Rapid Fire King:Volume1 Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Mixed Memories

1

A train station existed there.

The flat station acted as the midpoint of a few different lines. The cherry trees outside the north entrance were starting to shed their blossoms, continuing along that way would lead to an American military base, and the roar of airplanes could be heard from time to time.

Heading out the south entrance led to a residential area, so there was no real scenery there. There was only a shopping district.

The cherry blossoms of the north entrance’s park blew in to the platform where a sign could be seen saying JR Haijima. This was the midway station for the Oume line to the west of Tokyo.

JR Haijima Station had four combined platforms. Starting from the south entrance, the first platform was for the Itsukaichi Line, the second and third were for the Oume Line going in both directions, the fourth and fifth were for the Hachikou Line where diesel trains would come to a stop, and the sixth and seventh were for the Seibu Line that went to Shinjuku.

The timetables showed all of the lines were a 10 to 15 minute wait and the Hachikou was an hour wait.

Most of the passengers – especially the students – would wait for their train outside the station once evening fell.

Instead of the north entrance with the cherry trees, they would head out the south entrance which led to the shopping district.

Once leaving that entrance, there was a small asphalt area that could fit six taxis and beyond that was a two-lane road extending east to west through the shopping district.

Turning right, which meant west, would take you around a turn before arriving at National Route 16. Turning left, which meant east, would take you toward Tachikawa.

This was a small road squeezed within the shopping district, but a lot of cars used it as a shortcut.

Heading west along that small road led to a lot of pachinko parlors and old restaurants. There was a CD shop around the corner.

Heading east led to a cram school, a bookstore, and a bank.

And there was a small white building just two buildings east of the station.

It was an arcade.

Its exterior looked new and bright, there was a café to the left, and there was a bookstore to the right. The interior seen through the automatic glass door also looked bright.

It was a bright white arcade.

On that April evening, the spring breeze was starting to cool to a night breeze. The sky was growing dark and all the shopping district’s buildings had their lights on. The old shops, the new shops, the open shops, the closed shops, and the arcade all had the same color of light.

Evening was passing and night was falling while the cherry blossoms blew in on the night breeze.

There were customers inside the arcade.

They were primarily boys in school uniforms.

It had only been two weeks since spring break ended.

The generation of students visiting the small two-story arcade had swapped out, so the first years were taking a look around and the third years were strutting about now that they were at the top.

And at the moment, a boy with headphones on and a sports bag over his shoulder was standing in front of the arcade.

2

The boy in a navy blue gakuran uniform stepped through the arcade’s automatic door and looked behind him.

The view through the glass showed a road packed with cars and the lit-up stores of the shopping district.

There were people on the sidewalks, but…

“She said she was going to the CD shop, so I guess she wouldn’t be coming this way.”

His shoulders drooped a bit in relief as he brushed a hand through his close-cropped hair.

He reached for the headphones he was wearing.

When he removed them from his ears, their sound escaped into the outside world. It was piano music.

He put the headphones in his pocket and faced forward.

His average-height form was reflected in the smoked glass of the automatic door. His somewhat thick eyebrows were reflected too.

The inside pocket he had opened to put away the headphones had the name Takamura stitched into it.

The boy, Takamura, looked at his own reflected face, and then…

“Okay.”

He stepped forward and into the arcade.

The large cabinets set up near the entrance were the arcade’s only 100-yen games: a racing game and a ray gun game.

He walked between those cabinets to head further in.

He arrived in a space of about 15 square meters that contained the most commonly played games.

The white arcade cabinets shoved into that space were arranged with four each on the three walls and three double rows of three placed back to back in the center. That made for a total of 30.

Their images and sounds greeted Takamura as he approached.

He responded by undoing his uniform’s buttons with a tanned hand.

He undid three buttons to reach the wallet in his inner pocket.

He glanced around the arcade with his hand still in his pocket.

…This is my first time here as a third year, but it honestly hasn’t changed much.

The building had two stories and the first floor was a lively place with all the new games.

Once the first-floor games were not so new anymore, they were moved to the second floor and had their difficulty lowered.

The stairs to the second floor were to the left of the entrance, so the first floor was larger toward the back.

But after he looked around the first floor…

…I guess there wouldn’t be that many new games after only two or three weeks.

