The Asian Power Hour

I’m really interested in all those RFID CCG card games in Japanese arcades and it was a pleasant surprise for me to find out that they’ve only grown in popularity since I’ve last been arcade hopping.

Three of my favorites have even gotten upgrades and expansions:

Quest of D, the dungeon crawling action MMORPG has been updated to version 4. It seems to me that the MMO scene is really moving from subscription and microtransaction base to a pay per play formula in the arcades. Character data and gold is saved on an IC Card and certain items, spells, and abilities are on collectible cards that can be traded and made into a custom deck. Something else that I've been playing that doesn't ascribe to the CCG method is Namco's Druaga Online, a little older, but still a very fun MMORPG. The controls are what really get me, as the entire game is played through the touchscreen and one button. What a lot of these games use is a central console in which you can check your characters stats and edit your base or equipment without taking up a arcade station.

Sangokushi Taisen is now on version 2 and has become popular enough to release a Nintendo DS version that simulates the arcade action fairly accurately. This is probably the game that has become the most popular since I’ve last been in Japan, with rare cards from the game fetching up to 20,000 Yen in card shops. This is a real time strategy game that plays off the Romance of the Three Kingdoms mythos.

Gundam 0079 has been upgraded to Gundam 0083 (Another segment of the U.C. [Universal Century] official timeline in the Gundam Universe). Other than the addition of new cards, nothing has really changed. There are some options I didn’t notice last time which are interesting however. You can now play against either:

The Computer
Players in the arcade
Players across the country

With players of the same faction vying for territory against each other. You are actually locked into the arcade of your choice on your IC card, making it your home base. This is pretty interesting as it encourages and fosters team spirit within each individual arcade. This is another real time strategy game, with a great deal of micromanagement of units involved.

Something I’m really surprised with is the direction that Carddass battlers are going, especially with Sega’s Love and Berry IP. They’ve recently released a peripheral for the Nintendo DS that allows the use of the cards from the Love and Berry arcade version for the DS and vice versa. I think this is absolutely brilliant, and would love to see more crossovers like this.

For the other Bandai based Carddass battling games, something I’ve noticed is that they’re really pumping them out like crazy, mainly because all the graphics in the game are being reused from console games. For example, the PS2 Narutimett Hero gameplay is basically replayed for the Naruto Carddass game, and Dragonball Z Budokai for the equivalent. This gives the kids playing a more exciting feeling that they’re accomplishing something instead of having to master the elaborate moves found in the games.

Nevertheless, these games are still all over the freaking place, a lingering reminder of what the old Barcode Battler technology for the Nes/Snes/GB evolved into. There was a card reader at one time a few years ago for the Game Boy Advance that was released in the US, but it didn’t take off. I’d like to think it was because of the non-collectible, tradeable, and very passively one player nature of the cards which tended to just be games like Donkey Kong or Motocross Mania keyed on a ID card.

Other CCG based arcade games that are out there that I didn’t invest in an IC card in include:

Baseball
Football (Soccer)