TOKYO GAME SHOW 2008
Oct. 14th, 2008 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tammaiya*sleepily* I'm sorry I phail at you lately, LJ. It's a combination of laziness, distraction via mirage and DS, exhaustion and sometimes actually being too busy, but in addition to my two weeks with my parents, I have a week of doing stuff with my sister, plus miscellaneous other things like working a part time job at the local autumn festival yesterday.
And, of course, going to Tokyo Game Show on Sunday. Which is actually what this post is about, since it'll all be stale news if I leave it to post chronologically. ANYWAY. I have photos, but only of some of the cosplayers, because you weren't allowed to take photos inside the actual halls. Not that this seemed to stop anybody, but I wasn't going to risk being tossed out or whatever (although usually they just politely ask you not to, but still) so I refrained.
(Btw, I'm going to bold developer and game names when I go into detail about anything, so if you want to skip the boring details of my day and find out the goss on the games, feel free to skim.)
Anyway, it was a very big day which started with me dragging myself out of bed at 8am-- which wasn't as painful as it could have been, because I'd had an early and tiring day on Saturday too so had gone to bed early, but I was still tired on 9 hours sleep-- to catch the train, as despite the name, Tokyo Game Show was in fact held at the exhibition halls in Makuhari, Chiba. 1.5~2 hours by train from where I live. May I just point out that's how long it takes to get from Osaka to Hiroshima? To be fair that's the shinkansen so comparative time is not indicative of distance, but nevertheless. ~____~
Whatever, I managed to get to Kaihim-makuhari station at 10.30 am, by virtue of accidentally catching an express train from Tokyo station because my phone told me to.
On that note, Tokyo station-- Tokyo-ku is BORING AS and basically consists of office building highrises, so you generally only go to Tokyo station if you're on your way to somewhere else. I went there on Saturday to see my sister before she caught her train to Narita Airport, for example, and it was where I caught the Keiyou line off into Chiba from. It's the same line you catch to Maihama station, which is where Disney is. To get from the normal inner-city lines to the Keiyou platforms, you fully freaking have to hike to get there. Okay, okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but dude, I generally do not expect to walk nearly a km WITHOUT LEAVING ANY TICKET GATES. O.o;;;
As for the express train, there were pluses and minuses. The minus was that I had to pay an extra 500 yen for the privilege which took my fare up to over 1500 yen one way. The considerable pluses, however, were that in addition to being faster, it meant I got to sit down-- and I got to sit down in a proper comfortable shinkansen-style seat rather than on a bench. I probably would have been standing the whole way on the normal train, what with the hordes heading for Disney as well as TGS, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay the extra fee both on the way there AND the way back.
Once I got there, it was still a fair walk from the station to the exhibition halls, but with a major convention it's pretty easy not to get lost-- follow the streams of people, and you're fairly guaranteed to end up in the right place. Which I did. After buying my ticket and going through a VERY cursory security check of my backpack, which only took about 5 minutes together, I proceeded into the first exhibition hall (there are three buildings with open air corridors between them) and promptly felt COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED. Not only was the building huge (and that was before I realised it was 1 of 3), but there were so many gaming displays all over the place that I didn't know where to start-- and, of course, if you want to witness the teeming mass of humanity, a major convention in or around Tokyo is the place to do it. I don't think I've ever seen so many people packed into one place, with the possible exception of New Year's Eve at Darling Harbour on the turn of the millenium. But on reflection, probably still no.
After picking up the TGS booklet and wandering around looking lost and a little over-awed for a bit, I managed to find my way to the Squeenix section, which was across from Capcom. I witnessed the display for the new Ace Attorney game-- the Edgeworth one-- which was in itself pretty impressive, because they'd set it up in an exact replica of his office, only with a whole heap of the armchairs for people to sit in while playing the demos. I didn't get to play the demo, however, because the line up system was crazy and made no sense. Basically they'd only take in the number of people approximately to match the number of demo games they had (which to be fair was a very high number, way more than at any of the other developer's game displays) and then they'd close the line. You couldn't really loiter around waiting for them to open it because there was a high volume of traffic passing by where you'd want to wait-- what with it being next to Biohazard and across from Squeenix. I was really confused and couldn't figure out how you were meant to get in the line, and I didn't manage to work out the system (which I believe was that at the end of the promo video they had playing, there'd be a changeover of players and they'd let new people into the line-- so you basically had to MAGICALLY APPEAR at the right time) until they were doing the last intake for the day just past 4pm. I was about 3 people away from being included. ~___~ CE LA VIE. And it was pretty hard to even watch the promo vid without getting swept away by the thoroughfare, but I managed to see most of it (a good half of which was just recaps of Edgeworth's role in the first three games) during my various loiterings. Looks interesting, he's acquired himself a teenage girl sidekick as is the absolute must of all gyakuten saiban games (she's dressed a little like Maya, make of that what you will) and it has more of a traditional running around with an avatar RPG aspect to it, but we shall have to wait and see. According to the TGS booklet, the game development is 50% complete.
So I didn't get to find out much new about the Edgeworth game, because Capcom clearly do not loev me. However, Square Enix apparently DOES, because I got a lot out of them. The first major thing I did after gravitating towards Squeenix was to check out the Chrono Trigger DS display-- there really wasn't much there, just framed displays of the official artwork. They didn't have a demo available to play. There was some new info in the promo vid they played on the open air theatre, however; not much, but there was some concrete confirmation of new side-story dungeons and the like.
I then meandered my way over to the chocobo section, where I proceeded to line up for about an hour or so for the privilege of playing the demo of Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon 2: Majyo to Shoujo to Gonin no Yuusha (AKA Chocobo Fables 2: The Witch, the Girl, and the Five Heroes). I was really grateful for the fact that I got to sit down on the train, because my legs were killing me enough as it was. I was also grateful that I had the foresight to bring my Nintendo DS and TWO volumes of Mirage of Blaze along-- the DS was useful because there was a lot of downloadable content at the show, including a chocobo fables minigame where you had to guess which chocobo the silhouette belonged to, and the books were good because if I hadn't had something to do in all those ridiculously long queues I would have died of boredom. (And yes. I did need two. I finished volume 38 on the first of my three trains home.)
