After a very relaxing first day in Tokyo it was time to actually enter the crazed, frantic world of the Tokyo Game Show. Thursday was not a public day so there were far less people and much shorter lines. We raced around trying to cover as much as possible. Here is a recap of the first actual day of TGS.
This is the first sight we were greeted with outside the convention center. A giant inflatable hero of some sort. Below him, trapped in a cage, were some people dressed all in black. When I first saw it I thought it was advertising some new anime or Power Rangers type show. But actually the product being advertised is Norton Internet Security software. I guess the yellow guy is Norton Security Man and the caged people are malware or viruses or something. The sheer scope of the ad was impressive and everyone noticed it. Still almost no one stopped to pick up a flyer.
My main complaint for the first day of TGS was the foreign press line. I usually actually enjoy being in this line. It is a good chance to meet some other media guys and the line usually moves very swiftly. I think last year it took about 10-15 minutes. This year however, something was not right. The line just took forever. There would be 20-minute chunks where it wasn’t moving at all. I still don’t really understand what the holdup was. But we were in line so long that we nearly missed the keynote speech. Though in retrospect, that might not have been such a bad thing.
The first two years I attended the keynote the speeches, they were delivered by Sony staff. Ken Kutaragi in 2006 and Kaz in 2007. While these speeches used questionable statistics and information they were also very fun to listen to.
The speaker this year was Wada-san from Square Enix and he was delivering a speech on the state of the Japanese video game industry. It was a serious topic and contained none of the glitz that usually accompanies the keynote speeches.
It was refreshing to hear him be so frank. One of the first questions he posed was, “Why has Japan lost its leadership role in the industry?” He went on to talk about the increased cost of development, how Japan was lagging behind on digital distribution and other important topics. It would have been a great keynote but unfortunately this interesting topic was presented in a very boring way.
There were no charts or graphs, no numbers really at all. And while a lot of questions were asked, there didn’t seem to be any answers given other than the fact that Japan really needs to work harder and be more original.
The first booth we went to was Hudson Soft. There was a stage show in progress featuring Takahashi Meijin (the first real celebrity gamer) and a bunch of bikini idols. We watched briefly and then went on to the games.
Kate and Holli played Kororinpa 2 and a mini-game collection called “Job Island”. I was stuck playing the new fishing game, which I surprisingly enjoyed. I will post more about that game later.
As we were leaving that booth, we noticed the Joysound Karaoke game for Wii. It is beyond any Karaoke game ever made before, because it is literally like having a Karaoke Box (Japanese karaoke establishment) in your house. Through the Internet you can choose from thousands of songs. The same number that they have at actual Joysound Karaoke places. You have to pay a fee to use the service and it may seem a bit steep at 300yen ($2.70) for 24 hours. But when you consider that Japanese Karaoke places are usually 600yen per person for one hour. It seems like a pretty good deal.
The game is coming out December 18th in Japan and next year in the USA/Japan. You can use your Miis in the game and it will feature small plastic microphones. The mics were not yet supported in the demo unit that they had at the show, but that did NOT stop me from belting out my own unique rendition of “Video Killed the Radio Star” which people actually applauded for.
After taking my bows, we went on to the Level 5 booth. Kate and I are both fans of the Professor Layton series so we wanted to check out the new game. First we went to the closed theater and watched some new trailers for Layton and other Level 5 games. Inazuma 11, a soccer (football to Kate) RPG game looks fantastic.
After watching the trailers, Kate tried to play Layton 3 but sadly the Japanese was a bit too difficult and she wasn’t able to do any of the puzzles. She is really looking forward to the localization though (Hear that Nintendo?)
A highlight for me today was the press event from Marvoulous. I went there with Patrick Alexander from Eegra.com. They showed 3 Wii games all of which I want to buy.
Little Kings Story looks even more charming than it did last year and that is saying a lot. We were able to see a demonstration of the actual gameplay. I got a big Starcraft vibe from it. But it is in no way just a simple clone. There were so many unique concepts on display.
The second game, Muramasa: The Daemon Blade impressed me even more. The Japanese developer VanillaWare who had previously worked on the game Odin Sphere, developed this game. Like Odin Sphere, this title is all in beautiful 2D. I really couldn’t even believe the amount of detail in this game. In an age where every game is trying to the best, most realistic, 3D game experience, it is refreshing to see a developer take a step back and say “We have more powerful hardware these days but that doesn't prevent us from doing a 2D game”. This is the type of game I dreamed games would become back when I was a kid. The type of game play I love but with absolutely beautiful graphics.
