Sydney Arcade Rhythm Games Guide

Been wanting to play arcade rhythm games including MaiMai, Chunithm and DDR lately but was wondering where is the best place to play them in Sydney. So over the past week or so I've been visiting all the main arcades and comparing their machines and pricing setups to figure out where the best place is to play!

If you're not interested in all the research and calculations, feel free to Skip to the conclusions

1. Arcades
2. Credit Pricing
3. Game Selection
4. Game Pricing
   1. MaiMai
   2. Chunithm
   3. Taiko
   4. Sound Voltex
   5. Beatmania IIDX
   6. Dance Dance Revolution
   7. Pump it Up
   8. Dancerush
5. Other Deals
6. Conclusions and key takeaways

Update 02/05/2025

• Added Timezone Game20 Promo
• Added Purikura Photoland to comparisons, thankyou Office Lesbian on Bluesky!!
• Added Machines present at the Koko arcade city heros location - just across the road from their George St venue
• Added table of contents to quickly navigate the (increasingly unwieldy) page
• Added indicators for the best price normally, and the best price during promotions
• Added Pump it up to all sections

Arcades

I've collected my data from 4 arcades in Sydney:

• Koko Arcade on George St (Including the games hidden away across the road at City Heros)
• Timezone at Haymarket
• Timezone in Central Park Mall (need to check if its the same)
• Fortress Arcade in Central Park Mall
• Purikura Photoland at Capitol Square ![[arcades-map.png]]

Credit Pricing

Each arcade has their own credit pricing scheme where generally, the more you top up at once, the more bonus credit you get. This is very important for getting the best pricing but requires some planning.

Higher "Credit per real $" is better

Koko Arcade

From the numbers, the $200 top-up is the best deal but that is alot of money, so for the later calculations ill be comparing both the $100 and $200 top-up options.

Timezone (All Locations)

Across the board these are much weaker deals but that is likely in no small part due to the fat they periodically run the Double Dollars promotion:

Double Dollars

It is generally agreed that the best (and ideally only) time you should top-up at Timezone is during double dollars promotions. These run every 1-2 months.

This is exactly what it says on the tin, the amount you top-up + the same amount in bonus credit.:

Game20 Promo

Sometimes they also run a special promo where you can get $20 off any topup at or over $30. You can also get $200 credit for $80. Note this can only be redeemed once every time the promo is run

I'll be using the 80/200 topup in comparisons because while the 10/30 is a better rate it is difficult to utilize when it can only be redeemed once every time it runs. It is also run much less frequently than Double Dollars

Fortress

The newest location in Sydney is the Fortress Arcade located across from the Timezone in Central Park Mall.

Overall better than Timezone outside of promos, and on-par with Koko when it comes to credit amounts alone, Fortress does not have a VIP system.

Fortress Melbourne appears to have very promising student deals however these cannot currently be applied to the Sydney venue. That said, I spoke to one of the staff about it and they said that they are planning on introducing student deals at some point

Purikura Photoland

Only uses coins for game payment, so no special rules here, $1 spent is $1 credit

Game Selection

Before we move onto game pricing, Now is a good time to have a quick look at the selection of games that each arcade offers.

The "Single" or "Double" notation represents the configuration of the machine - whether it is a single machine that stands on its own or a double machine that is physically connected. It is important to note that most double machines will almost always only support 1 player playing alone or two players playing together. Not two players playing separately.

One thing that is apparent from this is that there are by far the most machines at the Koko arcade. This is especially relevant if you want to play the more popular games such as MaiMai, Chunithm and Taiko as you will hopefully be able to find a free machine or at least not have to wait as long.

On the other hand, fortress have the least at only 3 games of interest. That said, due to the age requirement of 18+ and its tucked away location, this arcade was completely empty when i checked it at about 5pm.

Game Pricing

We've had a look at the top up prices, but those mean little without the context of the games pricing. The most important value here is the "Real cost" that is, the amount of money you would have had to have spent in a top up, in order to play the game. While the amount displayed on the reader is also listed, that is less important. For each game I will compare against the following top-ups:

• Koko $100
• Koko $200
• Timezone $120
• Timezone DD (Double Dollars)
• Timezone Game (Game20 Promo)
• Fortress $100
• Purikura Cash

I will also be using the VIP price since if you did top-up with any of these amounts you should get it (except for fortress which doesn't have a VIP scheme).

