Welcome back to The Video Game City Week. Now: we’ll need some arcades.
Yakuza’s Arcades
I think some of the allure of Japan, for a foreigner, is the chance to see the world as it used to be – at least, some version of that world as you like to imagine it was, and not for too long, and filtered through a culture different enough to give everything a pleasantly dreamlike feeling. Visiting a Sega arcade in Tokyo felt like dropping in on someone else’s hazily remembered childhood. Hospital-bright and hospital-clean, with pleasant electronic chirps and 8-bit musical queues designed to soothe and engage your brain, and an oddly studious atmosphere, as the other customers (tipsy, all about my age) zoned in on various high scores. It was a surreal place to walk around in, and not just because of the second-hand nostalgia. It was because I’d been there before – in Yakuza 0.