I planned on going to Purdue to visit my friends (as I graduated before them and they're still up there) this past weekend. While I was able to see only a total of three other people, it was a worthwhile journey and I had a blast for all the seven hours I was up there.

Apart from meandering about the campus and doing absolutely nothing remarkable, one of my friends became available as he was busy until 3, so we decided to meet him at the Memorial Union. In the Union there are two arcades, though one is technically inside of the bowling alley in the basement, where DDR and an old Neo-Geo arcade machine used to sit. I did see Guitar Hero Arcade there, and it required a horrific $4, but for single song or what, I wasn't sure. I wasn't about to pay that much to find out.

In the upstairs arcade, there was the traditional fare. A couple of fighting games (Marvel VS Capcom 2, hey hey), some pinball machines, Silent Scope, and there used to be some first-person sword game that now had a weird cockpit multi-game thing. But anyway, in the place where Soul Calibur II sat the last time I was there, I saw...

It's a little blurry, I apologize, but I shouldn't need to explain what it is. Or for those of you who don't care, it's a Tatsunoko vs Capcom arcade cabinet. Now, I didn't really follow the whole series or developments or whatnot, but all I knew was that it was on the Wii in Japan, and there was a snowball's chance in Hell I was gonna be able to play it otherwise. I borrowed two quarters from my friend and started in.

The first thing I noticed was that there was something wrong with the stick. It was an old carryover that I suddenly realized plagued my last game of SCII, as it used parts from the machine. This being, that right did not exist. I could use down, left, and up, but anything right didn't register. This naturally struck a bad chord with me, but my money was in the machine so there was no turning back. I went with Mega Man and Morrigan, as they were the only people I had some sense of familiarity with.

Naturally, I got my ass handed to me mighty quick in the first round. When you are basically a sitting duck and can only do standing attacks and get slowly pushed to the corner, bad things happen. Morrigan was first out of the gate and she fell pretty quickly. Not good. Mega went up to bat shaking like a leaf. Of course, I found a pretty neat strategy that did moderately well for me.

Spamming the Mega Buster.

I hit K during one match (A, B, K, and G from SCII, remember) and I fired a fairly powerful shot that kept the enemy at bay and if I ducked, it became an anti-air attack. So to cut a long story short, this was essentially the way matches went. I'd do nothing but spam the Mega Buster or attempt to fight when the enemy got close. For the most part, it worked well. I faced the first boss, the giant gold robot thing, and it gave me some trouble. Not bad, it went down, finally. But...the final boss didn't hold back and I was served with a total complete defeat. How disappointing!



I didn't dare try it again. I was sweating profusely (the arcade doubles as an oven), and I wasn't about to bum anyone for more money. I had already wasted enough time playing. Now, as for my thoughts, it doesn't seem to be a bad game. I dunno how different the Wii version is, but the small roster seems a little off-putting. I didn't count, but it looked to be no more than 20, if that. I may be spoiled by big rosters in other games, I dunno. A problem I had was that I simply could not identify who all I was fighting against for the most part. Sure, Ryu and Chun-Li and so on I can guess, but I know zilch about Tatsunoko. It probably hurt my potential enjoyment of the game.

I may go back and play it again sometime (on Player 2's side, just in case that stick works), but at the very least, there's always MvC2. =P I was genuinely shocked that a purely-Japanese arcade cabinet was sitting in the Union of my very own college. But of course, there was yet another one (Deathsmiles, I believe) that I didn't check out, so it was neat to see that the school would be providing something not only new, but completely impossible to understand.

Now, all I need to do is see one Melty Blood Act Cadenza or Actress Again machine, and my life will be complete!