Japanese arcade in Tokyo

[MattR]

Hi,

I will be visiting Japan later next month and I wanted to visit an arcade. Can someone make a few recommendations? I will be staying in Tokyo.

Cheers,
Matt

[wariomona]

That main street outside Akihabara station has arcades everywhere

[rancor]

If you're wanting STGs go to the second floor of HEY! on the main street in Akihabara. I was just there today.. All games are 100 yen, but they've got almost any shmup you can think of... (but no DDP 2 or Fast Striker. ) TRY has Fast Striker.

[MattR]

Awesome. Thanks guys. I've been playing shmups for 20 years but this will be a first! Very excited.

[ave]

HEY is a blast! I'll never forget my visits there. You'll see live superplays and can play many classics and all the big titles. If you are looking for real classic titles (80's and early 90's) go to Try Amusement Tower, it's only a few hundred metres away in some side-alley of Chuuoo street. They have a Darius dedicated cab and all the old shit (great).

Stuff that's hard to find are dedicated cabinets for niche games such as Tokyo Bus Guide or Densha de GO. I've only found one of each during my stay and they were in different arcades (DdeGO in Tokyo-Nakano, TBG in Shin-Osaka).

[LSU]

Last time I was at Hey (about 6 months ago) I stayed for about 3 hours just walking around watching people play. The standard of play is incredible, my favourite was watching a guy in a business suit sit down in front of Darius Gaiden and 1LC the game as if it's something he does every day without batting an eyelid. He didn't even enter his initials on the score board - just calmly got up and walked away leaving the name entry screen ticking down as if it wasn't important to him at all.

You'll have an amazing time there - enjoy it!