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Empty Tokyo train stations look like video game dungeons 【Photos】

Oona McGee Mar 19, 2020
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Keep your wits about you — you never know what might appear as you walk these underground tunnels.

Tokyo has an extensive rail network that shuttles millions of people around the capital on any given day, with station entrances and exits often accessed via long interconnected tunnels that can keep commuters underground for kilometres.

These labyrinthine tunnels are so vast and confusing they’ve often been compared to RPG dungeons, which is no exaggeration when you consider that the layout of Shinjuku Station has been used as an actual dungeon floorplan in a role-playing video game.

Now, Twitter user @game_raiders has discovered another dungeon lurking below ground in Tokyo, this time at Toranomon Station.

▼ “There were so few people at Toranomon on Sunday it looked like the dungeon from Shin Megami Tensei.”

日曜の虎ノ門が人がいなさすぎて『真・女神転生』のダンジョンみたいだぜ。 pic.twitter.com/ieAQaJGO4m

— レトロゲームレイダー/ジョーンズ（ゲームブロガー） (@game_raiders) March 15, 2020

People online were quick to agree, with some even adding special effects to enhance the dungeon-esque feel.

ハッカーズ風にしてみました（やっつけ雑コラです） pic.twitter.com/XuDB34fqMS

— SPOOKIE (@Spookiesky) March 16, 2020

出ました pic.twitter.com/oco8vXOvP5

— サガさん (@meetaoru) March 15, 2020

虎ノ門LAW感ありますねー！ pic.twitter.com/KUzCtMwan7

— ﾑﾊﾟ氏/MupaSI (@stoptakashi) March 16, 2020

▼ “Won’t you die?”

The☆雑コラ！（爆） pic.twitter.com/wCIAFiZVOg

— 光の騎空士ハルマシー (@Harumashi_) March 16, 2020

▼ Shin Megami Tensei’s Hee-ho-kun makes an appearance.

ヒホ？ pic.twitter.com/OoJvXU4kKF

— サガさん (@meetaoru) March 15, 2020

As does Stephen (known as Steven in the Japanese version), the character loosely based on Stephen Hawking.

懐かしさのあまり作ってしまった（雑コラで申し訳ありません） pic.twitter.com/7iDUu6AAZH

— ジェイント (@yukitokakera) March 16, 2020

Another Twitter user put forward an additional dungeon find: Subnade at Shibuya Station.

新宿サブナードも結構いいですよ！ pic.twitter.com/WchbPJnS8W

— JT之助(ダジャレ職人) (@jt_noSke) March 15, 2020

Twitter users were excited to see RPG dungeons in real life underneath the city, leaving comments like:

“I definitely need to go and check these places out!”
“I’d walk through here with headphones on and some eerie background music playing.”
“This looks a bit like something out of Resident Evil too.”
“Imagine if the lights went out suddenly? Then you’d really be in a video game.”
“I usually go through the Toranomon tunnel on Sunday mornings but it never looks deserted like this.”

With more people staying indoors to help flatten the curve of the coronavirus outbreak, late night walks around the city really can make it feel like you’ve stepped into a video game world right now.

In Akihabara the streets are generally quiet at night, but at Shinjuku’s Kabukicho, the deserted streets have been likened to a fight scene from the Yakuza video game series.

Here’s hoping things get back to normal soon, so we can go back to playing video games in peace rather than having to walk around in them.

Source: Twitter/@game_raiders via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
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