Let’s start the week with some Taito news, first with a new game that the company is working on that is a sequel to one of their notable mash-up titles. Music Gun Gun combined two genres that always bring in the players to arcades – light-gun games and music games. With Music Gun Gun 2, we should expect a format similar to the first game with new songs (there will be around 100 songs total) including the Super Mario Bros. Medley plus new songs from Darius Burst Another Chronicle. Taito also has brought in some professional voice actors to do the character voice overs. The game will be testing at the Akihabara Hara Hey on September 4th & 5th. Source details: Game Watch / Music Gun Gun 2 website
Speaking of Darius Burst: Another Chronicle, AkihabaraNews.com has a hands-on preview of the game, along with a set of clear pictures. The reviewers state that they had a great time playing the game and that Taito is developing it as a way to draw more players into arcade centers. That should be the point of every arcade game but DBAC stands a good chance of playing upon nostalgia as well as impressing new players so they get a feel for a unique arcade experience.
UPDATE: Taito has released information on their line-up for the JAMMA show. Both Music Gun Gun 2 and Darius Burst Another Chronicle will be there but they also will be presenting a sequel to one of the strangest arcade games to come out in recent memory with their Dining Table Flipping game Part 2. Here’s the Taito JAMMA page.
Let’s start the week with some Taito news, first with a new game that the company is working on that is a sequel to one of their notable mash-up titles. Music Gun Gun combined two genres that always bring in the players to arcades – light-gun games and music games. With Music Gun Gun 2, we should expect a format similar to the first game with new songs (there will be around 100 songs total) including the Super Mario Bros. Medley plus new songs from Darius Burst Another Chronicle. Taito also has brought in some professional voice actors to do the character voice overs. The game will be testing at the Akihabara Hara Hey on September 4th & 5th. Source details: Game Watch / Music Gun Gun 2 website
Speaking of Darius Burst: Another Chronicle, AkihabaraNews.com has a hands-on preview of the game, along with a set of clear pictures. The reviewers state that they had a great time playing the game and that Taito is developing it as a way to draw more players into arcade centers. That should be the point of every arcade game but DBAC stands a good chance of playing upon nostalgia as well as impressing new players so they get a feel for a unique arcade experience.
UPDATE: Taito has released information on their line-up for the JAMMA show. Both Music Gun Gun 2 and Darius Burst Another Chronicle will be there but they also will be presenting a sequel to one of the strangest arcade games to come out in recent memory with their Dining Table Flipping game Part 2. Here’s the Taito JAMMA page.
Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report has penned a new article just for us and this one takes a look at the growing interest in the amusement sector in Japan, despite the doom and gloom that had been shopped around a couple of years ago when some companies had begun closing some locations there. Entitled “The Player — Japanese Queuing for Arcade!”, it takes a look at games that are getting players to stand in line, sometimes for an hour or more, to have their chance to try out the latest arcade titles. Click the link below to continue
When it comes to public location tests Japan rarely disappoints and we’ve got two to talk about today. First, popular game site Famitsu weighs in on the Darius Burst Another Chronicle location test with more pictures of how that went down. They get into more details about the seat, how the game controls, and how the different modes work. Don’t forget to tell Taito to consider an international release, if you haven’t already.
Second is from a new fighter called Chaos Code which tested two weeks ago at the Club Sega in Akihabara. 4Gamer.net has an overview of this game, it’s a new 2D fighter with four buttons by FK Digital. The official Chaos Code website is here and I’ve found a video of it on Youtube.
