I got my Japanese slot machine !!!

I finally got my Christmas present!
It's the Galaxy Railways Pachislo. I have played it for about 20 minutes, and now my wife is trying it out. It's pretty neat so far. I like that it is like 2 machines in one. You can play a standard mechanical 3 reel game, or play a 5 reel video slot.

The bonus games are pretty cool. I think we have seen about 5 different ones so far. Unlike bonus games on most American machines, they don't seem to pay out much, if at all. I think you have to work your way to the end of the game to get a jackpot.

It's kind of weird, not knowing the language. There's a lot of things happening I don't understand. It seems to collect points towards a goal, like in Star Trek or LOTR, but I can't see if there's any way to save your progress.

I'm fairly pleased with BlueHotaru.com. The shipping was a bit slow, but they did a great job at refurbishing the machine. Out of the box, it looked brand-new. Some scratches by the coin slot are the only evidence that it's used. When I first turned it on, the LCD screen wouldn't come on, although the rest of the machine was working. It took me awhile to realize that a connector had jarred loose during shipping. All the lights and speakers work. I paid an extra $25 bucks for them to install a volume control, and it works quite nicely.

I'll post pictures when I get a chance.

Quote: dudestupid

I'll post pictures when I get a chance.

Thanks. We all have a yen to see it!

Do you provide free drinks while playing? Players card?
If you have a number of a host PM me. Thanks.

:)

I don't think there is a slot to accept a player's card. And I can no longer fit into my cocktail waitress uniform, so I'm sorry Wavy. :-(

Anyway, here are the pictures as promised! The theme of the machine is "Galaxy Railways," an anime about space trains. I watched a couple episodes, and it's your standard "travel to new worlds and shoot aliens" kind of space opera. The protagonists are soldiers/cops who protect the railways. I'm not sure why anyone rides the trains as they are always breaking down, getting hijacked and getting shot at by space creatures.

The first few pictures are of the outside of the machine. As you may notice, it runs on non-currency tokens. There are 3 buttons in the middle that stop the reels. This adds an element of skill, although I am told that is a very small element.







By pushing the green or purple button in the bottom left of the screen, you can choose between mechanical reel mode, or video slot mode. These have different bonus games. So it's like 2 machines in 1! These shots are of the 5-reel video mode:





This is a shot during one of the bonus games. The red LEDs on the top and sides are going crazy at this point.



These are some pictures of the machine's internals:



I paid $25 extra to have this volume control installed. You can see where they spliced it in. It works very well.


It came with 2 keys. One opens the machine, allowing someone to refill the coin hopper. The other key goes in this panel, allowing you to reset it, and change the payout.


Interesting points on the subject of payouts: This machine has 6 settings, ranging from 97.4% to a whopping 110%! It's my understanding that the tokens cannot be exchanged back for cash, but you can redeem them for stuff like iPods or even cigarettes. I'm going to assume that the casinos are still making a profit at 110%.

In all, this machine is a lot of fun and a great addition to the house. At $300-$400 shipped, I think a "pachislo" is a great buy for someone wanting a home slot machine, especially if you want a newer high-tech one. I got mine from Blue Hotaru, although there are several other sellers online.

I think you can get them for $100-$200 straight off the boat from Japan. But the resellers can swap out the power supply for American outlets, clean it, replace burnt-out bulbs and install the volume control. I'm not too handy with electronics, so I think it was worth the markup.

Quote: dudestupid

...the resellers can swap out the power supply for American outlets, clean it, replace burnt-out bulbs and install the volume control. I'm not too handy with electronics, so I think it was worth the markup.

And ya gotta love how they spared no expense labeling stuff for ya!