It’s day 2 for EVO Japan 2024, and as we saw yesterday, several arcade games were announced. Today, there are more! All of these are coming to the exA-Arcadia platform and while they are being announced at a Japanese event, the games will be available worldwide.
If you missed yesterday’s news, click here.
Please note that exA is slow dripping their announcements throughout the day. Because of that, this post will be updated with more details throughout the evening and possibly into Sunday morning in my US time zone (an hour ahead of Pacific Time). Check Arcade Heroes’ social media or the post here for updates.
All of these games will be available worldwide – not just in Japan. Here’s the livestream link for day 2:
Let’s see what else has come out of EVO Japan 2024:
Rage of the Dragons W
For the biggest update we are probably going to make, Rage of the Dragons is returning from the Neo Geo MVS with a remaster. Piko Interactive had acquired the rights to this series back in 2020, announcing a release of the MVS version for modern consoles that just added online play, but didn’t really update anything about the game itself. The exA version is being worked on by one of their own internal AM teams and will be a complete remaster, similar to what we’ve seen them do with Samurai Shodown V Perfect and Breakers Revenge Chicago.
The progress on this one is still early enough that I didn’t capture more than a teaser at Amusement Expo 2024, although I did get to see a little gameplay.
Dojo Masters
Those looking for the simple things in life and less of a big name might take to this retro-style fighter that keeps things basic enough that it only uses two attack buttons. It still employs combos in conjunction with joystick movements, but doesn’t get super crazy with that and other technical systems. From what I was able to play at Amusement Expo in March, its a lot of fun, and is worth going back to play to try out a different martial art. No, it won’t blow your mind graphically, although that’s not the point here:
Gameplay from an early build that was at Amusement Expo ’24:
This will be an arcade version of a PC game that has yet to be released, and graphically it reminds me of playing an Atari Lynx game on a TV. I suppose some will think NES, although the colors+the resolution fit more with the Lynx. Anyways, this will likely be one of the sub-$1000 kits.
Chaos Code Nemesis Experiment
Fans of Chaos Code may be pleased to hear that a sequel is in the works called Chaos Code Next. If you aren’t familiar with this fighter series, it had started in arcades in Japan over a decade ago, eventually finding a port on the PS4. ExA-Arcadia released a director’s cut called Chaos Code EXA back in the Spring of 2020 (it was the only arcade game really shipping out at the time).
While it had been thought that the series was done for after the director of the game had passed away, FK Digital lives on and is giving us a sequel that promises more characters and action than before.
A couple of new characters:
This introduces a new system called “Nex Strike,” although my Japanese is nowhere near good enough to figure out how it works, at the moment:
Also, for all those who complain about the game being arcade-only, its producer has said that the exA version will be merely the “first step” for now. This does leave the possibility of a console edition at some point in the future open (although I am sure there will be differences involved).
Daemon Bride exAGAIN
Here’s a quick update on a game that has been known to be in the works for exA since 2021, but updates have been few. A playable build of Daemon Bride exAGAIN is indeed at the show, but there is no new trailer as of right now; exA discussed it briefly during their livestream. As with the other titles that are seeing a resurrection from the dead, this will have the graphics remastered to higher quality, new music, and more to make for the ultimate version of the title. At present, they are working on the game balancing, but no news yet on when it might hit production. Here’s an old trailer for the first version of the game from Arcade Belgium’s channel:
Vanguard Princess R
The 2D all-girl fighter Vanguard Princess is getting a remake and is finally headed to arcades. Unlike the Steam version, this one is fully licensed and is being remastered in conjunction with FK Digital (developers of Chaos Code). For this “Director’s Cut,” the entire game system is being redone. Other than that, we don’t have many more details on this, apart from the trailer at this time. Here’s a tweet showing the game on the EVO show floor.
That wraps up day 2 – exA may end up announcing one more thing on day 3. In the meantime, which of these announcements out of EVO Japan 2024 in general have interested you the most?
