So here we are again, setting out for day 4 of my adventure in Denver.
When planning my trip, two specific arcades were off the beaten path. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would squeeze them in, but visiting Gameworks on the first day put me ahead of schedule. I decided that today would be the day I get those two taken care of.
…and it’s one of these again. I’ve already written about two Round 1, one in Philadelphia and one in Chicago (and I’m hitting another later this year). Unlike Dave and Busters, which I usually skip on this blog because of how damn similar they are, Round 1 does have quite a bit variation between locations. Plus, they’re always getting new stuff.
However, I’m going to skip a lot of the games I’ve talked about before, including most of the rhythm games, Silent Scope Bone Eater, the NesicaxLive machines, Musical GunGun 2, Gunslinger Stratos, Initial D and Wangan Midnight, Elevator Action Death Parade, Giant Tetris, and Thrill Drive 3. If you’re reading this to know which machines this particular location had, those were all here. Read the other two posts if you want to know what any of those are. I recommend the Chicago post over the Philadelphia one.
Denver’s Round 1 was a fairly large location compared to the other two, with a much bigger spread of unusual Japanese games than the Chicago location (do note that I visited the smaller of the two Chicago Round 1s). There were a couple of machines in particular that I was hyped to finally see for the first time.
So let’s get right into the big one! It’s Dance Dance Revolution’s 20’s Anniversary, so to celebrate, they released this glorious golden behemoth of a DDR machine. It’s even more daunting in person. Just look at it!
On a side note, Tom (from the Chicago blog posts) happened to text me while I was here, so I sent him some of these pics. When I sent him this one, he was more fixated on the Halo machine in the background. Some people have no taste.
For comparison, this is the normal white cabinet version of the game. Notice anything different between the two title screens? That’s right; the gold machine isn’t just special hardware! It’s got a special “Gold Edition” of the game that only runs on the new anniversary machine, complete with a gold title screen, gold menus, and gold interface. And that’s not all! It’s even got exclusive songs and game modes you can’t play on a normal machine! Today we’re golden!
Here’s a good picture where you can see the size difference between the two. This thing dwarfs the already large white machines. You can also see the color differences between the UI pretty clearly here. The old one is blue. The new one is yellow.
I can’t get over this. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life! They did everything in their power to ensure this was the single gaudiest arcade machine of all time, and I love it!
You know, IIDX also had a “Gold” version many years ago with a theme song that became so iconic that it found its way into many other games, including DDR (with special lyrics in a few versions). Tell me, how could you look at this glorious golden DDR machine and not be overtaken by an urge to play that song on it? I know I sure was.
But I can’t gush about DDR A20 Gold Edition forever. Here’s some other stuff I hadn’t run into before. This is Nerf Arcade by Raw Thrills. Not all of the machines in Round 1 are Japanese, you know. It’s a standard target shooting game that doesn’t have much to do with Nerf. Then again, I’m not sure how you’d make a game ABOUT Nerf guns.
As you may or may not know, I was big into Nerf guns around the early N-strike era, when it was cool for college kids to hold events with them. Dig through my older blog posts to hear me ramble about Nerf guns.
Oh, are Top Skater-style games coming back into vogue? It’s a Raw Thrills machine, so I can’t imagine the gameplay has any real depth.
If you remember from our trip to Galloping Ghost a couple of years ago, this machine happened to be broken down, so I didn’t get a chance to play it. Well, here it is, all up and working. I played a game called Castlevania Symphony of the Night last month because I realized I’d only played the three arcade Castlevania games (there are three? Of course there are!). I was disappointed because you play as the vampire, and he doesn’t have a whip.
This game, however, does have a whip! You use a Playstation Move-Esque controller to “whip” enemies like Medusa Heads and other expected Castlevania villains. It made my arm sore after a while. The first boss is Death, and he’s about as much of a weak bitch as he was in Symphony of the Night. It plays Bloody Tears when you fight him, so that’s cool.
Look at all the Street Fighter V machines they’ve set up here. They’re way bigger than the standard Candy Cabs, too.
Speaking of Candy Cabs, remember the NesicaxLive machine we talked about before? The one that’s basically a video game arcade streaming service for arcades? Well, this is the NesicaxLive 2! As you can see, it’s still a pretty new system with more powerful hardware, so it’s only running the three games at the moment: KoFXIV, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (the crossover game between BlazBlue, not-Melty Blood, Persona 4, and RWBY for some reason), and SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy. The latter is a very, very fanservice-heavy game where you can play as the various SNK Heroines (although virtually all of them are from KoFXIV) in suggestive outfits as they act embarrassed because Kukuri (also from KoFXIV) is spying on them through security cameras.
