Big arcade news has just kept on coming with Bandai Namco of late, be it their overseas launches of Taiko No Tatsujin and GoldStorm Pirates or tests for their next music game and Wangan Midnight instalment in Japan. Today, we have yet another brand new arcade game from them on test to check out – “Magi Blast”, an original magic wand-based shooting game they have a hand in. Here are the details so far…
Magi Blast
As with most location tests out of Japan these days, our first word on Magi Blast has come courtesy of an account on Twitter/X – one for a little company you might have never previously heard of called Historia. They posted out this below shot, announcing the test by Bandai Namco and that they are responsible for software development on the game. Japanese amusement industry source AM-Net reshared this shortly afterward, and the post then made its way into the Arcade Heroes Discord server early today via Jdevy.
From the photo and the little information available, what is immediately clear is that this is another new arcade shooting game, following up GoldStorm Pirates. The big hook/difference with this one is its use of magic wands for controllers. These might put seasoned shooting game fans in mind of a few titles in the genre from the 2000s that used similar nonstandard controllers instead of guns for them, such as Sega’s Maze of the Kings and Konami’s Castlevania Arcade. Those were tethered, though, whilst these look fixed.
Most intriguing however is the post’s suggestion that Magi Blast is using some sort of holographic/mixed reality technology. Exactly what that entails can’t be certain from what we know right now (could it involve the transparent circular plates on the front of the sticks?), but it is very coincidental, considering a video on this same topic went up on the AH YouTube channel only just the other day! If Bandai Namco can pull off something unique with the tech it could make for a fresh new shooting game experience…
The involvement of a company like Historia with it is interesting too, albeit not completely surprising as they have worked with Bandai Namco before on the likes of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Last Survivor and some Kamen Rider card games. Bandai Namco have also been increasingly working with other third party software houses in Japan; GoldStorm Pirates and Dead Heat Unleashed were notably done by Xeen, whilst Bike Dash Delivery (which still hasn’t released…) is coming from Metro. The cabinet design and some game production oversight should all still be from their internal R&D side though.
Finally, the obvious question – will it be seeing any overseas action? In this case, it’s hard to say so early on. When GoldStorm Pirates appeared on test a couple years back it seemed inevitable it would get a chance out West, but with this being an all-new original effort featuring some potential hurdles (e.g. the magic wand controllers), things look less certain. It would be very nice to see Bandai Namco try with it though. I did reach out and ask them, but there was no comment on it for this time.
For now, what do you think about Magi Blast? Would you like to see this new magic wand shooter release?
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