Cool Things In Japanese Arcades

I always have to come back to talking about the arcades since it's probably one of my favorite things about living in Japan.  Now the thing that tends to blow most peoples minds, which is the whole idea of a sort of members card that tracks stats and progress I've talked about to death.  Here is a video of me talking about it so that I don't have to type it all out again if you don't know what I'm on about.

But that's not the only cool thing about these places so here's 3 more really cool things about Japanese Arcades you may not know about

1) Recording and Sharing

Usually if you walk into a big arcade these a big signboard at the front that has all the rules and usually one of those rules is you're not allowed to bring in a camera and take pictures and stuff.  However the people who run these places know that gamers like to come in, record their game play if they are particularly good and share it with Nico Nico Douga or YouTube.  I noticed about a year ago that a lot of the machines in my nearest arcade started hooking up capture cards to the machine nearest to the aisle which you could plug a USB device in and record to it.  Not only this but recently I found that the rhythm game Chunithm has set up these sort of holders for your phone that give you a perfect angle on the screen and controller so that you can record shit and basically upload it there and then.  Before all this started people were bringing in cameras and tripods and shit which would clog up the space for people so all of this is a welcome addition

2) Manage your shit from your house

There are certain games such as Gunslinger Stratos or Code of Joker along with others that allow you to manage gun loud outs, decks or profile details from the comfort of your own home so that when you actually get to the arcade you aren't wasting your time in menus and shit and you can just sit down and play the damn game.  The one I'm most familiar with is Code of Jokers Agent Lab.

https://coj-agentlabo.com/login?_ga=1.34699425.1013799049.1465114829

If you try to modify your deck in the arcade you are given a 120 second time limit and after that you start spending your paid credit and if you've ever tried to make a deck for a card game in 2 minutes it's a little tight.  However if you login to the above link you can sit, read through all your cards and make decks to your hearts content so that when you go to the arcade and scan your Aime you can just start playing right away. 

3) Actual Collectable Shit

I love collecting shit, it's just fun to do and one of the great things about the arcade is that they give you a chance to get your hands on quite a bit of swag.  Of course there's the UFO machines which give you prizes but they are actually worth trying for over here unlike the shitty plushies that you get in the UK.  However there are games like Sengoku Taisen (or whatever that new one is called) and Kantai Collection which give you actual physical cards to collect and trade which also level up in game as you use them, it's really cool.

My meager but much loved Kantai cards

 The best part is that you don't have to go to another shop to buy cards and then bring them to the arcade like it's Yu-Gi-Oh or some shit.  After you finish playing a round the machine itself will print a card for you to add to your collection so there's not really any extra effort required for amassing a decent collection of stuff.  There do exist specialist shops that allow you to buy the rare cards individually but these are mainly for the most hardcore of collectors rather than just regular players of the game.

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It's a real shame that we don't have these kind of games in the UK because I might not hate the idea of returning home so much if we did.  That said if we did put these games into English arcades they'd probably just get abused and become unusable within a week anyway, so maybe it's for the best.

Arcades: How Far They Have Come

So recently I received an email that was asking me about some of my favorite classic games and the changes in the technology I've been using within gaming over the years.  There's plenty I could talk about since gaming in general has come a long long way since the old 8 and 16 bit era but the area where the advancements in tech feel the most noticeable is in the arcade.

Arcades are not too much of a thing in the west, especially not in the UK.  As a young lad growing up in Manchester the best I could hope for in the ways of coin op was a few barely functional machines in a local bowling alley on cinema lobby.  For quite a while though the only things I played in arcades were fighting games and side scrolling beat 'em ups so for a while my impression of an arcade machine was nothing more than a screen, a stick and a few buttons.  This all changed when my mother took me to a place called Sega World that was in London

Sega World was the my first real experience with a proper arcade.  It was located in London and was 5 floors of arcade joy that has now been shut down.  Last I checked it was replaced with something called Fun Land but if I'm not mistaken that's been shut down too, but I've not been back to England, let alone London, for about 5 years so I might be wrong about that.