With all that noise around him, he moved in front of the counter embedded in the wall to the left.

A container similar to a small refrigerator sat on that counter.

He opened the container to find heated yellow cloths like you might receive at a restaurant. They were all contained in translucent plastic wrappers.

He grabbed one and wiped his hands off with it.

“…”

Then he glanced at a nearby cabinet.

The white cabinet’s control panel was almost entirely made of plastic. He could see countless white speckles across the clear parts covering its surface.

They were fingerprints.

People would leave fingerprints when they handled plastic with hands filthy with oils and snacks.

Takamura said nothing about the fingerprints.

But he did thoroughly wipe off his own hands, lightly wipe off the cabinet, and toss the yellow cloth into a trashcan reserved for those cloths.

Then he pulled his wallet from his pocket.

He turned toward the change machine on the left side of the counter, checked his watch, and saw it was 8 on the dot.

“Iwata wanted to catch the next train in 20 minutes from now. Will a single game be enough to kill that time?”

While surrounded by the sounds of the arcade, he opened his wallet and found only a single 100-yen coin.

He sighed.

…Well, I couldn’t play all that much anyway.

He silently inserted the coin into the change machine.

It immediately spat out two 50-yen coins.

While he was removing those coins, another boy in a school uniform pushed in from the side and inserted a 100-yen coin.

The other boy was not even looking at him, but that happened a lot. Takamura knew it was normal here.

So he did not let it bother him.

He put away his wallet and walked to the cabinets by the wall with his bag and his two coins in hand.

The north and east walls of the first floor were taken up by fighting games.

The west wall had the table games like mahjong.

The central section had a total of 18 machines arranged in three double rows of three lined up back to back.

The six machines bordering the south were competitive fighting games and the six bordering the north were action games.

The remaining six in the center were shoot ‘em up games.

Takamura’s preferred games were the ones on the east wall: the fighting games.

3

Takamura circled around the central cabinets to reach the back of the east side of the arcade.

The closer he got, the louder the game noises were. The explosions and other sound effects were louder than the music.

The screams he could hear mixed in with those noises were sound effects from the action and fighting games.

Fighting games were exactly what they sounded like: games where two characters fought until one remained standing.

Takamura liked fighting games for a reason.

…What you need to do is really simple.

You hit the other character without getting hit yourself.

He saw fighting games as a game where you moved your character on the screen to beat up the computer-controlled opponent character.

The two characters were displayed on the screen from the side.

Tilting the cabinet’s stick up would make the character jump up. Tilting it down would make them crouch. And of course, tilting it to either side made them walk in that direction.

With most fighting games, there was a button for punching and one for kicking. Some games only had a punch button, some split the punching between strong, middle, and weak, and others did the same with the kicking.

The character would move differently depending on which button was pressed.

For example, the weak punch might make them jab, the middle might make them throw a straight punch, and the strong might make them use an uppercut.

And the movements differed again if they were jumping or crouching when the button was pressed.

The character movements were all animated.

You controlled those animations to beat up your opponent.

Endurance meters were displayed at the top of the screen on either side. If you punched your opponent and did enough damage to bring their meter down to zero, you would win with a KO. But if you were hit enough to bring yours to zero, you lost.

It was all a fictional martial arts match, but the gap between fiction and reality was filled by the sense of challenge provided by paying a coin for the attempt and by how much focus it required.

It felt great when you won and it felt awful when you lost. Takamura thought it was a lot of fun as a game.

And he was not bad at it. But…

…I’ve barely ever played against another person.

He had heard fighting games were more fun if you played them against a friend or someone else instead of against the computer. The cabinet had two sticks and two sets of buttons and the game used close-quarters combat rules, so both characters were displayed on the screen at once.

A competitive match could be played just the same as one against the computer. However…

…I don’t really have any friends who do this kind of thing.

“Everyone around me is the athletic type or a unique kind of girl who thinks video games are for delinquents.”

He wanted to try it. It sounded fun as a game and he would not have to think so seriously about defeating or being defeated when everyone knew it was just a game from the start.

This was meant to be enjoyed, not taken seriously.

That was how he viewed video games.

He sat down at the furthest back of the arcade cabinets. This was the only game in the arcade that he could beat with just the one 50-yen coin.

