The sights of Electric Town

Game stores are bigger, longer, and have more Japanese games in them.

First stop, Akihabara. Next stop, Paradise.

Classic gaming is still very much alive with the incredible selection you can find in used game shops.

The Other Games of Tokyo

The city of Tokyo is not only home to the Tokyo Game Show--one of the largest video-game-based trade shows in the world--but also to many other gaming outlets. From arcades to import shops, Tokyo is home to an extremely prolific gaming scene that seems to adopt a more front-and-center role than those of other cities. First-time visitors to Tokyo might arrive expecting a video game mecca, and in some respects, Tokyo is just that. In other respects, the games don't even begin to represent the full atmosphere of the city; they merely give it a flavor that happens to be particularly noticeable to those with video games on their radars. We took a day to look around the beautiful city, paying specific attention to the ways in which games are represented there.

Shinjuku

The vast city of Tokyo is divided up into different neighborhoods that are generally similar but that have different themes, of sorts. The fashionable Harajuku is considered the best place to go clothes shopping, for example. But Tokyo's districts have stores of all kinds, which is why we found a ton of game stores in the downtown administrative and commercial district of Shinjuku. Among the skyscrapers and sushi shops, we found two places to buy games and four arcades in the span of two blocks. Inside, these establishments had crowds as diverse as you can imagine. They included men and women, adults and children, the casually dressed and the formally attired. It seems, at least from the looks of the patrons of the arcades and game stores we visited in Shinjuku, that games don't belong exclusively to the male, 18- to 34-year-old demographic in Japan.

The game stores seemed to be divided into two categories depending on whether they sold new or used games. The biggest store we saw in the Shinjuku district sold new games--Yodobashi Camera, a five-story establishment that carried everything from toys to airsoft guns depending on which floor you were on. The ground floor looked very much like a game store in any other city, as the walls were lined with peripherals, magazines, and games for all different systems. But in one of the glass cases, for example, there were Dead or Alive body pillows for sale, gaming paraphernalia that was never sold outside of Japan. There was also an entire wall of games devoted to anime, and although other regions see some anime-based games, the number we saw in Tokyo absolutely dwarfs the numbers of any we've seen elsewhere. Aside from the anime section, the gaming choices looked surprisingly familiar. If you expect to go into a gaming shop to find rows upon rows of quirky Japanese-exclusive games like Yoshinoya, you're going to be in for disappointment. There were some to be found for sure, but the selection of games isn't grossly different from other regions. We picked up Earth Defense Force 2, a budget game for about $20, that features giant insects invading the major cities of the world. And on our journey to get Pop'n Music, a rhythm game that's in its 11th iteration on home consoles, we noticed that the latest version costs around $70, which is currently unheard of in the United States...unless the game is a special edition. Some of the latest DS and PSP games were pushing prices of up to $50, so we decided to head on over to a used store so we could spread our money out a little longer.

Game stores and arcades in Tokyo are like everywhere else, except they're everywhere.

Akihabara

Although most of Tokyo's districts offer game stores of all types, there are none that compare to Akihabara, aka Electric Town. If there truly is a gaming mecca in Japan, it's here--where you'll find more electronics and game shops than restaurants and convenience stores. The used game stores aren't much different from the new game stores except in price and selection. For the modern consoles, you'll be hard-pressed to find a practical difference between used and new copies of games. Every single used game comes in a box with a manual, and when we picked up a used PocketStation, the Japanese exclusive "VMU" for the PlayStation 2, we found everything for the system was packaged in, including the original stickers and the tiny (and very losable) screwdriver that you use to take it apart. Of course, many of the cartridge-based games had saves on them still, but as long as you can figure out how to erase old save data, they're otherwise as good as new.

So many Famicom games, so little time.

Of course, the real gem of the used game stores is the collection of classic games available. And even though there are game stores everywhere, the better ones are still the ones tucked away in alleys, like Super Potato, a store that would otherwise be indistinguishable if it weren't for the distinct sound of Nintendo music coming out of the second-story window. Super Potato's selection of old games is extraordinary. One wall is covered with just systems, including the original Famicom, the Famicom twin, Neo-Geos of all shapes and sizes, and more. The systems look like they've been maintained with the utmost care, as they're all well-wrapped, fully accessorized, and clean. By the looks of it, the rows of shelves of games for these systems might contain every release for the systems. You'd certainly have a hard time playing through all the Famicom games you'd find there. You don't get something for nothing, though, because generally the classic games and systems are a little more expensive than you'd find from their North American counterparts. The Famicom is around $70, and the NES could probably be bought for around $40 in the States. However, the selection is so complete and well taken care of--and some of the systems are so much more difficult to come by--that all the prices seem reasonable in this context.

Arcades

The social element of gaming in Japan is very much alive, given the sheer number of public arcades that line the city streets. The theme--at least the most noticeable one--is rhythm games, and each arcade had the same few rhythm machines located near the front of the store to draw consumers in. This includes Taiko (the bongo drum game), which is pretty much a grown-up version of Donkey Konga, except you use drumsticks instead of your hands and can play two-player at every arcade machine. Pop'n Music and BeatMania are also enormously prolific, and both games enable you to hit buttons on the machine that correspond to different-colored bubbles that scroll down the screen, much like a Dance Dance Revolution for your hands. DrumMania and Guitar Freaks are rhythm games with drum kit and guitar peripherals, respectively, that enable the same kinds of mechanics as all the other rhythm games, though they merely switch the method by which you play. Each game costs around 200 yen (under $2) for one play, and you generally get through four or five songs, depending on if you're good enough to complete them all.

Tokyo arcades feature a good mix of fun rhythm games and serious fighting games.

Although the rhythm games take up the front of the arcades, there are a ton of other game types deep inside them. On a trip to Club Sega, we took a walk around the basement floor, which hosted "Versus City," the arcade's fighting game room. It was surprising to see the sheer number of men in suits sitting down, having a smoke, and busting out a few games of Virtua Fighter, Tekken, Street Fighter, or less-well-known Japanese fighters, like Melty Blood. There also seemed to be a fairly devoted scene to a soccer card game that combined arcade gameplay with card-deck collection, although all our attempts to purchase and play these games proved to be fruitless.

For avid fans of video games, Tokyo sure is the catalyst for destroying your wallet, especially if you take into account the amount of money you'll have to spend importing games for your Japanese systems once you leave the country. Although the task of uncovering the best and most unique Japanese games isn't the easiest one, with the proper research--and given the accessibility of games--you could spend quite a long time getting down and dirty with the games of Tokyo.