Kancolle Arcade

Kancolle Arcade's promotional illustration featuring Ise and Hyuuga

Kancolle Arcade is an upcoming arcade system currently in production by SEGA in cooperation with Kadokawa Games. The arcade system was originally announced in early 2015 during the Japanese Amusement Expo. During the summer of 2015 they had a public showing of the game, allowing a few beta testers. They announced its release for the fall of 2015. However, plans to add additional content pushed the release date to the spring of 2016.

Japan Amusement Expo and Kadokawa Naval Review Meetings

During the Feburary of 2015, Kadokawa held a panel in which they unveil the Kancolle Arcade Cabinet to those that attended the Expo. During the time of the Expo, there were animated displays that were placed near the Kadokawa booth which show some of the kanmusus from the game in thier new 3D animated forms saying some of thier classic lines along with doing various poses of firing thier guns. At the same, a small selected group of people who were reporters were picked by Kadokawa to test play the cabinet at the Expo. Most were given about 30 minutes to play, and only a very small group were allowed to take pictures of the Arcade cabinet at the time.

Following the Expo, the only presence of the Arcade being promoted were the animated screen displays that would be shown at the Naval Review meetings at Yokohama Base. Anything else reported regarding the KanColle Arcade was mentioned through various magazine articles.

The Akibahara Club Sega Play Test

On December 2015, Sega AM2's Research and Development team had a public play test allowing players and fans to have thier first chance to be able to play test the new arcade cabinet. People were required to come to Club Sega where the Arcade cabinet was being put up for play testings.

Reports from Japan showed that fan lined up very early in the morning in hopes of getting in line to test out the Arcade. When Club Sega opened it's doors, the player line up for the registration point where they were given a bracelet to allow them to come in for the meet up. From that time, they would pick from a group of people at said time and assign them to participate in playing the arcade cabinet. The duration of this event lasted from December 18th till December 20th.

Gameplay and Mechanics

Starting up the Game

Players who plan to start thier career as an admiral on the Arcade version, will need to first obtain an Aime Admiral Card. As of current, the Aime cards are only distributed to the test players who partook in the test play. You will likely be able to obtain these cards through a card dispenser that is available along side the Arcade Cabinet.

You will have to complete the registration process prior to obtaining your card and entering the Naval Base. Registration process is very identical in the original browser game. You will need to provide an admiral name that you will be using. You will also have to pick your starter destroyer, which are Fubuki,Sazanami,Samidare,Inazuma, or Murakumo. Once your starter destroyer is selected, you receive your Aime Admiral Card along with the starter kanmusu card and you'll be sent to the naval base.

The Aime Admiral Card will serve as a way to keep track of your player's progress in the game. The Kanmusu cards are collectible trading cards you can get as you play the game. You'll be using them on a card scanner that will read them and bring the Kanmusu into your fleet so you can use them in sorties and so forth.

Also the game will be using a GP system which will act as a form of currency that you can use in the game for a variety of things which includes, paying to go to sortie maps, purchasing resources, act as an instant repair, and so forth. Players at the play tests were told to bring lots of 100 yen coins as they will be using them.

Naval Base Gameplay

Once you enter into the naval base, you will be within your office room where you can carry out your menu options. The menu options are exactly the same as they are in the browser game. Which means you have the options of being able to access Composition, Construction, Equipment Fitting, Docking, and Resupplying. Most of the game functions are very similar to the original game with the exception of the fact that the game will involve the usage of a touch screen. You can touch the screen to activate commands, or to drag and drop items, kanmusu cards ect. You can also touch the kanmusu on the screen to get her to react.

When you start off, you will partake in a tutorial that is similar to the one in game. Which will invovle you having to learn the basic controls and doing simple things like constructing a kanmusu, organizing them in your fleet, engaging in a sorties and so forth.