Unlike normal fighting games, you played as a robot in this one. Instead of the usual punch and kick buttons, this one was more like a robot anime, so the buttons were for shooting beams, launching spears from your metal arms, and hitting your opponent with a drill.

You just had to use those many weapons to win.

So he decided to take it easy. After all, fighting games required you to clear several stages – and thus defeat several opponents – to reach the ending, but each stage only required winning two out of three matches.

Losing that one time did not come with any penalty to your health or attack power.

So…

…I can lose once on each stage and I don’t have to rush.

It’s so easygoing, he thought. There’s no downside at all to losing once against each opponent.

So he inserted his coin with an equally easygoing attitude.

He inserted just the one coin.

And he hit the start button.

1

The arm launched a metal spear.

The garden of a half-destroyed mansion sat below a fictional morning sky.

A white metal giant clashed with a black metal giant.

They were both nearly 8 meters tall. They were both covered in armor, their joint cylinders made a lot of noise as they moved, and their desire to fight was readily apparent.

But the white machine’s feminine exterior lines looked slender when compared to the black machine’s masculine exterior lines.

That may have been why the white one had more speed than power. As it leaned forward, its leg cylinders supported a powerful full-speed charge ahead.

It picked up speed.

The white machine aimed at its opponent with the metal spear launcher equipped on its right arm’s shield.

Meanwhile, the enemy slashed down at it from straight ahead.

The sword’s shockwave broke the nearby mansion’s windows.

The shattering of glass rang out.

But within that sound that resembled splashing water, the white machine fearlessly continued forward.

It accelerated straight toward its enemy.

It slipped below the swinging sword and crashed its left shoulder into the black machine.

The white armor of its left shoulder instantly shattered.

The black armor of its enemy’s chest also shattered.

The shards of glass in the air hit the two clashing machines and bounced off.

The airborne shards were further shattered and scattered by the shockwave of the machines’ high-speed movement.

The wind blew.

The two machines were enveloped by the solid but transparent mist created from the glass.

Neither one fell back within that mist. They softened the impact by lowering their hips and absorbing the shock with their knees.

The white machine faced forward while opening its leg radiator panels and bearing with the pressure.

The enemy made a horizontal sweeping attack with its sword. It was a massive sword with a long black blade.

The slash was like a black flash of light.

It reached its target, but the white machine was already making its next move.

Its right arm held the shield equipped with a metal spear launcher and it pulled that arm back toward its face.

This was a defensive pose.

At the same time, the sword and shield crashed together. Sparks flew and a red light reflected through the glass mist surrounding them.

Within that scattering red light, the white machine slid back from the impact. There was a cliff behind it. Falling from there meant the end.

So it bore with it. It dug its feet into the ground to stop its inertia from carrying it further back.

It was too busy keeping its balance to attack, so there was a pause until the impact fully left it.

It was sliding and unable to move.

But its opponent showed no mercy. The black machine pursued it, pulled back its right arm which held its sword, and prepared to launch another attack.

But the white machine forcibly corrected its stance while the black machine ran toward it.

Instead of digging its sliding feet into the ground, it lifted them up a bit.

“!”

It stabbed its toes into the ground to kick off and forcibly push itself forward.

Inertia still tried to pull it backwards, but it leaned forward to suppress that.

It looked up to see the black machine raising its sword.

By then, the white machine was already running forward.

It was advancing.

As if seeking out its opponent, it thrust its right arm forward and used a metal spear like a pile bunker.

An empty cartridge was ejected from the launcher and a loud noise rumbled out.

The launched steel spear accurately pierced the enemy’s left eye.

The enemy was knocked backwards.

The spear came out, but the enemy was not defeated. It nearly fell back, but it canceled that movement in the same way the white machine had before. And…

“––––!”

The black machine shouted something in a foreign language. It swung its sword diagonally up from below. The slash was timed such that stepping or jumping back would not be enough to dodge it.

It took a deep step in toward the white machine.

“!”

The black machine moved far faster than before and blew away all the surrounding glass mist with the wind it produced.

Its black blade formed an upwards diagonal strike.

The white one tried to dodge. It straightened up from its forward-leaning pose and took an evasive stance.

