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Sep 19 2008, 02:41 PM

Neo Metallix

Sep 17 2008, 08:48 PM

Hmmm, perhaps for Microsoft and Nintendo... Sony and third parties have a lot to reveal yet, I think. They don't announce everything at E3 or Leipzig. They usually wait for TGS to unveil RPGs.

Actually, Nintendo says they're organizing a conferance on October 2nd, meaning they could be planning to reveal new games at the Tokyo Game Show.

Man, I hope I get to see more info about God of War III. <3

Neo Metallix

Aug 31 2008, 02:08 PM

Hmmm, I've never played a Kingdom Hearts game, but I have heard many great things about it. I think I'll get Birth By Sleep when it comes out for PSP.

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Not at TGS... The Japanese audience has never cared for God of War. Probably because it's American, or they just don't care about Greek Mythology. Sony gets Capcom to publish it over there and it doesn't sell much like every other place. lol

King "BOOM" Boo

Aug 25 2008, 07:49 PM

When is TGS?
Starts Oct 9th - Oct 12th

Games that will be at the show


TGS 2008: One of the most anticipated game shows of the year is near at hand as Tokyo Game Show starts on October 9-12. What to expect at TGS? It's the biggest game convention in Japan, and one of the biggest in the world -- this is where Sony and third-party publishers like Konami and Capcom announce many of their highest-profile games each year. Of the three console makers, Sony Computer Entertainment is widely regarded to be the premier player at Japan's annual gaming mega-expo, the Tokyo Game Show. This year, the publisher is again planning on making its presence felt at the show. Today, in a Japanese-language announcement, the game maker revealed that 14 new games would be shown for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable for the first time at TGS 2008, 12 of which are being internally developed.

Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the soon-to-be-revealed games will be for Sony's flagship console. The publisher plans on debuting nine games created at its internal studio for the PS3, with Konami and R-Type creators IREM each also slated to make a reveal at the show. The new games complement 17 previously announced games that will be on display for Sony's console, including Konami's Metal Gear Online, Capcom's Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5 (known as Biohazard 5 in Japan), and Sony's long-promised virtual world Home.

Sony also plans to unveil three new games for its resurgent handheld. Although all have been internally developed, the publisher also said today that 15 other games will be on show for the PSP, including Square Enix's Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Namco Bandai's Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2, and new installments in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi franchises.

Running slightly later this year, TGS 2008 will open its doors to Japan from October 9-12. Last year's event drew a staggering 193,000 attendees, and event organizer CESA expects that more than 217,000 will check out this year's show. GameSpot will be on scene at the Makuhari Messe to provide more coverage as events unfold.

The Big TGS List: 2008 Edition

Here is the list of confirmed TGS 2008 games that will be shown: (Note this is not the full list... I couldn't find all of the confirmed games.)

Arc System Works
- Lair Land Story (PSP)
- Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus (PSP)
- Guilty Gear 2 Overture (Xbox360)

Acquire
- New title
- Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono (PSP)
- Tenchu 4 (Wii)
- Samurai 3 (PS3)

Interchannel
- 2 new titles

SNK Playmore
- KoF 2002 Unlimited Match (PS2)
- KoF ‘98 Ultimate Match (Xbox360)
- ADK Spirits (PS2)
- Samurai Spirits Rokuban (PSP)
- Kimi no Yuusha (DS)

EA
- Boku to Sim no Machi Kingdom (Wii/DS)
- Fifa 09 World Class Soccer (PS3/PSP/Xbox360)
- Fifa 09 All Play (Wii)
- Mercenaries 2 (PS3/Xbox360)
- Mirror’s Edge (PS3/Xbox360)

Koei
- Saihai no Yukue (DS)
- Shin Sangoku Musou 5 Special (PS2)
- G1 Jockey Wii 2008 (Wii)
- Neo Angelique Special (PSP)
- Nobunaga’s Ambition Online (PS2)

Silverstar Japan
- 6 different WiiWare cheapo board games
- 2 DS cheapo board games

