I did a follow-up with Satinder Bhutani, Executive Vice President at Andamiro USA and I was able to get a little more information on the US release of the Japanese girl-on-girl fighter, Arcana Heart 2. Here’s some of the extra details:
- The version used will be the original version NOT the new update.
- The game will be released in the 2nd week of October
- The game will be distributed through Andamiro’s authorized distributors so prices will vary BUT the price should be around $1,500 plus shipping.
- Andamiro expects to bring more titles to the US running on the eX-Board by Examu
- No information on a European release at this time
So there you have it! When they said very low price they weren’t kidding – $1500 in the arcade world, even for a new kit isn’t bad at all, especially when you look at how much they are charging for Type X2 boards. It’s low enough that I could probably afford this for my arcade although I’ll need to find a proper cabinet to put it in with a high-res monitor. It also should be interesting to see what other titles will be headed over, who knows, if Examu plays their cards right we could have another NeoGeo-like platform on our hands with many games.
I hope the bargain-basement price doesn’t lure arcade operators. I’d never want to play such a dumb-looking anime girl fighter. Why get Arcana Heart when you can get a good fighting game? Being a cheap game in 2008 is nullified by the fact that it doesn’t look like it’s from 2008…1999 is more like it.
Examu is a great idea, tho. Hope they keep adding games.
While this game may not suit your specific tastes, it has consistently held a spot in the Top 5 highest grossing joystick/button controlled games in Japan this year, and earned a spot in Tougeki (www.tougeki.com), Japan’s most prestigious fighting game championship tournament.
Furthermore, anyone who plays fighting games seriously knows that the quality of the game is determined by the depth of gameplay. Arcana Heart 2 was developed by the former Yuki Enterprise, the same team that worked on other respected fighters including the last three 2D titles in the Samurai Shodown series. The depth is certainly there, and that’s what creates regulars.
Considering the price, it would be a shame for operators to not give this title a chance.
I’m just curious to know if you have played it yet Paul? It’s pretty good and I don’t consider myself a huge fighting fan – I don’t care about all those worthless stats some people follow and I had never played AH2 before but I was impressed with it – it has a large roster, each character has a lot of moves and it even has a story mode where there is a bit of text to read through in case you care for that sort of thing. Out of all the AMOA posts I made, Arcana Heart 2 by far was the most popular, which surprised me a bit since I never knew that the game had much of a following. Perhaps we should run another fighter based poll to see what people are liking right now.