Sengoku Taisen Gives You Gifts
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This game will stop at nothing to give you your money’s worth.

Sengoku Taisen works with a magic table that can detect when you put trading cards on it, which ones you place, where you place them, and which way they’re pointing.

You control onscreen armies in real time by sliding units around on the tabletop, like a general plotting with models in a tent.

The cards are magnificent things, with pseudo-historical heroes wielding tremendous weapons with rippling muscles in lithe, swooping forms. (The originals are, anyway. The later decks went a bit pervy, which is a shame.)

On top of all that – as if Sega hadn’t just presented you with a world-changing series that has ruled the arcades for about a decade – the machine pops out a deliciously shiny packet of cards for winners, like a thankyou gift for playing.

Photographer and writer covering Tokyo arcade life – the videogames, the metropolis and the people