Sega
- Ryu ga Gotoku 3 (PS3)
- 428 (Wii)
- Sonic World Adventure (Wii/PS2/PS3/Xbox360)
- Culdcept DS (DS)
- Infinite Line (DS)
- Blazer Drive (DS)
- Shiren DS2 (DS)
- Garnet Chronicle (PSP)
- Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (PSP)
- Phantasy Star Portable (PSP)

D3 Publisher
- Simple DS Vol44 The Gal Mahjong (DS)
- Magical Brain Power!! DS (DS)
- Shinsengumi DS (DS)
- Unknown Soldier (DS)
- RIZ-ZOAWD (DS)
- Simple DS Vol43 The Host Shouze! (DS)
- Detroit Metal City DS (DS)
- VitaminY (DS)

The Behemoth
- Castle Crashers (Xbox360)
- Alien Hominid HD (Xbox360)

From Software
- Tenchu 4 (Wii)
- Ninja Blade (Xbox360)
- Demon's Souls (PS3)

Sony Computer Entertainment
- Patapon 2 (PSP)
- Locoroco 2 (PSP)
- Sarugetchu Piposaru Senki (PSP)
- Bleach Soul Carnival (PSP)
- Mainichi Issyo Portable (PSP)
- Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki Da or2 (PSP)
- 14 Unannounced titles

Square Enix
- Dissidia: Final Fantasy (PSP)
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP)
- The 3rd Birthday (PSP)
- Final Fantasy Agito XIII (PSP)

Marvelous Entertainment
- Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
- Avalon Code (DS)
- Rune Factory Frontier (Wii)
- Oboro (Wii)
- Little King Story (Wii)
- Hitman Reborn! (Wii/PS2)
- Romantica (PS2)
- Zero no Tsukaima (PS2)
- ToLoveRu (PSP)
- Ikki Tousen: Eloquent Fist (PSP)
- ToLoveRu (DS)
- Yasoukyoku (DS)
- Harvest Moon Wakuwaku Animal March (Wii)

Yuudoo
- Aero Guitar (Wii)

Level 5
- Layton 3 (DS)
- Inazuma Eleven new title
- White Knight Chronicles (PS3)

Big games recently revealed

Xedge demo Impressions


Whether you called it X Edge, Cross Edge, or Xross Edge, it's all referring to the same game. I'll refer to it as X Edge; a game mash-up reeling in the cast of several JRPG's and the cast of Darkstalkers. Yeah, I'm confused, too. Regardless, the Japanese PSN store recently updated with a demo for this PS3 exclusive and I'm here to tell you what I thought of it. From the roster given to you in the demo, you've got characters from Darkstalkers, Ar Tonelico, Mana Khemia 2, Atelier Lise, and Atelier Marie right off the bat to fiddle around with. You'll run across Etna and a Prinny from Disgaea in the demo, but confound it all if I couldn't recruit them. Enough about the ensemble... what happens in the demo?

To be honest, I don't know. I can't read or speak Japanese. But I know that as the demo progresses, you fight a Prinny, then a Prinny with Etna, finally a scene where you recruit Felicia from Darkstalkers. There may be more to the demo, but it probably requires some understanding of Japanese and I didn't want to blindly try to solve the mystery. What the demo shows you is the interface the game uses, some of your "camp" options, and the general flow of battle.

I'll start with the real meat of the game -- battle. At any time, you can hit R1 to summon up a random battle (as opposed to running around to initiate one... this is helpful for level-grinding purposes) and after a noticeable lag, which I'll blame on the demo reading entirely from the hard drive as opposed to a disc (an excuse to be sure), your lovely 2D sprites and the enemies pop up on two separate grids. It's a set-up reminiscent of Koudelka or the Dreamcast title Time Stalkers: where your characters and enemies land on their respective grids affects their attack range and ability to use items on one another. Each character has four attacks to choose from, each mapped to a face button on the controller. Each move takes up a certain amount of AP, and each character has a different amount that rolls over between attack phases similar to Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter or Chrono Cross. Unlike those games, however, you can switch the attacking character between each selection, sometimes creating "Chain" attacks. It's not as fluid as Valkyrie Profile, but it does have more menus to float through between attacks, so it's not too noticeable.