There was only one way to avoid this diagonal attack from below and immediately begin another attack of its own.

That was not to fall back.

It was to jump. Jump straight up.

The white machine kicked off the ground to accomplish it.

Its white body leaped with enough acceleration to seemingly launch itself into the air. It had been running, so it had forward momentum. That sent it through a parabolic arc over its opponent’s head.

It used the curved cylinders of its legs to their fullest to propel itself upwards, but that was not enough. Its heavyweight flight was slow. Its trajectory was decent, but the diagonally rising slash was going to catch up.

There was a solution.

It made a further leap in midair.

It jumped off the roof of the half-destroyed mansion.

It accelerated its leap in what was known as a triangle jump.

“––––!!”

The white machine jumped even higher.

It looked down on its enemy from above while performing a side flip.

The enemy’s attack swept through the empty space the white machine had just vacated and then crashed into the mansion.

With a destructive crash, pieces of the mansion scattered around and produced a cloud of dust.

But it was meaningless.

The white one had already passed by overhead and landed behind it. Their positions were reversed and a new series of events had begun.

The white machine turned around to see its black metal enemy’s back.

This would work.

The enemy was quickly trying to turn around, but it was too late.

The white right arm was already aimed at the enemy.

That right arm had a spear launcher attached.

It used it as a pile bunker.

With a deafening sound of impact, the enemy’s right shoulder was smashed from behind.

But this was only just beginning. The arm pulled the spear back, thrust out again, and performed another pile bunker attack.

The white machine swung its body again and again and again and again to send out the spear for more and more attacks.

It gouged into the left shoulder and the right.

It pierced the left leg and the right.

And the back.

They were all accurately broken as the white machine tried to end the battle.

“–––––!!”

The barrage of attacks caused the black machine to shake, but it still tried to move. The white one responded with something other than the spear. It readied the point of its shield like a giant battering ram.

It built up inertia using the great weight of its entire metal body and poured it into the greatest attack it could manage.

A white arc was drawn through the air and a small trail of water vapor briefly formed behind the leading edge.

It brought destruction.

That destruction came with an ear-splitting sound of breaking metal and a shaking of the air.

The battering ram stabbed deep into the enemy’s back.

But it still was not over.

All at once – yes, all at once – the white machine lifted the black machine in one arm.

Metal strained, heat filled its joints, and an odd sound came from its motors.

It ignored it all to end this.

“!!”

The white machine also shouted something in a foreign language.

It used just its right arm to pick up a mass of black metal larger than it and lifted it into the sky.

The sky was blue.

The morning sun had yet to rise into that foreign sky.

But there was wind which blew away the surrounding cloud of dust and the lingering glass mist.

Two seconds.

That was all it had taken for the white machine to bring it all to an end.

After lifting its enemy high into the sky, it slammed it forcefully to the ground.

The black machine crashed noisily down.

The ground shook, but there was no cloud of dirt. It had been slammed down in the mansion’s garden where four o’clock flowers grew. The yellow, red, and white flowers scattered like feathers to decorate the black machine.

The battle was over.

2

“…”

The white machine stared silently down at its enemy.

It made just the one movement. It lowered the now-unneeded weapon in its right arm and drooped its head as if weeping.

The white machine had suffered a fair amount of damage to its armor and basic frame, so it could cease to function at any time.

But it slowly lowered its face covered by curved armor.

Just then, there was a sound of moving metal.

“?”

When the white machine looked up in confusion, something was already in motion.

The black metal machine stood up and prepared to fight.

Oil burst from its entire body like blood and steam sprayed out, but that black machine still wished to continue fighting.

“–––––!”

The battle resumed with the black machine’s cry.

1

Takamura finished his game.

He had not made it to the end. He had failed to defeat the enemy on the final stage. That was probably due to not having played the game for nearly a month.

In that sense…

“It’s a lot like sports.”

He crossed his arms and nodded for no real reason.

The game over screen had appeared in front of him.

It said “Game Over”, not “The End”.

He had lost before reaching the end.

He nodded a few more times and looked up to see the screen asking if he wished to continue.

If he put another coin in and hit the start button while that screen was displayed, he could continue playing from where he had game overed.

But he chose not to.

