DJ Max Technika, the arcade iteration of the successful Korean music game franchise, after successful location tests of the US version at two arcades in Southern California, has come up to Northern California as part of their second round, at Sunnyvale Golfland.

And damn is it fun.

The machine arrived on Monday, December 22, 2008, through the negotiation magic of Corey Prasek (Ver2), who arranged the location test with both Pentavision/PM Studios and SVGL. I arrived at SVGL at 1. Rushing into the arcade with Rome in tow, I found myself immediately stopped by Corey – “Not yet.” I resigned myself to several games of BlazBlue and beatmaniaIIDX.

Corey had some people help him tug the hefty machine into the arcade. It was more beautiful in person. After setting it up, I called my friend Mark to relay the message to the masses at Bemanistyle – it’s finally here!

By the end of the night, over 30 people had come to line up to play (or spectate) the game. The queue ranged anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, depending on whether or not newcomers to the game underestimated the game’s difficulty (and failed on their first or second stage as a result). I had a chance to play about four games, not counting the attempt I made at the Customizer course (the hardest expert course in the game; I ‘passed’ Y as my first song, but failed the meet the quota – see below).

I originally planned for this post to be an introduction to Technika, but the post grew so big I sectioned it off into its own page! Take a look at the page here, and expect constant updates as I collect more info about the game.