One noted difference based on an eye witness report shows that when you do construction, when the kanmusus you used resources to make is finished being constructed, you'll actually walk out of your office and go down the hall way. During your walk in the hall way, you will come across other kanmusus that will be walking down the halls, including those that you don't own. You can interact with them as you walk down the hall and they'll greet or salute you. Once you reach the end of the hall way an enter the door. You will see the silhouette of the kanmuus you built turn around, reveal her self and give out her traditional greeting.

Outside of this, most other portions of the game remain the same with the exception of repairs and construction which you basically instant construct or instant repair instead of waiting for a timer. If you don't have a bucket or flame thrower you're given the option to use GP points to pay for your kanmusus to get repaired quickly so they can return to battle.

In terms of the main sortie menu options, there is only a sortie option. Expeditions and Practices do not exist in the current version of the Arcade game. Once you have decided to send your fleet out to sortie map, your kanmusu will sail out and will enter the sortie battle.

Sortie Gameplay

Unlike the browser game, Kancolle Arcade takes a drastic change to how sortie combat is done. When your kanmusus enter the sortie map, they will sail onto the area and being to move forward. To the right of you will be a screen that displays a map. The map will show your Kanmusu's position on screen along with a field of vision this will display what your kanmusus know about the map.

Most of the map is covered in a fog in which you cannot see what is present unless you move your fleet forward. You fleet can also be controlled and can steer by using the steering wheel that on the control board. You can turn your fleet left or right and help them explore more of the map as they continue to explore it.

Your mission on the each sortie map is to locate and fight the Abyssal fleet that are present in the area. In order to do so, you will need to move your fleet until you locate a red tinge on the screen which will mark the abyssal fleet.

You also have a time limit on your map that will count down, so it is recommended that you make sure to defeat the enemy abyssal fleet before the end of timer in order to get the best possible drop rewards.

When your kanmusu manage to engage into battle against the abyssal fleet. They will immediately begin to exchange fire with the enemy fleet. However, combat mechanics in the Arcade version are very different.

When your fleet engage the abyssal fleet, you will learn what kind of confrontation you are in. In this version the following confrontations are know:

T-Cross Advantage: Supposedly gives an attack boost to your Kanmusus fleet. Abyssals will be in a disadvantage.
Parallel Confrontation: Supposedly identical to the original game.
Head-on Confrontation: Supposedly identical to the orginal game.
T-Cross Disadvantage: Supposedly Abyssal Fleet gets an attack boost. Your fleet will be in a disadvantage.

It should be noted that you can also steer your kanmusus while they are in combat which can result in the confrontation changing depending on your fleet's position and the enemies.

Also when the abyssal begin to fire at your kanmusus, you will get an indicator on where the shots are most likely anticipated to land. You can use this to steer your ship girls to prevent them from taking damage from the shots.

You also have a throttle that you can use to make your kanmusus speed up and become more evasive, but it should be noted that this will also make your kanmusus more tired post battle. So you should carefully consider when to use the throttle to speed your kanmusus up or not.

Kanmusu and Abyssals do not have any phase that is recognized in battle like the browser version and will fire shots at the abyssal multiple times and launch torpedoes if they are armed with them.

Scouting planes work differently in the arcade in comparison to the browser version. Ship girls that can use scout planes can launch them multiple times. You can control the scout plane and have them help survey the area to locate different things. When they either finish thier round of locate something they will fly back to your ship girl. This can include locating Abyssal or other items.

Unlike the original browser game, since there are no expeditions, you have to collect buckets, dev kits and so forth from sortie maps. If you kanmsusu reach the right location or find a a green tinge that they get to. They'll retrieve the item which will then be transferred back to your base.

Carrier combat is not well known from what some eye-witness accounts recall. But it's likely to be more in depth in comparison to the your standard ships and how they fight.

Kanmusu just like in the original game can get damaged, but will feature a more animated CG art in comparison to the original.

Once your ships beat the abyssal or finish the battle. You may be rewarded with a drop, which will appear before you and you can accept as a card if you wish.