Dan the Mega Driver Visits Japan

What’s up, Sega fans? It’s Dan the Mega Driver of The SEGAGuys here and I’ve just come back a vacation in Japan.

It was a trip we took for family reasons more than anything else, but it gave me the opportunity to take in the sights and sounds of the land of the rising sun, especially with the sakura in full bloom in this beautiful country while we were lucky enough to be there. It’s a wonderful place where you can really drink your fill of the rich culture and history with so many amazing things to experience.

But look, while I’m sure some of you appreciate the culture, most of you are interested in the games!

So of course, while I was in Japan I just had to explore the retrogaming scene out there or at least as much as I could.

I think it’s best if I break it down into three sections and we’ll start with the stores first.

Game Shopping

While I was in Japan I went to Himeji, Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo, but rather than talk about this regionally, I’m going to go store by store. Himeji was our base for various personal reasons, but most of my game hunting was done in Osaka and Tokyo.

The question I’m sure you’re all asking is whether Japan is actually this nirvana of cheap games. The answer is extremely nuanced.

You’ve probably heard of stores like Super Potato, which has branches in Tokyo and Osaka and if so, you may have heard that it’s overpriced. In all honesty, at worst, Super Potato is in-line with Western prices, but there are deals to be had. Generally, it’s the pricier of all the stores I visited, but not always. In fact, I probably bought more games from there than anywhere else. It has, hands down, the biggest selection of Sega games in both cities. You’re more likely to find a copy of Soukyugurentai here than anywhere else, but you’ll also need to cough up some big bucks to get the premium games. Still, in the Osaka branch I managed to pick up Garou Mark of the Wolves, Virtual On Oratorio Tangram, NFL 2K and Toukon Retsuden 4 for Dreamcast for decent prices, while I got Gran Chaser for less than a quid in the Tokyo store.

In Osaka, Retro TV Game Revival was cheaper, but not by much and it had a much smaller selection. Still, it’s worth checking out if you’re ever there, since I got a cheap Zap Snowboarding Trix and a Japanese Mega Drive console.

In Akihabara in Tokyo however, there’s an abundance of stores. Retro Game Camp takes pride in refreshing their stock and changing batteries, for reasonable prices, though the only thing I got from there was a PSP battery. BEEP is a basement level store that I thought was hard to find, but inside there’s all sorts of magnificent retro goods, not just games, but guides, soundtracks and clothes. It’s here I got Star Blade on Mega CD for cheap! Next to BEEP is a branch of Surugaya specialty store, a retrogaming-focused branch of the second-hand hobby chain, with a great selection and good prices, and is where I got my hands on King of Fighters 2001.

Last but not least is my favourite shop in Akihabara, Traders. A selection that rivals Super Potato with prices that give it an absolute kicking. Here I got King of Fighters 2002, this stunning Lethal Enforcers 2 Mega CD bundle, and landed a game I never thought I’d see in the wild, the Saturn port of Metal Slug.

Now those are the main stores and worth checking out if you’re in Japan. However, they aren’t the be all and end all. Second-hand stores can be veritable goldmines. Chains like BookOff and OffHouse can be found all over and sell second-hand books, manga, DVD and video games. Of course, their selection doesn’t come close to the speciality stores, but they are so much cheaper. I ended up with a few things as cheap as a few hundred yen like Like a Dragon Kenzan, two Project Diva games as well as Donkey Kong Country 2 and this Famiclone.

But occasionally you find an absolute diamond. I was touring around Kyoto when I stumbled across a BookOff, I peeked inside I found this astonishing Nights into Dreams bundle for about £20. Following a tip, I also visited the Shinjuku BookOff and found Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari for a fraction of its online cost.

So yes, those second-hand stores can hide some absolute treasures.

That being said, Sega stock is extremely low in most stores. Even though the Saturn kicked the N64’s ass in Japan, Nintendo sixth-gen games are more readily available. That goes double for other Sega hardware, and PC Engine, too. You’ll see aisles and aisles of PlayStation and Nintendo, and a few shelves of Sega. Generally, it was more than Xbox, though.

