Arcades in the West are pretty sad affairs these days. Sure, you can still find some fun at a Dave & Buster's, but the days of an arcade being a center of social life, where you'd get to play all the latest games and trade high scores with your friends, are long gone.
But in Japan, arcade culture has survived well into the 21st century, and the thriving legacy of the arcade means that there's a huge selection of awesome games that have never made it out of the country. These are just a few of the best.
10 Wonderland Wars
Wonderland Wars is another bid at popularity in the MOBA genre, so it's pretty unremarkable at first glance. But then you realize that it's an arcade MOBA, an unheard-of combination in the West.
The game features a unique touchscreen control scheme and a cool fairy-tale theme, including characters like Cinderella, Robin Hood, and Princess Kaguya. Plus, since it's a modern release, the game includes online functionality, allowing you to build a profile to hang onto your character builds and purchased abilities.
9 Libble Rabble
Pac-Man is the most iconic arcade game ever, but creator Toru Iwatani had a hand in several other great games that didn't achieve the same popularity. One of these is Libble Rabble, a charming arcade puzzler that never made it to Western arcades.
You control two arrows, Libble and Rabble, navigating them around a playfield full of creatures. Your job is to use the line connecting your arrows to draw shapes around the enemies to score points, uncover treasure chests, and advance to the next stage. It's a colorful and surprisingly addictive game.
8 Youkai Douchuuki
Roughly translated as "Phantom Travel Journal," Youkai Douchuuki is a side-scrolling platformer that casts you as a young boy named Tarosuke. You have to travel through purgatory, fighting off different monsters by shooting chi bullets, to pray at different Buddhist temples and complete each level.
At the end of the game, you meet Buddha himself, who determines your fate based on your actions throughout the final level. It's definitely unique, and it has a killer soundtrack to boot, but it's hard to imagine Western gamers of the very nationalistic '80s getting into it.
7 Cho Chabudai Gaeshi 2
Have you ever been so angry that you wanted to flip a table? Taito's Cho Chabudai Gaeshi arcade games understand the impulse. In these games, you drum on a literal table peripheral attached to the arcade machine to knock objects off of it within a strict time limit. And at the end of the countdown, you get to flip the table over to score a big bonus.
The first game in the series was eventually released worldwide, but its sequel remained exclusive to Japanese arcades - and that sucks, because it adds multiplayer functionality. It's the best activity you can do with your angriest friend.
6 Bishi Bashi Channel
Sort of like an arcade version of WarioWare, Konami's Bishi Bashi series is an arcade institution in Japan. The most recent installment, Bishi Bashi Channel, maintains the series' simple setup - four players, a bunch of fast-paced minigames, the player who earns the highest score wins - but adds in a spinner function that allows for deeper challenges.
It even includes co-op functionality, allowing you to team up with your friends against other players.
5 Rabbit
The '90s featured a glut of excellent arcade fighters, so it's no surprise that between your Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats there would be some great games that fell through the cracks. Aorn's Rabbit, released in 1997, is one of them.
The game's big gimmick is its quirky selection of characters, each with an animal spirit that they can unleash when your energy gauge is full. These fighters are animated with some of the most gorgeously detailed pixel art ever seen on an arcade system - or any system, really.
4 Half-Life 2: Survivor
Despite the popularity of the Half-Life series in the West, it historically hasn't been as big of a deal in Japan. In the mid-2000s, hot on the heels of Half-Life 2, Taito set out to change that with Half-Life 2: Survivor, an arcade version of the beloved PC shooter.
Where most arcade FPSs are light-gun shooters, Half-Life 2: Survivor actually translates twin-stick FPS controls to the arcade cabinet, using a dual-joystick setup that's surprisingly intuitive. It also adds in new characters and abridges the story to make the game more suitable for arcade play, creating an interesting spin on an iconic game.
3 Inu No Osanpo
Inu No Osanpo, developed by Sega, translates literally to "Walk The Dog." You can't say that the game doesn't advertise itself truthfully: this is a game entirely about walking dogs. The arcade cabinet is equipped with a treadmill and a leash peripheral attached to a plastic dog.
Your job is to maintain a suitable walking pace and use the leash to steer your pup away from hazards; there are six different dog breeds and three routes, each with varying degrees of difficulty. The whole package is goofy and charming as heck.
2 Valkyrie No Densetsu
Speaking of charm, Namco's Valkyrie No Densetsu has it in spades. The game is an overhead action-adventure, similar to an old-school installment of The Legend Of Zelda, but it's themed after Norse mythology. This gives it a unique flavor, one that's enhanced by solid character designs and surprisingly detailed graphics for the era.
It even has a multiplayer element inspired by fellow arcade classic Gauntlet, which allows two players to team up. Though it was popular in Japan (and even got a Japanese Virtual Console release for the Wii), it never made it to Western shores.
1 Radiant Silvergun
Radiant Silvergun has made it to home consoles over here in the years since its original release on the Sega Saturn, but the arcade version of the game remains exclusive to Japan; given the sorry state of Western arcades, it seems unlikely that we'll ever get that version of the game.
That's a shame, because Radiant Silvergun was designed specifically as an homage to the top-down shoot-em-ups that dominated arcades in the '80s and early '90s. The console version is just as much of a classic, but the arcade is this hardcore shooter's natural home.