I'd go into things like "Break", "Down", and "Burst", but I simply couldn't understand the battle system enough to really dive into its complexities. Yes, it is a pretty deep battle system that can easily be mistaken as shallow. I know that if you successfully deplete an enemies Break, Down, or Burst gauge, you get a swell of AP to keep your chains going. I also discovered that after a successful attack round, you might have charged up your SP for an "EX Skill" by pressing R2 and then selecting the corresponding face button, assuming you have adequate AP. These can be chained together, although I was never able to pull it off. To be perfectly honest, the game is definitely going for Disgaea levels of damage and combos. Expect an end-game party to be dishing out hundred of chains and billions of damage.

On the overworld map (yes, an overworld map... seems JRPGs haven't forgotten what those are, after all) in the demo, you can enter a small hut and choose from four options: buying and selling items, upgrading, converting, and enhancing equipment, searching the area around the camp (a vital point in advancing through the demo), and what I assume is a place to change a character's clothing. I wasn't able to do that. Anyway, I couldn't understand a lot of it, but it seems there will be a ton of weapon and armor upgrading going on.

Another thing to note is during cutscenes, you can fiddle around with the face buttons to activate different options. You can choose to hit circle and "stop" the game from progressing and stare at the pretty pictures, you can hit start and let the game scroll through the text on "auto", or hit triangle and let the game speed up and "skip" all the dialogue. Of course, there's probably more you can do, but I was impatient. Should I comment on the music? It's your standard uber-rock for these types of games. It can get annoying, but it's never in the way of enjoying the title. The voice acting sounds good, but I don't speak Japanese so who knows -- they could be as bland and nasty as fruitcake and I'd be none the wiser.

All in all, the game seems pretty interesting for JRPG-ers. Some strange lag when battles start up, some sprites seem a little more well done than others (Shurelia and Lyner are like two completely different levels of quality), the battle system seems a bit slower than all the options would make it sound, but I've very little to complain about. It's fun and there's a lot of customization and party formations to mess around with. While it's uncertain if this licensing nightmare will exit Japan, rumors have gone around that it might. I certainly hope so, because this game is pretty promising for JRPG fanatics.

Demon's Souls' first screenshots and details!!


Demon's Souls is one of the games for the PS3 that have been unveiled as playable at Tokyo Game Show. When we first reported on the game we included some Famitsu scans for your viewing pleasure, but now we have actual information on the game as well.

Demon's Souls will be released some time in 2009 and it is a spiritual successor to King's Field, a PS1 title that was never officially released in the US. The game takes place in the kingdom of Boletaria, where you play an unnamed protagonist who roams around in an "extremely open-ended" world -- you can choose to save the world from the king who will awaken "an ancient monster" in his sleep, or not. It's all up to you.

The game's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, is attempting to "make the fun and charms of a classic RPG interesting all over again with the latest technology at hand." For example, instead of placing traditional restrictions on item usage, it uses the game's physics to place more realistic limits such as "long weapons bump into walls, lighting the area in real-time with the torch in your hand." Sadly, the director appears to have implied the game will be lacking multiplayer; instead, he will opt to "find a way to use the Internet to make the single-player mode more interesting." Arguably, there has yet to be a game that mixes mechanics of a good ol' RPG with gameplay elements only possible on this generation's hardware. Will Demon's Souls be the first? We'll find out when we check the game out at TGS. Also, be sure to check out the 11 screenshots in the gallery below.

http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/10/03/demons-souls-first-screenshot
s-and-details/

http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/demons-souls/index.html

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I've been off on an Asian excursion -- here, you'll see I visited the Kyoto offices of Q-Games, the team behind the PixelJunk series.

While we can't say what we saw (not yet!), we wanted to give you a heads-up to our Tokyo Game Show coverage ... which starts in just a few hours! Here's just a slight preview of our coverage plans (all times in Japan time):

Wednesday (10/8)

* SCEA/SCEE cocktail
Last year's cocktail had a few surprise games. What will we find this year?

