Akihabara Arcade Game Centres Pt. 3 – Club Sega Akihabara [New Annex], Taito HEY & Tokyo Leisureland Akihabara 2

Club Sega Akihabara [New Annex]

The arcade featured an awesome retro floor and was one of the few arcades we visited with dedicated Sega cabinets.

We also got to try Cho Chabudai Gaeshi! (Super Table-Flip!), by Taito.  There are four different scenario’s you can choose from: dad and kids, a bride at a wedding, a guest at a host club, and a frustrated office worker.  You must pound the table and as you cause things in the room to clatter to the floor, you score points.  When the game’s 60-second timer nears conclusion, you must flip the table and watch as the havoc unfolds in Matrix-style bullet time.  Hilarious, madder than a box of frogs, and utterly brilliant!  

Cho Chabudai Gaeshi! youtube video

Taito HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard)

This arcade is pretty famous and its reputation is well deserved as one of the landmark arcades in Akihabara.  A truly awesome selection of titles, arguably the best arcade in Japan.  The second floor specialises in shooters.  Watching the Japanese players show off their skills on the Cave games was pretty awesome.  HEY arcade was the venue for the recent location test of Cave’s latest game, Dodonpachi Saidai-Oujou.

Tokyo Leisureland Akihabara 2

This arcade features a good lineup of games.

Akihabara Arcade Game Centres Pt. 2 – Try Amusement Tower & Super Potato

Try Amusement Tower

This retro arcade had an awesome selection of titles, including some of my all time faves: Splatterhouse, OutZone, Gallop: Armed Police Unit, and Midnight Resistance.  I had a couple of credits on Midnight Resistance.  It was awesome playing this again with the rotary control sticks. 

It was also nice to see Fast Striker, a vertical shooter by the German indie developer  NG:DEV.TEAM in a Japanese arcade.

And also Donkey Kong II, a fan made sequel.

Mushihime-sama Cave Matsuri Ver. 1.5

A nice feature is that the arcade has a frequent change of titles depending on customer requests.  Here is a link to their blog:

http://trytower.blog.shinobi.jp/

Super Potato Arcade

On the 5^th floor of the Super Potato videogame store, there is a cool little retro arcade.  On previous visits to Japan I had been to the store and missed this completely, not knowing it was there.  The highlight for me in this arcade was finding a Neo SC-19 cabinet.  The cabinet could do with a little tlc, but it was awesome seeing one still in use in an arcade.