次に得られるか。 (Got Next?)
It's no secret that when I'm not spending my time teaching or drinking Orion I can be found in an arcade schooling suckas in Tekken 6, Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue, or any other number of fighting games. Arcades are either dead and buried in the US or on life support, but here the scene is very much alive and as vibrant as ever. The arcade I frequent on Kokusai Dori is almost always busy when I go, and this is usually around 1 in afternoon when the kids haven't even gotten out of school yet.
Obviously fighting games are my passion and the way the system works is unique to Japan. In the states when I used to religiously play Street Fighter, Tekken, and their various sequels and minor upgrades, your opponent would stand right next to you so you'd be well aware who was beating your ass or who you were laying the smack down on. For me it added to the tension as well, because I damn sure didn't want to let the person next to me beat me and give them the satisfaction of knowing who they beat. One of my favorite moments in my personal fighting game playing history happened back in 1998, when I at Kings Dominion with my Uncle Rob playing Street Fighter III again this dude who kind of looked like a Street Fighter character himself. It was intense. I beat him in a match. He came back for more and beat me in a match. Then we kind of silently ackowledged that a third match would be needed to see who was the best. It was closely faught, but in the end I spanked that ass. And afterwards we gave each other props and he bounced.
However, that style of play has never been popular over in Japan. In fact, going back all the way to the first Street Fighter, people have not enjoyed playing fighting games while being right next to each other...perhaps for the same reasons that I like that style. Some brilliant dude had the idea to take two machines, put them back to back, and connect them so that one machine was player one and one machine was player 2. That way you could anonymously beat someone's ass or get your ass handed to you. It's been that way ever since. While I've come to appreciate the set-up, it takes away so much of what makes the fighting game arcade experience great. Matches are a lot less intense, you hardly see crowds form to see two people with skill going at it, and, maybe even worst of all, nobody puts down a 50 yen piece on the machine to indicate they've got next after you get trounced.
Still, I guess I should be thankful that I can even walk into an arcade in the first place eh?