Arcadia is the only videogame magazine I ever actually buy anymore, and I don't do so regularly: double-priced, imported mags are a little expensive to subscribe to, you know. But I love arcade games, and as such I'm a little jealous of Japan's still-in-existence arcade scene. I live in one of the only spots for arcade gaming in the US, and we are, by Western arcade standards, beyond lucky to have a single machine of this issue's cover game: Tekken 6 Bloodline Rebellion. As a matter of fact, let's do first things first and transcribe the all-important Arcadia popularity rankings, so you can all see what they're playing in Japan.
For standard game machines:
1. Blazblue (Arc System Works)
2. (NEW) Tekken 6 Bloodline Rebellion (Bandai-Namco)
3. Gundam Vs. Gundam (Bandai-Namco)
4. Virtua Fighter 5 R (Sega)
5. Street Fighter IV (Capcom)
6. Melty Blood Actress Again (Ecole)
7. Sugoi! Arcana Heart 2 (Examu)
8. Tekken 6 (Bandai-Namco)
9. (NEW) Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom (Capcom)
10. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (Arc System Works)
For the deluxe stuff:
1. Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna (Bandai-Namco)
2. (NEW) Beatmania IIDX 16 Empress (Konami)
3. Mahjong Fight Club 7 (Konami)
4. Taisen Mahjong MJ4 (Sega)
5. World Club Champion Football Intercontinental Clubs (Sega)
6. Sangokushi Taisen 3 (Sega)
7. DrumMania V5 Rock to Infinity (Konami)
8. GuitarFreaks V5 Rock to Infinity (Konami)
9. pop'n music 16 Party (Konami)
10. Quiz Magic Academy 5 (Konami)
You can see that the new wave of fighting games has really shaken up the popularity rankings. Arc said previously that they were "begging" people to play Blazblue and it looks like they didn't need to worry about it: God knows GG players needed something fresh by now. I'm not sure how new Bloodline Rebellion and TvC actually are (wasn't TvC out in the arcades two months ago? Didn't they have Bloodline Rebellion at Chinatown Fair the last couple weeks I was there?) but it's nice to see TvC making any kind of headway at all. From the trickle of Japanese match videos I've seen, I was starting to get the feeling that everybody was ignoring it. Actually, VF5R is another "I'm glad that isn't doing as badly as I heard!" surprise. As a western VF player, I've tried to ignore the game: it's unbearable knowing that it is most likely not coming out at all in the West, and it doesn't really help that the game looks so damned good.
World Club Champion Football looks like a card-based soccer game where the cards represent your players. I would imagine you can move the guys around to change position and so forth. You'll note that the hardware setup looks a lot like Derby Owner's Club: I would imagine the same kind of detached player involvement from the light control setup. Sangokushi Taisen you guys might not know: it's another card game, this time RTS.
I remember when I was into Bemani, the popularity situation was supposed to be different: Pop'n was king, with IIDX and then the GF/DM games below that. Do Rock Band/GH exist in any form outside of importing in Japan? I've read of an extremely limited release of GHIII in Japan, but that's about it. I would imagine they wouldn't be able to do a large-scale release of the games without getting sued. I think RB and GH improved upon and beat the hell out of Konami's guitar and drum games (definitely aided by Konami USA's consistent, hilarious incompetency at marketing the Bemani brand in the West), but as far as the core game design goes, I don't think anybody can effectively argue that the first Guitar Hero wasn't an outright plagiarism of Guitar Freaks.
Yup. 2-D fighters are definitely on their way back, and with KOF12 coming soon, it will only get better.
Posted by: Tokyo Street Fighter IV | April 15, 2009 at 05:35 AM