i live by fujimino station on the tobu-tojo sen, 30 minutes north from ikebukuro.
Take your favorite train line to Shibuya Station. Exit the “Hachiko Square” exit. Walk towards the intersection with the large Jumbo-monitors. Head up the shopping street that is to the right of the Starbucks. Notice the “Little Spoon Curry” shop on the right, that is easily the best curry chain in Japan (sorry CoCo Ichiban!) Avoid the Gas Panic, unless you want to be pegged as a tourist, or foreigner on the prowl. A bit further up will be a large HMV on your right, on the left side of the street is a print-club sticker area, and the Shibuya Kaikan Arcade. There is a sign that says “Game” at least in English IIRC.
The best floor is the 4th floor. I spend most of my time on one of the two head-to-head SSF2:HF Anniversary machines. They also have 1 SFA2 machine, 2 head2head SFA3s, 1 SF3, some Capcom vs SNK machines (honestly might have more, I generally don’t notice any title with vs in the name) a shitload of Guilty Gears, some melty blood (seems scubby to me, I played once and walked away because I couldn’t seem to lose and it wasn’t that fun) …
The basement of the same building is a different arcade. They have some Marvel stuff I think, but just by force of habit I always head to the 4th floor.
The 5th floor has a Gals Panic S which is fun. And a bunch of really old games. Elevator Action in there I think. Rolling Thunder too (that is a good game.)
When I played this weekend (on Saturday before heading over to the Ruby Room lounge) I ended up playing a Guile that ramped the speed down to 1. I’ve gotten that a lot over there actually. Anyway, my personal belief is that THawk-Guile is slightly in THawk’s favor. At speed 1 it was even better. You get 1 tick point for every sonic boom he throws with the dive attack, and I’ve only ever come across one player that could counter that. I wish I could remeber what he did. I think throw the SB, then jump with a jab, but I’m pretty sure that my jumping jab would beat that if I didn’t do the dive.
I’ve been stopping by at 6pm or so on weekdays lately to play for a bit. Man I’m still pretty scrubby.
Was there ever a West Tokyo scene?? I’m talking about Hamura, Fussa, Tachikawa, Akishima, Hachioji… those places had a shitload of A+ arcades, especially in Hachioji… I would play with random opponents but that’s different than hooking up with highlevel players you can learn a thing or two from…
When I lived in Tokyo (2000-2005) there were big names living in Machida and Shinjuku and other parts near downtown Tokyo, but that was all too far away for me to visit regularly. My skills fell way off from my high in 2000 because I’ve been fighting just friends and other casuals (and good god let’s not get into my stay in the UK in 05-06… I can count the number of competitive matches I played on one hand… oh wait no I can’t, because I NEVER played a competitive match of any kind when I was there)… so now it’s 2007, I finally live right next to a hotspot again, and I’m a fucking scrub.
I’m not matchmaking because I don’t live there anymore, I just want to know if I missed anything when I was in West Tokyo.
West Tokyo, or any spots outside Tokyo are usually good. Right now I’ve been kickin it on the Seibu-Shinjuku line… Kodaira has this homie ass arcade. But the Tekken matches in their are fierce. Then if you continue up to Tokorozawa they are a couple of goodgame centers in that area. But my favorite spot right now is Magic 22 is Kiyose. They have some really good Marvel players there.
But more importantly, for all those not working for Nova, we have a 3 day weekend coming up. We should all get to together and play?
“Have stick. Will travel!”
I’m all for it. I didn’t even realize Monday was a holiday until someone here at work mentioned it.
How about Sunday night at the Shibuya game Kaikan? Say 8pm? People up for clubbing or something like that afterwards? (Note: I’m 32 so I might totally cramp your style.) 
clubbing? how bout this friday? im spinning in roppongi at Midas if u guys are interested.
ill try n drop by on sunday, might be a lot later tho. be nice to get a kinda community goin.
I couldn’t make it Friday, too much work to do, but I am going to be at the Shibuya Game Kaikan on Sunday at 8pm. Hope to see some of you there. If you see an average looking guy in his 30s with a beard say “hi”. I’ll answer to “Dave” or “fugu”.
A brief report. I was the only foreigner at the Shibuya Game Kaikan. That’s ok though, it is somewhat expected. I stuck around for about an hour and a half, and probably only won about 8 matches. The guys that were there were serious. Some interesting tricks that I saw: one good Ryu would knock you down, then do an overhead attack. Since I’ve played long enough to know to defend against that, I block standing up. But it did it very early, so it whiffs. Then he does a low forward into fireball, which gets you because you are standing up. You can, of course, still block down when he whiffs the overhead early, but then he can also do another overhead. It was funny for me because I had never seen it intentionally whiffed before.
Lots of good old Guiles. Lots of DJs. I think he’s got too much priority on his cr. forward, but maybe that’s just me.
