While exA-Arcadia usually waits for trade shows and video game-related events to announce brand new games, that isn’t always the case. Today, the company has revealed a major anime license is coming to arcades, so let’s take a look at what they are doing with Hunter X Hunter: Nen X Impact.
Before we get fully into this story, I just also want to take a moment to recognize the late Paul Williams, formerly of Sega Amusements International. He passed away yesterday morning following an aggressive illness; he was with family when he passed peacefully. We here at Arcade Heroes offer our sincere condolences and will miss him.
Hunter X Hunter
It’s no secret that anime is enjoying a boom in interest in the US like never before. The latest Demon Slayer film crushing big name superhero movies from the likes of both DC & Marvel is proof of that, then there are manga sales, viewership numbers, etc.
Though I have not watched Hunter X Hunter (HxH) myself (I had heard of it, mainly through channel surfing), there are quite a few fans and very long video explanations that will tell you a bunch about it. For those who don’t have 1~6 hours to spare on learning the whole series, here’s a trailer that does a pretty good job at presenting an introduction, although apparently the series went from the more kid-friendly style as presented here to something more mature and dark as it went on:
TL;DW – Hunters are kind of like knights, training a bunch to gain special abilities and going on quests for fortune and glory.
Hunter X Hunter: Nen X Impact Arcade
Based upon a 1v1 fighting game that was released earlier this year on Steam, exA-Arcadia has grabbed the HxH license, and have been working on polishing up the game for an arcade release. This version comes not only with exA’s 1 frame input lag quick response, it also has improved game balancing to better fit arcade demands, enhanced graphics quality, 20 characters available (17 initially, then 3 more with a future free update), all of the costumes available, an extensive training mode, and it’s already shipping out worldwide – no public testing period or pre-orders – you can get it now from your preferred exA cart source for around $1600USD.
Here’s the game installed into an exA ARC-32 cabinet:
From the official game page that went up this morning:
From the creators of Tatsunoko VS Capcom and Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3, the popular anime series comes to arcades as a full fledged tag team fighter, HUNTER×HUNTER NEN×IMPACT!
This is the fighter for every audience now enhanced with higher fidelity anime like graphics and exA-Arcadia’s industry leading input response time at 1 frame. Anyone can play! Just hold down the Rush button and hit the Arts button repeatedly to unleash powerful combos! Feel the exhilarating rush of pulling off a combo with ease
They also put out a 4 minute long trailer where you can see all that in action:
Quick Thoughts
This would mark the biggest license that exA has grabbed to date, and I think that it’s quite welcome. As mentioned, while I am not really familiar with the series, this one does seem to have a solid fanbase. That could make a solid difference among players at the arcade, who generally are drawn to IP that they know already, over something original or lesser known.
I was also surprised to see this drop suddenly – I’ve known about it for a while, but was expecting an announcement, then testing (which it is getting in Japan via Ko-hatsu), then pre-orders, etc. I’m not complaining though, as interested arcades can grab one right now without having to wait.
What do you think about Hunter X Hunter: Nen X Impact? Would you like to see it at an arcade near you?