Now, as for the game: I have to say, I am really looking forward to this one. I loved the first chocobo fables, and the sequel looks not to disappoint. When you play the demo you start from the beginning; plot wise it seems to be more an AU using the same characters rather than a direct sequel. You start by stowing away on Fat Chocobo's boat as he's heading to Cid's island. Cid in this universe is a famous writer of picture books, and is currently working on the fourth volume of his series. However, when you disembark on the island, a moogle working for Cid crashes into you, and you discover that Cid is currently ill in bed. The moogle asks for your help because they're short staffed, and so along you go to Cid's manor.
You go to meet Cid, laid up in bed, and meeting you inspires him with ideas for his story-- but the moogle scolds him, because he's meant to be resting. You then get asked if you can go get some apples from the west side of the island for Cid, which you agree to do. This leads to an apple catching mini game-- it's similar to one of the minigames in the first chocobo fables, from what I recall-- after which Shiroma (white mage) appears and tells you she's waiting for you, you have to come and find her and go to other worlds which need you. Chocobo is a bit baffled by this. Meanwhile, Cid is dreaming of working on his picture books when this witch appears and is generally sinister at him. He asks who she is, and then apparently works it out, screaming with horror.
When chocobo goes back to Cid's room, Cid is in a delirious state, and just keeps mumbling over and over about the witch. The moogle is worried and confused, as there is no witch in the books.
You then have to go up to the next floor to find the first volume of Cid's book series, where Shiroma is waiting for you. I'd pretty much just entered the book when my time was up.
Anyway, after all that tl;dr, I conclude by saying it's cute, fun, and looks like it has the potential to be even better than the first game, because the plot looks like it'll be a little more epic this time around. Thumbs up!
After my 15 minutes playing Chocobo Fables, it was already midday and I was freaking starving, having had breakfast at around 8 in the morning, so I decided instead of lining up for anything else (I did consider lining up for Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinthe of Forgotten Time DS, which was right next to Chocobo Fables, but decided against because I could see a fair amount of what was going on while I was in the queue and it comes out at the end of the month anyway) I was going to go in search of food. I was the picture of misery when all I managed to find were drink vending machines, and I cobbled together a highly pathetic "lunch" of ice cocoa, a nashi pear, and a cheezel stick thing I got free from one of the people handing out pamphlets on my way from the station. ... yeah. orz As it turned out there WAS a food court, it was just over in the third building and took a while for me to discover. XD;
By this point I'd reached the conclusion that Namco-Bandai was not in that hall and that there therefore had to be more gameshow, and wandered out into the open-air corridor, where I went, WHOA, THIS IS WHERE ALL THE COSPLAY WENT. It was cosplay mania out there; large scale, en masse photo shoots were going on. I managed to get some photos with my phone-- I'm too lazy to individually link but they're all up in an LJ gallery here. I didn't manage to get photos of a heap of really cool cosplayers, unfortunately, not helped by the rule about no photos inside. There were a Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth that were really good (I continue to be impressed by hair, especially when people use their own), and an excellent Yuna, plus the entire Organisation XIII, including Xemnas/Ansem in all incarnations, that I TOTALLY would have taken a photo of if only I could have caught them all in the same place at the same time. Their Axel wandered off right when I caught sight of them. It was a really awesome Axel, too; I have awe for anyone who can pull of Axel's hair that well through sheer virtue of hair gel and coloured spray. The Ansem was great too, complete with red contact lenses that looked REALLY perfect for the character. There were also a Reno and Tseng I saw that were totally awesome. In conclusion Japanese cosplayers are really, really high standard, and I can only be awed at how much money they must spend, not only on the basic materials for the costumes but on things like coloured contacts and hair and accessories.
After I'd spent some time gaping at cosplayers, I went back into the first hall to loiter around Square-Enix some more. This time, I had specific goals in mind: one, to watch through the promo vids at the Open Air Theatre, and two, to investigate the KH-related offerings on show.
I don't know if I watched all the way through the Open Air Theatre promos, because I caught snatches here and there while I was walking around and it was a very long reel so when they started back on videos I'd seen before I left. So it's possible I missed something. I did see a fair amount, however. I've already mentioned Chrono Trigger and the Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon game; they also had Final Fantasy Chronicles: Echoes of Time which is going to be released simultaneously on both DS and Wii. It looks interesting and similar in terms of gameplay to Rings of Fate, which I loved, but otherwise there isn't too much to say yet. Infinite Undiscovery looked really pretty and also like it had fun gameplay, and has increased the longing for an XBox 360 that started when Tales of Vesperia came out (goddamn it, you guys, stop releasing things on so many different platforms that I can't just pick one and stick with it!). Last Remnant, again for XBox 360, also looked kind of cool. I've never played Valkyrie Profile before or had any real desire to, but when I saw the promo for the DS game coming out for it it kind of took my breath away so I, um, might have to try that one. That was the stuff that really grabbed me; they didn't have promo vids for the KH games, all the FFXIII stuff was in the Playstation closed theatre, FFXI bores me, Star Ocean 4 didn't jump out at me... oh, Fantasy Earth Zero looked a little intriguing but as it's an online game, it's not really my thing. I will admit that Pingu was kind of charming, although I was eh about the Snoopy game. That may just be because I never read Snoopy as a child, however.
Anyhoo, after standing around staring at the screen for a good long while, I decided I'd had enough and was going to resume my mission for KH. It was, shall we say, a very SUCCESSFUL mission. I didn't get to play Birth By Sleep (sigh, my resistance is being worn down, I'm going to end up with a PSP whether I can afford one or not at this rate) but I DID get to play Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.