There was a little run going with an original Zangief, which was a blast to watch. He would suck people up from really far away, and boy does he hit hard. There was a II’ Blanka that had a really good streak going as well, and of course the requisite good Kens and Ryu. Didn’t see any O. Sagat though.
The competition was way above me, I played about 26 games, and won only about 8 matches.
By the way, before this I always thought that the T.Hawk Guile matchup was pretty even, in T.Hawk’s favor even if Guile hasn’t had much experience against T.Hawk. (That is still my belief, but…) Against a good Guile though, T.Hawk has real problems. The reason I thought it was a good matchup is because after every sonic boom, T.Hawk can pretty much dive for free tick damage, and repeat. There are a few things Guile can counter with though. Standing Jab (from a far dive) will knock T.Hawk cleanly out. If Guile blocks a close dive, a standing roundhouse will get T.Hawk on the recovery. While Guile can’t flash kick usually (not charged if you choose your moments right) depending on how close you are when you dive, a roundhouse flash kick might get T.Hawk on the recovery. So that weights it much heavier in Guile’s favor, but I still like to pull out T.Hawk against Guiles. Most people I’ve played haven’t figured those things out (yet.)
Sorry for not making it. I’m in charge of making the flyer for FRX. The organizer and I were having “creative differences.” So, I gotta stuck making the flyer last weekend. Anyway, this Sunday I’ll be travelling back through Tokyo… So I gotta stop in Shibuya on the way to Ikebukuro.
I can play ST but it’s been ages… Will you be free on Sunday around 6pm?
Sure, I think I’ll be free then. I wouldn’t mind stopping by for a few more games. 
Yeah your Zangief are Dhalsim are pretty tight. You got that Cross-up with Zang down pack! Im gonna leave Tekken DR alone for a second and pick ST up again! I cant let Ken go out like that!
Next time, the burgers are on me and Ill also try not to be 70% lushed out the next time we meet! I know those drinks were expensive. But I would not have drank so much if Akiko wasnt there.(The tall bartender)
Anyone have any idea where Monte Carlo is in Osaka? I know there are two arcades named Monte Carlo in Umeda but I need to find directions to them.
Ah! So you are her type! Well, I thought so anyway. She was a cutie…
That was the first time I’ve played Dhalsim in a few years, but he gets a lot of play over there in Shibuya, so I at least know what to do. Pretty much after you left I had a few more wins, but then I got beat down by a Super Turbo Krazy Ken who kept confusing me with those axe-kick things. It was pretty fun playing with someone on my level though - usually I just get my ass handed to me over there.
Your Urien (that is who it was, right?) completely blew away my Alex though. I haven’t played SFIII:3rd strike in too long.
Yeah we gotta meet up another time… are you usually free on the weekends and what about everybody else?
Anyway since you guys all live in Japan. You prolly already know about the…
Behold! Menthol Condoms!
yea, my bad for not showing… some tokyo randomness got me sidetracked. anyways, i live on the yamanote line so goin to shibuya at anytime isnt a problem. so if u guys organize something, i should be able to drop by.
I’m usually free on the weekends, but not this weekend. I’ve got to write a proposal for a conference workshop due Monday, so I’ll be working this weekend.
I’m free most weeknights after about 7pm, but usually hit up a local bar near where I live. But if there is some meet-up in the works, I can probably make it. Shibuya is super convenient for me, and I love the 50 yen games, but since I’m close enough to the Yamanote anywhere is fine.
Last time I went to MORE in Ikebukuro I didn’t think there was too much SF competition, but that was a few months back. What’s the consensus for best SF hot spots?
Where abouts in the Uk did you live?
You spent two years here and couldnt find anybody to play? Did you come to the arcades while you were here? Because in london there is about 40 arcades across the city all with some kind of competition, of couse not all of them are worth going to, only a few of them are worth checking out for fighting games. The trocadero(picadilly circus), play to win(oxford st), game zone(picadilly circus), casino(goodge st), namco( westminister) all these arcades are all located in central london and all have competiton for games like tekken, alpha 3, 3rd strike, cvs2, sc3, kof, ggxx, st, hyper, mvc2 so how is it you didnt find any arcades or comp when you came here?
Maybe you didnt stay in london, so then i can understand why you didnt find any arcades or comp.
Anyway i would be interested to know where you stayed and what you did while you were here.
Lay off the interrogative tone. I didn’t say “found” I said “played.”
I was in Newmarket… I went to Game Zone and Goodge Street (a two, sometimes three hour trip from NM to London) a few times… I never saw any 2D in GZ and nobody played what 3D fighters were there (last time I was there was Summer 06 and the hot games were Outrun SP and DDR). Last time I was in Goodge St. the only fighter they had was Neo Battle Coliseum. And it’s funny that I ran into a lot of Namco arcades across England, but none that I visited had Tekken or SC or any other fighter.