Anyway, my young mind could barely handle all the awesome that was in this place and this is where I first discovered the rail shooter.  Big machines that didn't have a stick or little buttons to push but huge screens and big guns attached to them which you had to use to shoot enemies.  The one that grabbed my attention in particular was The House of The Dead because shooting zombies was way more interesting to me than blasting people in titles like Virtua Cop.  I even got my first taste of arcade multiplayer experience on that same day.

Near the end of my time in Sega World that day me and my mother returned to the floor where all the light gun games were located.  I was hoping to get one last go on The House of the Dead before we set out but there was someone playing already.  Instead of just giving up and walking away like I would do nowadays I just stood there and watched this guy play and I was fascinated by it because he was getting to parts of the game that my young self could have never of dreamed of getting to while on my mothers budget of £1 coins.  In that game there are 4 stages, and when he reached stage 3 he notices me and my mother watching, probably assumes we are waiting for a go and then offers the 2nd players gun to me.  I excitedly grab a few coins from my mother and start playing with this complete stranger and it all culminated in us finishing the game.

The rush of excitement as the games final boss, Magician, went down was intense and once the credits had finished rolling we shook hands and split ways.  I don't remember anything about that guy aside from the gaming experience but he really made my day.

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Fast forward to 2016 and now I'm living in Japan where arcades are pretty common.  I have about 4 all within 15 minutes of my apartment building and comparing coin op now to what it was back then it's incredible to think just how far these machines have come.

One thing I was always a fan of was rhythm game and things like touch screens have done a lot for that genre.  A few years ago I thought stomping all over a big metal pad was cool but now I'm using touch sensitive keyboards with hand sensors above them in games like Chunithm or just playing with the game screen itself in titles like Syncronica

If rhythm games aren't your thing then fighting games have huge followings and a lot of them can be played online from the arcade itself.  Generally speaking internet connectivity has really changed the game centre for the better with people now being able to compare stats or track progress against other players.  This also extends to have accounts that are stored on IC cards which means that as you play you can unlock more content for your games. There are new WiFi systems out there like Luma, a startup I was just introduced to. They have a surround home wifi system that was built for advanced connectivity among the multiple devices online, with added security that allows any obstacles that might block your signal and keep you from playing to be removed.

My Cards have seen a lot of use

My favorite use of these cards is for a game known as Code of Joker which sort of plays like Magic the Gathering.  An online trading card game exclusive to the arcade, the IC card stores your profile with not only things like your wins and losses but your entire card collection and decks.  Stick to cards for a moment, for those who prefer their trading card games in a more physical form there's Kantai Collection and Sengoku Taisen.

Kantai

These games involve either collecting the cards to be scanned by the machine in Kantai or placing them on a table and moving them around in a more RTS style of game play in Sengoku Taisen.  If I could go back in time and tell my young self that trading card games would be available in arcades I think my head would have actually exploded.

Just to finish up this post and bring it back to the old House of the Dead comparison, one of my favorite light gun games in modern times is Gunslinger Stratos

While it may look like a sort of space age version of the old rail shooter this game is actually a 3on3 online 3rd person shooter that plays sort of like Unreal Tournament or something.  Movement is controlled with the sticks on the backs of the guns and you can change weapons by holding them together and slotting these sort of magnets into each other, it's crazy.

I could talk for HOURS about all the fancy new stuff in the Japanese arcades but then this post would go on for way way too long.  It's mental to think just how far the coin op experience has come in such a short amount of time and quite frankly, I'm super glad that I'm living in Japan and am able to experience all these things as they are released.

[beastsofwar.com] Arcade Card Games

While I've talked about these kind of games on the blog before, namely Sengoku Taisen my friend who has been living in Japan for about a year and a half has written a post for his website about these games.  First you should go check out his post at this link

http://www.beastsofwar.com/card-game/tabletop-otaku-arcade-card-games/

In that article he talks about Sengoku Taisen, Code of Joker and the until now unmentioned (on this blog) Kantai Collection Arcade.  If you want the low down on the latest schoolgirl warship simulator that has become a bit of an arcade sensation since its released then check out his post because I'll be uploading some game play footage from Kantai in the very near future.  I still need to sink my teeth into that game a little more before I produce my own thoughts on it but for a brief overview then that's a good place to start.

I've not had much time to click around that website but it looks like a pretty good place to go for information on table top games, so if you're into that then give them a bookmark, seems like a cool place.

