Visiting San Diego...Where are the good Arcades & game shops

[Zero Gunner]

So I'm in San Diego for business. Sadly I have to leave before SDCC starts (would have LOVED to meet Miyazaki...sigh....), but I think to myself "Still...this is the place that hosts the San Diego Comic Con. Surely they have some great game stores, anime shops, and maybe even some good arcades." I've been all over today and aside from Manga and Japanese book stores I've come up with just about nothing. Am I missing something here? I'd love to find a nice little import game shop with Dreamcast/Saturn/PSX games...or an Arcade with some Cave titles...or anything other than so-called "anime" shops that carry only manga and a few plush toys and key-chains. Does any one have any thoughts?

[Cuilan]

...but I think to myself "Still...this is the place that hosts the San Diego Comic Con. Surely they have some great game stores, anime shops, and maybe even some good arcades."

Sadly, that's not the case. There aren't many arcades in San Diego, and the few that still exist are pretty terrible. The best one is probaly the Tilt in the Mission Valley mall (it's a few blocks away from the Fashion Valley mall). They used to have Espgaluda and Mars Matrix cabs, but I don't think they have them anymore (they had Blazing Star at one point too, but that's long gone). I haven't been there in a while though, so it might be worth checking out for yourself.

For Japanese books and manga, you should check out Mitsuwa if you haven't done so already. There's a book store in there, and there's also a Book Off next door. : Link

There aren't any import game stores, at least none that I know of. All the good stuff is in and around LA.

[Zero Gunner]

...but I think to myself "Still...this is the place that hosts the San Diego Comic Con. Surely they have some great game stores, anime shops, and maybe even some good arcades."

Sadly, that's not the case. There aren't many arcades in San Diego, and the few that still exist are pretty terrible. The best one is probaly the Tilt in the Mission Valley mall (it's a few blocks away from the Fashion Valley mall). They used to have Espgaluda and Mars Matrix cabs, but I don't think they have them anymore (they had Blazing Star at one point too, but that's long gone). I haven't been there in a while though, so it might be worth checking out for yourself.

For Japanese books and manga, you should check out Mitsuwa if you haven't done so already. There's a book store in there, and there's also a Book Off next door. : Link

There aren't any import game stores, at least none that I know of. All the good stuff is in and around LA.

Bummer...I've been to LA and there are a few good shops and San Fran has an amazing Japantown so I'm really surprised there isn't more here. I'll check the Tilt just in case. I've already been to Mitsuwa and Book Off where I snagged a brand new, factory sealed 1st print copy of Mark of the Wolves for PS2 for $20. I already had it for DC, Neo Geo Home Cart, and XBLA so I thought "what the heck, for $20 why not add it to the collection". Too bad there's nothing else to do here.

Maybe I'll drive up to LA tomorrow...I was kicking around the idea earlier, should have done it today so I could stop in at JapanVideoGames (no idea if it's worth a stop, but I've never been there) but they are closed Sundays. Aside from Giant Robot, HyperGame, Kinokuniya, Hyper Game, Anime Jungle, Power Anime, Robocon are there any other shops I should hit if I drive up there tomorrow? And any good arcades to check out? I've been to LA several times for E3 but I don't actually recall ever having a chance to hunt down arcades, which would have probably been redundant during an E3 anyways...

[Cuilan]

I don't know the LA area quite as well, but you should definitely visit Little Tokyo. There's a bunch of book stores in the area and one import game shop. There's also a pretty good arcade on the 2nd floor of the Mitsuwa building there.

Arcade Infinity is also in LA. I've never been to it, but it's supposedly pretty good.

Back to San Diego :

I just remembered that there was a small yet relatively decent arcade in a shopping center called La Jolla Village Square (in La Jolla, close to the UTC). I haven't been there in a few years, so I don't know if it's still there. But if you're going to go up to LA anyway, may as well stop by and look. When going north on the 5 through La Jolla, you'll eventually see a Mormon temple (looks like a large, white palace) on the right side of the highway. The shopping center is across from it on the left side. The arcade was indoors next to the movie theater and called *someguy'sname*'s Game Center. It had Strikers 1945 2 and Strikers 1999, and maybe some other ones.

[toaplan_shmupfan]

The arcade in the La Jolla Village square (Ray's Game Center) no longer exists. If I recall correctly, it closed because the owner/operator was retiring, not because he didn't make enough money to stay in business.

Tilt Mission Valley, the last time I was there, only had one of the Metal Slug games which, of course, is a hybrid run-and-gun/platform shooter rather than a strictly horizontal or vertical shmup. The rest of the games were Racing games, fighting games, gun games, and rhythm/music, along with some ticket redemption type of games.

Generally, speaking at least from what I've seen in the past few years, San Diego does not have very good arcades for shumps. Racing games, fighting games, gun games, and rhythm/music games are what seems to be featured in most of the arcades.

The closest thing to having a selection of shumps is an Ultracade at the San Diego Dave & Busters that has a selection of older shmups (most of which can also be found on Capcom Classics Collection 1 and 2 for the PS2). That said, it is usually occupied by people challenging each other to Turbo Champion Edition Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, so it can be a long wait before an opportunity exist to play a shmup on that machine.

[adversity1]

Nickel City in San Bernadino should still be around right?

Used to be sick SF competition there.

[toaplan_shmupfan]

San Bernardino is more than an hour away from the San Diego area (even with light traffic), but there should also be a Nickel City in the Carmel Mountain Ranch area of San Diego County.

[GateofThunderforceIII]

As awesome a city as San Diego is, yes, it sucks when it comes to arcades or cool videogame stores with the latest imports. I used to go to the Tilt at Mission Valley ALL THE TIME to show off my sucky ESPGaluda skills but I've entertained a few people by consistently getting to the last boss in one coin. Unfortunately, yes, along with Mars Matrix, it's gone. If you're a fighting game fan, they have Tekken 6, MvC2, KOFXI and a few others. Strangely, they had Virtua Fighter 5, Virtua Cop 4 and House of the Dead 4 but only for a very short time. Nothing too special now.

If you're into older used stuff, there's an awesome little store called Luna Video Games in the Ocean Beach area (directly West of Mission Valley via the on Voltaire Street. They have lots of used systems, PC-Engine Core, Dreamcasts, Saturns, and others. I've seen them carry Dracula X for the Duo. Every once in a while they'll have quirky stuff like that (US Burning Rangers). They have lots of used 16, and to a lesser extent, 32 bit stuff. Great place and since they also fix broken systems, it's interesting to talk to the staff about how horrible 360s are made.

[adversity1]

Ack I meant Rancho Bernardo. Been too long since I been home.

But maybe it's technically Carmel Mountain Ranch.

[toaplan_shmupfan]

Also, Arcade Infinity (at the Diamond Plaza in Rowland Heights) only has two shmups:

1. Raiden IV.
2. Another sort of odd shooter I couldn't really get into, even though I got to stage 2 my first time ever playing it. Since I couldn't find any English title text, I'll try to describe it.

• Cave is shown in the title screen and the text below the large title screen graphic also indicates another company A.M.I.
• Player chooses a character pair that corresponds to a ship.
• Hold down button 1 causes pods to move in front of the ship and roll.
• MIddle fire button is bomb.
• Hold down right fiire button is autofire vulcan type shot plus the pods stay to the side of the ship and also shoot.
• Shot patterns were sort of a hybrid between conventional and manic, mostly pink circle bullets or purple small line type bullets.

EDIT: Research shows that this other game is very likely Mushihime-sama Futari version 1.5. Cost is two tokens to start, 1 token to continue.