And I was in the UK matchmaking thread and the people said there’s no scene to bother looking for. But thanks for the conveniently belated info that UK is some fighting comp wonderland.
You havent seen me being offensive, why dont you continue reading and i will show you offensive. Now I didnt mean to come across offensive in my first post, but you yourself made the UK sound as if we dont have any players or any scene at all here, because you stayed here for a year or two and didnt play anybody dispite going to the arcades, so you basically said we don`t have anything.
And that in its self is offensive to me, especially to somebody like myself who lives here and who has put so much time and effort into keeping the scene alive, by pushing players back into the arcades and running events, so to have you sit down and tell me and others reading, its not worth playing games in the Uk, because while i was there i went to the arcades and i wasn`t able to play anybody, because thats what your saying, that is offensive to me and to everybody who lives in the UK.
Now the UK comp is dead for a lot of games, but has been picking up over recent years, but the reason things have been so bad is not because we dont have any players or arcades, its because the arcades are so crap that its hardly worth going to play in them because nothing works. But if you go to casino arcade on a friday night, that arcade is packed out with 80-100 people playing everything thats in there. Its not a wonderland no, but on a friday its as close as your ever gonna get to how things used to be prior to 1999. Now tell me another arcade outside of China,Japan or korea that has that many players in it on a friday night, now there arnt any in europe i can tell you that right now, and in america you would be lucky if you had that many players in one arcade, so dont say stuff like "But thanks for the conveniently belated info that UK is some fighting comp wonderland" Dont shit on somebody elses back yard. I hate fucking hate when americans do that, i dispise the way americans think america is the fucking centre of the universe for everything.
911 should have wiped out the entire country, because thats nothing short of what americans deserve for sticking there noses in other countries business where it doesnt belong. America cried out when 9/11 happend, but have americans ever wonderd why it wasnt a shock to the rest of the world when it did happend? The rest of the world except for probably the UK didn`t even blink an eye when it happend, and most countries were gald it happened, because maybe now americans might start to realise how corupt there goverment actually is, I bet the american public think that they are “helping” other countries by being there.
LOOOOOL
HELPING THEM EXTRACT THE OIL, AND TO RAPE AND MURDER AND SLAUGHTER INNOCENT PEOPLE.
unfortunatly thats all america is doing right now.
Now the reason everybody in the UK took notice was because we knew it could happen to us next, for supporting americas actions, which 99.9% of people in the UK are against, we dont want anything to do with america, we dont like america or americans, which is probably why you don`t see people flying planes into big ben.
Take holland for example or any other european country, I mean you don`t see people flying planes into the windmills now do you? I wonder why…ummm
10 points to anybody on srk that can give me the correct answer!
America had it coming, Infortunatly innocent people died, but i mean how innocent can you be when you support a corupt goverment and stand by while american troops slaughter, murder and rape innocent woman and children, whois only crimes where do live on a peice of land that had oil under there feet.
The american people seem fucking clueless to what was and still is going on. “Why did 9/11 happen to us” we didn`t do anyting"…were innocent…yeah right.
why the fuck do you think it happend? Stupid ass americans who don`t know shit about whats going on in the world around them, except there own little world called the USA.
And to all the gamers out there who maybe don`t know much about whats going on in the world except from what you watch on tv, well i feel sorry for you, for living such a shelterd life, maybe if more americans knew what there goverment was doing, something might actually be done to stop it.
anyway,
taito, i was just dissipointed that i didn`t know you were staying in the UK. I normally meet most people that come to london from srk, and i am normally informed about players from america coming to the uk, by other americans.
For me thats one of the best things about being apart of the community. You get to meet people from all over,
Everybody that comes to london knows that the players here are some of most friendly players you will ever meet, it doesnt matter if your name is daigo or joe blogs who cant play games you will be treated the same.
Anyway the next time your in the area, ask people who actually go to the arcades, instead of people who dont. Because anybody that has told you the UK doesnt have anything, obviously doesn`t go to the arcades.
I ain’t trying to be funny. But you need a hug! Seriously, governments and men in general have been corrupt since day one. And it just so happen that America is in the hot seat right now.
And know this, “Every civilization created has been destroyed.” It’s a part of the lifestream babe.
But most importantly, you really can’t base your opinion of Americans based solely off Taito. Nor is Taito an Ambassador or the Herald of American views. (No offense dood.)
Chunkis. Welcome homie but…You seem to feel very strongly about 911. And you have every right to be. But this the “TOKYO THREAD Y’ALL!” Somehow you guys when from me and Fugu having a good time playing SF and semi flirting with Japanese bartenders - to - the UK arcade scene - and the 911 bombings? Can somebody add this up for me because… My calculator is broken and I just wanna know how…