Gacha Capsule Slot Simulator – Akihabara Early Access Hands On

I can't tell you where the recent trend of shop-simulator games began. It feels like another one is being released every minute, with little to differentiate them beyond the superficial coating of what your in-game shop is selling. Does Gacha Capsule Slot Simulator - Akihabara do anything to flip that script and make itself stand out? It's recently launched into early access, so let's have a look and find out.

History lesson first. The first game I remember playing that really sold me on the joys of running my own shop was Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. Over a decade later, I got sucked into Gas Station Simulator, which I would argue is more in line with the style of game we're talking about and one of the best job-sim games around. This specific template, though, what most recently brought it into the limelight is 2024's TCG Card Shop Simulator, which took what was already a tried-and-true gameplay loop and added trading cards, because people love to collect cards.

What else do people love to collect? Yes, that's right, victims. Also, possibly, small figurines in plastic containers. Since 'chained to the radiator in my basement shop simulator' is currently in real-world testing, it makes sense that somebody would jump on the long-running craze that is gachapon and make it into a game that isn't either a life-sucking freemium title or a gambling ring called Ultimate Team.

Introducing Gacha Capsule Slot Simulator - Akihabara. I'm not going to go into massive detail about the gameplay, because if you've played one of these, you've played them all. To summarise: you start in a small unit and open your shop; in this case, you're given a small amount of cash and some second-hand gacha dispensers. You start by buying some of the initial gacha lines available, load them in the machines, gaining experience for each item you sell, rinse and repeat.

As you level up, you can expand your shop, unlock new dispensers, new gacha lines, and new stands to display and sell the gacha you pull yourself. For every pull you do, you will also gain experience, and the rarer the pull, the more experience you get. Also, rare ones can sell for a good price. This is supplemented by perks you can buy, such as advertisements for a specific range you have a lot of, or getting an influencer to visit your store and increase footfall. Random events, such as a K-pop star visiting, can also increase footfall.

I've now essentially summarised an entire sub-genre in the space of a single paragraph. There are additional elements here and there, but the long and short of it all is if the gameplay loop itself is reasonably paced, and there's enough in there to keep you engaged. When I reviewed Parking Tycoon: Business Simulator, the narrow focus left it with little to keep you engaged. Gas Station Simulator has a number of side elements in the base game, expanded by DLC, to provide distractions once automation kicks in. The distraction here, as with TCG Shop Simulator, is collection.

In the original Pokémon, I had to get all 152. In GTA, I have to get the hidden packages and everything else. If a game, or anything, has some form of tracking of anything, I'm going to try and get that to the limit. In real life, I did collect PS1 games for a time, but the feasibility of catching them all and the space to store them put a stop to it. I'm a completionist and a collector, so games like this appeal to that. This gets the gacha feeling right, too, letting you put in the coins and twist the handle yourself.

If I have an issue, and I do, it's that the template has been followed to the letter. You can only pick up five gacha, as you can only pick up eight packs in TCG Shop Simulator, and you can only pick up a few things in Parking Tycoon. I get that it's realistic, but this is still a video game, and even in real life, workarounds exist. For example, I would pick up a gachapon, tip the contents into the new machine, and job done.

Little quality-of-life elements like this would significantly help the game, though it's not to say they won't come down the line. There is an upcoming features list on the main screen, which includes a stock inventory management system, which I will certainly appreciate, as the current system annoys me. What is essential, more than anything, is that the game not feel like it's just artificially lengthening your time, which the slow levelling and limited ability to move products can do.

The one thing to remember is that this is still an early-access game. It has the time to move away from the template under a gacha & Japanese coating. The coating is reasonable enough. It's Akihabara, but the trip version, no dragons of Dojima here. That is to say, it's an animé style aesthetic. It's also just a single road, with nothing much to see, though you can go to a robot fight club, which really should have taken place during the core day to act as the distraction when you get staff and can automate your store - well, once the staff learn how to empty the bloody coin slots in the gachapon.

The long and short of it is that Gacha Capsule Slot Simulator is a decent enough title in a market that is rapidly overrun by them. It gives itself that little ability to stand out with the gacha coating, and a clear attention to detail in creating the many sets of gacha, much like how TCG created its entire card series. I know I'll play it a bit more, though this will be down the line, once quality-of-life features are brought in and it's closer to launch. Until then, the only other thing you need to know is that you can pet two cats.

Preview copy provided by the publisher

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.