Thursday (10/9)

* Preview: Capcom
* Hands-on/Interview: Patapon 2
* Hands-on/Interview: LocoRoco 2
* Preview: inFamous
* 12PM - Platinum Games presentation
* Preview: Tecmo
* Preview: Ryu ga Gotoku 3
* 2PM - Koei press conference
* Hands-on: Resistance Retribution
* Interviews: Tecmo
* Interview: Sonic Unleashed, Sega
* 3:30PM - XSEED/Marvelous press conference


Friday (10/10)

* Preview: White Knight Story
* Preview: Hudson
* Preview: EA tour
* Interview: Sega's new PSP game
* Preview: Sega booth tour
* Interview: Valkyria Chronicles, Sega
* Preview: Koei booth tour
* Preview: Konami
* Preview/Interview: Resident Evil Degeneration
An amazing early screening of the new Resident Evil CG movie!

And obviously, we have a lot more coverage planned from the show floor. Let us know what you want to see!

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TGS 2008: Tokyo Game Show Xbox 360 Preview
What to expect out of the world's biggest videogame showcase.
by Erik Brudvig

October 7, 2008 - The annual Tokyo Game Show kicks off this week in the Land of the Rising Sun. This public showcase is a major draw in Japan, bringing upwards of 200,000 attendees to the convention center in Makuhari. There, for a small entrance fee, gaming enthusiasts can get a look at unreleased games, buy some very cool and limited edition swag, and partake in the always popular cosplay festivities. Every major Japanese developer and publisher is on hand, along with some from the US and Europe. As always, IGN has made the trip across the Pacific to bring you all of the latest news, previews, screenshots, and movies. But what exactly can you expect to see this year? We've put together our predictions, expectations, and a list of when the major events are that we think will have some Xbox 360 related news.

It can be tough to keep track of everything which is why IGN has created a handy Tokyo Game Show index that lists every update to come out of Japan this week. Check it out here.

Namco-Bandai Pre-TGS Showcase
The Tokyo Game Show news begins to trickle in today (October 7). Namco-Bandai held a pre-TGS event to get its games in the spotlight before the rush begins later this week. The embargo for those game impressions has lifted, so have a look at previews for Afro Samurai and details on Splatterhouse. Then watch the first PowerUp Forever (an XBLA title) here.



Keynote Address
The big thing for 360 owners to pay attention to this year is John Schappert's keynote address. This begins on October 9 and runs from 12:00 to 1:00 PM. That translates to October 8 at 8:00 PM on the Pacific coast of America. We'll be there to blog the news as it happens, so check back with IGN then. Here's what you can expect to see, based on our infallible (though often fallible) predictions.

Despite popular opinion, Microsoft hasn't given up on Japan just yet and still sees the Tokyo Game Show as a place to make big announcements and drive news. Last year brought some pretty major game announcements for both retail games (Ninja Gaiden II) and the Xbox Live Arcade (Rez and Ikaruga). Microsoft also paraded the big name Japanese developers on and off the stage to show that the 360 is fully supported by the development community the world over.

Expect a similar press conference this year. Since John Schappert, corporate vice president of Live, software and services, is giving the talk, you can expect a lot of the discussion to focus on the upcoming New Xbox Experience. The dashboard overhaul is coming this November and Microsoft is going to begin revealing more details and pushing it as the next big thing. A good portion of the keynote will likely focus on why Microsoft is so proud of what is being done.



Microsoft is also going to announce new Xbox Live Arcade games. These are likely to come from the Japanese development community, though you can bet on some US-centric releases being teased and/or announced. Perhaps we'll see some old classics either ported or revived. My money is on something from Tecmo, a company that has fully supported the Xbox 360 with its Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive franchises but hasn't dipped its toes in the digital download space yet.

But, of course, the keynote will have to include some mention of retail releases. Microsoft has seen its greatest success in Japan with role-playing games, so expect the upcoming ones to be featured. The Last Remnant and Star Ocean: The Last Hope are sure bets and you'll probably see something on Fable II, despite it being a western RPG. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the founder of the Final Fantasy series and creative mind behind Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, has no currently announced projects. This seems like a perfect time to tease the next Mistwalker RPG.

