Tokyo is full of arcades, they’re everywhere! :D And they’re a lot of fun!
Personally I prefer playing the music and rhythm games. Here’s a funny video of one of Sega’s newer games Maimai:
You can also find 4 player mario kart, where each get their own steering wheel and screen, and fun games like Taiko no Tatsujin where you hit on giant drums in time with music ^_^
I personally love this music game with all the buttons ^_^ I don’t know the name of it though :/
Most of the arcades are at least 4 stories high with the first two floors filled with U.F.O catchers.
When it comes to U.F.O catchers, I recommend the ones with three claws, because the ones with two claws are extremely weak. Don’t forget to check machines for something that is about to fall over that somebody else has already been nudging around ^_^
I got pretty good at these machines during our trip ^_^ It is also extremely addictive, I don’t know how many 100 Yens I put into these, and I don’t wanna count ;D Here’s a picture of how excited I was whenever I got to play though ;D
And I actually won this, after having put in a bit over 1000 Yen in this machine, trying to pin holes into the little paper holding the thing up. Eventually there wasn’t much left but it still wouldn’t budge. So I asked the personnel to nudge the box a bit so the entire weight was on platform (since it was a bit crooked and leaning on the plastic bar against the glass), then the guy started fiddling with the paper instead and the thing fell down, I just assumed that I won it and he gave it to me ^_^ YAY
I also won this cute Rilakkuma bear for myself and I won this other cuddly plushie for my friend ^_^
Most arcades will mainly have modern games and maybe a few machines with classic street fighter. I went and took some pics during mid-day on a week day so it was pretty empty. After 5 though it is always crammed with people. There’s mostly fighting games or strategy games. Some new ones even have touch screens.
I found an arcade located in between the two SEGA buildings (you can find the directions in my guide to Akihabara game shops) in Akihabara that had mainly retro game arcade machines! A whole floor of just 16-bit shmups! ^_^ It was called HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard).
This place was awesome ^_^ I wish this was my living room! haha
They also had these special 2-player machines with Darius and Ninja Warriors ^_^
Also if you wanna find retro arcades you can find some on the fourth floor of Super Potato (directions can be found here). They have more than just shmups, for example Puyo Puyo, Bomber World, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Final Fight, Pac-Land etc.
There’s a lot more arcades to explore in Tokyo and in Akihabara alone. It’s thrilling to see how this culture is still so much alive over there ^_^
Retro Video Gaming 