Arcade Quickie: Sound Voltex Booth AA [Advanced]

Not played in a while.  It shows hard

My Top 3 Genres

I've been having a pretty shitty week so I'm just going to take a minute to gush about some genres that I really like because maybe posting something overly positive on here will help cheer me up a bit.  I'm sure I'll have something to rage about soon but for now I'm just going to gush.

1. Rhythm Games

One of the best things about living in Japan is the fact I'm surrounded on almost all sides in an arcade by the latest rhythm games.  I fucking love these things and I got my start playing them when I was pretty young and my local bowling alley in the UK got a DDR Euromix machine in.  These games were challenging, fun had sick music and back when I first got hooked the ability to draw a crowd. 

I lost interest a little bit during the peak of things like Guitar Hero and Rock Band because I didn't really like those games and getting hold of the ones I did like such as IIDX required importing shit from Japan and getting special controllers but once I moved here my interest came back HARD.  Admittedly I'm a sucker for shitty J-Pop sometimes and these games feature the catchiest shit J-Pop you've ever heard,  it's like a fucking dream.

The selection for these games out here is also insane, with new games popping up all the damn time and classic ones constantly getting updates.  Personal favorites include Jubeat, Sound Voltex, Chunithm and DDR but I'm always willing to try one of the weirder looking ones like MaiMai if I have some extra during my trip to the game center.

2. RPGs

Pretty much the genre that cemented my interest in gaming back in the Sega Saturn days I fucking love a good RPG.  I tend to not give a shit about all these differentiations like jRPG and wRPG that we make now a days because back when I was playing these things we just called 'em RPGs.  Didn't matter if it was Baldur's Gate or Final Fantasy, that shit was just an RPG.

I like these games for 2 main reasons.  One is the story because if an RPG has a really good plot behind it then it can be almost impossible to put down.  Granted, that a lot of the time finding an RPG with an actual well written story can be kind of hard but when you do it's pretty incredible.  However an RPG for me, especially a jRPG can be just as enjoyable if it has a cool combat system and lots of stuff going on in order to progress your characters.  I love the process of min/maxing characters in order to overcome a secret super boss or whatever, it just feels good to have to know a game that intimately in order to succeed. 

Some of my favorites for this one include Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shadow Hearts and more recently The Banner Saga.  It's a shame that the genre is so overcrowded now with all this moe shit in Japan but they are still pretty fun from a game play stand point.

3. The Horror Game

 

I'm a big fan of horror anything really, but horror games especially are my favorite way to experience the genre.  It's hard to make some general comments about what makes the genre as a whole so great because that kind of varies from series and series and game to game.  The reason why Silent Hill is so damn good is different to the reason why Project Zero is so good. 

Granted, the genre does have a lot of shit in it like that weird The Ring game on Dreamcast and that X Files game on PS2 that I currently forget the name of but the good horror games really are fucking awesome.  There's nothing quite like playing Silent Hill 2 for the first time or the rush of encountering your first ghost with the camera in Project Zero.

While the AAA horror game has kind of died it's luckily being kept alive by a good number of indie developers.  Things like the first Amnesia game, Penumbra, Into the Gloom and Lone Survivor show that there still are a number of game developers out there who know how to produce a good scare every so often and while it's niche as fuck the fan base for the horror genre is pretty dedicated. 

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So there you have it folks, my top 3 genres.  It's cool if you don't give a fuck but writing some positive stuff about some games that I love really helped cheer me up so I'll be back to my usual rage pretty soon. 

The Japan Gamer Episode 2: Stat Cards

It's pretty common in Japan for arcade games to have a card that goes with them.

In this episode I give a brief overview of the cards I own, what games they work with and what they do.  The next episode will be a tour around an actual Game Centre! so look foward to that one!

Gallery!

Works with Nesica

Works with Aime

Works with Aime

Works with Aime

Works with Aime

Works with E-Amusement

Works with E-Amusement

Machine for Charging Paseli Credit to an E-Amusement Pass

Some machines I couldn't find pictures for online and don't have a picture to hand, so you'll just have to wait for the episode!