THAT'S RIGHT, DUDES, CHECK IT; I got to play the Roxas game! \o/
God only knows when it's coming out, because the completion rate is listed as "?" in the booklet-- though APPARENTLY it'll be out sometime this winter, which I no longer have to mentally reverse now I'm temporarily not living in the southern hemisphere (random sidenote: do you know how many Japanese people have never heard that the hemispheres have reversed seasons? I never cease to be baffled by the sheer number of people who are honestly amazed when I say, "No really, Christmas in Australia happens in SUMMER. Yes, this means it's hot. It doesn't snow. NO, BUT SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS."). My judgment on it is, :D :D :D! Of course I was always going to be totally easy for a game about ROXAS AND AXEL, but to be more in-depth about it: the in-game graphics meet with my approval. Although Roxas looks SO SHORT next to Axel, which made me both go XD and feel mildly skeevy, but whatev, I'm SURE he wasn't QUITE that much shorter in KH2. (seriously, he came to Axel's shoulders, didn't he?) The gameplay works quite well-- obviously I didn't have a lot of time to get the hang of it or a manual to tell me which buttons do what, but I managed to figure it out, and it's all fairly standard KH-style. The camera angles did admittedly piss me off, because there's only two and the heartless kept flying off out of my line of vision, which, well, Axel was there to deal with them but it was nevertheless irritating. Still, given production is at ?%, that may change before they bring out the final version. As for the plot, I didn't really get to find out much in the way of that-- the way the demo worked, you could choose from the first three missions which one you wanted to play. I chose the first mission, which paired you with Axel to wipe out a big Heartless in Twilight Town. It seems to be not long after Roxas joins, because Axel reminds him about what he has to do. Roxas seems really spacey for some reason and mostly just answers Axel with vague "yeah..."s, which Axel finds weird too, but I didn't get to find out what was up with that because my time ended right before I killed the mission boss. (Which was our old friend Guard Armour, on that note.) As for how the mission played out, it was mostly just heartless taiji (... leaving that for the *facepalm* value; I meant... er... I dunno, extermination? What's a good word for "taiji"? *gives up, moves on*), but there was a small element of interaction with your environment because you had to pull levers to open doors to move around the level. I suspect that that aspect will become more complex and involved in later missions and take it beyond the extent of just bashing stuff up, or at least I certainly hope so. Anyway! Looking forward to it~.
After that, I finally made my way through to the second enormous hall (this is starting to make me think perversely of Goldilocks), where I did indeed locate Namco-Bandai. I stood for a while watching the Bandai promo screen, which. Well! First there was a promo for a new Dragon Ball GT game, forget which platform, then there was a One Piece game-- Wii?, and then there was Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm for the PS3.
Me: .....................
Me: I sense a theme. XD
Anyway, the DB game looked kind of cool, the One Piece game looked like the kind of thing a fan could be properly excited about, and the Naruto game looks to be the best fighting game I've ever seen. It was pretty much breathtaking. I'm not a big fan of fighting games in general, but aside from the gorgeous animation and graphics, it looked to have really clean, smooth gameplay that made all the complex ninja moves (things like Naruto's bunshin army) work seamlessly well. I didn't play the demo because my priorities lay elsewhere, but damn, it looked good.
Also, I download-played the trial of the new Dragon Ball DS game, which gave me something to do while I was queueing for Tales of Hearts. The game is actually already out and has been for a few weeks, and I'd kind of been eyeing it off with semi-guilty interest, but now I have to admit with some shame that I kind of totally want it. orz Possibly enough that I might see if I can get it cheap at Book Off, because thanks to the back up save function, it doesn't work on my R4 cartridge. Wah.
But back to TGS. I got briefly distracted by the Namco-Bandai stage-- they were playing the Tales of the Abyss themesong, it drew me like a moth to a flame-- and I stayed to listen to the live performance by a female singer who had SOMETHING to do with ToA, because she said something about Luke, so I assume she's the vocalist from Bump Of Chicken. I didn't know the song she did, but I liked it, and it was just fun to be around for random live music. :D
After that, I FINALLY found the Tales area, where they had demos of Tales of Hearts, the new upcoming Tales game for the DS, and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. I then proceeded to spend an hour and a half (or so. The line CLAIMED to be 90 minutes long when I joined it, but I'm pretty sure it was longer than that) to line in wait for Tales of Hearts. Oh my god, it makes me cry just to THINK of the foot/leg/lower back pain I was enduring by this point.
But, in the end, I made my way to the front of the queue. VICTORY. You had the choice between either playing a part of the game that was mostly plot, or playing a dungeon (and hee, do you know how many poor staff members at various displays stumblingly tried to explain stuff to me in English before either I took pity on them and said "Nihongo daijoubu" or they gave up and asked if I could speak Japanese?). I perhaps foolishly chose the plot-- then again, there is a certain level of familiarity to most Tales battle systems, and it wasn't as though I'd had ample time to watch the big screens showing what the players ahead of me in the line were doing to get a feel for the dungeon. Almost no one I saw chose plot, which was what motivated me; I thought it was a good way to get a feel for the atmosphere and characters. From what I saw, my judgement is positive; the characters look like they'll be fun, and the graphics are a return to very old school Tales with the cute pixellated chibis. Some people might consider that a step backwards, but I've always been kind of partial to the cute 2D look, and I think if they're going to continue to release games on the DS it's actually more suited to the capabilities of the platform. I'd rather have 2D chibis that look basic but cute than have a fail attempt at high power graphics the system can't support. There are two precedents for Tales on the DS-- I really don't like the in-game graphics for Tales of the Tempest, which is maybe partially why I stalled on it and haven't picked it back up again yet. I started Tales of Innocence last night, and while the 3D graphics in it work much better and are much more attractive than Tales of the Tempest and I think I might end up really very fond of the game, I can't help but wonder why they released it on DS. With Tales of Hearts, however, it seems like it'll be really suited to the system it's on. The more basic graphics are cute and they don't make you wonder why they didn't just release it on one of the consoles if they're going to try and use graphics more appropriate to one.
That's the main of what I have to say about ToH, I think. I did have ample opportunity to watch and rewatch the promo (along with promos for the ToA anime and for ToW:RM2; I now have irrepressible ToA cravings) while waiting in line, so I'll add that I definitely prefer the anime version to the CG version. For those of you who have no prior knowledge of ToH, they're releasing two different editions, one with the cutscenes in the anime style traditional to Tales and one with realistic CG ala final fantasy. With the possible exception of the heroine Kohak Hearts' older brother, I think I like all of them better in anime style. Other than that... hm. I approve of the voice acting. And I don't really know much about the plot yet-- it involves hearts, unsurprisingly-- but I see nothing so far to displease me.