But perhaps more intriguing is the possibility of Tomonobu Itagaki, director of the Ninja Gaiden series, showing up. Itagaki has long been a supporter of Microsoft and he has recently quit his position at Tecmo. What is he working on now? Perhaps we'll find out.

Keep it Clean
It may not happen at the keynote address, but something Bungie related is going down in Tokyo. According to Bungie.net, both Brian Jarrard and Luke Smith (community managers at Bungie) are in Tokyo right now. They may be there sight-seeing, but it's more likely that they're going to talk about something Halo related.



Tokyo Game Show Opens
The show floor in Tokyo can get pretty crowded when hundreds of thousands of gamers descend upon a convention center. The good news, for IGN and its readers, is that the first two days are considered "Business Days" and the public can't crowd each booth just yet. These two business days are October 9 and 10, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and this is when the majority of the news and previews will hit. These dates translate to October 8 and 9 at 6:00 PM on the west coast of the United States. Of course, those are the times when meetings will be held and demos will be played which then have to be written about later, so expect most updates to come in the middle of the night here in the US.

And what exactly can you expect? Though this show is focused on the Japanese audience, Microsoft does not shy away from showcasing its big games for the US in Tokyo. Everything that has yet to come out this year, or games on tap for early next, will likely be either in booths or shown to IGN at behind closed door meetings. That includes Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Fable II and Halo Wars. The booth will also have a spattering of third-party games, some of which might not be announced for a US release just yet. And you can bet on Ninja Blade being playable for the first time.

Perhaps more interesting than the Microsoft booth will be the Square-Enix setup. Final Fantasy XIII still seems too far out to be on display, but The Last Remnant should be playable for the first time. We also might get some new details on Star Ocean: The Last Hope. And with Square's recent platform agnostic strategy, maybe we'll even find ourselves with a new game being announced for Xbox 360. We can dream.



There will be other third-party, non-exclusive games shown in Tokyo as well. Resident Evil 5 has ceased being a no-show at major events but hopefully we'll see an update on it. The other Japanese publishers that support Xbox 360 will be in attendance with SEGA and Konami showing off some 360 fare. A few American and European companies usually make the trip over as well, so updates on EA and Ubisoft games are likely.

There you have our predictions, but anything can happen when one of the big companies wants to make some headlines. Be sure to keep your eye on IGN for all of the latest updates.

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Just ahead of the Tokyo Game Show, Famitsu has shared first details on an online moade of play for Level-5's White Knight Chronicles.


White Knight will feature a cooperative online quest mode. Separate from the single player story mode, the online mode, known in the Japanese version as "Live Part," will allow four players to team up to work through quests.

While the game's story mode does not offer co-op play, there is a connection between the story mode and online modes. The character that you use in the online mode will travel in your party during the story mode. Additionally, quests from the online mode can be played single player as well.

White Knight will feature all the expected components of an online title, including a lobby, featuring up to 16 players, an auto matching system, and chat facilities of some form. A robust character creation system was detailed months ago.

A Japanese release for White Knight Chronicles is set for December 25. The game will be playable at the Tokyo Game Show later this week.

Some new details about White Knight Chronicles have emerged, courtesy of Japanese gaming site Game-Star! Here's the gist of the article:

-Story should last 100 hours +
-Graphics will be at 1080P
-Dynamic battle system, allowing you to chose from the regular sized characters or transforming into the colossal white knight.
-Co-op gameplay over the PSN

With TGS right around the bend, expect a lot more from Level-5 on this Sony exclusive RPG. Check out the full Japanese article here

http://www.psbeyond.com/news/New-White-Knight-details-emerge.955.
html

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Namco Bandai held a special press conference yesterday (just a few days before Tokyo Game Show), where they went over new and upcoming titles and other special announcements. One of the big announcements was that Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion will be heading to the PLAYSTATION 3 (no word when) and will have MORE content than the arcade version (big surprise!)… IGN was at the event and mentioned in their latest podcast that the PS3 will NOT be getting the regular version of Tekken 6, which was released late 2007 in arcades. More news as we get it!

http://sdtekken.com/2008/10/07/tekken-6-not-coming-to-ps3-but-blo
odline-rebellion-is/

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http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee266/rykomatsu/viploader808586.jpg

Famitsu describes it as a third person shooter set for release by 2009. Developed by Tecmo and has the hallmark Team Ninja(Ninja Gaiden II) aesthetics...

