The past couple of weeks we’ve been obsessing over the new arcade games coverage coming from the IAAPA trade show as that shows us new arcade video games coming to market for pretty much everywhere except for certain Eastern territories (Japan, Korea, China, etc). Japan doesn’t stop around this time so we do have some news from there. First let’s start off with another Japanese arcade game landing in the US for some testing:
Round 1 USA Picks up Konami’s MUSECA and Square Enix’s Gunslinger Stratos 2 for USA Testing – As that headline says, the trend of certain arcade chains in the USA bringing over Japanese arcade titles for testing is not letting up anytime soon. As these tweets show, starting in January, both Konami’s MUSECA and Square Enix’s Gunslinger Stratos 2 are getting their day in the sun in the US, although it is for a limited time. Whether or not the games will bring in enough to warrant a wider release will remain to be seen but it is exciting to see Gunslinger get some play over here beyond GDC.
Good news good news! MUSECA(@MUSECA573) will be joining Round 1 in Dec 2015/Jan 2016 at all locations! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/fBflnIyloq
— Round 1 USA (@Round1USA) November 14, 2015
Gunslinger Stratos 2 will be having location test at Round 1 Puente Hills, Seattle, and Arlington Dec 2015/Jan 2016! pic.twitter.com/GLPwidBCrJ
— Round 1 USA (@Round1USA) November 21, 2015
Dissdia Final Fantasy Released in Japan – Friend of the site Xavier Vincent, operator of the Arcade Belgium website is over in Japan at the moment where he was checking out the latest happenings there. That was just in time for a big new arcade release there, Square Enix’s Dissdia Final Fantasy arcade game. He describes it as similar to “Gundam Extreme Vs. but with Final Fantasy characters” and also mentioned that it was fairly easy to grasp once you understand the controls. Always a good chance that Round1USA or Dave & Busters grabs this for some US testing although it does have an upcoming PS4 console release so that always hampers arcade success to a degree.
Konami Releases Pop ‘N Music Eclale In Japan – Fans of the long running Pop ‘N Music series by Konami have reason to celebrate as the company also released the latest version of that in Japan yesterday. Called Pop ‘N Music Eclale, it has new songs, characters (along with a character design mode), a new cabinet, and overall sounds like fans are pleased with it so far. one thing that raises an eyebrow (for me at least) is the cabinet has a more Western style coin door here than what you usually find on the Japanese market although perhaps Konami has done that for a while and I wasn’t aware of it. Either way, I imagine we’ll see this over on test as well at some point. [Pop N Music Eclale Website]
That’s all for now! A full wrap-up of IAAPA and the new games we’re getting from that is coming up so stay tuned!
