Pachi-travelogue...

[Chumsize]

IMG_3323.jpg One big guess where I am... Oh nevermind - already said I was heading over.

Got in last night... Got up early and hopped on a train over to Ueno, gazed at the various Pachi company headquarters, and picked up a handy ball gauge/pin bender tool from the local supply store (thanks to whatever thread on here tipped me off to that one).

A couple interesting things at the Sankyo building(s): A bunch of signage for the new Slayers game, and a display of the "Sankyo Total System" - check out the size of that ball lifter! It's about a meter wide... quite neat.


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Went and played the new Evangelion 8 machine after that. Uhh... a hell of a lot going on there... luckily I had my iPhone with "Powapachi" app ready and was able to "save" my progress. I collected about 2500 experience points! Unfortunately, that was at the price of 2000 yen - about 20 starts, 4 reaches (no super reaches). It was confusing as hell so I spent 500 yen on the strategy guide / magazine.

eh... anyway, I'll tag onto this thread if anything interesting happens. It's hot and humid - so I'm moving a little slow.

[Drunkenclam]

You should offer to buy the slayers banner when they are done with it

[Chumsize]

You should offer to buy the slayers banner when they are done with it

Hmm... I could at least go try and mooch one of the smaller posters from them...

[alphaminor]

Cool! We get to live vicariously through you on your adventures in Japan

[Card Shark]

Very cool. Looking forward to lot's of pictures.

[p.opus]

I too am looking for some pictures. Also, please tell us what your ball rental/buyback rate was for the parlors you visited. It seems the common 4.0 rent/2.5 sellback ratio no longer applies and that some houses are going to a 4/3 or even 4/4 margin.

I know quite a few parlors have even gone more penny ante and done 1.0/1.0.

Your experiences there will be very informative as I am always trying to relate my point count on my Gaku counter to a yen equivalent.

Thanks.

[heima]

Very cool. Looking forward to lot's of pictures.

Yes, I would love to see a shop that has pachinkos for pennies on the dollar, um yen on the ..., dirt cheap!
I love seeing deals, even though I can't be part of it. Hope you get to though.

[Chumsize]

Hmmm. Not sure about the buy back rate - I'll see if I can decipher that when I head over shortly. Spent this morning in Kappabashi buying hard-to-find-stateside kitchen equip for my brother's restaurant. Went to the Sky Tree... Kinda crappy on an overcast day.

And I have to find some used stores... May have to wait until Osaka next week.

So off to pachi a bit... Then off to �H—tŒ´ ƒ�ƒCƒh‹i’ƒƒJƒtƒF�@ƒOƒ‰ƒ“ƒhƒpƒCƒŒ�[ƒc - if I can get the nerve.

More pics later.

[Chumsize]

Well... didn't make it to the Pirate Cafe... After dropping 5000 yen into an Eva 8 with no luck, wandered over got there a bit before they opened - so I went to the pachinko joint next door and threw 2000 yen into a Ghost in the Shell machine...

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Well - about an hour and 15 minutes and 9 bonus rounds later...

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So speaking of buy back... not sure what it was - but lets see... 13171 balls got me a pack of cookies, a pack of Marlboro reds, and some odd little clear bricks with tiny gold ingots inside of them - and a handwritten map to the nearest precious metals exchange shop... behind the kfc... in an alley...

So given the current gold price, I got 43500 yen for those bricks. Ain't commerce grand? Too bad the "prize counter" didn't have much in the way of Eva swag. So I walked next door and spent a bit of my winni... urr... precious metals investment return on this:

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[MrGneiss]

Cool!!

[Drunkenclam]

What's Asuka going to shave Nice winnings

Yurina

[hanabi]

Sounds like you're having fun!!

Nice to hear about the 'prizes'

so no pics of the cookies?

[mxfaiman]

Nice to see other members travels to Ueno.

Obviously you took the train so you probably saw the world's largest pachinko ball.

I personally haven't traveled to Japan. My dad has made numerous trip and I have quite a few pictures from the Ueno area. I hear that you also found the magic shop to by the nail gauges.

I'll post some pictures I have later.

[mxfaiman]

Well here are some pictures that my Dad took when he was in Ueno for the first time. (March 2012)

Here is a picture of the world's biggest pachinko ball.
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Here are pictures of a variety of manufacturer's buildings.
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Here is the magical shop of where to buy the ball gauges. (right below the big heiwa sign you see above.)
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[alphaminor]

Just found out in the new Shin Megami Tensei IV game on the Nintendo 3DS,when you first arrive in Tokyo your starting point is in the Ueno area

[Chumsize]

uuuhh... jet lag... I'll have some pics up soon. But a couple quick highlights:
* Pretty much broke even... though had a ball playing at least a dozen different on a few occasions.
* Eva 8 was responsible for the bulk of losses. Not one bonus. not one stinking bonus. This machine is confusing and evil. (You can consider that my review)
* Found quite a few 1 and 2 yen modern hanemono and kenrimono machines - had a great time with these. Even won some on a "Magic Cape"
* Walked a mile from the nearest subway to a joint in Nagoya advertising a "storefront" to find a dude butchering early moderns into pushbutton desktop units. Found nothing of interest.
* Used pachi storefront advertised in Osaka was at least a quick walk... but was underwhelming. Nothing to see. Was near all the Osaka offices of the main companies.
* Played at a vintage place in Osaka (Lucky 777??) Which was great... Killed it on Fruit Passion & Monroe machines. Only for funsies tho - winnings only good for future play.
* Encountered new ball counting/handling system - some parlors have counter-trays that keep track of your winnings. Ball winnings are stored/transferred on IC Tokens. So - IC Cards store Yen, IC Tokens store the balls. When you're done, they just pay you out for whatever is on your coin(s). Very neat, but seems like you might miss having all those bins of balls behind you when you win big.

more later... good to be back. It was hot... yeccchhh...