He did not want to redo it. It was only a game, but he did not want to coddle himself.

He looked to his bag down at his feet and spied the edge of a baseball glove sticking out from where it sat somewhat open. He must have kicked it while playing the game.

The continue countdown ran out and the title screen popped up while he was pushing the glove back in.

He looked up at the title screen.

“Now, how much time do I have left?”

He checked his watch to find it was 8:18. The next train was at 8:20, so he knew he had to hurry. But at the same time, he started wondering something.

…Should I really be playing games like this?

This was the spring of his third year in high school, so he had already started preparing for the entrance exams. And his school had the following rule:

“Students are not to visit arcades and other entertainment facilities on the way to or from school.”

The rules even stated he would be suspended if it was discovered he came here.

He looked around and sighed while thinking about how outdated an idea that was.

Most everyone here was wearing school uniforms. The middle schoolers on the way back from cram school seemed a little out of place.

There were also some adults in suits.

…I wonder.

Were they all thinking the same things he was, or had they already found an answer and overcome it?

He viewed all the different people in the arcade while wondering that, but…

“…”

His gaze stopped on a certain point.

He was looking at the cabinets in the central area of the small arcade. He had spotted a familiar face there.

Of course, just because they were familiar to him did not mean they knew who he was.

…The arcade’s owner and some regulars.

He could only just barely see their heads and necks from beyond the cabinets.

There were three of them there. The Owner was an elderly man, but the other two were men in their late twenties.

“The Yakuza and the Freeter, huh?”

Takamura used the surrounding noise to speak his nicknames for them aloud.

The Yakuza sat in a seat wearing the same flashy purple suit he always wore.

The Freeter was seated next to him. He was a skinny man in a jacket and glasses.

The Owner crouched next to the cabinet and opened the cover on the bottom of the cabinet in front of them.

He touched the circuit board visible inside the thick bottom section of the cabinet and made some kind of adjustment.

…That’s the shoot ‘em up games over there, right?

Takamura could not see the screen from where he was.

So he was conflicted. Should he go see what they were doing, or should he leave?

But his curiosity won out.

He walked past the three of them and turned around in front of the cup-style drink vending machine next to the counter.

Those three were in front of the westmost cabinet in the central area. It did indeed contain a shoot ‘em up game.

The screen reflected the ceiling lights, so he could not see it very well. But he could see the title Super Rapid Fire written in red on the black screen.

However, that title vanished when the Owner crouched down again and stuck his hand inside the cabinet.

The screen blacked out. The title grew briefly distorted before disappearing.

“Huh?”

Takamura watched in confusion as some white English text appeared on the otherwise black screen.

The text on the screen looked like some kind of warning.

He could at least read the word “caution”.

At the same time, the Freeter reached toward the cabinet and moved the stick with practiced hand.

What were they doing?

“What is this?”

He moved to a different position.

He moved toward the counter so he could actually see the screen.

The English text changed as he did so. Eight lines of smaller text were arranged in a vertical list with the numbers 1 through 8 along the left side.

There was an arrow marker next to the numbers.

The Freeter moved the stick down.

The arrow marker moved down as he did so.

The arrow stopped next to the 8 of the bottommost entry.

The English text next to the 8 said “Very Hard”.

…That’s a difficulty setting.

The game’s difficulty determined how hard it was to beat.

Takamura knew that arcade games like these came with a system for altering the difficulty.

There was a switch known as the test switch on the game’s circuit board inside the cabinet and pressing that switch allowed one to check the screen’s colors, check the stick and button inputs, and alter settings such as the length of a round in a competitive fighting game.

The difficulty setting was one such option. If the games were too difficult, they would drive away customers, but if they were too easy, the turnover would be too low and the arcade would make less money. And since the balance there differed depending on the level of the players in that region, it was difficult to standardize. That was why it was made so each arcade could adjust it themselves.

Takamura had seen this settings screen a few times with the competitive fighting games.

But he had never seen it before with a shoot ‘em up game.

And he understood that this shoot ‘em up game called Super Rapid Fire had just been set to its highest difficulty.

2

…What’s going on?

Takamura tilted his head as he watched them increase the difficulty of the shoot ‘em up game.

…Why raise the difficulty?

