Our first medal game! Horuka x Toruka (ホルカｘトルカ)

Not sure if this was a good decision to pick up or not. I've wanted to get at least one medal game in to fulfill the slot, this was the first one I went for. It's relatively small, at least as far as medal games go. It doesn't have the excitement of a coin pusher or anything, but all in all I feel like this was a good start. To be honest, what actually caught my attention to this game was the art style, which is hauntingly similar to that of Theatrhythm. I found this cabinet in particular in the background of a photo sent to me by my distributor, and sort of on a whim asked if it was available as well.

The game features a screen with a Plinko overlay where you drop a ball. The ball's path determines which area of the map you dig through for gems. The main goal is to collect all the gems in each area without dropping the ball into one of the lava slots at the bottom, which wipes the board and takes away everything. You can choose to go on to the next map without finishing it to retain what you get. The gameplay is relatively simple, but there's a lot of little things to it that give the game a lot to think about while playing. Moving to the next map with gems builds your progress progressing through worlds, and after clearing all worlds, you get to take on the JP Challenge mini-game. The more you bet per map, the more slot reels you get, higher bonuses, etc. You can select your bet once at the beginning of the map based on a preview you get of what gems are there, so you can decide which maps are more likely to have a higher payout and bet accordingly. Some mini-games occur during play, including one that happens if the ball gets stuck on a peg, which lets you drop as many balls as you want for free to dislodge it. This game is a really good example of what makes Japanese medal games something more than simple western gambling/redemption machines. There's actual progression, thought put into the decisions you make, and a moderately in-depth system to the whole thing. I never really got what catches people in these things until now.

About the hardware, this runs on the SEGA RingEdge 2, and both sides are autonomous from each other, which is interesting to me. Both sides have their own separate test menus and settings. It's pretty unusual coming from normal games to see that. The machine accepts medals, 100 yen coins, and Medal Bank, an online pay system tied to Aime. Fortunately, the game works without network support, and we are able to enjoy it without the Medal Bank stuff. A lot of PCBs on Yahoo! Japan are from this game, so I can only assume a lot of these have been demolished in the last year or two, glad I could save one to bring home!