Code of Joker 2.0

When I go to the arcade I'm expecting to have a good time except recently my visit was turned into a rage session as a discovered that my favorite digital card game, Code of Joker, got a big update.  Granted it's not all terrible but generally speaking the update has left me disappointed and angry.  

For those that don't know and can't be bothered to search through old posts for the info, let me briefly go over what Code Of Joker is.  Code of Joker is a free to play arcade digital trading card game made by Sega.  Imagine if you smashed Pokemon, Magic and Yu Gi Oh all into one game and you'd get a vague idea of what the game plays like.  It's a lot of fun and the fact that you can play 2 games for free as long as you own the Aime card means that playing a couple of matches every day may just become part of your daily routine. 

So, very recently version 2.0 of the game came out and with that release came A LOT of changes.  Let's first talk about the good shit.  The interface is a lot cleaner and easier to navigate.  The old interface was very busy and while not difficult it looks a lot better now.  There are also 2 new characters each with their own special powers and one of them has even come with entire new color type of card thus raising the monster types to 5. The new color comes with a mechanic where you can fill a gauge to do bullshit OP shit but the fact you need a separate gauge stops the new type from being completely broken.  Code Of Joker has also taken the advance wars approach to gameplay and made all the characters fight in pairs now.  This means that you get 2 special abilities per game and even if you use a Joker mid match, the gauge will keep charging so you can do it again, whereas before you only got 1 joker use per game.  

But now for the bullshit because oh boy did this piss me off really fucking hard.  First, they reset everyone's deck to a new starter that's been rebalanced so that it's not completely fucking useless after all the updates.  This is sort of a good thing but the game didn't tell you that it had happened so I got rocked in my first game due to having a completely changed deck full of shit.  Granted, some of the new starters are really good but some warning would have been nice.  The game also has the currency that you get from playing matches that used to be called RP but now it's been changed to a different currency with the same function but you still earn from playing matches called AC.  The problem arises when it turns out that none of my previously stocked RP was converted, so I just had ALL my in game money taken away and now I can't buy any of the fancy new shit.  It's not my stock was turned into something else, it's just flat out fucking gone, and that's bullshit.  

Now all that is super annoying but not as annoying as having the game just take a bunch of my cards away from me.  When I went to make a new deck a good deal of my cards had been taken away.  Now I can't find online what had happened but I have two guesses.  1 is that due to the balance changes these cards do not exist anymore or the game just decided to take away any card that I earned for free.  I'm leaning towards option 1 but I won't be able to test until my wife tries to make a deck later.  This is complete shit though because imagine you had a Yu Gi Oh deck but some update comes out and some guy comes to your house, shreds a bunch of your old cards and throws you a deck of mishmashed shit cards, you'd be mad. This is the digital equivalent of that.  Once again, my cards weren't converted to anything, just removed from my possession so fuck you Sega 

Despite all this bullshit the game retains its core enjoyability and at the end of the day it's still free so I'm not going to stop playing it.  Just every card played will be filled with bitterness and rage 

Code of Joker: F2P Done Right

I've been playing a metric fuckton of Code of Joker recently and if ever there was a standard for what a F2P game should be then THIS is it.

I'm going to assume most people won't know what CoJ is but a long time ago I did a blog post about it so have a read here to clue yourself in.

http://identitygaming.blogspot.jp/2013/10/return-to-game-centre-code-of-joker.html

As a quick summary, it's an arcade trading card game that plays a little like Pokemon, Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh all slammed together into one really fun card battling experience.

Back when it was first released you'd pay a certain number of credits to charge an energy value.  You would spend those points to play games and any points left over at the end would be converted into currency for you to buy new cards with when you came back at a later date.

However this all changed and the game went free to play.  Code of Joker now works on a system similar to every iPhone game under the sun.  You have an energy meter that has 100 points and playing a game costs a minimum of 40.  These points recharge over time and 100 points is enough to play 2 games for exactly no money.

The complaint that I hear with a lot of free to play games is that there's a significant amount of stuff locked behind a pay wall.  If not that then it's a case of a lot of over powered, game breaking stuff being locked away from people who don't want to spend money. 