It would be hard to top my excitement after those 2 titles, but Marvelous pulled it off. Their 3rd announcement was a reveal of the new Suda51 project, No More Heroes 2.
At this point the girls informed me that it was time for shopping. Kate needed a gift for her sister and we all needed gifts for ourselves. The Capcom store was full of cool and expensive things. I bought a Rockman 9 T-Shirt and Kate bought a bunch of Phoenix Wright merchandise.
Sadly these figures were not for sale there (they are coming out next year) but since all 3 of us are fans of the series, we thought hey were very cool and worth taking a picture of.
After that we walked around the show floor. Kate and Holli raced around getting as many photo of booth girls as they could. It was becoming a game to them trying to “Catch 'em all” on film. Holli commented, “I don’t think I can show my camera to my family, they won’t understand why 90% of my pictures are of attractive women”. They also spent a very long time at the Taito booth playing Cooking Mama and games of that sort.
The day went by very quickly. There was still so much we wanted to see. Luckily we will be returning tomorrow as well. By the end of the show Kate and Holli were exhausted at decided to head back to the hotel. I still had a lot of energy and decided to go with Patch (Patrick Alexander) to a launch party for a new iPhone game.
Of course first, as is TGS tradition for me, I had to get lost in the Tokyo train system. Patch and I were supposed to be meeting up with Hirofumi Taniguchi who is a composer for the company Skip (he did the music for Chibi Robo). First of all we got on the slow train (rather than express) making us late and then we had an amazingly difficult time finding the correct exit we were supposed to be meeting him at.
We were about an hour late when we finally found him. He didn’t seem at all upset that we kept him waiting so long. In fact this guy was a class act all the way. He noticed we looked hungry and took us to one of his favorite Ramen shops.
This is Zabon Ramen in Roppongi. It looks a bit like a dive (as a lot of shops in this district do) but the food was amazing.
The above picture is of Patch and Taniguchi. We ate Ramen and talked about old Japanese movies. He was very friendly. At the end of the meal I got up to pay the bill. I was going to pay for Taniguchi’s meal as well as a way of making up for him having to wait so long. But he had already paid the bill when we weren't looking. I offered him money and he refused it saying, “You get the next one”. I am sure there will be a next time too. He's a person I would like to meet again.
After this we went to a party in honor of the game Newtonica that had just been released for iPhone. The party was in a tiny hole in the wall bar but it was packed with about 100 people. Most of whom worked in the game industry.
I spend a long time talking with Fumihiro Kanaya, a programmer for Skip. He had just finished work on the WiiWare title “Orbient”. We talked about retro gaming and ton of things not related to gaming at all. He was another amazingly interesting and kind person. He is in the picture above in a blue shirt. Before that he was wearing a black Newtonica shirt, but he actually gave me the shirt off him back so I would have something to take home from the party. All the Skip guys and girls turned out to be awesome.
Here I am with Kanaya’s boss and another Skip employee. This company seems to employ a lot of women and they have very high positions in the company. So many companies are still male dominated in the gaming industry so this was nice to see. There were also I lot of employees from the company Brownie Brown (who do the Mother series). Again I was surprised to find so many women working for the company. They were all so nice. One of the Brownie Brown design staff, Shinobu, was amazingly cool. She was wearing a hat she knit herself and was so friendly with everyone.
The party itself was excellent. There were demo iPhone units out so everyone could try the game. Lots of drinks and laughter. The music was a good mix of electronic sounds.
Later that night one of my favorite people in the game industry, Kenji Eno (formerly of WARP) stepped in a did the DJ duties. He was excellent. Sadly this picture is not that flattering. I had a chance to meet him briefly before the show and while he was very busy he took the time to talk to me and make sure I was having a good time. He didn’t have to worry, it was one of the best parties I have ever been to.
Sadly I had to leave early to catch the last train. After saying my goodbyes I ran to the station and unexpectedly took the correct train back to the hotel.
This concludes my Day 2 report. I hope you found it enjoyable. There will be another report coming tomorrow about the same time. See you then.
Topic: My Tokyo Game Show Report (25% done) (Read 217 times)
