, I have not particularly iculary done a April trip over here in the past, so its possible that this is just how April is. I figured the tourism would be in a dry spell between Cherry Blossoms and the upcoming Golden Week in May. The immigration line at Narita was easily the longest I have ever seen, and this is even with the expedited immigration process that Japan introduced.

I would not get to my hotel, The JR East METS Akihabara, until around 6:15pm, and I was mostly a zombie, a hungry zombie as someone at ANA needs to look up the word Food in a dictionary, cause the stuff that was served, I wouldn’t call food. Though atleast I did grab my traditional Chili’s at Ohare Airport.

The JR Mets opened in the Fall of 2019, and I had booked here back in March of 2020 and well we all know what happened around that same time, so I was hyped to finally get here. The reviews have been stellar and the location simply can not be beat if you are in Akiba and expect to spend a lot of time around the Akiba Strip. Expect a full hotel review later, safe to say though I am impressed with everything so far.

Managing to gather up a small bit of energy, I shuffled straight down to Pepper Lunch, the menu has changed a small bit since my last visit, but the core concept remains the same, cooking beef on a super heated cast iron plate.

Pepper Lunch granted me a bit of a second wind so I set doing some basic exploring and scouting before hitting up the arcades later on. A lot of stores have come and gone, and some new ones have taken their place. Same with Arcades. I am extremely excited for tomorrow and having a full day to explore.

After a bit of exploring, I had to get into some Arcade actions, full reviews coming later in the trip ofcourse. But it was good to see the Arcade seen having a bit of a rebound. Initial D Arcade is crazy popular at the moment, several places had up to 12 machines, and they were all full. Apparently Season 2 released recently? I’ll have to look into that more later, though I did get a few rounds in. It seems as if Game Nest in Las Vegas does not sync their data to the main servers or something as I needed to start from scratch. However… I did get a pretty cool bonus for having D Zero (the previous version) save data on my Aime… so thats nice I guess, I only played a bit of D Arcade, as it took awhile find an open machine.

D is a fun as I remember it being, and this Version is pretty much perfect, Very Accessible with a Gated Shifter and supporting 4 player battles and multiple modes to play in. I plan to have some good sessions with D in the coming days. One thing I did notice, Wangan is pretty non existent tant, where back in the day, it was the opposite, so I’m curious to see how Namco Bandai responds.

As always, I had to go back to the old standby Wonderland Wars, there was a major national event ending today, and I did not want to join the event considering I’m only 3.5 years rusty I was also glad to see the game still supported, it doesn’t have the presence of newer games for sure, but considering its nearing its 10th! Anniversary which is pretty much unheard of for an Arcade game, maybe we will get a sequel.

Heading back to call it a night, as I’m writing this my second wind has worn off, and I pretty much want to bury myself in pillows. Coincidentally I saw this “Chill Out Relaxation Drink” It may relax you, but it tastes pretty funky, and the after taste is 100% Pez.

Thats pretty much a wrap for today, as I continue to Chill out and plan tomorrow.

Another year, another trip over, but that just means its time to plan the next one! This trip was planned for the summer holiday season in Japan and it showed, as it was very crowded in most places. Well, Japan is normally crowded, but this is a whole lot more crowded than in years past.

Returning to the REMM Akihabara after a 3 year absence, the last stay being only 2 nights before.  This time though I seemed to have fallen into a bit of an odd room. All the prior times I had stayed in the REMM, the room layout was the same… this time however, the layout swapped and the giant window wall…overlapped the bathroom/shower.

I thought about opening up the shower briefly, but I could clearly see the diners across the street at ChompChomp, and if I could see them, they could see me. So those blinds remained shut for the majority of the time.

As for new stores in Akiba itself, there were a few and it seems like more may be opening up soon. The big draw many of the new stores have it seems is used goods. As its possible to find all sorts of items used out there throughout Akiba. Though I would never recommend buying any sort of Retro Game in Akihabara itself, you can take a Train 30 minutes north and find much much better deals. I’m also unaware if the non Kanji initiated tourists are aware they are buying used goods. As some of the new shops the only indicator is written in kanji “中古”.

Since last year a new restaurant called Yakiniku Like opened up right next to the KFC, This place is awesome as its a Yakiniku restaurant, or Japanese style BBQ, designed for solo eaters and being quick and pretty cheap. I got a full set meal with 200 grams of steak to cook on my little grill, rice and miso for roughly 1200 yen. I was in and out in roughly 15 minutes as well. If I could dine like this in the US for $11, I would never eat fast food again. This does bring me back to the dining scene in Japan in general. I really do feel at home there, whether its hitting up Ichiran Ramen, or small Yakiniku joints like this one, or even Yoshinoya.

One thing I do like to sneak in each year is a movie, while I was a few weeks early for the new Konosuba movie, I was glad to catch Weathering With You by Makoto Shinkai. For anyone considering going to a movie over in Japan. Paying a little extra for the Premium Box seats is kind of nice. Though definitely not recommended for couples. It’s pretty much like a first class seat, with privacy walls, and extra leg room with an extra plush chair.

