Saturday's Adventure part 2
The convention center was divided up into three huge buildings, and between each of them there was a short jaunt outside. While inside the convention center itself I had seen here or there cosplayers starting to appear--especially near the booths that matched the characters in question. I saw a lot of them in line for Crisis Core.
I'm going to slip into Cosplay talk for a minute, so skip the next two paragraphs if you don't find that interesting.
When we went outside to check out the next hall's offerings, we ran smack into a huge mob of people. I was mildly confused until I spied someone with a wig posing against a wall, with a hord of photographers around her--that's where all the cosplayers had been going! They went outside, between the halls, to pose for anyone who wanted pictures. I recalled hearing that in Japan, you didn't ask cosplayers for photos when you saw them, but waited for them to obviously start posing somewhere. The mystery was solved. In addition, the con has put up huge walled areas marked for girls and boys--so that the cosplayers could change. It would have been terribly impractical to take a crowded train in costume. I didn't snag any images, but other's did.
The quality pretty much matched what I'm used to seeing, actually--some spectacular examples, some not so much, and everywhere a certain comraderie that comes from being in costume. It was pretty awesome. Lots of Zacks and Cadet Clouds. It made me want to see Tyska and Molly running around in costume there too.
After exiting the first building and entering the second, the first thing I saw was a booth for Majesco games. They had a relatively large display, with a lot of DS games that looked interesting. And, of course, the first thing I saw?
Cooking Mama.
It was a huge pink apron'd figure that actually drew my attention, and I knew I had to get a picture. Next to that, they had a circular kiosk with the new Cooking Mama on demo for play. I didn't get the chance to try it, but I did see a somewhat customizable Cooking Mama on the screens.
Diagonal to that, I stopped short, and then had to explain why--because lo and behold, was a giant display for the second NiGHTS into Dreams game. They had a wonderful statue of NiGHTS on top, in the opening's trademark flute-playing position.
From what I could tell, the game looks pretty shiny. Didn't get a chance to play that one either, but definitely a Wii game. The graphics didn't blow me away, but I hope it'll do well over here.
Nearby, I walked by Guilty Gears--the huge posters were pretty and I was glad to recognize something!--and then I realized what I was seeing on the screens. Guilty Gear 3D?? Wasn't that counter to the whole Guilty Gear vibe? The character models look interesting, but that's another one I didn't find out much about. And Konami wasn't far away.
Konami was really pushing Time Hollow--a new DS game, that from what I can gather was unvieled for the first time at TGS.
It looks interesting, actually--you have a Hollow Pen, and cut through time to help prevent your family's death. Or something like that--they were playing up the angst and darkness of it, and much of Konami's space was devoted to it. It looks like something the States would pick up, and I really want it to hop over.
There was another game (I got no pictures, sadly) called Shirokishiki Monogatari, or White Knight Stories. I watched them show off the character creator--it's just as deep as the Oblivion scrolls, it seems--to make one of the support characters. I'm not sure if you can do that for any of your party (definitely a party system of 3, with real time battle) but it looked interesting from what I saw. They ran through a starter mission, where you fought things--and then this GIANT GOBLIN comparatively three stories tall comes out of the woods. It was silly watching these tiiiny little characters kinda smack at the thing's ankles for a while, until the main character turned himself into this giant, mech-esque knight and pwned it. I was impressed by how easily the game shifted through scale that way.
The company that does the Tales series of games was nearby too, and I spent a lot of time in there. They had a ton of interesting things going on, including Beautiful Katamari, which looks rather fun and true to itself--aka cracktastic. I also saw a demo for Trusty Blade, which I actually hope makes it to the states because I liked the look of it and the battle system. They also had this game that somehow tied raising dragons to playing guitar, Guitar Hero-esquely, and I was intrigued and amused. I kinda want to track down more about it. And there were three Tales games on display--Destiny, Rebirth, and a third I didn't see so much as heard about later. Two of them were for the PSP, which surprised me. Destiny seems to focus on two characters, best friends, who are separated at one point--and you have to choose to follow one or the other, like a weird combination of Suikoden II and Suikoden IV's concept.