By the time I managed to have my turn on ToH it was already around 3.30 in the afternoon and I was once again starving. By this time I'd discovered the existence of the food court in the third building, however, so I meandered over there and got me an omu-yakisoba. (Omlette with Japanese mayonaise and okonomiyaki sauce on yakisoba. What? Yes, I know I'm on a diet. Shut up, I totally walked it off. *shifty*) I then went in search of FFXIII, which was having a demo in the playstation hall at 4pm-- and I found the playstation hall, but I discovered much to my chagrin that it was closed and you needed a ticket to get in.
WHATEV, DUDES, IT'LL BE ONLINE SOONER OR LATER. *sulk*
So deprived of that, I decided to go see if I couldn't get in one last game demo. This was when I made my last desperate and futile attempt to get into the line for the Turnabout Prosecutor game, and also when I walked past the Level 5 area and got a magazine foisted off on me. Level 5, for those of you who understandably don't know, are the developers responsible for Professor Layton. I didn't actually go into their display area, but they had stuff about the upcoming third Professor Layton game. Their magazine also has two new puzzle games called "Atamania" (from atama, head, and mania) 1 and 2 for DS, and three RPGs (Another World, vaguely reminiscent both in terms of art style and theme of Spirited Away, Ushiro, which is about ghosts and possession and looks like it'll be creepy, and Danbooru Senki, which has an art style which reminds me maybe of Digimon and is set in the year 2050 in a mix between real Tokyo and a fantasy world and seems to be of the mecha persuasion) none of which it deigns to mention the platform for. I would hazard a guess at DS since that's what all their other games are on, but who knows.
(Speaking of magazines, though, I also picked up ones for Squeenix and Namco respectively. The Namco one is pretty good, it has double page spreads on both the new Tales games which is basically all I ask for, but the Squeenix one is LAME. It has a paragraph at most on each game, and the rest of it is filled with totally irrelevant crap. If I want to know shit about the moon, Squeenix, A GAMING MAGAZINE IS NOT THE PLACE I'M GOING TO LOOK FOR IT. Strangely enough, when I pick up a gaming magazine I want information about GAMES. Shocking, I know.
Still, I forgive them because the staff at the KH area were so nice.)
Eventually I wound up back in the Namco Tales section, however. After I missed my chance to play the Edgeworth game, I'd tossed up between the Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon game and ToW2, but in the end the Chocobo game is coming out next month-- for the DS, which I already own-- and ToW2 has no slated release date and is for the PSP, which I am still tossing up on buying. So that logic decided me, and I lined for Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. I was the last person they let into the line before they closed it for the day, so it was lucky I didn't take longer making up my mind. Also, the sign made spurious claims at being 30 minutes long. My response to this is: HAH. HAH. It was lucky if it was under an hour. But whatever, I certainly got a lot of reading done on Mirage. And since I was the last person in line and some of the people in front of me did it too, I said "fuck it" and sat down. And was very grateful for it, because OW, you guys, I was kind of feeling like maybe I'd never move again.
After butt shuffling my way along the line every so often, I eventually got to the front and got to take my turn. My feeling on this game is: WANTS IT LIKE BURNING, PRECIOUSSSS. This feeling was one I was already pretty much forming from the promo video I watched repeatedly while queueing for both Tales games (maybe it worked like brainwashing... or maybe it was just THAT AWESOME. I lean towards the latter, because the "WANT LIKE BURNING" reaction hit me on first view), but playing cemented it. The control reaction when you try to run diagonally is a little stilted, but that was the only complaint I had. The fighting was fast-paced and fun and all very Tales, the graphics were great, and there are FACE CHATS. Not that they were about anything more exciting than Cless, Farrah and Kannon telling you about what will be in the real game, but the very prospect of face chats was enough to excite me. It's probably not very different overall from the first Radiant Mythology aside from the number of characters and so forth, but all that does is remind me that I want ToW1 like burning ALSO. Enough that I went in search of a Book Off and thought VERY SERIOUSLY about buying a second hand PSP later that night before common sense and sense of budget reasserted itself. Which it probably wouldn't have, if only they'd had a copy of ToW on hand. <<
Anyhoo, that's the end of my tale of TGS, because they in fact started packing up while I was playing ToW2. I could have played for longer, but I left on my own accord because I figured I'd got all the information I was likely to get out of the trial game and I was exhausted. I went out to the cafeteria area and had an ice-cream and some bottled tea and just vegetated for a bit because I was SO WHACKED, you have no idea. (I'd had a really big day on Saturday, too, and I have general issues with my right leg that throw out my posture on the right side of my body and make standing in one place for long periods of time a world of pain I don't really want to talk about. It actually hurts me more to traverse a museum, stand in a line or serve customers standing up than it would to walk for a few kilometres.)
Then I caught two trains back to Musashi Sakai, where I was like, I have to buy more washing detergent... but first, I will look for a Book Off! Since I cannot see one near the station (there is another second hand book/game shop called Bookland, but it's comparatively small), I will check the GPS on my phone! O hai, there's TOTALLY a Book Off in Musashi Sakai, I will totally walk there!
Notwithstanding that it is 8 at night and pitch dark and I have been awake since 8 in the morning and have been standing around all day, or, with particular emphasis on this point, or that the Book Off is at least 20 minutes walk from the station. orz But I got there! And it was probably a total waste of time because I didn't actually DO anything while I was there, but you know, whatever, I'm sure it was good exercise. Even if I got really hungry and was kind of annoyed about having to walk BACK all that way and my period started, cough.
Then I got my detergent and a battery recharger for my actual proper digital camera and finally, FINALLY went home, where I considered reading more book but pretty much ate and fell straight into bed at 10.30pm before waking at 2.30 with a hypo, having been too tired to remember to eat supper.
THE END!
I would just like you all to know that that entry took me three and a half hours to write, and I hope you appreciate the effort. >(
(And on the quick update of my life front, today was the first day back of classes and what a first day it was. Tuesday is CRUEL. I have class from 2nd period at 10.40 straight on until 5th period, finishing at 6pm. I do have an hour for lunch from 12.10 - 1.10, but it still melted my brain to mush. This entry is already long and time-consuming enough, though, so you can all hear about that another time.)
