Just when I wasn’t expecting to come across any news for the last week of the year, something has popped up. Once again, this is thanks to the exA-Arcadia, which continues to pump games out (speaking of which, my copy of Gimmick! arrived two days earlier than I had anticipated…but I was not at the location where it’s installed today).
exA-Arcadia has a very busy 2020, despite the pressures that have halted developments for most companies. The company released its system into the US back in January/February with Aka & Blue Type-R and Kung Fu Vs. Karate Champ, launched a high profile title with DoDonPachi True Death EXA Label, and just began shipping the aforementioned Gimmick! and Psyvariar Delta AC. Now, two more games are available for pre-order, which I’ll get into in a moment. As it currently stands, most of the games on the ExA games page have now shipped, although as I have mentioned before, don’t assume that this is all that they have in the wings.
Nippon Marathon Turbo Hyper=Running
First, let’s cover the quirkier game, a marathon/obstacle course game with a decidedly Japanese flair (despite being developed in the UK). Created by Onion Soup Interactive, NMTHR marks the second 4-player game for the system, but the first “party game” it will have, for lack of a better genre to fit this into. Players run along wacky obstacle courses that are just loaded with a variety of ways to send your characters flying, ragdoll physics included. While this is another title that is available on PC/PS4/SW/XB1, the devs have taken care to add more to this version, hence the addition of the “Turbo Hyper=Running” part to the title. The arcade version will come with 3 brand new, exclusive courses that have been specially designed to “test your arcade strengths” along with two exclusive characters – HATO the wrestling pigeon man, and Annabelle, the royal V-Tuber. All of that is a part of the highlights on the shiny new game trailer that exA posted:
Blazing Chrome AC
I previewed this one a while back when there was pretty much nothing arcade-related to talk about back in the spring, but we haven’t heard much about it since, apart from a location test in Japan. To get you up to speed, this marks the first Contra/Metal Slug style game for exA. Also available on consoles, exA & Joymasher have done some rebalancing to the game to make it work better for the arcade environment while throwing in a new character: Zaku (from Joymasher’s game, Oniken). Like most other exA titles, this also has two selectable soundtracks: Original and a new Arranged track created by Super Contra composer, Motoaki Furukawa. There isn’t a new trailer for this one yet, but I’m sure it’ll be around soon.
Both games are currently showing up for pre-order on the exA website for $1278USD, and tentatively should ship out by the end of January. Both titles are their respective “first that we’ve seen in a long time” for their genres (ok, while there have been some party games just in Japan, Nippon Marathon is different enough to be its own sub-genre; but last run ‘n gun I can think of was Dolphin Blue)
What do you think about these titles, do either of them interest you?