Also spied a Kekkaishi Game, which I think will make thecurtain happy. I didn't get a chance to play it either, but it looked fairly straightforwardly 'play the portagonist, use boxes against monsters' type of thing. I think it was a Wii game, which would only make sense.
They also had this strange game for the DS where there were these sweaty men, and you had to wipe the sweat off of them while they lounged across two screens with only artistic sensibility and the screen boundaries to keep things decent. They projected this on a huge screen above the person playing's head, which makes for one of those terribly self-concious moments in life.
In addition to all of this, they were showing the trailer for another game--a sequel--that looked really nice. I found out later that, int he game, magic works via song, and you end up with various women you use as...psuedo weapon figure things. The trailer looked very interesting, and since the first on came out in the states, the second should too.
The playstation 3 had a booth all to itself too, with all the other games on the floor showing the system off. I can see why--it's terribly shiny, and there are games coming out on it I'm interested in. But not exactly something to ponder until the price drives down any. And next tot he PS3 booth, was, inevitably, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Time Crisis. I didn't find either very interesting, though MGS4 has women with tentacle heads beating people up. That's about all I caught out of it. We also discovered you can tell a dating sim game from halfway across the floor because there's something about the art that just screams dating sim.
On that note, I was (perhaps unjustly?) pleasantly surprised to see about half, if not forty percent, of attendees were girls--about my age, hand held in hand. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I've never been to a gaming thing before, so I wasn't expecting it for some reason. (And, of course, the plethora of foreigners. It was weird, actually--you don't usually run into foreigners you clearly don't know often in Japan.)
Having scoured that floor, we went on to the next. It was, essentially, the dealers room. Several art and design colleges that specialize with gaming were there too, showing off their programs and what their students had done. I hadn't expected that at all, either. Small vendors were there as well, including a hefty square of food vendors.
I kept seeing these long lines, though, and had no idea what they could be for. There were no gaming booths here, just goods. Then I spied a black, unobstrucive tent off to the side-- Squeenix's official merchandise.
Ooooh, went I.
It was there I ran into a group of people, randomly, from The Japanese College. We just sort of ran into each other, literally. There were surprised greetings, and then we split apart again--the rest of the day was spent mostly reviewing what I'd seen before and found interesting. By chance, we ran into a small, tiny booth off the the side I actually recognized--GPotato! The people who do Rappelz, a game I actually play! I was oddly pleased. They handed out these little tickets and flyers, and there was a herd of them around their booth. They could see I was interested and talking about it, so gestured me over--and I kinda fled. I couldn't think of how to say 'Okay, guys, you've hooked me already, I play your games already.' Turns out the card had a promotional code that could give you stuff in the game--I have to see what it does, if it works, when I next log in.
TGS closed at five, so it wasn't long until this terrible music started playing over the loudspeakers--at first, I thought it was a vendor. Then it just got louder and louder--elevator music pushed through the speaker system meant to cover several football field's worth of floor.
In essense, it was the 'get out while you still can' music, and so we headed for a massive staircase to get out. On the way we spied a bunch of people taking pictures--all the Square booth girls had lined up, and in the middle was the adorable chocobo white mage mascot that had been wandering the floor. It was a five foot tall plush, essentially, and was based off a new game from Squeenix that looked like training up Chocobos in job classes to fight things.
It was adorable and weird at the same time.
Then we worked our way off the floor, and into the mass of people streaming out into the daylight.
Overall, it was fairly awesome. I don't normally get excited over games, but found myself really looking forward to what's coming and obscurely hoping half of it makes to the US. Getting home was murder, because we had to find who we'd come with, and get tickets for the train--when everyone at TGS also were trying to get tickets for the train. *head desk* On the way back, I managed to snag a seat for most of the ride, and ended up helping C figure out her phone. Her phone only did Japanese, though it was from the same company as mine, so we compared menus until we had it figured. I felt proud of myself.
The run home wasn't that much fun, though an adventure. We got lost, backtracked, double-tracked, and then got back to the dorm just in time to miss dinner. I snagged some meat buns for dinner, and then retired to my room--and swore not to walk about step for at least a day, because me feet were trying to kill me slowly.
