American Battle Dome returns in Japan, promises to be CHO EXCITING!【Video】

A game as American as mom’s battle pie returns to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

In this modern age when so much entertainment is digital, there’s a quaint, heartwarming appeal to games that are meant to be played in a physical space with other people, directly interacting with one another rather than everyone being off in separate places staring at their own individual, isolated screens. So it’s good to know that anyone in Japan looking for some wholesome fun can call their friends and family members to gather round the table for a game of good old-fashioned AMERICAN BATTLE DOME!

▼ Watch the preview video, and you’ll see why all that capitalization is appropriate.

American Battle Dome is a game for two to four players in which the object is to use a set of pinball machine-style flippers to fling metallic balls into your opponents’ goals, while trying to prevent them from doing the same to you. If the above video feels like it’s giving off some mid-‘90s, borderline XTREME energy, that’s very much by design, as American Battle Dome first appeared in Japanese toy stores in 1994, which was the same year it permanently lodged itself in the memories of many kids of the time with its unabashed/unhinged bombastic commercial narration.

Batoru Doomu! (Battle Dome!)
Boru wo aite no goru ni shuuto! (Shoot the balls into your opponent’s goal!)
Cho ekusaitingu! (Super exciting!)
Suri di akushon gemu! (3-D action game!)
Batoru Doomu! (Battle Dome!)
Tsukuda Orijinaru kara! (From Tsukuda Original!)

▼ The original American Battle Dome commercial

▼ Apparently American Battle Dome is sometimes so exiting that it’s “exiting” too!

Now, to celebrate the game’s 30th anniversary, Bandai Namco (which acquired toy company Tsukuda Original in 2002), is re-releasing American Battle Dome, with the same visual design as the 1994 version. As shown by the age of the actors in the new commercial, they’re also pitching it to adults nostalgic for another round with the game they played, or wanted to play, as kids.

Though it’s not a perfect half-sphere, the netted canopy that surrounds the play area is more or less a dome, and with directly competitive shooting as the primary play mechanic, the “battle” part of the name makes sense, but what makes American Battle Dome “American?” There aren’t even any bald eagles or hamburgers included in the package!

The answer appears to be that Tsukuda Original licensed the game/toy design from Anjar, a U.S.-based toy licensing and development agency. Tsukuda wasn’t the only company to make a deal with Anjar, either, as the same game was offered in different countries with names like Marble Dome, Flipper Fun, Quattro-Flipper, and just plain Battle Dome, without the “American” part.

▼ Commercial for Marble Dome

However, while it’s difficult to pinpoint exact release dates for board games from 30 years ago, the game doesn’t appear to have had any release prior to 1994. That means that either Tsukuda Original’s version was the first to hit the market or it was released less than a year after the game came out elsewhere, so either way it wasn’t like American Battle Dome had already acquired an image as an “American” game in the minds of Japanese consumers before Tsukuda decided to put that descriptor at the front of its name.

Regardless of how it got its name, though, fans in Japan are happy that American Battle Dome is getting a new release, with online reactions including:

“A fantastic revival.”
“Battle Dome is b-b-back! But really, it’s never left my heart…”
“Super exciting!”
“It’s a simple, easy-to-play game, so I think it can find fans in any era.”
“Had this as a kid. So many memories!”

American Battle Dome is available through Bandai Namco’s Mega House sub-brand, and can be ordered here through the Premium Bandai website here, priced at 7,920 yen (US$54).

Source: Premium Bandai via Hobby Japan Web via Otakomu, Twitter/@p_bandai
Top image: YouTube/メガハウス公式おもちゃチャンネル
Insert images: Premium Bandai
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