He thought of shoot ‘em ups as difficult games.

…Even if the rules are simple enough.

In those games, you moved your ship around, fired shots in the direction you we removing, and destroyed the approaching enemy ships.

The screen automatically scrolled from front to back and the player would follow that path to defeat the approaching enemies and make sure they were not hit themselves.

If they were shot or hit, their ship was immediately destroyed.

In fighting games, you could take a few punches and even lose one round per opponent, but not so in shoot ‘em up games.

…One hit from an enemy bullet and your character is destroyed.

And once you ran out of lives, it was game over.

Of course most shoot ‘em up games had power ups to help the player overcome that disadvantage. After defeating a specific enemy or a carrier craft, a power up item would appear. By touching that with your ship, your ship’s attack power or speed would increase.

Takamura did not know how powerful your ship could get in the end.

But no matter how hard you worked or how powerful you got, a single death would return your ship’s strength back to the starting point.

In fighting games, your endurance was restored at the start of each round, but shoot ‘em up games were different.

…Once you take a single attack and die, it’s all over.

And the enemy attacks grew fiercer in each progressive stage. Extra lives were meaningless when the initial state of your ship was too weak to get back on your feet after a death.

…Yes, it isn’t an out or a strike. You go back to zero.

Also, each stage took about three minutes and there were six or seven of them.

If the game had seven stages total, it would take at least 21 minutes to complete.

That meant you had to stay focused and consider the possibility of death from a single attack for more than 20 minutes.

That was one of the reasons Takamura did not play shoot ‘em up games.

He had seen it happen to other people often enough. There were relatively few customers at those games and when a middle or high schooler did sit down at one…

…They game over in just a few minutes and leave.

They never played it again.

He was pretty sure he knew why. With a fighting game, a loss just meant you had to win the next two rounds, so you had less chance of game overing. The loss could even help you kill more time and most of the people in the arcade were just killing time until their train arrived.

So if you game overed in just a few minutes…

…It isn’t worth it.

He would sometime watch someone play, but it only ever reminded him how hard it looked.

Those were the reasons why he considered shoot ‘em up games to be difficult.

He was pretty sure he was right about it too.

But the Freeter had actually set that shoot ‘em up game to its highest difficulty setting.

…Why do that?

Takamura could not figure out what the Freeter hoped to accomplish.

He watched in confusion as the Owner shut the lower cover and stood up.

The cabinet was ready to go.

3

Takamura watched as the Freeter and the Owner exchanged a glance.

He could just barely make out their voices from his position.

The Freeter gave a bitter smile.

“Yeah, thanks again for doing this.”

The Owner lifted the corners of his mouth into a smile.

“I know you won’t take no for an answer about these things, Take-san. So,” continued the Owner. “You’d better show us something worthwhile. It’s been a while since you were a real challenger. I know you said you’ve been training, but I still think this is going to be difficult.”

“But once this is up on the second floor, I won’t have an audience, right? So I want to do this while the atmosphere is right. This is the perfect stage for seeing if I’m truly back.”

“Well, it’s fine by me. This should draw in some customers at least.”

“If I can’t do it, I’ll give up and go to Akasaka.” The Freeter sighed and gave a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I’m serious.”

Then he sat in Super Rapid Fire’s seat.

The Owner stood behind the Freeter. The Yakuza stood next to the Owner, so they both had the perfect viewing positions.

Based on the familiar way the Freeter and the Owner spoke with each other, the Freeter was clearly a regular here. It was also obvious he was familiar with video games.

Takamura watched the three of them and the screen facing them.

He had one primary reason to watch instead of leaving the arcade.

…He said he’s serious.

The Freeter had said it casually, but that word caught Takamura’s attention.

…Serious.

About what? wondered Takamura with a somewhat pouty tone.

This was an arcade and games were only for fun. The word serious seemed out of place here. Wasn’t this a place where fun came first?

…There’s nothing serious here, is there?

But at the same time, he had seen something a moment before.

This shoot ‘em up game called Super Rapid Fire had been set to Very Hard.

Everyone game overed in just a few minutes with these games.

So what was this Freeter doing here?

…It’s weird.

This arcade had older games set up on the second floor. There were shoot ‘em up games there too, but they had all had their difficulty setting lowered from normal. That was so people could have fun with those older games.