Despair!

Oct 8 2008, 06:14 PM

Thanks for the news Eprahim. Keep this thread alive, because there's definitely big news coming soon. Can't wait to see what everyone shows, plus any gamer should be kept up to date on this stuff...

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Just a few minutes ago, one of the most anticipated games of Tokyo Game Show was formally unveiled to the media: White Knight Chronicles (called Shirokishi here in Japan). I sat in on the session and, um, chronicled it for you here:


Kentaro Motomura, Producer of White Knight Chronicles, first runs down some key points – Level-5 created this RPG especially for the PLAYSTATION 3, with a key differentiating element of a transforming hero. They’re trying to do something new with this mechanic. You can play solo, or in a group of up to 4 online (more on that later).

Motomura-san gives a quick rundown of the story and then plays a trailer detailing these scenes: During the princess of Balandor’s coming of age ceremony, a group known as the “Wizard” raids the kingdom looking for the power of “Knight.”


A young man named Leonard escapes into a cellar and finds a mysterious set of armor, which transforms him into the White Knight, and he defeates the Wizard’s enormous monster. However, the princess was kidnapped during the battle. Leonard sets off with his newfound power to find the kidnapped princess.

The trailer also reveals a number of other characters, huge beastly monsters, even larger armored creatures, and Leonard’s transformation into the titular White Knight (who is clearly a bad ass). The trailer concludes with a bat-winged airship flapping off into the stratosphere.

Motomura-san now describes the concept of the world – an authentic fantasy world created on an enormous scale. One of the characteristics is that there are lot of enormous creatures in the game, such as a monster so large, it has a town on its back.


Next, character transformation designs are shown – the White Knight, the Black Knight, and the Dragon Knight, which has a pair of wings. All are huge (7 meters high).

More details on who these powerful characters are *before* they transform: Leonard is a young man who works for a wine merchant before being drawn into the events detailed above. Cisna is the aforementioned princess. Yulie and Eldore provide support to Leonard. Yulie is a childhood friend of Leonard, while Eldore is a mysterious warrior lending advice to Leonard.

There are many more major foes shown as well.


OK, now what you were really pining for: the Battle System. Players can freely register commands into the “function palettes”. You can create and name your own combos to be used in an active-time battle using simple controls. Many, many combinations are possible.

Motomura-san talks more about the Knights for which the game is named. Sometimes you (and your friends) are going to come face-to-face with incredibly large enemies, impervious to most of your attacks. But you’ll likely want to transform into one of the huge Knight characters. But it’s possible to fight successfully with a mix of small and transformed warriors.

There will be significant character customization in WKC as well. The created avatar will take part in the epic story Leonard’s companion


Online vs offline mode: When offline, Leonard is the main character and plays through the story. When online, up to 4 players cooperate to battle as their created character. A video demonstrates a number of characters traveling together through the countryside, the customization options. Male and female characters are shown, with vastly different looks. The type of character (warrior, magic user, etc) is customizable as well. Players can invite others from within the game, and another joins.

The group is then shown taking on a huge troll with a giant club. More areas are then shown, countryside, towns and castles, and other vistas and landscapes.

Now Motomura-san explains the fusion of offline and online modes. Players share money, items, and levels that are earned in one mode into the other. Motomura-san mentions that there are many more new elements to this that will be revealed later.


During the Q&A, Motomura-san assures “a huge number” of online quests, and reiterates that it’s different from the offline “story” mode. It’s basically 2 RPGs in one title.

Shirokishi hits Japan on Christmas Day. There’s not yet a set release date for North America or Europe, but you can be sure we’ll announce that information on the PlayStation.Blog when it happens. Look for more on White Knight Chronicles throughout TGS – we’ll be sure to link out to the best coverage. In the meantime, we’ve got lots of screens here.