EVO Japan 2024 Day 1: exA-Arcadia Announces New Arcade Fighters

arcadehero April 26, 2024 4

EVO Japan 2024 is now underway, and this year it means new arcade games. Normally we don’t get any location-based entertainment (LBE) arcade news out of EVO, but thanks to exA-Arcadia, that is changing this time. There are a significant number of new announcements that they are revealing over the days of the event, so let’s take a look at the first batch.

Note: A few updates have been added to this post since it was published on Friday night. If you’ve been here around then, scroll below for updates!

The exA-Arcadia EVO Japan 2024 Booth

exA was setup near to Taito at EVO Japan 2024, and from the pics I’ve seen on Twitter, it’s been a fairly busy section of the show since the get-go. It’s also helped that they are holding several tournaments throughout the day:exA-Arcadia's booth at EVO Japan 2024.An exALive stream from EVO Japan 2024 has also been going on; this shows the official tournaments for Arcana Heart 3, Omen of Sorrow, Axel City 2, and Dynamite Bomb that are as mentioned running there.

exA-Arcadia’s ARC-32 Cabinet

While exA has been in the business of producing big stand-up cabinets over in the United States, so far they have not done so for Japan – until now. Following up on the ARC-1 upright cabs, they have announced the ARC-32 Japanese sit-down cabinet. It sports a black/red/white color scheme, is similar in basic design to a Viewlix, and the following features:

  • Sanwa or Seimitsu controls
  • 0.3 frame input lag
  • JVS wiring standard & fast I/O
  • 32″ 1080p monitor w/ 1ms lag; rotates between horizontal/vertical
  • Four speakers + line out; 2x headphone outputs
  • Works in single configuration w/ 2p control panel or can be setup “Versus” style (1p control panel, linking to another)
  • Stand to work in upright configuration
  • Lighting below control panel
  • Launching later this year

ARC-32 Japanese cabinet by exA-Arcadia

Here’s the pair that are setup at EVO, Versus style and currently running the new Breakers Revenge Chicago. More details on that below.

exA-Arcadia ARC-32

That’s not all however. Here are other games which have been announced today at EVO Japan 2024…

Asuka 120% EXALLENT

Joining Arcana Heart 3, Asuka 120% is of course another all-female 1v1 fighting game that resurrects a series that was the genesis of the whole “rival schools/all-girl fighter” niche. Starting off in 1994 for the Sharp X68000 & FM Towns, most fans seem to know this from the release on the Sega Saturn, despite more releases happening on the PSX (the PSX builds weren’t done by the original dev and are not well-liked by most fans). An arcade version had been in the works back in the day, but was cancelled early. Now that is going to be rectified as exA is finally bringing it to arcades, basing their version upon the most popular “Limit Over” edition of the game.

As with their other titles, this is being developed internally at exA-Arcadia however, fans will be happy to find out that they’ve brought on the original series designer, Masatoshi Imaizumi, to supervise the development of this arcade build. They also have brought back Keishi Yonao to do the music.

Axel City 2: The Final Storm

A paid upgrade is coming to Axel City 2 called The Final Storm. This adds ten new characters to the mix, bringing the total roster up to 50. It also has eight new songs. Existing customers send their cart to exA and once the upgrade is paid for, they get the updated cart. I’ve heard nothing but good things about how this game performs on-site, although I am not aware of the game being installed in the US yet. Perhaps this will be the time to make that happen.

Breakers Revenge Chicago

Visco Games’ rare Street Fighter II-like fighter on the Neo Geo MVS Breakers Revenge is coming back. “Why Chicago?” you might ask – well, that was one of the original prototype names to it. It’s a nice little nod to fans who know that kind of esoteric info. Here’s a pic of the game at the event.

Here’s a promo video; note that I did shoot some video of an earlier version of this at Amusement Expo, but I overlooked on putting a disclaimer on the video to mention that its early WIP. I can’t edit the video until tomorrow as the master file is on a hard drive at my arcade, so I’ll upload then.

Breakers plays much like Street Fighter II, with some additional mechanics such as “dash cancels, chains, juggles, and a breaker system that lets players escape from combos early.” i.e., a deeper Street Fighter II.