MaiMai

Note on the songs: If you play alone you only get 3 songs, If you play cabinet to cabinet then you get 4.

I did not expect Fortress to win this one, but here we are.

Offline Machine at City Heros

There is also a MaiMai festival machine located at the Koko Arcade city heros location. This is priced cheaper but as I understand, This cannot be used with save data cards that have played any of the later versions of the game

Chunithm

I'm not entirely sure why its cheaper, maybe the fact that they are single machines is a part of it but they still offer the bonus song when playing with someone.

Taiko

Timezone with promos wins. Otherwise Koko is best outside of special promos

At Purikura there is also a very retro (CRT screen and everyhting) Taiko machine that can be played for $2

Sound Voltex

Timezone wins this one even outside of promos.

Beatmania IIDX

Couldn't find many of this machine, Only 1 at Koko and 2 at Purikura. By value the big Koko top-up wins, but that's a lot to spend.

Dance Dance Revolution

A decisive win for Timezone, even without promos.

Make sure you pick premium play (assuming it is also 1 credit for you) unlike standard play it grantees you get to play all 3 songs plus potentially an extra stage depending on your performance (It's a complicated system so I think I'll talk about this and many other beginner DDR tips in another post!). The menu option is listed because in some regions Standard play is a cheaper option but comes at the risk of your game ending early if you perform poorly.

Special Machine

In the Koko City Hero's location there is also a custom DDR machine managed by a community member running Stepmania! At the moment it looks like the machine can be a little temperamental so try checking their website if you're having any trouble: https://sil.fyi/chgs-itg/

Pump it Up

Timezone always wins again

By default the machine is limited to only a small selection of easy songs. In order to unlock "Full Mode" you need to enter a code sequence on the pads or buttons, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpRiN-hRrLI

Dancerush

(Timezone pricing unknown as the machine in Timezone Haymarket was out of order when I went to check it, will update if I see it working)

With such flashy machines, the increased price doesn't surprise me.

Always play Standard mode instead of Lite mode assuming its the same price. In both light and standard you play two songs but in standard mode you get to play an extra song if you score 180% over the first two songs. Note that for the extra song you only get 10 lives instead of a life bar but if they are the same price there's no reason not to go for it.

Other Deals

A few other offers I saw that may be worth considering depending on what you play at the arcade:

Koko Arcade Package Deals

these are special offers that include a certain amount of plays on games depending on the color of the reader, and a flat amount of tickets (no tickets can be earned during gameplay with these offers). There are 3 options:

If you're reading this post, then you are probably most interested in the rhythm games listed above which are all "Rainbow premium games" so its not much of a value proposition if that's all you're playing. However, it may be worth considering if you play the other kinds of games.

Note: According to the poster I saw, the package deals must be booked two weeks in advance.

Fortress Membership

Fortress offer a month membership for $20/month, One of the perks it provides is $15 arcade credit per month this is not worth it at all on its own, but if you frequent fortress it may make sense for you.

Conclusions and key takeaways

With all that said and done, this is the best value way to play each game:

• MaiMai - On price, Fortress wins except for when Timezone runs the rare Game20 promotion
• Chunithm - Either Timezone promo is the best deal, otherwise its the $200 Koko top-up
• Sound Voltex - Always Timezone, even without either promo
• Beatmainia IIDX - Koko Arcade is cheaper in the long run, but if you only want to play a few games maybe try Purikura
• DanceDance Revolution - Also Always Timezone, even without either promo
• Pump It Up - Also Always Timezone, even without either promo
• Dancerush - Currently, the only functional machines I know of are at Koko Arcade

Also worth considering the number of machines. As I mentioned before, Koko has by far the most which might make it easier to get a game? Then again its also very popular which potentially cancels out the benefit.

Finally the quality of machines may vary depending on the location so it could be worth playing a test game before doing a big top-up.

Please let me know if I've made any mistakes or you want to see any games added!!

The most likely mistake that could have occured is that the game settings might be different at each location - maybe the machines are set to play less songs or cost more credits to do things that would only cost 1 at some locations like playing double DDR. since I didn't want to spend too much on this project I have not verified all the settings are the same. If I've missed something, please let me know on my Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tabbycat.dev

Likewise, If you want me to add a game, let me know there too!

Final thoughts~

Hope this helped clear up all the pricing systems that the arcades use, now go out and play some games :3