As a fan of the character Athena, I was quite interested in this game, even though the fighting controls were extremely simplified for beginner players. I would later learn that this game actually got a US Switch release for some reason.
Tom got it as a Christmas present this year. I figured it would be a good introduction to SNK’s characters. Also, because he enjoys disregarding the rules and posting porn on Twitter, this seemed right up his alley. I have a strange hunch he didn’t play it much for some reason…
I don’t understand why Athena is so embarrassed of her default outfit, though. She’s worn weirder stuff.
Someone in the arcade group keeps asking me if we have a Marvel photo booth anywhere in town. I keep telling her there might be one tucked away in some bowling alley somewhere or something. My knowledge of the local arcades is outdated because of 2020.
Speaking of people I know, I met some kid at a con a couple of years back who was a big fan of One Piece. A “I literally don’t have any more space in my room because every inch of it is covered in One Piece merchandise” fan. I sent her this photo, and she tells me she already had this figure. You can buy them at Hot Topic, it seems.
Come to think of it; I haven’t heard from her at all this year. I wonder what happened to her.
Yet another generic western game that I’ll probably start seeing everywhere. I only bring this one up because it looks like it uses the same hardware as four player Pac-man.
Let’s switch to something more exciting. After a 20-year hiatus, Gun Bullet is finally back with a new installment! And it actually came to America!
I’m a huge fan of the Point Blank/Gun Bullet series. In fact, I even own a… well, I’ll save that for another blog post. I remember looking for this one in Chicago to no avail. Unfortunately, there’s not much to say about it other than it’s more Gun Bullet. There aren’t any new gimmicks or anything. That’s not a problem, but if you’ve played any of the Point Blanks before, you already know exactly what to expect.
One complaint I did have is that I had trouble aiming on it and had to zero my shots once or twice at the start of each minigame to orient myself, which is bad when some of the minigames only give you one shot. That’s just a personal problem, though.
Pong is back! I love this machine so much. Yeah, it doesn’t look very interesting in this photo. Let’s take a closer look.
Instead of a video screen, the ball and paddles are pieces of plastic that you move around in real space. I assume everything is magnetic, but it’s really cool. We have one of these at a bar in town somewhere, although I haven’t been able to check that one out personally yet.
Seriously, why does Round 1 have so many western arcade machines I’ve never seen before? Are these all brand new, or are they just uncommon?
I feel like I run into this game at least once per trip. Do these really make that much money? I can’t imagine people would want to play it more than once for the novelty. This is the first time I’ve seen one at a Round 1.
Speaking of games I’ve never seen in Round 1, they also had Rhythm Tengoku. I couldn’t tell you where my picture of it went.
Rabbids Hollywood has been out for a while, but I’ve never run into it. Now I can safely say I’ve seen it. I didn’t bother to play it, but I did see it.
Before we go, there’s one game I was saving for last. This is WACCA, a new rhythm game by Marvelous Studios. It’s a pretty unique twist on the Nostalgia-style “just hit a button in this general area” style of gameplay. It may not be obvious at a glance exactly what you’re looking at here, so I’ll break it down.
The middle is a round screen, where the notes and menus are shown.
So where are the buttons, then? The entire ring around the screen are the buttons! Here you can see how they operate in the menus: The option appears on-screen, then the corresponding panels you have to push light up.
During gameplay, the entire thing turns into one big controller that lights up whenever you make contact with it. The screen tells you which area you’re supposed to touch, similar to MaiMai. Note patterns often take you on a full 360-degree trip around the screen. If you look back at the first image of it, you can see how it shows you which area of the circle to hit.
My only complaint is that the hardest difficulty needs to be unlocked, so I was stuck playing fairly easy songs and never got a chance to see how intense this game can get. I managed to get a AAA on the hardest song I could find and was itching for something more challenging. I liked the concept, but I can’t gauge it without being able to play harder songs.
So Round 1 in Denver was another Round 1. It’s always fun to visit them and see what new games are in stock, but it’s not easy to write about. My apologies if this one felt a bit unenthusiastic. There’s a good reason I opted not to talk about the usual stuff this time. I wanted to keep it somewhat brief for once.
Now then? Which arcade did I visit after this, again? Oh, right… The next one’s unique, if nothing else.
