exA-Arcadia kept the arcade news flowing in 2020, but they’ve been a little quiet at the beginning of this year. Now that gets to change as we have our first new exA game announcement of 2021 – Jitsu Squad by Tanuki Creative Studios.
As stated in the headline to this post, this will bring a beat ’em up style game to the platform. The exA has already broken ground by reviving a bunch of genres (in coin-op arcades) including the platformer and the shoot ’em up, so it’s only natural that the iconic beat ’em up also gets a shake here.

Jitsu Squad itself is a “4 Player Co-op Beat ‘Em Up that’s all about INSANE FAST PACED ACTION with COLORFUL 2D GRAPHICS,”  per the Kickstarter header description. The current Kickstarter campaign (the second time they’ve gone for it, with the addition of a Switch port helping to drive stronger interest this time around) saw the game reach it’s goal within 24 hours and as of this writing it’s just short of having raised $60k.

It is also on that campaign where we learn that a real arcade version will be available, with the most expensive donation tier offering the game with the exA-Arcadia and coming in a VEWLIX cabinet. You’ll also notice the title screen above mentions inserting a coin; This How To Play screen also looks exactly like standard exA tutorial sequences. This screen is also not present in the PC demo, which I downloaded and played.:

Some more details from the game’s website:

Jitsu Squad stands out for its huge cast of unique hand drawn colourful character design/artwork, rip-roaring story, top notch 2D animation, in-depth backgrounds and killer soundtrack/effects.
Challenge the forces of evil in a single quest or join your friends in a up to 4 player co-op action adventure. Become stronger

http://arcadeheroes.com