Japan Gaming Guide

We found this great coin catcher in Osaka’s Namco City arcade. Donkey Kong Banana Beat features a coin dropper with swinging bananas sweeping the coins left and right, making it a bit more challenging than usual. There’s also the usual Pachinko style screen in the background, where you can win bonus coins and special play modes.

Japanese arcades are really family-friendly, you get a complete mix of people in there. There’s a much broader spread of ages and genders than you find in American and European arcades. Kids, couples, shoppers taking a break.

As well as these kind of machines you also get full on multi-player areas – sometimes you’ll see a soccer game with 12 different seats. Each seat has its own screen, and there’s a giant screen in the centre which everyone can see.

For now though, we’re content to plough our money into Donkey Kong, in the hope of one day getting out more than we put in.

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