And, of course, going to Tokyo Game Show on Sunday. Which is actually what this post is about, since it'll all be stale news if I leave it to post chronologically. ANYWAY. I have photos, but only of some of the cosplayers, because you weren't allowed to take photos inside the actual halls. Not that this seemed to stop anybody, but I wasn't going to risk being tossed out or whatever (although usually they just politely ask you not to, but still) so I refrained.
(Btw, I'm going to bold developer and game names when I go into detail about anything, so if you want to skip the boring details of my day and find out the goss on the games, feel free to skim.)
Anyway, it was a very big day which started with me dragging myself out of bed at 8am-- which wasn't as painful as it could have been, because I'd had an early and tiring day on Saturday too so had gone to bed early, but I was still tired on 9 hours sleep-- to catch the train, as despite the name, Tokyo Game Show was in fact held at the exhibition halls in Makuhari, Chiba. 1.5~2 hours by train from where I live. May I just point out that's how long it takes to get from Osaka to Hiroshima? To be fair that's the shinkansen so comparative time is not indicative of distance, but nevertheless. ~____~
Whatever, I managed to get to Kaihim-makuhari station at 10.30 am, by virtue of accidentally catching an express train from Tokyo station because my phone told me to.
On that note, Tokyo station-- Tokyo-ku is BORING AS and basically consists of office building highrises, so you generally only go to Tokyo station if you're on your way to somewhere else. I went there on Saturday to see my sister before she caught her train to Narita Airport, for example, and it was where I caught the Keiyou line off into Chiba from. It's the same line you catch to Maihama station, which is where Disney is. To get from the normal inner-city lines to the Keiyou platforms, you fully freaking have to hike to get there. Okay, okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but dude, I generally do not expect to walk nearly a km WITHOUT LEAVING ANY TICKET GATES. O.o;;;
As for the express train, there were pluses and minuses. The minus was that I had to pay an extra 500 yen for the privilege which took my fare up to over 1500 yen one way. The considerable pluses, however, were that in addition to being faster, it meant I got to sit down-- and I got to sit down in a proper comfortable shinkansen-style seat rather than on a bench. I probably would have been standing the whole way on the normal train, what with the hordes heading for Disney as well as TGS, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay the extra fee both on the way there AND the way back.
Once I got there, it was still a fair walk from the station to the exhibition halls, but with a major convention it's pretty easy not to get lost-- follow the streams of people, and you're fairly guaranteed to end up in the right place. Which I did. After buying my ticket and going through a VERY cursory security check of my backpack, which only took about 5 minutes together, I proceeded into the first exhibition hall (there are three buildings with open air corridors between them) and promptly felt COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED. Not only was the building huge (and that was before I realised it was 1 of 3), but there were so many gaming displays all over the place that I didn't know where to start-- and, of course, if you want to witness the teeming mass of humanity, a major convention in or around Tokyo is the place to do it. I don't think I've ever seen so many people packed into one place, with the possible exception of New Year's Eve at Darling Harbour on the turn of the millenium. But on reflection, probably still no.
After picking up the TGS booklet and wandering around looking lost and a little over-awed for a bit, I managed to find my way to the Squeenix section, which was across from Capcom. I witnessed the display for the new Ace Attorney game-- the Edgeworth one-- which was in itself pretty impressive, because they'd set it up in an exact replica of his office, only with a whole heap of the armchairs for people to sit in while playing the demos. I didn't get to play the demo, however, because the line up system was crazy and made no sense. Basically they'd only take in the number of people approximately to match the number of demo games they had (which to be fair was a very high number, way more than at any of the other developer's game displays) and then they'd close the line. You couldn't really loiter around waiting for them to open it because there was a high volume of traffic passing by where you'd want to wait-- what with it being next to Biohazard and across from Squeenix. I was really confused and couldn't figure out how you were meant to get in the line, and I didn't manage to work out the system (which I believe was that at the end of the promo video they had playing, there'd be a changeover of players and they'd let new people into the line-- so you basically had to MAGICALLY APPEAR at the right time) until they were doing the last intake for the day just past 4pm. I was about 3 people away from being included. ~___~ CE LA VIE. And it was pretty hard to even watch the promo vid without getting swept away by the thoroughfare, but I managed to see most of it (a good half of which was just recaps of Edgeworth's role in the first three games) during my various loiterings. Looks interesting, he's acquired himself a teenage girl sidekick as is the absolute must of all gyakuten saiban games (she's dressed a little like Maya, make of that what you will) and it has more of a traditional running around with an avatar RPG aspect to it, but we shall have to wait and see. According to the TGS booklet, the game development is 50% complete.
So I didn't get to find out much new about the Edgeworth game, because Capcom clearly do not loev me. However, Square Enix apparently DOES, because I got a lot out of them. The first major thing I did after gravitating towards Squeenix was to check out the Chrono Trigger DS display-- there really wasn't much there, just framed displays of the official artwork. They didn't have a demo available to play. There was some new info in the promo vid they played on the open air theatre, however; not much, but there was some concrete confirmation of new side-story dungeons and the like.
I then meandered my way over to the chocobo section, where I proceeded to line up for about an hour or so for the privilege of playing the demo of Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon 2: Majyo to Shoujo to Gonin no Yuusha (AKA Chocobo Fables 2: The Witch, the Girl, and the Five Heroes). I was really grateful for the fact that I got to sit down on the train, because my legs were killing me enough as it was. I was also grateful that I had the foresight to bring my Nintendo DS and TWO volumes of Mirage of Blaze along-- the DS was useful because there was a lot of downloadable content at the show, including a chocobo fables minigame where you had to guess which chocobo the silhouette belonged to, and the books were good because if I hadn't had something to do in all those ridiculously long queues I would have died of boredom. (And yes. I did need two. I finished volume 38 on the first of my three trains home.)
Now, as for the game: I have to say, I am really looking forward to this one. I loved the first chocobo fables, and the sequel looks not to disappoint. When you play the demo you start from the beginning; plot wise it seems to be more an AU using the same characters rather than a direct sequel. You start by stowing away on Fat Chocobo's boat as he's heading to Cid's island. Cid in this universe is a famous writer of picture books, and is currently working on the fourth volume of his series. However, when you disembark on the island, a moogle working for Cid crashes into you, and you discover that Cid is currently ill in bed. The moogle asks for your help because they're short staffed, and so along you go to Cid's manor.