But Takamura had never done very well even with those.

He generally game overed on the second stage.

Just like the players he had seen on the first floor, he was defeated in just a few minutes.

He had thought maybe he just needed practice, so he had played the same game for several days in a row, but he had never managed to get past the boss of the second stage.

That was his experience with an old shoot ‘em up game that’s difficulty had been lowered.

But the Freeter had set one of the current shoot ‘em up games to its highest difficulty.

…Why?

It can’t be, he thought.

…Surely it couldn’t be that.

Was there really something worthy of the word “serious” in these games that were only meant for fun?

“It can’t be.”

His whispered comment did not reach even his own ears thanks to all the noise.

And at some point, he stopped caring about the surrounding noise.

He eyes were focused on the screen he could just barely see past the Freeter’s back.

He watched the screen and the Freeter’s back at the same time.

“Now then,” said the Freeter as he pulled a 50-yen coin from his pants pocket.

When he saw that, Takamura stuck his clenched fist in his own pants pocket.

He just barely opened his hand in his pocket to grab the 50-yen coin there.

“…”

At the same time, he heard the Freeter’s coin fall into the coin slot.

The added credit sound effect played.

Even in this noisy arcade, he definitely heard that piano melody emulated with electronic tones.

After a moment, the Freeter settled back into the chair and casually pressed the start button.

Then a gray runaway appeared from the top to the bottom of the screen.

It looked a lot like a highway and a red ship was moving along it.

It accelerated.

It floated.

At the same time, the Freeter began rapidly hitting the shoot button.

His ship shot out bullets.

And a question came to Takamura.

…What’s going to happen?

“He sounded so casual, but if he really is serious about this…”

…Can he do it?

Takamura and so many others had been no match for these games, but could this man defeat an even stronger version?

And if that would act as proof that he was serious about these games…

…Can he really do it?

His heart asked that pleading question and the red plane’s battle began as if to answer it.

Speed and explosions filled the screen.

Cabinet Guide

The cabinet is made of plastic and metal. It is composed of the monitor (A), the control panel (B), and the base (C).

●Cabinet Front Diagram

1: Marquee: Contains instructions for the game.

2: Speakers

3: Monitor: This example shows a vertical screen. Horizontal screen games are played with the internal monitor rotated 90 degrees. The black boundary is a plastic piece that fills the gap between the monitor and the installation frame.

4: Control Panel

5: Coin Return: In case your coin is eaten. Don’t get your hopes up. The tension is insane when an employee opens it and there isn’t a coin inside.

●Control Panel Top Down Diagram

6: Coin Slot: You put the coins in here and press the start button to begin the game.

7: Player 1 Start Button

8: Player 2 Start Button

9: Player 1 Control Stick

10: Player 1 Control Buttons: There are two shown here, but some games have as many as six buttons.

11: Player 2 Control Stick

12: Player 2 Control Buttons

They have been omitted here, but there would be two seats in front of the cabinet. Also, some arcades have an ashtray on the control panel.

Control Panel and Controls Guide

Ship top arrow: Up/Forward/In

Ship left arrow: Left

Ship right arrow: Right

Ship bottom arrow: Down/Back/Out

Stick top arrow: Up/Forward/In

Stick left arrow: Left

Stick right arrow: Right

Stick bottom arrow: Down/Back/Out

Left button: Shoot

Right button: Bomb

●The most commonly used part of the control panel is the joystick.

A joystick is limited to inputs in 8 or 4 directions and tilting the stick moves the character on the screen.

The directions on the joystick are referred to as “up, down, left, right”, “forward, back, left, right,”, or “in, out, left, right”. These terms are also used in reference to the movement of the character on the screen.

●Most games limit one function to each button.

With shoot ‘em up games, there are generally a shoot button and a bomb button.

Some games divide the shoot button between anti-air shots and anti-ground shots.

Also, some games add additional functions to a single button by “charging up” (holding the button down for a set amount of time and releasing it) or just holding it down.

The button arrangement can differ between arcades and it does not always match the instruction card on the marquee.

So when first playing a game at a certain arcade, it is best to test out the button arrangement.

Since it can influence their playstyle, players can be picky about the button arrangement.

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