And tomorrow? Kamakura.
I'm going to slip into Cosplay talk for a minute, so skip the next two paragraphs if you don't find that interesting.
When we went outside to check out the next hall's offerings, we ran smack into a huge mob of people. I was mildly confused until I spied someone with a wig posing against a wall, with a hord of photographers around her--that's where all the cosplayers had been going! They went outside, between the halls, to pose for anyone who wanted pictures. I recalled hearing that in Japan, you didn't ask cosplayers for photos when you saw them, but waited for them to obviously start posing somewhere. The mystery was solved. In addition, the con has put up huge walled areas marked for girls and boys--so that the cosplayers could change. It would have been terribly impractical to take a crowded train in costume. I didn't snag any images, but other's did.
The quality pretty much matched what I'm used to seeing, actually--some spectacular examples, some not so much, and everywhere a certain comraderie that comes from being in costume. It was pretty awesome. Lots of Zacks and Cadet Clouds. It made me want to see Tyska and Molly running around in costume there too.
After exiting the first building and entering the second, the first thing I saw was a booth for Majesco games. They had a relatively large display, with a lot of DS games that looked interesting. And, of course, the first thing I saw?
Cooking Mama.
It was a huge pink apron'd figure that actually drew my attention, and I knew I had to get a picture. Next to that, they had a circular kiosk with the new Cooking Mama on demo for play. I didn't get the chance to try it, but I did see a somewhat customizable Cooking Mama on the screens.
Diagonal to that, I stopped short, and then had to explain why--because lo and behold, was a giant display for the second NiGHTS into Dreams game. They had a wonderful statue of NiGHTS on top, in the opening's trademark flute-playing position.
From what I could tell, the game looks pretty shiny. Didn't get a chance to play that one either, but definitely a Wii game. The graphics didn't blow me away, but I hope it'll do well over here.
Nearby, I walked by Guilty Gears--the huge posters were pretty and I was glad to recognize something!--and then I realized what I was seeing on the screens. Guilty Gear 3D?? Wasn't that counter to the whole Guilty Gear vibe? The character models look interesting, but that's another one I didn't find out much about. And Konami wasn't far away.
Konami was really pushing Time Hollow--a new DS game, that from what I can gather was unvieled for the first time at TGS.
It looks interesting, actually--you have a Hollow Pen, and cut through time to help prevent your family's death. Or something like that--they were playing up the angst and darkness of it, and much of Konami's space was devoted to it. It looks like something the States would pick up, and I really want it to hop over.
There was another game (I got no pictures, sadly) called Shirokishiki Monogatari, or White Knight Stories. I watched them show off the character creator--it's just as deep as the Oblivion scrolls, it seems--to make one of the support characters. I'm not sure if you can do that for any of your party (definitely a party system of 3, with real time battle) but it looked interesting from what I saw. They ran through a starter mission, where you fought things--and then this GIANT GOBLIN comparatively three stories tall comes out of the woods. It was silly watching these tiiiny little characters kinda smack at the thing's ankles for a while, until the main character turned himself into this giant, mech-esque knight and pwned it. I was impressed by how easily the game shifted through scale that way.
The company that does the Tales series of games was nearby too, and I spent a lot of time in there. They had a ton of interesting things going on, including Beautiful Katamari, which looks rather fun and true to itself--aka cracktastic. I also saw a demo for Trusty Blade, which I actually hope makes it to the states because I liked the look of it and the battle system. They also had this game that somehow tied raising dragons to playing guitar, Guitar Hero-esquely, and I was intrigued and amused. I kinda want to track down more about it. And there were three Tales games on display--Destiny, Rebirth, and a third I didn't see so much as heard about later. Two of them were for the PSP, which surprised me. Destiny seems to focus on two characters, best friends, who are separated at one point--and you have to choose to follow one or the other, like a weird combination of Suikoden II and Suikoden IV's concept.