Code of Joker is not like this, you are not locked out of anything if you don't put any money into the machine with the exception of cosmetics.  The only thing putting money in the machine does for you increases the rate you get cards since you get 1 or 2 cards as a reward per game.  But even if you do decide to put money in, 200 yen ($1.60 or £1.10) gets you a maximum of 7 games.  7 fucking plays, for 200 yen!  That shit is NUTS!  £1 on a UK DDR machine would get you 3 songs, which lasts about 12 minutes while Code of Joker you can play for an hour or two for the same price AND receive a load of free shit while you do it.

This is how Free to Play games SHOULD be.  Locking people out of things or charging in order to win is stupid, pisses people off and turns them away.  If you provide paid options that actually reward the player without pissing off those who don't pay too hard then you have a recipe for success and SEGA have fucking nailed it here.

The Foreign Gamer Problem: Not So Bad After All

So as I've told you like a million and one times I'm a guy who lives in Japan, I'm sure you know this pretty well by now.

So today, I had a day off work and I decided to have a bit of a stint in my local game centre.  In that game centre there is a game I have mentioned on this blog before known as Code of Joker.  I did a post on code of Joker outlining what that games all about here

http://identitygaming.blogspot.jp/2013/10/return-to-game-centre-code-of-joker.html

To sum it up though its a card game that's sort of like smashing Pokemon, Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh all together at the same time.  Now my record on this game is bad, I think out of the 21 games that I've played I've won 9 of them (it might be 6 but I'm pretty sure it's 9), which is a less than satisfactory performance to say the least.

Now don't get what I'm about to say twisted, I'm not making excuses, I do genuinely suck at Code of Joker but my suckage isn't the only factor at play here.  You see, everything in Code of Joker is obviously written in Japanese and as a foreigner it obviously takes me a little more time to understand what each card in the game does.  However, when you consider how the game handles play time and credits it creates problems for someone like me.

Inserting money into the game doesn't give you a credit equal to one go, it gives you something called GP which is equal to time on the menu.  Playing one match of the game costs a set amount of GP and after each game you are given about 45 seconds of "Service Time" to make any quick changes to your deck before you start the next match.  If the 45 seconds of service time run out, then it starts ticking down from your GP.

So how does this create problems for me?  Well because I'm sort of bad at reading Kanji it's basically impossible for me to create and effective deck for myself unless I pump the machine full of money and take my time working out what each card does.  This isn't a fault of the game, it's all my fault for being terrible at Kanji.  This has become a factor in a number of my losses at the game where I think a card does one thing, and then it doesn't and the mechanic works slightly differently to how I thought I read it and this causes everything to go wrong mid duel.  I'm then left to lick my wounds and scour my dictionary to re-translate what the fuck was written on the screen.

But it's not all doom and gloom!

Obviously I don't want to lose and I do really enjoy playing Code of Joker so I do want to get better at the game and what's the one way I can do that?  Practice my Japanese more!

So by sucking at the game I'm indirectly being forced to improve my language ability in order to increase my win rate.  As someone who is currently studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, this is no bad thing.  So even though my performance at this game is laughably bad there is something positive to be gleaned from the situation at the very least.

Basically what I'm trying to say with this post is that if you're a foreigner in Japan and you enjoy going to the arcade, expect to lose...A LOT.  But don't get all sad and discouraged and use it to motivate yourself for some language study.  Doesn't matter if you've been studying it for 5 years like me or you're a beginner; if not wanting to suck at games is the kick in the ass you need to learn something new, then get to it.

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!

Tau's Top 5 Games of 2013!

Since it's new years eve, it's time for a top 5 countdown!

So, the requirement for being added to this list is that the game came out in 2013 AND I played it to completion.  For that reason, I'm warning you right now, The Last of Us, GTA5 and Bioshock Infinite are not on this list.  I played TLoU and Bioshock except I didn't beat TLoU and Bioshock was a piece of crap....and I didn't beat that either.  GTA5 came out just as I was leaving Sweden for Japan, so I've not had a chance to play it yet, I'm sure it's very good, Rockstar know what they are doing.

ANYWAY! HERE WE GO!

Game #5: Super Monster Ate My Condo

Whoa now? for serious? A mobile game in a top 5?! If you don't like that then I suggest you actually go and give the game a go before slagging it off, it's actually really good.

