↓ Games

(Originally published 2018 Jul 6)

At this Club Sega (my favourite), they haven’t bought in a bunch of 20-year-old retro kit. They just still have it.

The middle cabinet says “こちらの台には↓のゲームが入っております” – “kochira no dai ni ha ↓ no ge–mu ga haitteorimasu”.

That means something like “This cabinet is loaded with ↓ games”.

In Japanese, the down arrow can just slide in there as if it’s a word! I wonder if this is because of the graphic, sometimes pictorial nature of Japanese characters…

Incidentally, the ↓ games are: Fatal Fury Special (1993), The King of Fighters ‘96 (1996), Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves (1999), and The Last Blade 2 (1998) – all SNK fighters running on a NEO GEO 4-slot multi-rom board (1990) in a Sega New Versus City cabinet (1998).

It’s like a party in the 90s that just kept going until a millennial turned up and said “Is this a 90s-themed party?”