The dog days of summer have been dragging on as usual, and arcade news has been fairly quiet in more ways than one of late. Part of that is down to this very site unfortunately going into some unplanned downtime for a few hours the other day – thankfully that’s all sorted now though. With it now behind us let’s take a look at what are possibly the two biggest stories this month. Both are new kids card game launches from Marvelous, released across different parts of the globe and with two high profile licensed IPs in the form of Naruto and Pokemon.
Naruto Emblem Battle
Back during late September last year, surprise news came along about a new Naruto kids trading card arcade machine that was going on test in the US and already out there in China. I didn’t hear much about how that went, but it appears to have done well, as following a few reports of machines beginning to reach Round1US locations from late June, Marvelous publicized what they call a “nationwide rollout” for Naruto Emblem Battle (note the slight title rename). The official release about it can be found here, while the official website for the game is also here.
As you can see from this launch trailer, how the game plays is very much like most Japanese card games, where the game’s control panel is an interactive game board. Both the data from the card and its position are instantly scanned into the game, where you position your cards into certain spots to battle enemies. Players must tap the buttons to fight and collect all of the 101 (the release doesn’t say how many cards there are, but at the end of the trailer it shows 22; from the website, I counted 101) “emblems”, including some rare cards with “special illustrations” on them:
While I am excited to see a company like Marvelous getting more new product out over here, along with some nice marketing behind it all, there are a few questions that remain. The biggest one is namely that of a possible chain exclusivity issue blocking wider distribution – though most cabinets for the game appear to be only reaching Round1US locations at the moment, the messaging by Marvelous’ marketing does not suggest that it is bound to them. Indeed, it mentions the game has already been made available at a few other locations. Dig a little deeper though and it becomes clear the latter is in association with Kiddleton… who as covered recently have Japanese ownership in the form of Genda too. It’s possible in the absence of a proper US arcade sales arm they are simply entrusting these two chains with the game. Of course, it would be nice to see not just Naruto, but other Marvelous releases distributed more widely.
H/T to Project on the Arcade Heroes Discord who shared this photo of the game as seen at the Lakewood, CA Round1USA location
I did try to reach out to Marvelous twice on this matter, once via a dedicated response form on their US development subsidiary Xseed’s site, and again directly with their amusement division in Japan. However, as of writing there has still not been any word from them yet. If anyone from Marvelous sees this, it would be good to hear back via our contact form, as wider distribution details are key for any ops who want Naruto. One would hope if they do have any plans we will see them materialize at IAAPA, but who knows…
Pokemon Frenda
As for Marvelous’ other new kids arcade card game, this is not one we’ll be immediately seeing outside of Japan, but I am sure there will be some interest in it. Perhaps if Naruto does especially well here, then they’ll give this one a try (Pokemon also would come with a more expensive license, which could delay or hinder a North American release).
Pokemon Frienda comes as a twin model, and is an evolution of the previous Pokemon Mezasta game by Marvelous. This adds a new lower touchscreen element (akin to a Nintendo DS) on top of the card scanning feature, allowing for what Marvelous calls a “better connection” between the player and the Pokemon in the game. Note however that the cards do not work in the same way that Naruto does with the cards; instead, you put them into one of the three slots, then do you interaction using the lower touchscreen. I haven’t been able to see how many cards will be available for this one, but I’m sure it is quite a few.
Again, this one is not slated to hit the States at the moment, but if it does, we’ll certainly report more on it. It’s been a big enough deal in Japan that they launched it with “Frenda Camps”, ten locations across Japan that had fifteen installed units. I think it could compete pretty well with Animal Kaiser Plus if it did come over – on the other hand, Bandai Namco’s upcoming three-screen refresh to their Dragon Ball kids card arcade game in Japan could do the same for Naruto if also pushed here. It’d be interesting to see the kids card arcade game market heat up even more outside of Asia in that way.
What do you think about this move by Marvelous, particularly with Naruto Emblem Battle, into the States? Would you like to see it or Pokemon Frienda reach a location near you one day?
