Category: Games

Finally, An Idolmaster Post!

June 4, 2025

About 20 years ago BandaiNamco released the first arcade game in the Idolmaster series. These games are about raising ‘idols’ (cute pop stars) and have become their own industry, with more than 20 games in this series alone. This is the latest one:

This was released about two months ago, and it has a strong presence in Japanese arcades right now. The place I took the above photo (Namco arcade in Nakano) had about ten machines. Here’s a closeup of the controls:

Six buttons, four sliders and three switches! The game has two modes: a rhythm game and an idol-producing game. It costs ¥200 a go, which is expensive, but from what I’ve seen in arcades the cabs seem popular.

I’ll add that this series is all but unknown outside of Japan, and I don’t believe any of the arcade installments have ever been translated into English. Perhaps this is due to the theme, or perhaps it’s because they use IC cards, which is a technology that American arcades (which have mostly devolved into ticket redemption rooms) never embraced.

This game looks extremely complex, and I haven’t yet played it. In addition to the price, the two game types and the intimidating controls it even has a card collection system! Instruction leaflets are available near the cabs in the arcade, and inside we can see there are 94 different cards available:

These are IC cards and you can see the scanner in the photo of the controls above. When scanned, the cards do things like change the idols outfits or their phrases when they perform. Note also that this game has some male idols too, so everyone can enjoy it 🙂

If you get a card you don’t need or already have, the arcades have these little boxes you can use for trade. The idea is put yours in and take one out that another player has left. It’s an honour system, which of course still works here. These sorts of trading boxes are common for all IC-card games, and arcades usually have a half-dozen or more.

As I said this series is a phenomenon, and in one of the arcades I visited yesterday I found a binder containing…

‘Producer cards’! These are faux business cards created by players. The cards contain social media contact info and which idols they usually use in the game. The idea is that you make these as if the idols are real and you’re their real-life producer. Then you exchange these with other players to build community. The binder was full of these – hundreds of them! – and it’s obvious the ‘Vol 1’ on the cover was not optimistic.

Recently KLS and I were talking about aspects of Japanese culture I’d be more into if we lived here, and arcade culture probably tops that list. I’d love to get ‘into’ one of these game series heavily – although probably not this one – to the extent I interacted with all this periphery in the arcades. A man can dream 🙂

A Game For Men

May 21, 2025

Australia is famous for the ferocity of its fauna, and therefore it’s not at all surprising that yesterday I came upon this:

Yes my friends, this is Animal Kaiser Plus: The King of Animals. This is nothing less than an IC card game based around animals fighting to the death! I sat on the tiny and suspiciously close to the ground seats and could hardly throw my $2.80 in fast enough to give it a play.

An ‘IC card’ game refers to a game using physical cards that are read/scanned by the machine during play. These are very popular in Japan and this is my first time seeing one in English. If you don’t have a card to scan you are giving a default player character, which for me was Leo, The Lion Cub.

The ‘gameplay’ consists of pushing one button to get a random number (between 10 and 50) which – if higher than the opponent – leads to an attack. It’s so simple even a child – a toddler – could do it and it’s obviously no major challenge for a venerable gamer like myself.

So when my Leo, The Lion Cub was repeatedly beaten senseless by the ‘Teck’ attacks of an Asiatic Black Bear I suspected this ‘playing without a card’ business was a handicap.

Happily the game vends a card every game, and after humiliating ursine defeat I received my first card. I hurriedly fed in more credits and purchased two more cards: and thus my team was complete:

Philistines may say it was pure luck I happened to get exactly one animal, one ‘strong’ and one ‘miracle’ card in three rolls – thus providing one card for each team category – but those heathens don’t understand my level of gaming skill.

Those Philistines also wouldn’t begin to observe that this game is a simplified reskin of Japanese arcade classics such as Mushiking or the various Ultraman or Kamen Rider games I often play in Japan. I’m intrigued the system has ‘gone west’, albeit in a non-licensed form.

And so I unleashed my empowered Black Panther upon the animal kingdom, and his righteous fury made mince meat of a bear and a Goblin Shark before he was in turn blown back by the juggernaut of all beasts: an elephant.

It’s perhaps fitting the game then provided me a Goblin Shark of my very own – with evocative attacks including ‘Kande Burst’ and ‘Sledge Gauer’ – although my lethargy by now was absolute and I had to tear myself away from Animal Kaiser Plus: The King Of Beasts without seeing how the shark fared. What other fabulous cards were waiting inside?

Even if I never see this game again, I’ll remember it forever.

The Men Who Turned Their Homes Into Arcades

May 13, 2025

The title of this entry is taken from the above book, which I bought a few months ago. It’s a beautiful ‘mook’ (magazine book) showcasing home arcades built by dedicated Japanese enthusiasts. While it’s in Japanese, I was able to read it using a translator.

I’ve also become a fan of topic-specific Japanese books like this, and have already purchased (and read through) similar ones about the history of certain game genres. The writing and detail in those impressed me, so I had high hopes for this one as well.

I was not disappointed: this book is fantastic, and the mania of some of these collectors fills me with profound respect. Page after page of beautiful photography shows rooms – sometimes multiple – of Japanese homes where every square inch is now dedicated to reproducing a Game Center in their house. We’re not talking one or two machines, but ten or more, including massive things like fishing games or even hydraulic sit-down cabinets.

There’s loads of wonderful and awesome anecdotes, of which the following is just an example

One man modified his home to add a massive external door on the second level so large cabinets could be installed from outside using a crane.
One man – a massive fan of the train game series Densha de Go! – has an entire room dedicated to arcade cabs of the series and even twice rented a train line so he could play his arcade cabs on actual running trains.
There are several stories of people having ceilings/floors reinforced to handle the weight of games, or removing doors, closets or even walls to make extra game space.
One guy took years to ‘brainwash’ (his words) his wife into letting him get his first arcade cabinet. A few years later he had a room full.
One man installed public toilets in his house incorporating fixtures he obtained from a closed Sega arcade!
Another man obtained an electricians license so he could rewire his home rather than pay someone else to do it.
One guy built his Game Center into a closet so it didn’t eat up living space can be invisible to guests (or family) when the door is closed.
An accountant converted his business waiting room into an arcade!
Several of the home arcades include common 1980s-era arcade extras – such as drink machines or coin changers – but one guy took it further to only include Showa-era coins in his money changer. (This is like a retro USA arcade only using 1980s quarters for their machines.)

Most allow friends and local children to play the games, and many are members of enthusiast clubs. The latter is important since maintenance is often cited as a big issue and being in a club would make it easier to find someone with the skills required to keep 40+ year old tech working.

I’d love to be able to do this myself, but for many reasons that’s impossible so I enjoyed living vicariously through this wonderful book. It was successful enough for a second volume, which I also own, but I’ll probably leave reading that one for when I return:

Robot Claw