Less Shooters Please

This generation we have had a lot of first person shooter games, and I do mean A LOT.  To be honest, I wish this shit would fucking stop.

Before I go on, I don't have anything against FPS games, I actually quite enjoy them but I'm sick to death of going to a game store and just seeing FPS games fucking everywhere.  New Call of Duty, new Medal of Honour, new Crysis.  Good lord, don't people get bored of playing the same kind of game day in day out?

I mean we've just had the PS4 thing from Sony which I mentioned yesterday and already we've had fucking Destiny and Killzone.  Keeping in mind that the other games were Knack and inFamous (and I'm not counting that "announcement" from Square as a thing, fuck off) that's half the line up so far as fucking FPS games.  If there were more games than that I don't care, 2 is too many.

I'm a big fan of Rhythm games, I enjoy all sorts of shit from Voltex to DDR to Beatmania, it's great.  But if I just played rhythm games every time I went to the game centre and every time I came home then I probably would have quit gaming by now, that shit would be stale.

I wouldn't even be so annoyed about it if the styles were varied.  If we had some more Doom/Quake-esque FPS games at least there would be some variation on the theme.  I know it's probably not going to happen because this shit sells like hot cakes but I've got my fingers crossed on there being significantly less semi realistic military shooters in the upcoming generation.

Note: I know Destiny isn't quite a "military" FPS but it's still the same kind of game play that I'm bored of.

Japanese Medal Games

Up to this point, I've never seen the point of these things, but today I discovered why they are so popular!

For those that don't know, in a little area of pretty much every game centre I've ever been to, there is a section for "medal games".  These are games where you buy a load of medals, and feed them into a machine to earn more medals.  They are usually those push machines, you know, where you feed in coins so the machine can push a big stack and make coins on the edge fall off.  There are other machines such as non-gambling versions of pachinko and slots too, as well as an actual game that I will cover in a post tomorrow.

So what can you do with these medals?  Nothing.  When you are done, you feed them into a machine that tracks how many you have and then you can come back and use those medals later.  So you may be asking, well what's the fucking point then?  I know I was asking this question for a long time, but today I sussed it.

The reason these games are so popular is because they are a cheap alternative to actual coin-op gaming, or at least that's my theory anyway.  Just think, when I play Voltex Sound Booth, I spend 100 yen for 3 songs.  With a medal game, 1000 yen will get you a shit ton of medals, and assuming you win something (which isn't all that hard really) you can come back and play again for free.  Also these games are very laid back and don't really contain any potential competition, so people who like game centres but are worried about being bad at the proper games still have something to enjoy.  It seems to be quite popular with older people too, probably gives them something to do.

The cool thing about this whole medal thing is to access the account that you create with the game centre, you have to scan your arm.  Most games come with stat cards or something but from how the woman explained it to me today, the machines for medal games scans the shape of your veins or something, either way it's cool as fuck.

So, the next post will be the game that made me want to try this shit out, I want to pop down to the game centre tomorrow and play it a bit more before I write about it, so keep an eye out!

Some reasons on why Game Centres are so popular

This is a post I've been wanting to do for a couple of weeks since I watched a certain episode of a show called Pach-Attack on gametrailers.com.

For those that don't know, Pach-Attack is a show hosted by a guy called Micheal Pachter, a dude who knows a great deal about the industry and answers questions on certain topics every week about business related things.  A couple of weeks ago, he was asked "Why are arcades so prominent in Japan but not so viable in the states?" to which he responded "Japan is a weird place and the people are just a lot weirder than the people in the west"

Now I don't know why but this struck a nerve with me, I think Pach-Attack is a great show and the guy knows his stuff, but on this topic he is just fucking wrong, and the way he worded his answer seemed pretty offensive, not only to the Japanese, but to me who also enjoys these games.

The chance of Pach himself reading this post is pretty slim, but I'll tell you the real reason why arcades are more viable here than anywhere else.

