As we find ourselves nice and comfy in the middle of the Summer, it’s time to take a look over in Japan as to what their arcade business has been up to lately.
Location Tests
House Of The Dead Scarlet Dawn (Sega)
Let’s start with the test’s that everyone has been going crazy about, Sega’s highly anticipated return to shooting zombies. Light-gun enthusiast site TeamGun Powers posted some impressions and to summarize:
The game is “mildly difficult”, easier than Namco’s Dark Escape 4D
All four stages are present allowing the user to see the end.
You can select which stage you start from (something common in most light-gun games now but a first for HOTD I believe)
It is about 40 minutes long (as long as you don’t skip cutscenes). This puts it close to Halo but longer than any other HOTD installment, as far as I recall (they were generally 25-30 minutes). It is unknown if there are different routes that affect the length.
There is a Bronze/Silver/Gold trophy system and “House Of The Dead (HOD) Coins” to collect although it sounds like this is only available when using Sega’s Aime online card system. We have yet to hear if this will be implemented out West or if there will be some kind of adjustment.
Aime allows you greater flexibility in changing your weapons during the game
End of stage shows you your Score, Accuracy, Total Zombies Killed, Critical Hits and Events Cleared
Tarot returns
Jubeat Festo (Konami)
The latest version of Jubeat (known as uBeat out West) will begin testing this weekend:
【ロケテストも、とってもフェスティバル！！】そして気になる新バージョンのロケテストですが、な…なんと！！全国5店舗での同時ロケテストを開催っ！7/20(金)から3日間で記載している店舗でいち早くjubeat festoがあそべちゃいますよ～！#jubeat #jubeat10周年 pic.twitter.com/pXvq3IpBSr
— jubeatスタッフ@ロケテストで会いましょう！ (@jubeat_staff) July 12, 2018
Nostalgia Op. 2 (Konami)
Konami has a sequel to their piano playing Bemani game and from this report at Small Room Aries, it sounds like it is being well-received. A new “Recital” mode has been added, which appears to be the game’s focus.
