Attending this year’s Tokyo Game Show was a great experience, as usual. This will be my final writeup on the show, and then I’ve got pictures on the way. Here, I’ll answer the questions you asked before the show and give out a few small awards to some games I feel are worth one.
First up, let’s give some games a bit of special recognition. I played several more games in each of these categories, but only wrote impressions of the ones that were worth writing about — the ones that gave me a lot to say. All impressions are linked after the winner gets its shout.
Best PS3 Game of TGS:
The Unfinished Swan
Thinking back to my time playing this game, I have my mind blown all over again. It’s the kind of thing I want to show everyone, the kind of game that makes me proud to be a gamer, and the kind of game I will happily purchase as soon as it becomes available.
-Read about my experience with The Unfinished Swan–
-Read about my experience with Yakuza 5–
-Read about my experience with Dead or Alive 5–
-Read about my experience with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance–
-Read about my experience with Medal of Honor: Warfighter–
-Read about my experience with PlayStation All-Stars–
Best Vita Game of TGS:
Soul Sacrifice
This one was easy and yet, not so easy. Phantasy Star Online 2 deserves a mention, because it was wicked fun to play, and worthy of the cherished Phantasy Star Online name. Soul Sacrifice gets the nod because of its concept, world, story, and sacrifice system. It promises ample opportunity to have your mind blown, all the while providing a fun action RPG. The Vita really should have more multiplayer games as accessible as PSO2 and Soul Sacrifice.
-Read about my experience with Soul Sacrifice–
-Read about my experience with Phantasy Star Online 2–
-Read about my experience with Ys Celceta–
Best PSP Game of TGS:
Sol Trigger
I didn’t get to play this, but my wife did, so I’m going off of her voice on this one and trusting that it was more interesting that a DS port of Final Fantasy III. She reports that Sol Trigger was a fun first-person, turn-based RPG. The PSP is still a force to be reckoned with in Japan (it claimed a software sales-chart-topper as recently as March), so it was no surprise to see the device still being given strong support.
-Read about my (wife’s) experience with Sol Trigger-
-Read about my experience with Final Fantasy III–
Now to answer your questions! Some of these have been “answered” by the links above, but I want to address everyone.
Xinen requested:
Go for the wemeeenz mang! Sites lately have been dropping the ball in regards to booth babes. Or go for booth dudes if thats your thing. Regardless share the wealth por favor. If you come across her, take a picture of Hitomi Tanaka and ask what her favorite games are. Lulz.
Please get some footage ( frottage?) of new Vita games, that’d be killer. And find out how many are coming out in the west. Gracias, muy amable!
Answer: There will be two photo galleries coming soon, one of them booth babes and one of them everything non-babe. I didn’t see Hitomi Tanaka. The folks at TGS, unfortunately, don’t like to discuss possibilities of games going to the West, if it’s not already announced. They like to announce stuff in their own time. Just the way it goes. The three best Vita games at the show were all action RPGs, and they’re linked above. I hope you like RPGs!
William Kettle asked:
is crash bandicoot a playable character?
Answer: Yes, Crash Bandicoot is a playable character, and has been for a long time. He’s one of the most popular playable characters from the golden age of gaming, best known from the series of platform games that bear his name, and a kart racer on the original PlayStation.
Juan Luis asked:
Yakuza 5!!!!!! Please find out about Yakuza 5 and the HD collection!!!
Answer: You got it buddy! Here’s a preview and here’s some info about Yakuza 5. The HD Collection, there’s not much to report. I played it, but it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect: Yakuza 1 & 2 in HD. It looks about a small step down from Yakuza 3 graphically, which is fine by me.
darklingvladd asked:
Can we get some From Software news?
Answer: Sorry dude, they weren’t at the show.
OverSun asked:
Have you checked out The Idolm@ster Shiny Festa event?
Also, have you tried the Pet Girlfriend (Sakurasou no Petto na Kanojo) demo at the SCE booth?
Answer: I only had time to get into Chiba, cover TGS, and get the hell out, sorry 🙁
To answer the second part, also no, sorry. Playing games at SCE’s booth is a painful process. You need to walk around to the front, walk through a hallway decorated with memorabilia that is all like “Hey…isn’t PlayStation Great?” and after winding your way through the tunnels, ask a guy at a desk for a ticket. Assuming he knows what games are above him, he’ll give you one (and only one) ticket, then you wait in line for that game. When the line dies, they invite you up a flight of stairs and you can play the game. Most things at SCE’s booth took between 30-60 minutes to play for this reason. Also, on the first day, they were denying that The Unfinished Swan was even at the show, despite me telling them that I saw the kiosk while I was upstairs playing PS All Stars. So yeah, with my very limited time and being there with a huge list of stuff to play, I wanted to limit how often I went over to Sonyville.
Thanks for checking out the Tokyo Game Show coverage as it went up this past week. Enjoy the photos when they go up.