For details on this new version:

  • Key art by Motoki Yoshihara
  • Three play styles can be chosen: Revenge, Chicago, and Extra
  • 0.3 frames of input lag
  • A newly arranged soundtrack by the original composer, Kenichi Kamio

Revenge style plays exactly like Breakers Revenge does on the MVs, while Chicago and Extra are different in the same way that other versions of Street Fighter II have their own flow and nuances.

Daybreak Slam

Fans of 2D games have had plenty to ‘get hype’ about here, so what about 3D? Here’s a new game to join Omen of Sorrow: Arising Chaos in the 3D rendered arena – Daybreak Slam, from the same developer who created Omen (AOne Games). The premise behind this newer game pits toys against each other in 1v1 battles. The fighting system is made more to appeal to casuals, while the visuals should draw some attention from anyone. Like Omen of Sorrow, this uses Unreal Engine, which certainly comes through:

Here’s a tweet that shows some shots of the build that’s at the show. I did get to play this at Amusement Expo too, here’s a video:

This is going to follow a similar pattern to Axel City 2, where there are major content updates that are released in “seasons”. The initial cost of the game will be below $1000, then when a new season launches, customers send their carts in to exA, pay for the upgrade, and get it back with the new season. Each season will add something like 10 new characters, although exact numbers might change.

What’s up for Day 2?

So I can’t say exactly what is up next at this time, but exA has much more to unveil on day 2. A few games that were supposed to be announced on day 1 got pushed back, so while originally I was told that there are no announcements for day 3, that could change.  Again, check back for more on EVO Japan 2024 here soon!

 

4 Comments »

  1. Jay May 1, 2024 at 12:30 am - Reply

    Hi, i’m a huge fan of Asuka 120% and was wondering where you got the info that exallent will be based on limit over?
    also am a huge fan of breakers revenge and want to thank you for having footage of it! (and it being a earlier version than the evo japan build is fascinating!)

    • arcadehero May 1, 2024 at 10:23 am - Reply

      Hi Jay, thanks for leaving a comment. All of the info I got I got straight from the CEO of exA-Arcadia, Eric Chung.

      In addition to working with individuals who were on the original dev teams, everyone at exA I’ve ever talked with have been big fans of the games they are working on. Thus they know what fans really want out of these remasters 🙂

  2. Vick May 2, 2024 at 5:55 am - Reply

    Hey o/
    I’m the community admin for LimitOver, and I’d have a lot of questions!
    Would that be ok to get in contact?

    Also, I have some reserve about “knowing what the fans want”.
    It’ll depend if it stay locked to Japanese arcade though.
    I really wish we had more info ^^’

    • arcadehero May 2, 2024 at 7:14 am - Reply

      Ask away, although there isn’t any info available at the moment beyond what they demonstrated at EVO and this placeholder page: https://exa.ac/en/games/asuka-120-exallent/?v=0f177369a3b7

      I can pass any questions along and see what answers I get; I can also provide some general exA info as I’ve been covering them for six years now.

      As for “what fans want,” I suggest looking at what exA-Arcadia has already done with many series under their wing – Touhou, Gimmick, DoDonPachi, Chaos Code, Cotton, Arcana Heart, Toaplan games…it’s a pretty great track record so far. They’ve not censored anything, retconned any story, nor inserted their own characters to replace fan favorites(once in a while they add some extra ones, but nothing like replacing the protagonist in a story). They’ve corrected bugs, added voice acting, new music, just generally improved what already is there.

      The only complaint I’ve heard from fans is that they want all of the exA versions ported to console, since they are superior. The problem is that such a demand would murder their arcade sales and they are in the arcade business first and foremost (the economics of ports makes no sense these days and hurts the arcades that are still trying to survive).

      Also note that no exA game is locked to Japan. If this were being done by Taito or Sega then that would be the case, but exA translates their games into multiple languages (every exA game has English localization; sometimes they have Spanish, French, Chinese, Portuguese, etc). The games are available for anyone with the money anywhere to buy the system and the games.

      Hopefully that clears up a little 🙂

Leave A Response »