Also spied a Kekkaishi Game, which I think will make thecurtain happy. I didn't get a chance to play it either, but it looked fairly straightforwardly 'play the portagonist, use boxes against monsters' type of thing. I think it was a Wii game, which would only make sense.
They also had this strange game for the DS where there were these sweaty men, and you had to wipe the sweat off of them while they lounged across two screens with only artistic sensibility and the screen boundaries to keep things decent. They projected this on a huge screen above the person playing's head, which makes for one of those terribly self-concious moments in life.
In addition to all of this, they were showing the trailer for another game--a sequel--that looked really nice. I found out later that, int he game, magic works via song, and you end up with various women you use as...psuedo weapon figure things. The trailer looked very interesting, and since the first on came out in the states, the second should too.
The playstation 3 had a booth all to itself too, with all the other games on the floor showing the system off. I can see why--it's terribly shiny, and there are games coming out on it I'm interested in. But not exactly something to ponder until the price drives down any. And next tot he PS3 booth, was, inevitably, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Time Crisis. I didn't find either very interesting, though MGS4 has women with tentacle heads beating people up. That's about all I caught out of it. We also discovered you can tell a dating sim game from halfway across the floor because there's something about the art that just screams dating sim.
On that note, I was (perhaps unjustly?) pleasantly surprised to see about half, if not forty percent, of attendees were girls--about my age, hand held in hand. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I've never been to a gaming thing before, so I wasn't expecting it for some reason. (And, of course, the plethora of foreigners. It was weird, actually--you don't usually run into foreigners you clearly don't know often in Japan.)
Having scoured that floor, we went on to the next. It was, essentially, the dealers room. Several art and design colleges that specialize with gaming were there too, showing off their programs and what their students had done. I hadn't expected that at all, either. Small vendors were there as well, including a hefty square of food vendors.
I kept seeing these long lines, though, and had no idea what they could be for. There were no gaming booths here, just goods. Then I spied a black, unobstrucive tent off to the side-- Squeenix's official merchandise.
Ooooh, went I.
It was there I ran into a group of people, randomly, from The Japanese College. We just sort of ran into each other, literally. There were surprised greetings, and then we split apart again--the rest of the day was spent mostly reviewing what I'd seen before and found interesting. By chance, we ran into a small, tiny booth off the the side I actually recognized--GPotato! The people who do Rappelz, a game I actually play! I was oddly pleased. They handed out these little tickets and flyers, and there was a herd of them around their booth. They could see I was interested and talking about it, so gestured me over--and I kinda fled. I couldn't think of how to say 'Okay, guys, you've hooked me already, I play your games already.' Turns out the card had a promotional code that could give you stuff in the game--I have to see what it does, if it works, when I next log in.
TGS closed at five, so it wasn't long until this terrible music started playing over the loudspeakers--at first, I thought it was a vendor. Then it just got louder and louder--elevator music pushed through the speaker system meant to cover several football field's worth of floor.
In essense, it was the 'get out while you still can' music, and so we headed for a massive staircase to get out. On the way we spied a bunch of people taking pictures--all the Square booth girls had lined up, and in the middle was the adorable chocobo white mage mascot that had been wandering the floor. It was a five foot tall plush, essentially, and was based off a new game from Squeenix that looked like training up Chocobos in job classes to fight things.
It was adorable and weird at the same time.
Then we worked our way off the floor, and into the mass of people streaming out into the daylight.
Overall, it was fairly awesome. I don't normally get excited over games, but found myself really looking forward to what's coming and obscurely hoping half of it makes to the US. Getting home was murder, because we had to find who we'd come with, and get tickets for the train--when everyone at TGS also were trying to get tickets for the train. *head desk* On the way back, I managed to snag a seat for most of the ride, and ended up helping C figure out her phone. Her phone only did Japanese, though it was from the same company as mine, so we compared menus until we had it figured. I felt proud of myself.
The run home wasn't that much fun, though an adventure. We got lost, backtracked, double-tracked, and then got back to the dorm just in time to miss dinner. I snagged some meat buns for dinner, and then retired to my room--and swore not to walk about step for at least a day, because me feet were trying to kill me slowly.
And tomorrow? Kamakura.