Super Monster Ate My Condo is a match 3 puzzle game where you have to match condos to make more condos in order to make even more condos to make more and more points.  It's simple yet there is some depth to be found in the form of boosts and managing the bonuses that can be triggered via the monsters on the edge of the screen.  It also has a coin system that is in place for Adult Swim to make money off this free to play title, but you get so many coins per normal game that I never once had to use it and the boosts cost so little you'll never have to "grind" coins to get high scores.

Also the world leader board gives me a reason to keep going back and try and crawl my way up bit by bit.  It's a really fun game and it costs absolutely nothing, so you have no excuse not to at least TRY this little mobile gem.  I've not really been this addicted to a puzzler since Tetris.

Game #4: Rouge Legacy

I like rougelikes and while this is what a lot of the rougelike hardcore would call an "entry level" rougelike, it doesn't stop it from being fun as all hell.  Pick a knight, collect gold, kill enemies, die, start over with a new knight, rinse and repeat until you beat all the bosses.  Then once you've done that, do it again....but HARDER, and then again....BUT HARDER STILL.

The game has an expansive tree of upgrades for your knights and an equipment/rune system that will change the way you play, but the coolest aspect of this game can be found on the character select screen.  Each knight is given a trait (Read: Disability) which can range from something silly like the whole game playing black and white to something super obnoxious like the whole game being turned upside down.  Also the fact that you are never allowed to choose the class of your heir and are just given 3 at random every time means that you kind of have to adjust your play style every round, which keeps things fun and interesting.

It's also great to look at with really nice visuals and it's sound design is pretty good too.  Available on Steam for a pretty affordable price, it's worth every penny you end up dropping for this great little game.

Game #3: Don't Starve

I've heard some people compare Don't Starve to Minecraft, but it's nothing like Minecraft so those people need a bit of a slap.

Don't starve is KIND of a rougelike but not really.  It's a rougelike in the sense that the world is random every time and it has perma death, but it's more of a survival game than a "get to the end of the dungeon in one go" game.

You fire up the game, pick a character and then are dropped into a big horrible world full of god knows what trying to kill you.  On top of having to survive that, you have to make sure that you collect resources and food to keep yourself alive and allow you to explore further and further through your randomly generated island of madness.  There's lots to do, lots to see and plenty of mystery when you're new and it can really draw you in and keep you playing for hours and hours.

I've not played any of Don't Starve for a good while now due to trying to work my way feverishly through my backlog, but last time I played it was being updated quite frequently, so with a stream of new content coming from the developer and an active modding community Don't Starve has the potential to give you months and months, if not years of entertainment.

Game #2: Code of Joker

Sorry folks, but my second favourite game of this year is a Japan only arcade game, so if you want to play this one you might want to book a plane ticket.

Code of Joker is a little bit hard to describe but the way I put it forward to my friends is "imagine if you took Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon trading card game and smashed them all together" and that about sums the whole thing up.

While it's a little expensive at 300 Yen per play, matches do tend to last a while and you are given more and more cards every time.  Also you don't need to carry a deck around with you since it is kept on a nice little stat card that you register when you put in your first credit.

There's a large number of cards so there is plenty of room to tailor a strategy that suits you and on top of that you get to pick one character out of a pool of about....7...I think...each with their own unique power that may change the tide of a duel if it's not going so well for you.

Couple that with every single Code of Joker machine being hooked up to an internet connection so that you can play anyone in Japan from any game centre in the country and it makes for a fun time.  It's a shame this kind of coin-op innovation isn't more readily available in western countries.

GAME NUMBER 1! Metal Gear Rising AND Killer Is Dead

The memory of playing these 2 games are the ones that have stuck with me and these are the two games I remember having the most fun with this year (except Deadly Premonition but that wasn't 2013) however I can't decide which one I liked more, so they both win.  If you don't like 2 games winning a joint first then shut up and make your own damn list.