No trip would be considered complete without a trek to see the Gundam as well as the Gundam base. Given that Comiket and Odaiba Summer Event were both going on in the near vicinity it would be doom to try to fit in many plans around Odaiba during that time. The best way it seemed to me was to squeeze in some time late night after most events ended on the island. And it always seemed to me at least that the Gundam is much better to be seen at night.

Unicorn is as cool as ever, though part of me does miss the original RX-78. Though it was super packed, and this was late at night when I had thought most would have been heading back by now. This was actually, easily, the largest crowd that I have seen centered around the Gundam itself. It’s possible others had the same idea as me. I also know I saw some who were still lingering around from Comiket.

So yeah, tourism is definitely on the increase over the last few years. I do fear what Tokyo is going to become during the Olympics. As I can only imagine a giant cluster of aloof tourists not really knowing about any of the unwritten rules of Japanese Culture. Or how crowded the trains will be, and I know the hotel shortage is become a thing too. Given how many business hotels exist… well.. that’s impressive to fill them up.

For the first time I did walk through the Diver City mall, as many of the stores and areas were having a special Gundam Festival for the anniversary this year, many restaurants had Gundam themed specials and there were various displays like the one pictured above set up throughout. One thing that did catch my eye is that there are a lot of interesting VR attractions in Diver City, most needed more than 1 person so I was unable to try any of them, but do look forward to possible future visits.

 

 

One of the more cool and neat games to come out more recently in the Japanese arcade scene is Starwing Paradox from Square Enix. As with many of Squares arcade titles, it’s big and flashy. And does take up a lot of space in an area where space is often at a premium.

In Akihabara for example, one of the, if not the game center capital of the world, Starwing could be found in only a few locations. The only Sega location with it is Sega Gigo located on the south end of Akihabara, the area which used to be reserved for Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna has been replaced by a heck of a lot of Starwing Paradox, outside of Gigo, Tokyo Leisurland over by Kentucky Fried Chicken also carries a few machines. The cost model is different as well, the first play is 200 yen, the first continue is also 200 yen, but the third continue drops down to 100 yen. After that the game is over and you can either start again, or swap out if it is busy.

As mentioned, the game is crisp, colorful and a lot of fun. The character displayed on the main screen is fully animated and voiced and there are several to choose from. The one pictured above was celebrating her “Birthday” and there were special bonuses related.

But onto the game itself, Starwing does have a relatively sharp learning curve due to the control mechanics and mech customization parts you can unlock. The controls themselves consist of a left and right joystick, as well as a pair of footpedals. The joysticks each have two buttons as well as a scroll wheel type implement on the right joystick. Not to mention the aside from the gigantic main screen of Starwing, there also exists a sub monitor with touch controls.

The gameplay objectives are fairly straightforward at least and is easy to understand even with no knowledge of Japanese. Each map will have several control points, as well as each team will have their base. When one team controls a set amount of the points, typically half+1, then the base becomes vulnerable to attack. The first team to wipe out the enemy bases health wins. Or if it is a timeout, then it goes to the team with the most health remaining.

All in all the game is a blast to play and learn. It’s popularity seemed to be kind of low however, possibly due to the learning curve itself. Each arcade was handing out flyers with free play coupons as well, so they are really trying to push it. The production values are outstanding and the force feedback and the motion from the cockpit itself is a nice touch. I do hope Starwing hasn’t fizzed out by the time I return to Akihabara, because I do want to play it again. As for prospects on it coming to the US, via RD1. I would say its low to improbable and I don’t think I would want it to come either, knowing how well RD1USA upkeep’s their machines, I fear what would happen to a game with as much motion involved as this one.

Spending some time at the Tokyo Leisureland in Don Quihote, I decided it was time to spend good yen by trying out Bombergirl. As the name implies, its a waifuized version of the popular Bomberman series from Konami. Complete with clothing damage and MOBA mechanics.

Theres a decent amount of characters to unlock and each have different classes they fit into such as Bomber, Blocker, Attacker and Shooter. As for what the classes actually do is adjust the stat maximums and minimums you can level up to in a match. For instance the character shown above is a very balanced Bomber type, so she can plant up to 5 bombs and upgrade her size and speed 5 times each.

 

The battles themselves take place in a large arena filled with blocks, bases and teleporters to capture. The blocks drop powerups and stop normal bombs just as you would expect them to. The Bases are the main objective to attack as destroying them will ultimately win you the game. As your team gains experience through bombing things or other girls. You unlock several skills and than be customized and unlocked.

If you take enough damage, your clothes eventually get ripped to shreds and a large cut pops up. Originally at release the censor bars were not present, but eventually they were added in, not all characters are of the developed type.

I initially wondered how new characters and items were unlocked, and was thinking there was an exp progression or something as it is not really explained, but then the after match happened and I was treated to a Gacha scene.

By spending an additional credit, you get a spin at the gacha, 2 pulls with the highest rarity items, the characters, having a 6% chance. I drew a few times and did unlock a new character, so I can see it not being too difficult to unlock more.

The gameplay itself was actually a lot of fun. If this game got a home release, minus the exploding clothes, I feel it would actually do really well as it offers the same kind of short burst fun that Wonderland Wars offers but in a Bomberman format.