Once upon a time, there was an old arcade situated in a corner store of Maplewood Mall. It was an ancient Namco Time-Out arcade that looked like it had been sitting there for at least 30 years. It had seen better days, but still, it endured.
In 2019, the success of Level 257 in Chicago led Namco to decide that we were entering an arcade renaissance. They began a campaign to rebrand their old locations: Level 257 became Pac-man Entertainment. All of the remaining Namco theater arcades would become Powered by Pac-man. The very few Time-Out locations that were still open would be rebranded to “Pac-man Zone” alongside many new locations opening up. A new “Pac-man Cafe” line of cafe/arcades were being location tested. Things were looking up for Namco arcades.
In 2020, all arcades were forced to shut down for an extended period. Many, MANY arcades ended up having to shut down for good. In 2021, Namco was finally forced to sell their remaining arcade locations.
During the final month of Namco’s arcades, I took one last trip to pay my respects to this old arcade…
For those who didn’t click on links in the opening: This was the last time I wrote about this arcade and this is my visit to Level 257. I highly recommend reading through both. They provide a lot of context for the rest of this post.
I’m sure the first question that comes to mind is why this arcade looks nothing like the Time-Out I’d written about previously. The answer is simple: As part of Namco’s big rebranding, they moved this arcade to a new, fresher spot in the mall.
I wouldn’t blame you for wondering if this is even the same arcade I wrote about all those years ago. The games have changed so much that it’s barely recognizable. I recognised a single row of older games from the previous location. They’re all noticeably older than anything else in the arcade. Outside of a few ticket games and one other machine we’ll get to in a bit; these were essentially the only ones that carried over. Others, like the Mall of America DDR machine, had made it to the new location but were since rotated out.
What caught me most off-guard is that the old Capcom vs SNK machine somehow survived. It reminds me of a time when you could find nearly any game in the VS series here in the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, every single arcade that housed one of them has since shut down.
And the laundromat with X-men vs Street Fighter machine met the worst fate of all. It was unfortunate enough to be a few blocks away from where George Floyd died. When they went in to burn down the old Savers building (which thankfully shut down about a year earlier), the beauty store between them went completely up in flames and took the laundromat with it. Now all that remains of the entire business is a smoldering pile of ashes.
Outside the line of racing games, the only other non-ticket games of note were this row of shooters. It’s a surprisingly decent lineup, all things considered.
Wait, I just noticed… On the left, there! That’s the fan they used to put by the DDR machine to keep players from overheating! Why on Earth is THAT one of the things that survived the move?
Back when it was a Time-Out, I joked about the sheer amount of Pac-man you could find in the arcade. Pac-man Zone takes it to a whole other level. As part of the new branding, there were a LOT of Pac-man machines. A few of which, like this one, I’d never seen before.
Yes, this is an actual video game and not just a kiddie ride.
Look at all the Pac-man. They even had that same Pac-man statue that Level 257 had, but it was taken down shortly before my visit.
At this point, the head manager got mad at me for taking pictures. I already had all of the photos I needed, though.
After leaving a bit and waiting for the heat to cool down, I returned to spend my last 25 cents. This time, I caught a much nicer local manager and had a long chat with him while preparing to play that Ms Pac-man/Galaga machine (another survivor from Time-Out). He quickly realized I was just a harmless arcade nerd once I started talking about the code to unlock Pac-man on the machine.
As we chatted, I learned my things.
The first is that the company that bought up Namco’s smaller arcades was based out of the East Coast. They manage quite a few pier arcades. The second is that the biggest change to the location after it changed hands would be all of the Pac-man branding getting removed. This back room (which I believe had tables at some point) would need to be completely repainted.
I also learned a bit about the fate of the DDR machine. It was shipped back to wherever Namco houses its old machines. The manager assured me he was looking into getting a new one but couldn’t say which version. To my knowledge, it still hasn’t happened.
And so, I got a swipe card as a final memory of Namco’s reign. A few weeks later, Pac-man Zone was unceremoniously rebranded to “At the Pier Arcade”. I was planning to do a before and after, but nothing much has changed (and I’d rather not cross paths with the district manager again).
I accomplished my goal of paying one final visit to Namco’s arcades. Since starting this blog, I must have written about at least 10 Namco-owned arcades. Having so many of them floating around the Twin Cities was a big reason I was able to hone my interest in exploring arcades. Time-Out, in particular, was one I’d often wander into whenever I wanted to play DDR or Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune.
In my Level 257 write-up, I talked about how bright the future was for Namco’s arcades. Then that future was stolen from them, with nothing they could do to fight back. All I could do to help was take one final record of their period in Namco history. Even if nobody else realizes the significance of it, may the world remember that it happened.