Let's start with MGR, a fast paced character action game with an absolutely batshit crazy plot and solid hacky slashy game play with a few gimmicks that made it feel kind of fresh.  Sure, it was kind of short but if it was any longer than those gimmicks I just mentioned would start to feel very tired; it was JUST the right length but the general shortness of the game didn't stop me from getting hours and hours of playtime out of it.  There are higher difficulty settings, a challenge room and if you're like me you'll replay the shit out of it for mission rankings so being able to blast through the game in a pretty short period of time is actually pretty good for a game like this, it has the content to back it up.

Then there is Killer is Dead, a game in the same genre developed by the industries resident nutjob Suda51.  The game follows a suave as all hell main character as he goes around assassinating people and uncovering his dark past.  While the game play didn't FEEL quite as deep as MGR, it was just as satisfying.  Overblown visual effects, satisfying sound design as crazy as fuck levels and bosses made for a truly memorable game.  It kind of felt like a strange hybrid between Killer7 and No More Heroes in a way and how can you go wrong with a mix like that?

HONOURABLE MENTION: Papers, Please

I wanted to put this game somewhere on the actual list but since the game play really doesn't amount to much more than spot the difference then I couldn't really bring myself to do it.  That said, Papers, Please is easily one of the best indie games I've ever played and it's a title I would thoroughly recommend to absolutely anyone.

On the surface, Papers, Please sounds like one of the most boring games that could possibly have ever been made.  You play as a border control inspector for the country of Arstotzka and it is up to you to check the documents of the various immigrants trying to enter your country.  For each in game day you are given a set of rules and you must follow these rules to the letter or lose whatever little money that you have left to support your family.

While you are checking documents you find yourself caught up in a number of different little story lines, some big and some small and all of them are quite interesting.  From your little booth you not only manage to get caught up in some political espionage (if you choose to do so) but you also play a key role in a lot of peoples lives since it is ultimately up to you if their stories can continue or not.  At some points in the game the decision between entry or denial is the same thing as life or death but the games overall setup makes it very hard to want to do the right thing.  For such a simple idea with such boring sounding game play, it manages to be rather powerful.

Also I really enjoyed checking documents and coming down on arsebags trying to cheat their way into my country.  GLORY TO ARSTOTZKA!

Anyway that's the end of the list, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe discovered a new game or two that's worth playing.  If you're that upset about the big 3 AAA games of the year not being on there well don't worry, I'll be posting up my thoughts on them when I get round to beating/playing them.

Happy new year everybody! Let's hope 2014 brings us even more great games.

Return to the Game Centre! Code of Joker

Well it's been a long time, but today I finally made a return to one of the many game centres of Japan.  Pretty much as soon as I went through the door, I was greeted with all sorts of new games just waiting to be played, but the one that caught my attention today was digital trading card game Code of Joker.

If you have seen my prior posts about the game Mahjong 5, then you may notice that the machine is basically identical to that, however the game is obviously anything but Mahjong.  Code of Joker is a trading card game but unlike other game centre trading card games, you don't actually have to buy any cards, everything is done in game and stored on an Aime stat card.

Due to the fact I was with a group of friends, I didn't really get to play all that much but I did the tutorial and one normal game against the CPU, so I got a good feel of how it works.  I guess the easiest way to describe the game play would be like a strange hybrid of Magic The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh.

Cards in Code of Joker come in 4 types that include Units, Combination Monsters, Trigger Cards and Intercept cards.  Units are your basic monsters that you can play any time and combination monsters are upgrades for your basic units to make them even more powerful.  Trigger and Intercept cards are things that you play like Yu-Gi-Oh trap cards but the difference being trigger cards are activated when you play monsters or call an attack automatically, while intercept cards can be activated any time you want.

While I haven't tried them yet, there are lots of other modes that include an online mode that will hook you up with another player anywhere in Japan.  In the game centre that I was in there was also a "live" version of the cabinet, which I can only assume streams the game somewhere for people to watch but I'm not sure exactly.

The only disadvantage to this game is that if you were only staying in Japan for a short time then it's basically not worth playing.  Also, with it being a card game, knowledge of Japanese language, especially Kanji, is required in order to enjoy the game, so if you were a tourist hoping to try out Code of Joker then unfortunately your out of luck.

If you do know Japanese then there is a really good trading card game in here, so I would suggest checking it out.  I'll be covering Code of Joker as well as many other arcade games in the near future, so stay tuned!