You go to meet Cid, laid up in bed, and meeting you inspires him with ideas for his story-- but the moogle scolds him, because he's meant to be resting. You then get asked if you can go get some apples from the west side of the island for Cid, which you agree to do. This leads to an apple catching mini game-- it's similar to one of the minigames in the first chocobo fables, from what I recall-- after which Shiroma (white mage) appears and tells you she's waiting for you, you have to come and find her and go to other worlds which need you. Chocobo is a bit baffled by this. Meanwhile, Cid is dreaming of working on his picture books when this witch appears and is generally sinister at him. He asks who she is, and then apparently works it out, screaming with horror.
When chocobo goes back to Cid's room, Cid is in a delirious state, and just keeps mumbling over and over about the witch. The moogle is worried and confused, as there is no witch in the books.
You then have to go up to the next floor to find the first volume of Cid's book series, where Shiroma is waiting for you. I'd pretty much just entered the book when my time was up.
Anyway, after all that tl;dr, I conclude by saying it's cute, fun, and looks like it has the potential to be even better than the first game, because the plot looks like it'll be a little more epic this time around. Thumbs up!
After my 15 minutes playing Chocobo Fables, it was already midday and I was freaking starving, having had breakfast at around 8 in the morning, so I decided instead of lining up for anything else (I did consider lining up for Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: Labyrinthe of Forgotten Time DS, which was right next to Chocobo Fables, but decided against because I could see a fair amount of what was going on while I was in the queue and it comes out at the end of the month anyway) I was going to go in search of food. I was the picture of misery when all I managed to find were drink vending machines, and I cobbled together a highly pathetic "lunch" of ice cocoa, a nashi pear, and a cheezel stick thing I got free from one of the people handing out pamphlets on my way from the station. ... yeah. orz As it turned out there WAS a food court, it was just over in the third building and took a while for me to discover. XD;
By this point I'd reached the conclusion that Namco-Bandai was not in that hall and that there therefore had to be more gameshow, and wandered out into the open-air corridor, where I went, WHOA, THIS IS WHERE ALL THE COSPLAY WENT. It was cosplay mania out there; large scale, en masse photo shoots were going on. I managed to get some photos with my phone-- I'm too lazy to individually link but they're all up in an LJ gallery here. I didn't manage to get photos of a heap of really cool cosplayers, unfortunately, not helped by the rule about no photos inside. There were a Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth that were really good (I continue to be impressed by hair, especially when people use their own), and an excellent Yuna, plus the entire Organisation XIII, including Xemnas/Ansem in all incarnations, that I TOTALLY would have taken a photo of if only I could have caught them all in the same place at the same time. Their Axel wandered off right when I caught sight of them. It was a really awesome Axel, too; I have awe for anyone who can pull of Axel's hair that well through sheer virtue of hair gel and coloured spray. The Ansem was great too, complete with red contact lenses that looked REALLY perfect for the character. There were also a Reno and Tseng I saw that were totally awesome. In conclusion Japanese cosplayers are really, really high standard, and I can only be awed at how much money they must spend, not only on the basic materials for the costumes but on things like coloured contacts and hair and accessories.
After I'd spent some time gaping at cosplayers, I went back into the first hall to loiter around Square-Enix some more. This time, I had specific goals in mind: one, to watch through the promo vids at the Open Air Theatre, and two, to investigate the KH-related offerings on show.
I don't know if I watched all the way through the Open Air Theatre promos, because I caught snatches here and there while I was walking around and it was a very long reel so when they started back on videos I'd seen before I left. So it's possible I missed something. I did see a fair amount, however. I've already mentioned Chrono Trigger and the Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon game; they also had Final Fantasy Chronicles: Echoes of Time which is going to be released simultaneously on both DS and Wii. It looks interesting and similar in terms of gameplay to Rings of Fate, which I loved, but otherwise there isn't too much to say yet. Infinite Undiscovery looked really pretty and also like it had fun gameplay, and has increased the longing for an XBox 360 that started when Tales of Vesperia came out (goddamn it, you guys, stop releasing things on so many different platforms that I can't just pick one and stick with it!). Last Remnant, again for XBox 360, also looked kind of cool. I've never played Valkyrie Profile before or had any real desire to, but when I saw the promo for the DS game coming out for it it kind of took my breath away so I, um, might have to try that one. That was the stuff that really grabbed me; they didn't have promo vids for the KH games, all the FFXIII stuff was in the Playstation closed theatre, FFXI bores me, Star Ocean 4 didn't jump out at me... oh, Fantasy Earth Zero looked a little intriguing but as it's an online game, it's not really my thing. I will admit that Pingu was kind of charming, although I was eh about the Snoopy game. That may just be because I never read Snoopy as a child, however.
Anyhoo, after standing around staring at the screen for a good long while, I decided I'd had enough and was going to resume my mission for KH. It was, shall we say, a very SUCCESSFUL mission. I didn't get to play Birth By Sleep (sigh, my resistance is being worn down, I'm going to end up with a PSP whether I can afford one or not at this rate) but I DID get to play Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.
