Why Square Enix’s Fancy New Arcade Game, Gyrozetter, Hasn’t Taken Off

Square Enix released two new arcade games this past year—Gunslinger Stratos and Gyrozetter. While neither one got off to a very strong start, Square have high hopes for Gyrozetter, which they plan to turn into a multimedia franchise, part of which is a Nintendo 3DS role-playing game slated for next year.

Meanwhile, Square Enix president, Yoichi Wada, explains what went wrong with the arcade game. At a financial results briefing, Wada shared: “Our aim with Gyrozetter was to create a true ‘arcade game’ with totally new experiences and an exciting chassis. The concept we came up with was a car transforming into a robot to battle opponents.”

That part about the car transforming into robots isn’t just within the game. Gyrozetter in arcades has a very neat feature in that the arcade cabinet itself transforms. Take a look at the two images below, showing the transformation:

The problem, Wada says, is that no one could tell that the cabinet could transform. At first glance, it looks like a regular arcade racer. Additionally, while the Gyrozetter anime series would have helped get the point of transforming cars across, the arcade game was released before the anime began to air, so Square weren’t able to communicate the game’s hook to arcade-goers.

“Knowing that it was a tie-up project with the TV animation series, we needed to link them better in our promotion schemes,” Wada stated. “We are confident in this amazing arcade game, however, and we are excited to see better performances in the coming months.”

At this year’s Jump Festa event, Square Enix will reveal the next step in Gyrozetter’s growth—the Gyrozetter: Wings of the Albatross game for the 3DS.