Araiguma: Advanced Battle Center — Local services in Urbana

Incredible, community driven arcade! This is a very special place. Araiguma is an amalgamation of the hardcore game center/arcade cultures of the east and west. It’s difficult to articulate the passion, dedication and expertise that emanates from this place, much like the glow of the meticulously designed and installed LED lighting.

Araiguma embodies the spirit of the arcade gamer with core values such as dedication, consistency, selflessness, empathy, and both the sharing and hunger for knowledge.

In the middle of the rural farmland of Illinois, Araiguma appears like an oasis mirage. You’ll question what you are seeing. Can this be real? Exploring the arcade, building and town in general feels like a fever dream. As you ponder about whether a place like this can exist, you will eventually arrive at the conclusion of “Why -couldn’t- it exist?” and make peace with the fact that dedicated owners, assistants and a supportive environment can make it happen.

Araiguma has unique setups for everything from 3rd Strike to NBA Jam to rhythm games such as Chunithm running on a mixture of Japanese candy cabs, rhythm game arcade machines, and very cool one of a kind custom configurations.

There is a passionate and dedicated 3rd Strike scene here. It was through this scene that I first discovered this place. Watching the Twitch streams of friendly, high level 3rd Strike taking place against the backdrop of the game center aesthetic was mesmerizing. I knew I had to experience it for myself.

The creator and owner, Yams, is the most hardcore gamer I’ve ever met and this becomes obvious and carries over to everything she does with Araiguma.There are so many Easter eggs and nice little references and touches throughout the physical arcade, as well as within the various pieces of media that Yams creates online. She has painstakingly documented the entire journey of creating and maintaining the arcade to serve as a reference and template for others to do the same. She has created a space that is extremely welcoming to both someone new to arcade games and the person that has lived this culture for 20, 30 or 40+ years.

The importance of a place like Araiguma cannot be understated. As arcades and third spaces become alarmingly scarce, Araiguma provides somewhere you can go to play these beautiful games with like-minded and friendly, supportive people. Without getting on a whole side tangent, I will say that people NEED third spaces like this and that the existence of an environment like Araiguma can make all the difference in the world in someone’s life. Araiguma provides an outlet for learning, self-expression, self-improvement, sportsmanship, socialization and so much more.

Araiguma takes the best parts of the arcade scenes of the past and adds modern, new elements to form a timeslip that will make you think this is something comforting and familiar that you’ve experienced, but also something new, exciting and different. You owe it to yourself to check...

I have only been here once. And I can already say this is one of the most important spots for arcade culture in this area. The energy here is lovely and it was a treat to step in and see what felt like a gallery of pure passion radiate throughout the whole venue. If you love fighting games, make sure to pay a visit to the...

Araiguma is the greatest place in Champaign Urbana, the community are the coolest, nicest people in the world and the competition is fierce! Fighting game lovers will be right at home here, and you can find people to play most any fighting game on a...