THAT'S RIGHT, DUDES, CHECK IT; I got to play the Roxas game! \o/
God only knows when it's coming out, because the completion rate is listed as "?" in the booklet-- though APPARENTLY it'll be out sometime this winter, which I no longer have to mentally reverse now I'm temporarily not living in the southern hemisphere (random sidenote: do you know how many Japanese people have never heard that the hemispheres have reversed seasons? I never cease to be baffled by the sheer number of people who are honestly amazed when I say, "No really, Christmas in Australia happens in SUMMER. Yes, this means it's hot. It doesn't snow. NO, BUT SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS."). My judgment on it is, :D :D :D! Of course I was always going to be totally easy for a game about ROXAS AND AXEL, but to be more in-depth about it: the in-game graphics meet with my approval. Although Roxas looks SO SHORT next to Axel, which made me both go XD and feel mildly skeevy, but whatev, I'm SURE he wasn't QUITE that much shorter in KH2. (seriously, he came to Axel's shoulders, didn't he?) The gameplay works quite well-- obviously I didn't have a lot of time to get the hang of it or a manual to tell me which buttons do what, but I managed to figure it out, and it's all fairly standard KH-style. The camera angles did admittedly piss me off, because there's only two and the heartless kept flying off out of my line of vision, which, well, Axel was there to deal with them but it was nevertheless irritating. Still, given production is at ?%, that may change before they bring out the final version. As for the plot, I didn't really get to find out much in the way of that-- the way the demo worked, you could choose from the first three missions which one you wanted to play. I chose the first mission, which paired you with Axel to wipe out a big Heartless in Twilight Town. It seems to be not long after Roxas joins, because Axel reminds him about what he has to do. Roxas seems really spacey for some reason and mostly just answers Axel with vague "yeah..."s, which Axel finds weird too, but I didn't get to find out what was up with that because my time ended right before I killed the mission boss. (Which was our old friend Guard Armour, on that note.) As for how the mission played out, it was mostly just heartless taiji (... leaving that for the *facepalm* value; I meant... er... I dunno, extermination? What's a good word for "taiji"? *gives up, moves on*), but there was a small element of interaction with your environment because you had to pull levers to open doors to move around the level. I suspect that that aspect will become more complex and involved in later missions and take it beyond the extent of just bashing stuff up, or at least I certainly hope so. Anyway! Looking forward to it~.
After that, I finally made my way through to the second enormous hall (this is starting to make me think perversely of Goldilocks), where I did indeed locate Namco-Bandai. I stood for a while watching the Bandai promo screen, which. Well! First there was a promo for a new Dragon Ball GT game, forget which platform, then there was a One Piece game-- Wii?, and then there was Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm for the PS3.
Me: .....................
Me: I sense a theme. XD
Anyway, the DB game looked kind of cool, the One Piece game looked like the kind of thing a fan could be properly excited about, and the Naruto game looks to be the best fighting game I've ever seen. It was pretty much breathtaking. I'm not a big fan of fighting games in general, but aside from the gorgeous animation and graphics, it looked to have really clean, smooth gameplay that made all the complex ninja moves (things like Naruto's bunshin army) work seamlessly well. I didn't play the demo because my priorities lay elsewhere, but damn, it looked good.
Also, I download-played the trial of the new Dragon Ball DS game, which gave me something to do while I was queueing for Tales of Hearts. The game is actually already out and has been for a few weeks, and I'd kind of been eyeing it off with semi-guilty interest, but now I have to admit with some shame that I kind of totally want it. orz Possibly enough that I might see if I can get it cheap at Book Off, because thanks to the back up save function, it doesn't work on my R4 cartridge. Wah.
But back to TGS. I got briefly distracted by the Namco-Bandai stage-- they were playing the Tales of the Abyss themesong, it drew me like a moth to a flame-- and I stayed to listen to the live performance by a female singer who had SOMETHING to do with ToA, because she said something about Luke, so I assume she's the vocalist from Bump Of Chicken. I didn't know the song she did, but I liked it, and it was just fun to be around for random live music. :D
After that, I FINALLY found the Tales area, where they had demos of Tales of Hearts, the new upcoming Tales game for the DS, and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. I then proceeded to spend an hour and a half (or so. The line CLAIMED to be 90 minutes long when I joined it, but I'm pretty sure it was longer than that) to line in wait for Tales of Hearts. Oh my god, it makes me cry just to THINK of the foot/leg/lower back pain I was enduring by this point.
But, in the end, I made my way to the front of the queue. VICTORY. You had the choice between either playing a part of the game that was mostly plot, or playing a dungeon (and hee, do you know how many poor staff members at various displays stumblingly tried to explain stuff to me in English before either I took pity on them and said "Nihongo daijoubu" or they gave up and asked if I could speak Japanese?). I perhaps foolishly chose the plot-- then again, there is a certain level of familiarity to most Tales battle systems, and it wasn't as though I'd had ample time to watch the big screens showing what the players ahead of me in the line were doing to get a feel for the dungeon. Almost no one I saw chose plot, which was what motivated me; I thought it was a good way to get a feel for the atmosphere and characters. From what I saw, my judgement is positive; the characters look like they'll be fun, and the graphics are a return to very old school Tales with the cute pixellated chibis. Some people might consider that a step backwards, but I've always been kind of partial to the cute 2D look, and I think if they're going to continue to release games on the DS it's actually more suited to the capabilities of the platform. I'd rather have 2D chibis that look basic but cute than have a fail attempt at high power graphics the system can't support. There are two precedents for Tales on the DS-- I really don't like the in-game graphics for Tales of the Tempest, which is maybe partially why I stalled on it and haven't picked it back up again yet. I started Tales of Innocence last night, and while the 3D graphics in it work much better and are much more attractive than Tales of the Tempest and I think I might end up really very fond of the game, I can't help but wonder why they released it on DS. With Tales of Hearts, however, it seems like it'll be really suited to the system it's on. The more basic graphics are cute and they don't make you wonder why they didn't just release it on one of the consoles if they're going to try and use graphics more appropriate to one.
That's the main of what I have to say about ToH, I think. I did have ample opportunity to watch and rewatch the promo (along with promos for the ToA anime and for ToW:RM2; I now have irrepressible ToA cravings) while waiting in line, so I'll add that I definitely prefer the anime version to the CG version. For those of you who have no prior knowledge of ToH, they're releasing two different editions, one with the cutscenes in the anime style traditional to Tales and one with realistic CG ala final fantasy. With the possible exception of the heroine Kohak Hearts' older brother, I think I like all of them better in anime style. Other than that... hm. I approve of the voice acting. And I don't really know much about the plot yet-- it involves hearts, unsurprisingly-- but I see nothing so far to displease me.
By the time I managed to have my turn on ToH it was already around 3.30 in the afternoon and I was once again starving. By this time I'd discovered the existence of the food court in the third building, however, so I meandered over there and got me an omu-yakisoba. (Omlette with Japanese mayonaise and okonomiyaki sauce on yakisoba. What? Yes, I know I'm on a diet. Shut up, I totally walked it off. *shifty*) I then went in search of FFXIII, which was having a demo in the playstation hall at 4pm-- and I found the playstation hall, but I discovered much to my chagrin that it was closed and you needed a ticket to get in.
