On Test: Star Wars Death Star Assault, Beatmania IIDX 33 Sparkle Shower, Earthion EXA Label

Though usually light on big announcements or releases, Summer often brings with it a good chance for companies to try out upcoming titles or concepts, so it is time once again to round up a few new arcade games that have popped up on location test of late. Today these range from the latest Beatmania IIDX update, to a new Star Wars competitive redemption piece and one of the next arcade-exclusive EXA Label shooting game versions for Earthion, which have all been in testing during this month.

NOTE: The games discussed on this post are on location test, which is the arcade industry equivalent of a beta test. The final product may differ significantly from the final production release – if the games pass the tests and reach production.

Beatmania IIDX 33 Sparkle Shower

If there’s one thing the arcade world can be sure of, it’s that two long-running series in particular will get a new entry every year. One is Golden Tee, and the other is Konami’s Beatmania IIDX. That being said, Incredible Technologies’ golf game never has a well-publicized test (if it has any at all outside of IT’s offices) held over several pre-announced days like IIDX does in Japan. This year’s has happened a little earlier than usual by the sounds of things, and is for its 33rd edition, entitled Sparkle Shower.

As you may tell from below and this Ariesu report, its refreshed theme leans pretty hard into resembling a certain citrus-flavored soft drink, whilst adding the usual glut of new songs to the game too:

The 10 minute video here shows off the game in action (it looks pretty clean overall). It’s also worth noting Konami have been testing a massive new medal game pusher based on their Momotaru Dentetsu video games at the same location (Silk Hat Kawasaki Dice) in Japan too. Stay tuned for more on them, following recent major developments and revelations concerning their new US presence…

Star Wars Death Star Assault

Next up we have a redemption piece that has been on test at the flagship Dave & Buster’s out in Dallas, TX this month, and stands out for a few reasons. As well as being a competitive physical target shooter, Andamiro USA’s new Star Wars Death Star Assault looks set to build on their first piece using the license by being more than just a pusher. This sees up to four players duke it out in a race to take down the Death Star and win tickets, by shooting at TIE Fighter targets with their pellet shooting mounted guns. Each player station naturally has a different character (those being Luke, Han/Chewie, Princess Leia, and C3PO/R2D2).

While a lot of this is physical, it does look like there are some small screens integrated into it from the photos available, so could kind of be called videmption/’phygital’. This should lend it a bit of novelty, but the unfortunate elephant in the room with anything Star Wars these days is the spot that the property itself is in business-wise. The below video on the AH YouTube channel goes more into detail on why, but suffice it to say, you can’t expect something with the Star Wars name on it to automatically print money like it did. That said, perhaps this will compete well with fellow licensed physical shooter Cyberpunk 2077: Turf Wars:

Earthion EXA Label

Finally, a game that has been touched upon numerous times of late, but is now getting its first location tests out in Japan: the EXA Label edition of Yuzo Koshiro’s Earthion. To go over it quickly here, this indie shooter started its development life solely on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis hardware (which Koshiro of course worked on back in the 1990s, producing his much-loved chiptune music for games like Streets of Rage and Shinobi), but after delays is now also releasing first for exA and several current home platforms.

As usual, one of exA-Arcadia’s in-house development teams (TEAM EXA AM6 in this particular case) has been working on this arcade-exclusive version with Koshiro’s own company Ancient. More information on the game and its arcade-only differences with other releases can be found over here.

If you’d like to take a look at it in action too, the game has been getting streamed even whilst on test by the likes of Taito HEY with their big dedicated live broadcast setup. This difference in approach between Eastern and Western location test approaches might seem odd, but it’s how most are done there on exA:

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That’s it for now on today’s location test news, but there almost certainly will be more examples to come as this summer season goes on. Which of these three new location test arcade games (Star Wars Death Star Assault, Beatmania IIDX Sparkle Shower and Earthion) interests you most?

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