Sharing my experiences on two arcade establishments outside of the Chicago, Illinois area during my Chicago weekend trip 25 Sept to 27 Sept 2015. Apologies for low-quality/blurry/unclear pictures.

Round 1 Arcade in Stratford Square Mall - Bloomingdale, IL

Round 1 Arcade is a retail entertainment business that offers services similar to Dave and Busters with video game arcades, games that awards tickets to redeem for prizes, along with bowling alleys, pool, table tennis, darts, and karaoke. The main draw of Round 1 is bringing over the latest Japanese arcade games. The featured Japanese arcades that Round 1 Illinois had were Sound Voltex III, Beatmanix IIDX 22 Pendual, Cross Rev, Hatsune Miku Project Diva Arcade, Initial D Arcade Drift Stage 8, Time Crisis 5, and others. My brother and I only played a handful of games offered at Round 1 Illinois. My brother mainly focused on Sound Voltex III and Beatmania IIDX 22, as he’s a big fan of those crazy Bemani games. I spend a good chunk of my time on Hatsune Miku Project Diva Arcade, with some play on some other games. We spent the remaining amount of our credits on crane games, with both of us somehow scoring a plush doll.

The place is sizable as it’s pegged as one of the mall’s anchor store. Hell, having a number of bowling alleys and a number of machines will require some significant area. All the machines seems to have function fine and look relatively clean for the most part. The machines were grouped together in their own areas of the floor, with the rhythm Japanese arcade games in one area, the other arcade games in their areas, the crane and ticket games, and a small area for fighting games in another. The bowling alleys along with pool tables, table tennis, and darts were pushed toward the far end of the venue from the entrance. The karaoke rooms are off to the side of the venue. Employees are stationed in the middle of the venue to take care of sales and rental equipment. Once you get acclimated with the layout of the venue, it’s pretty easy to navigate and find where which is which. The venue and machines look relatively clean and upkept, which was nice.

There were a few indirect things at Round 1 Arcade that bothered me a bit. There weren’t a ton of folks in the venue when we visited there on Saturday evening. I’m not sure if it’s the location (it was a 40 minute drive from O’Hare Airport, maybe an hour from Chicago), or that the venue isn’t quite as new as I thought. Aside from one family enjoying their time at the bowling alley, those who mingled around seemed to be regulars of the venue. There was folks who pretty much hogged certain machines to themselves for most of the time we were there, such as two folks taking turns at the only functional Crossbeats Rev, one person taking up one of the two Hatsune Miku machines, and a few folks rotating around the Drumania, Guitar Freaks, and Sound Voltex III machines. Otherwise, I was able to play all other machines with no issues.

I had a decent time at Round 1 Arcade, but the lack of interest of the arcade games available combined with no intent of utilizing their other services translated to me just chilling out for periods of the time. Unfortunately, the venue had their Tekken 7 machines removed days prior to my visit as my brother read from the Round 1 Illinois Facebook page that Bandai Namco recalled their machines back in order to run an upcoming United States Tekken 7 tournament on 3 October at one of their California locations. If Tekken 7 was there, I think my experience at Round 1 Arcade would be a bit more favorable. Round 1 Arcade is a visit if the arcade offerings and other services are of your interest.

Quick Gaming Thoughts

Hatsune Miku Project Diva Arcade: The biggest difference from the console version to its arcade counterpart was its button setup. I was used to the PlayStation 3 controller setup that transitioning over to the spread horizontal button layout of the arcade took me a couple of plays to get accumulated into. The arcade version changed up its hold mechanic, whereas the console version forced you to hold the button on the hold note for the duration, the arcade version ditches that and turns it into an optional play where you earn bonus points for holding onto a note that has a “hold” indicator above the note. The arcade version also utilizes a touch slide mechanic for left/right quick swipe and sustained notes.

Time Crisis 5 (Mastermind Edition): Time Crisis finally evolved in their tried-and-true light-gun and cover gameplay by introducing… TWO PEDALS! During gameplay, the player can tap the left and right pedals to swap positions and flank-out enemies for a brief time period, then press on the pedal to pop-out and shoot. With larger enemies, weak points are only available if you are able to dodge the enemy’s attacks and quickly switch over to their exposed side to attack their weak point. There was also a quick shoot event (it's just as it sounds). Lastly, it's not a Time Crisis game if Wild Dog isn't the villain of this light-gun toting franchise.

Silent Hill: The Arcade: If you thought Resident Evil 1 and House of the Dead had terrible voice acting, well let me shoo in Silent Hill: The Arcade along with them. It’s downright bad. Hell, everything about this game is bad the few plays I put into it, even as a lame light-gun shooter. The story revolves around Silent Hill haunted over a shipwrecked event years ago in which a girl was presumed dead when she went overboard. I couldn’t quite make the connection between the two as I didn’t get too far into the game. But yeah, Silent Hill: The Arcade everyone!

Round 1 Arcade Illinois Pictures

Galloping Ghost Arcade - Brookfield, IL

Galloping Ghost Arcade is an arcade that brings the old-school arcade experience back by having packing in hundreds of mostly old-school arcades into their small establishment. I was surprised on how they managed to squeeze in that many machines in their building. You’ll be in awe on their library and range of arcade games offered. There were a number of times where I forgotten or did not even think they produced a number of arcade games. If you can excuse the tight parameters of the arcade, you can spend a good amount of time at walking around and playing all of the working machines at your leisure.

Unlike Round 1 Arcade and other arcade establishments, where you have to purchase a game card or tokens to play the machines, you don’t have to fuss around with that at all in Galloping Ghost Arcade. In fact, you just hit the start button and you’re off. And you can continue and play at a machine as long as you like. It’s nice for the arcade to allow their patrons to have that much gaming freedom on their machines, and it makes sense with the hundreds of machines available to play. To push your gaming thirst even further, it’s only $15 admission to go in and play as long as you’re in the building. You can practically be there for all of the business hours for the day for $15!

Most of the machines I did play seem to function fine. I noticed that a majority of the machines have the American or lever-style joysticks equipped instead of the Japanese or balltop style joysticks which is prevalent on the console fightsticks sold by Mad Katz, Hori, EightArc, etc. The joysticks there felt more stiff that what I was accustomed to on my PS3 MadKatz fightstick. The button layouts felt off as well. I had trouble spreading my fingers out over the four button SNK layout on the MVS Neo Geo machines, especially for fighting games. It was the same with the Capcom machines as the six button layout was laid out horizontally, not curved. There were also a few machines that were inoperable and the Crazy Taxi and Super Hang-On machines needs to have the steering recalibrated.

I mentioned earlier that Galloping Ghost Arcade is a small place. They literally squeezed in all machines by packing them right next to each other, which would make it inconvenient for folks who are playing machines that are next to each other. There isn’t much space in the aisles, so sometimes it’s frustrating to walk around and then stop to not bother someone playing a machine in the middle of the aisle. As much as I enjoyed the aurora of having all of these great arcades crammed into the place, the lack of space to maneuver around is a bit aggravating. Due to the location, there isn’t many food establishment places nearby. The only food option nearby is one of those small Chinese food places next door. (I’m not certain about the exit re-entry policy at the arcade, since you’re not allowed to bring in outside food and drink into the arcade. They do have few drinks and snacks on sale at the cashier counter for refreshments.)

Despite the small space, Galloping Ghost was a fun place to spend a few hours to play all the arcade games to your heart’s content.

Galloping Ghost Photos

End

Thanks for reading. I'll try to answer any questions anyone has on either place.

Here's a pic of the Hello Kitty Cammy plush doll I won at one of Round 1 Arcade's crane games.