WHATEV, DUDES, IT'LL BE ONLINE SOONER OR LATER. *sulk*
So deprived of that, I decided to go see if I couldn't get in one last game demo. This was when I made my last desperate and futile attempt to get into the line for the Turnabout Prosecutor game, and also when I walked past the Level 5 area and got a magazine foisted off on me. Level 5, for those of you who understandably don't know, are the developers responsible for Professor Layton. I didn't actually go into their display area, but they had stuff about the upcoming third Professor Layton game. Their magazine also has two new puzzle games called "Atamania" (from atama, head, and mania) 1 and 2 for DS, and three RPGs (Another World, vaguely reminiscent both in terms of art style and theme of Spirited Away, Ushiro, which is about ghosts and possession and looks like it'll be creepy, and Danbooru Senki, which has an art style which reminds me maybe of Digimon and is set in the year 2050 in a mix between real Tokyo and a fantasy world and seems to be of the mecha persuasion) none of which it deigns to mention the platform for. I would hazard a guess at DS since that's what all their other games are on, but who knows.
(Speaking of magazines, though, I also picked up ones for Squeenix and Namco respectively. The Namco one is pretty good, it has double page spreads on both the new Tales games which is basically all I ask for, but the Squeenix one is LAME. It has a paragraph at most on each game, and the rest of it is filled with totally irrelevant crap. If I want to know shit about the moon, Squeenix, A GAMING MAGAZINE IS NOT THE PLACE I'M GOING TO LOOK FOR IT. Strangely enough, when I pick up a gaming magazine I want information about GAMES. Shocking, I know.
Still, I forgive them because the staff at the KH area were so nice.)
Eventually I wound up back in the Namco Tales section, however. After I missed my chance to play the Edgeworth game, I'd tossed up between the Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon game and ToW2, but in the end the Chocobo game is coming out next month-- for the DS, which I already own-- and ToW2 has no slated release date and is for the PSP, which I am still tossing up on buying. So that logic decided me, and I lined for Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. I was the last person they let into the line before they closed it for the day, so it was lucky I didn't take longer making up my mind. Also, the sign made spurious claims at being 30 minutes long. My response to this is: HAH. HAH. It was lucky if it was under an hour. But whatever, I certainly got a lot of reading done on Mirage. And since I was the last person in line and some of the people in front of me did it too, I said "fuck it" and sat down. And was very grateful for it, because OW, you guys, I was kind of feeling like maybe I'd never move again.
After butt shuffling my way along the line every so often, I eventually got to the front and got to take my turn. My feeling on this game is: WANTS IT LIKE BURNING, PRECIOUSSSS. This feeling was one I was already pretty much forming from the promo video I watched repeatedly while queueing for both Tales games (maybe it worked like brainwashing... or maybe it was just THAT AWESOME. I lean towards the latter, because the "WANT LIKE BURNING" reaction hit me on first view), but playing cemented it. The control reaction when you try to run diagonally is a little stilted, but that was the only complaint I had. The fighting was fast-paced and fun and all very Tales, the graphics were great, and there are FACE CHATS. Not that they were about anything more exciting than Cless, Farrah and Kannon telling you about what will be in the real game, but the very prospect of face chats was enough to excite me. It's probably not very different overall from the first Radiant Mythology aside from the number of characters and so forth, but all that does is remind me that I want ToW1 like burning ALSO. Enough that I went in search of a Book Off and thought VERY SERIOUSLY about buying a second hand PSP later that night before common sense and sense of budget reasserted itself. Which it probably wouldn't have, if only they'd had a copy of ToW on hand. <<
Anyhoo, that's the end of my tale of TGS, because they in fact started packing up while I was playing ToW2. I could have played for longer, but I left on my own accord because I figured I'd got all the information I was likely to get out of the trial game and I was exhausted. I went out to the cafeteria area and had an ice-cream and some bottled tea and just vegetated for a bit because I was SO WHACKED, you have no idea. (I'd had a really big day on Saturday, too, and I have general issues with my right leg that throw out my posture on the right side of my body and make standing in one place for long periods of time a world of pain I don't really want to talk about. It actually hurts me more to traverse a museum, stand in a line or serve customers standing up than it would to walk for a few kilometres.)
Then I caught two trains back to Musashi Sakai, where I was like, I have to buy more washing detergent... but first, I will look for a Book Off! Since I cannot see one near the station (there is another second hand book/game shop called Bookland, but it's comparatively small), I will check the GPS on my phone! O hai, there's TOTALLY a Book Off in Musashi Sakai, I will totally walk there!
Notwithstanding that it is 8 at night and pitch dark and I have been awake since 8 in the morning and have been standing around all day, or, with particular emphasis on this point, or that the Book Off is at least 20 minutes walk from the station. orz But I got there! And it was probably a total waste of time because I didn't actually DO anything while I was there, but you know, whatever, I'm sure it was good exercise. Even if I got really hungry and was kind of annoyed about having to walk BACK all that way and my period started, cough.
Then I got my detergent and a battery recharger for my actual proper digital camera and finally, FINALLY went home, where I considered reading more book but pretty much ate and fell straight into bed at 10.30pm before waking at 2.30 with a hypo, having been too tired to remember to eat supper.
THE END!
I would just like you all to know that that entry took me three and a half hours to write, and I hope you appreciate the effort. >(
(And on the quick update of my life front, today was the first day back of classes and what a first day it was. Tuesday is CRUEL. I have class from 2nd period at 10.40 straight on until 5th period, finishing at 6pm. I do have an hour for lunch from 12.10 - 1.10, but it still melted my brain to mush. This entry is already long and time-consuming enough, though, so you can all hear about that another time.)
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Date: 2008-10-14 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 07:39 pm (UTC)GAMES SHOWS ARE INCREDIBLE.
Like the most fun you can have in a GIGANTIC ROOM FULL OF VIDEO GAMES ever, which is a LOT of fun.no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 08:45 pm (UTC)Life is okay - my Tuesdays are as mean as your. So are Tristan's. It's nice to get most of my uni stuff done in one day, but it generally leaves me tired and grumpy.
When are you coming back? December for a few weeks, right?
Richard