Pass through this hallowed gate, and you will find yourself in one of the great foci of nerdom: the Tokyo Game Show. TGS is a fading giant. Years ago, Japan dominated the world game scene and was always at the forefront of innovation. These days (as change happens glacially in Japan) much of the innovation is coming from other developers, and most if not all analysts agree that TGS is but a shadow of its former self. I can only imagine what it must have been like in its heyday, because even this shadow was astounding. With several other ALTs, Tricia and I traveled through the night to attend TGS on its public days, Saturday and Sunday, and this is my impressions, recollections, and review of the show.
Holding a commanding presence in the first hall, Microsoft`s XBOX booth featured both the 360 and the XBone. Many of the games were cool, but the design of the booth was awful. Someone at Microsoft who had clearly never tried to navigate any kind of convention before ever decided that it would be cool to lay out the booth as a a pair of "X" shapes, one for 360 and one for XBone. This made the booth horrifically difficult to navigate, standing in line next to impossible, and watching your friends play games actually impossible. It didn`t help that the staff easily win my award for "Rudest of Show" as they constantly admonished anyone in the booth to not linger and to move through as quickly as possible. I played Dead or Alive 5 for 360, which was a lot of fun, and tried out a new free-to-play fighter on XBone. I`m not terribly impressed with the XBone. The graphics are great, the controller is comfortable, but the initial game selection does leave something to be desired. That said, I did not wait in the 2 hour or longer lines for either of the XBone`s marquee titles, and I would like to give it another go.
Turn around from the XBOX booth, and sweet salvation appears in the form of SQUARE ENIX. Heralded by their giant chocobo inflatable (as well as that blue blob, a character of the Monster Hunter franchise), the Square Enix booth showcased the third and final entry in the Final Fantasy XIII series, as well as remastered versions of Final Fantasy X and FF X-II. I have not had a whole lot of interest in FFXIII, but the remasters of X and X-II look great, and the combo disc set may prove to be too tempting to resist. Oh, and they were showing awesome trailers for the long awaited Kingdom Hearts 3. With the Kingdom Hearts collection about to be released for PS3, I may have to pick that up and finally catch up on that celebrated series. The Square Enix booth brought all the bells and whistles (lots of screens, flashing lights, and music), but sadly had almost no space dedicated to any playtesting. The multitude of new titles advertised were available at only a few stations, ensuring obscenely long wait times at a con where even 1 1/2 hours was pretty standard.
One of the reasons it was so crowded at the show was naturally the unveiling of the PS4 to Japan. Showcased at the front of Sony`s enormous pavillion, the PS4 is a beautiful and powerful little machine. Sony`s booth put Microsoft`s to shame, being a riot of lights, sounds, and music, and featuring a raised stage with frequent presentations, contests, and performances. The booth had a well organized system for testing games (you got a ticket for the game you wanted to play, and were then sorted into the appropriate line), and this also made it easy to watch people playing both the new PS3 releases and the PS4. I cheerfully waited in one of those 1 1/2 hour long lines to try out the PS4, and I can say it was totally worth it.
While waiting in line, I was able to see the main stage of the Sony booth, and the presentation that rolled around during that time was for God Eater 2, a game for PS Vita. The Vita was a big deal at TGS, as Sony is rolling out a new slimmer Vita and a device that let`s you beam your Vita to your TV in the next year. Sadly, God Eater 2 does not look at all inspiring - it is yet another in a long line of Shadow of the Colossus ripoffs, none of which capture the magic of the original game. The presentation for the game, however, was a lot of fun, and included two girls dressed up as characters from the game who rose up on elevators from beneath the stage. They then played multiplayer with two of the game`s designers, which was pretty entertaining.
We also watched the trailer for Metal Gear Solid V, which looks awesome. Here I have the E3 trailer for the game. I`ve never been very much into MGS. Most of what I know about it comes from my little brother or the Brotherhood. But honestly, the scope and just graphic achievements of this game look incredible. We were watching the trailer in line, and it was showing the cut scenes and we all thought, "Well, that looks nice for a cut scene." Then the camera rotated, and with no change in the action or engine, it went right into gameplay. Simply awesome.
Speaking of simply awesome, at the end of that long wait, I finally got to play the PS4. I tested out "," a free-to-play platformerish game that is one of the launch titles for the new system. The game was simplistic but fun, and it was worth it just to see how well the PS4 performs. Oh, and to hold the redisgned controller which I LOVE. This is easily the most comfortable controller since the Gamecube. It is a little smaller than the current PS3 controller, the bumpers are all concave and very responsive, and the control sticks have indentations that let your thumbs comfortably rest in them. It is awesome. These may all sound like minor changes, but the difference in comfort level is like night and day. Alongside the Knack testing stations they had a human size model of the titular character. You weren`t supposed to take pictures of it, but I snuck one anyway.
Man this show was crowded! I mean just jam packed. Purportedly, this year saw the largest attendance ever at TGS, in spite of the dwindling numbers of presenters and games. On the first day, some of us escaped to the College Display Area, and tried out some games from foreign design colleges. I had an excellent time talking to some French Video Game Design students showcasing their early-stage game. All the games there were cool to see, and the students who designed them were clearly very passionate about their work! We thought the crowds would lighten up on Sunday, but there were actually more people there on the Show`s final day! Still, outside of the Microsoft booth everyone was pretty polite, so we didn`t have any real problems.
Seeing the insane crowds and lines, we all prioritized our must-try games and split up on Sunday. For me that meant finishing up at PS4 then racing over to the Gundam display to try the latest port of the extremely successful Gundam Extreme VS. series, Full Boost. The line was advertised at 2 hours long, but miraculously I made it through in just 1/2 an hour. While waiting I enjoyed watching gameplay from the latest Gundam games. The Extreme VS. series is one of my favorites because it is an arena battle mech style game, much like a super advanced version ofmy beloved Custom Robo.
The primary display feature of the Gundam area was a 1:1 scale model of the RX-78-2 Gundam`s head, which as you can see is pretty cool! For those of you wondering why I like Gundam so much, don`t worry, I`m planning a full post all about Gundam for the near future. For now, suffice to say that is a pretty cool Mecha, and has spawned multiple universes of official and fan stories, as well as games, model kits, and other merchandise. In fact, everyone who played any of the Gundam games at Tokyo Game Show got a Haro bag for waiting in line!
The only downside, of course, was that everyone who played Full Boost, got a pink Haro bag, so I can`t promise I`ll be making that a regular part of my school going wardrobe. It was pretty cool swag to tote around at the Show though!
All in all, Tokyo Game Show was a ton of fun. I don`t know that I will ever feel the need to go to it again, but I am extremely happy that I made the journey, even just this once. It helped a lot that I had such great traveling companions, and I am definitely grateful to everybody who went. TGS renewed my interest in video games in a way that few other things could, and I even went out and got myself a copy of Gundam Breaker (another game advertised at the show, Full Boost won`t be out until 2014) right after I got back to Ishikawa. I don`t know if I will get a PS4 as soon as it comes out, part of that decision will certainly rest on whether or not I am staying in Japan for a third year, but I am definitely excited about the system and its new games. Now the trick is getting the money together to get all the games I want to try, and finding the time to fully explore them all. I am certainly thrilled that I found the time to go to Tokyo Game Show 2013!
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