Arcades

In the modern day, though, Sega is a titan here. Again, you’ll see their huge display in electronics stores before you see any Xbox. Nowhere is their stature more apparent than in the arcades.

Despite selling their arcade buildings, most machines have the Sega name. Now for the most part, these aren’t the Sega games as you know them, you’ll mostly see lines of Maimai cabinets, Wonderland Wars machines and many other card- or rhythm-based titles.

But as you reach the zenith of these multilevel arcades (where sadly the first 2 or 3 floors are usually filled with gachapon and claw machines) you’ll find more traditional arcades. Virtua Fighter in both 3tb Online and 5 Ultimate Showdown eSports flavours can be played and are promoted heavily. I managed to win 2 of 4 games on Virtua Fighter 3tb, but got annihilated on Virtua Fighter 5 eSports.

In some arcades such as Kasuga Gorakujo, or Taito Game Centre in Shinjuku or Akihabara, you’ll find a tonne of retro arcade games. Highlights for me were a complete bank of four Spikeout cabs, Daytona 2 and Scud Race machines, Virtua Racing, Crazy Taxi, Virtual On vs cabs and seeing both Jurassic Park and Lucky and Wild in person was insane. Even the incredible Arcade Club in Bury was missing a few of these classics.

To top it off there was no shortage of other classics from all over, from Donkey Kong to King of Fighters, Manx TT to Street Fighter 3, Emergency Call Ambulance to Galaga. There were arcade machines galore.

At 100 yen a go, credits were cheap, too, though I found myself quickly depleting my pockets of change. House of the Dead Scarlet Dawn did demand 200 yen up front though, but in return provided me with a good 10 minutes of play time.

Sadly, these arcades aren’t as prominent as they once were. The recent news on thousands closing down is heartbreaking, but having the ability to experience them in these main cities is beautiful.

It’s also great to see fighting games see centre stage on these higher floors. Tekken 7 cabinets were busy, the aforementioned Virtua Fighter games were prominent, and the new Street Fighter 6 Type Arcade machines brought back a competitive edge to the scene.

Arcades certainly aren’t what they once were, but the scene is still busy where I visited in Japan, and even if the youths are flocking to these Sega and Namco card and music machines, it’s still good to see that the arcade hasn’t completely given way as they have in the West.

My favourite arcade was the GiGo in Akihabara, because it was an absolute Sega Nirvana unlike anything since Sega World.

Like a Dragon

The last thing I wanted to touch on was my visits to Dotenbori and Kabukicho, the real-life areas where Sotenbori and Kamurocho from the Yakuza games are based.

I went to Kabukicho during the day and, well, it’s a pretty unseemly area in places, much more than anywhere else I went in Japan. The famous main strip is there complete with the gate and so many other landmarks are there, like the GiGo arcade, Don Quixote, and while the hotel isn’t quite as big as Millenium Tower, it has Godzilla so it evens out. I could even find the other gates and some batting cages and even the car park which is near Millennium Tower in the games.

But that underlined that the layout of Kabukicho is quite different from Kamurocho though. Perhaps this was to be expected, but the problem for me is I went to Dotenbori first.

Maybe it’s the simpler layout, or because I went at night, but Dotenbori is felt like it was almost exactly replicated in the Like a Dragon games — from the restaurants to the river, the bridges, the neon signs, the markets, the back streets, everything. It’s an enormously busy and bustling area, and honestly, I couldn’t stop smiling all the way around.

As a fan of the Yakuza games, visiting both places was extremely special, like real life living theme parks, and I’d encourage any fans of the series to make the pilgrimage if you ever make it to Japan.

So that’s the gaming side of my visit to Japan. It was an absolutely sensational trip that surpassed my expectations.

It wasn’t just the gaming, but the sights, sounds and the people, especially our friends and hosts. A huge thank you to them and a big shout out to my friend Yosuke who beat the absolute brakes off of me in Tekken 5.