The announcement of the new Darius arcade in Japan has caused quite a stir and while at the moment the game has only been announced for a Japanese release, Taito has been quiet on the international possibilities. So I decided to send them an e-mail, using an address that Taito had shared sometime ago on their Twitter account for contacting them about the company’s international products. Today, I received a response, a small part of which I’ll share here(the other parts covers the game’s stats which we’ve seen):
Re international release, this is still under discussion, and definitely the comment/trackback on your web site will help us to make a final decision!):
Be an Arcade Hero! If you want to see the new Darius get a better chance outside of Japan, then respectfully let Taito know your feelings about it. They can be contacted at this address(change the AT to @): globalsupportATtaito.co.jp. Put “Darius Burst Another Chronicle International Release” in the subject line, mention that you saw this on Arcade Heroes and tell them why you want to play DBAC in an arcade near you. You can also contact Taito on their Twitter channel, they are quite friendly and receptive via this source too so it can’t hurt: http://twitter.com/TaitoCorp
The waiting line for Darius Burst Another Chronicle's 1st loctest (by AM-Net)
Taito began the first public test of the new Darius Burst Another Chronicle in Akihabara yesterday and already the test is considered a great success. Between 140-200 showed up early to get a chance to play the new game for 200 yen each. There are a couple of location test reports on the web, one from Small Room Aries and a more detailed report from Game Watch. It sounds like it’s similar in many ways to Darius Burst on the PSP but with a number of improvements; enhanced graphics, a new craft to pick called Formula, new sound effects, changes in the stage configurations and how enemies attack, the ability to change the direction of your ship, and there will be a new Chronicle mode which was not available to play for this test. Small Room Aries mentions that it can be a little hard to grasp where your ship is at when there are four players on the screen which is something I have wondered about but hopefully Taito will be able to fine-tune that so it won’t be a problem in the final release.
Game Watch also has a number of new direct screenshots to drool over.
As promised, Taito had a live stream take place this morning/last night (depending upon your location) and in that video we got our first look at their upcoming Darius Burst Another Chronicle. I was unwillingly awake this morning when it was on and I watched some of it at the time but it’s nice to have the whole thing saved so anyone can go back and watch.
Click here to watch the video. Jump ahead to the 10 min. mark to see the cabinet itself. It’s a little smaller than I thought it would be but that’s a good thing. It appears that they are using angled mirrors to create a nearly seamless image of the two monitors together (which I think the original did with it’s three monitors but I have personally never seen an original Darius but they do show one in this video about 20 min. in) and the game itself looks spectacular even though the image quality on the video is less than ideal. The only thing that might be an issue is the player on the far right, I wonder how it might work out for them since most of the enemies appear on their side of the screen and the players generally stick to the left.
Darius Burst Another Chronicle will be released this winter in Japan. Hopefully Taito will consider distributing this internationally but even if they don’t I imagine that some intrepid locations with deep enough pockets will get one.
If you are chomping at the bit to see Taito’s new Darius Burst Another Chronicle in action, then you’ll have the chance to do so this Friday. Taito will be doing a webshow on Ustream.tv where DBAC will be shown in some manner. The show begins at 8PM in Japan, so you’d have to adjust your clocks accordingly – that’s 4AM PST. In the event you aren’t up that early, I imagine that someone will rip the footage so we can see what the game is all about at any time of the day.
UPDATE: Thanks to my insomnia tonight, I am up to check it out although I will be trying to get some sleep again here in a minute. The game looks wickedly awesome, and in case you aren’t able to catch it now, it looks like they save the video on the page to see later. Looks like it runs at 60 fps, no bullet hell and it looks like they are using mirrors to help combine the monitor edges in the center so they blend together quite well and you don’t have to worry about a large black line in the center of the screen. They already showed a play through two bosses but only with two players. Looks like they may do four players later but I’m too tired to stick around and wait – still it was worth it to see the game in action. In fact, player interest is high enough that I got a phone call at my arcade yesterday about this which is unusual for an arcade title that hadn’t been seen in action until now.
Darius Burst Another Chronicle – sweet mother of awesome (click to enlarge, via Game Watch):
Pengo. I thought this was going to be eight players on one cabinet but that doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for the moment. The location test connected four two player stations together.I know an 8-player cabinet would still be large but it would require a little less hardware to invest in. Famitsu has more pictures and a video of the game in action.
While I wasn’t expecting anything on this until tomorrow morning, it appears that all of the info already out on the new has pushed Taito to reveal more on the Darius title early, even though the countdown still has 14 hours left. You can visit the official Darius Site here – the only new reveal is the cabinet image you see above. That’s quite an impressive cabinet – there is some sort of force feedback in the seat and the screen configuration hearkens back to the original Darius from 1986. Fortunately it is when cabinets take this approach that make any future console ports have less impact on the arcade market as you would loose the extra wide view unless you are willing to setup two identical flat panels next to each other.
Hopefully we’ll have videos of this one in action very soon. I also hope that it gets a release outside of Japan. At the moment there is no indication of such a thing but Elevator Action: Death Parade was that way as well. As long as the price tag on this is far below the EADP then it would be even more feasible. The new Darius will be released in Japan this winter.
Arcade Heroes 
Latest Comments