1. More new/interesting games
I'm really only talking about the UK but from what I've heard about America it's a similar situation.  In the UK, you ALWAYS see the same games, shit like Time Crisis and DDR and maybe a shitty racing game or 2, but in Japan, the selection is way more varied.  You have a metric shit ton of rhythm games, but all have an interesting take on rhythm gameplay (the recent Mai Mai comes to mind on this one)

Also, I've covered games before like Sengoku Taisen but games like this are basically unheard of in the west AT ALL, and I don't think anywhere would want these huge cabinets in their establishments, which leads me to my next point

2. Dedicated places to play
The Game Centre is a pretty popular thing out here, hell, I live within about 30 minutes of 4 different ones.  The existence of these not only give people a good place to come together, compete and practice, but it gives developers of these games somewhere to put their crazy designed cabinets.  While Arcades like this used to exist in the west, I found that people weren't willing to maintain the machines as much as they are around here, so shit used to stop working and people would stop coming.  The closest thing to an arcade near me in the UK had a broken DDR machine for 2 YEARS, that was never fixed and probably still has a broken right pad on the P1 side today. Speaking of machine care leads me to my final point which is...

3. Developers and players actually give a shit in Japan
Players of arcades in the UK really didn't give 2 fucks about how they treated the machines, and owners, like I mentioned in my last point, didn't give a shit about fixing them either.  For example, people would wreck the guns on rail shooters, or in one case, some teenagers broke into the coin box and stole the money, and the place disposed of the cabinet rather than spend time repairing it.  So in short, people fuck up the games and they are just not worth playing.

Arcades also get more developer attention with stat cards being available to unlock new content on basically every game.  On top of that, with most machines being hooked up to the internet, developers release patches and updates for popular games with great frequency.  If you dig through the posts a bit, or check my youtube channel, the Sound Voltex Booth game that I covered a while back has had over 40 new songs added to its library as well as a long list of pre-existing Beatmania songs that have been remixed for the game.

I could talk for days about why arcades here are so good, but I'll leave you with those 3 points for now.  So, Micheal Pachter, the Japanese aren't weird, the scene is just more interesting over here, and maybe you should actually look at what's available before you make stupid comments like that.

Sound Voltex Booth

Sound Voltex Booth is a new rhythm game I've come across during my travels around the various Japanese game centres and despite the strange name it is a hell of a lot of fun.

For those of you that need a western comparison, I suppose this game is most similar to DJ Hero, but even that is a pretty bad comparison as the control schemes are completely different.  It's your standard rhythm game though, notes flow down the screen and you hit the buttons in the right order not to fail the song. 

What you are probably noticing in that picture though is the two little turny knobs on the left and right side of the buttons.  There are notes in this game that take the form of long bars that you need to trace with an indicator in order to get the points.  In order to make that indicator move, you turn the knobs.  It's a very simple control scheme but the game still feels challening, and the way in combines button notes with the knobs can actually be rather challenging on the higher settings. 

Speaking of the settings, there are 3 difficulty levels in Sound Voltex Booth; Novice, Advanced and Exhaust.  I've not had too many runs of this game yet as I've only just started playing, but even on Novice the game can still be a bit of a challenge depending on the song.

As you can see in the above image, the Exhaust mode is locked, so I hope to god you brought your e-amusement pass card.  For those of you who don't know, an E-Amusement pass looks like this.

The E-Amusement pass is a stat card that works basically for all Konami games (IIDX, Jubeat, DDR and more) and having one is basically a requirement to enjoying any Japanese coin op rhythm game.  You see, playing without one is fine but the song list is actually pretty small.  As you play with a registered card though, you gain skill points and unlock points in order to get new music to play through.  Also having one of these cards allows you to access any new songs they upload to the game via the internet and they are not expensive to get hold of, about 300 Yen from a little dispensing machine inside the arcade.

So if you ever find yourself in Japan, give this game a spin.  If you don't ever come to Japan, or never plan to then cross those fingers and hope that they release a console version for you to import, but I don't think it's likely.

Just as a little bonus I've uploaded 2 gameplay videos so have a lookie see.