×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Interest
Event Report: Tokyo Game Show 2017

posted on by Kim Morrissy

Tokyo Game Show is a yearly event that takes place in the Makuhari Convention Center in Kaihim-Makuhari, Chiba. This is located in a beautiful seaside area that is a popular tourist spot in its own right, but between September 21st - 24th the vast majority of visitors were after one thing and one thing only: video games.

The advertising for the Tokyo Game Show begins the moment you get off at Kaihim-Makuhari station. As I was passing through the ticket barrier, I noticed a poster for Code Vein, the newest game by the developers of God Eater and the “Dark Souls” of anime games.

The convention center is only a few hundred meters from the station. Once you're inside the convention center (although not inside the show floor itself), you'll see more ads for games, as well as places to eat, drink, and have a seat. This is the only part of the venue where you're allowed to use Wifi, by the way.

There are eleven halls altogether, each of them connected, so you only have to enter one entrance to see everything. Here's a brief tour of the major booths and attractions:

SQUARE ENIX

Final Fantasy was the main franchise being promoted here, with massive displays for the Final Fantasy XV spinoffs and parts. Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, one of the mobile game spinoffs, had its own booth with free giveaways of the game's currency to players.

On the other hand, there wasn't much Dragon Quest stuff being promoted, unless you count the Dragon Quest x Final Fantasy collaboration game that will release in Japan next month. (You can read my impressions of the game's demo here.)

Square Enix employees were walking around stuffed toys of the slimes from Dragon Quest. Some of them very kindly posed for me:

It was also nice to see cosplayers promoting Final Fantasy XIV:

BONUS: a Chōcobo cutout in the merch booth!

CAPCOM

Monster Hunter World was the name of the game here. Monster Hunter was everywhere - there was even a huge sculpting of a monster just outside the demo booth.

It was super cool how the demo booth itself was modeled after a Monster Hunter-esque forest setting.

Monster Hunter didn't just feature in the Capcom booth - it got its own photo spot in the PlayStation area.

Besides Monster Hunter, Capcom was making announcements and holding stage events about their other games throughout the Game Show. Pictured below is a stage event about the Mega Man series (known as Rockman in Japan).

I had a lot of fun at the Ace Attorney stage event, where a trailer of the 3DS remake for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney was shown. Toward the end of the event, there was a short segment showing Phoenix talking to his ancestor from the Dai Gyakuten Sakuten games (the spinoff series set in the Meiji era). The ancestor was shown with his 3DS sprite while Phoenix was shown with his sprite from the very first GBA game, and the jokes about technological progress had me cracking up. Never change, Ace Attorney.

SEGA/ATLUS

Yakuza and Fist of the North Star were the big franchises here. I suppose it makes sense to link the two of them together since they are both about tough guys! who beat up each other.

The two series didn't just get giant posters; they also had cosplayers out there to promote them. I'm fond of this picture of a lady cosying up to a giant figure of Kenshiro.

There were other popular franchises on display as well. A model robot from Atlus's upcoming mecha game 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was quite prominent at the booth.

The Phantasy Star series also remains a perennial favorite. Here, a cosplayer is promoting Phantasy Star Online 2, a game that has been out for over five years.

The demo area was busy throughout all times of the day (even on the business-only days!). Some of the games that could be played include Shin Megami: Strange Journey, Dragon's Crown Pro, Hatsune Miku Diva Future Tone DX, and Sonic Forces.

My favorite part: the person in the Sonic suit who gave me a hug.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Got a message for Twitch? You could have left it here.

Can you remember the names of all those Love Live! girls? That's easy, you say? How about all the girls from the upcoming All Stars game from Bushiroad? To get a sense of just how many school idols there are now, here are cutout figures of every single one of them on display.

Say what you will about the game, but Konami's Metal Gear Survive display does look cool.

D3 is promoting Earth Defense Forces 5 and Bullet Girls Phantasia, two games that encapsulate “ANIME” with complete and utter comprehensiveness.

It amuses me (but doesn't surprise me) how people would line up for 90+ minutes to try a demo of a Love Plus mobile game.

The upcoming game appears to be light on new content, but Steins;Gate remains a beloved series. I have to say that the cosplayer were extremely good at their job.

After I played the DanMachi game (impressions here), this Hestia cosplay stuck my status on my back, which is identical to the tattoo on Bell's back. That was a neat touch!

Pikachu was around to take photos with people and promote the Pokken Tournament game.

Finally, I'd like to point out that there was a whole section of the TGS floor dedicated to romance simulation games, specifically the otome game kind. It's true that the vast majority of these games will never hit Western shows, but I feel that their presence is important to note nonetheless.

And that's that for my tour of Tokyo Game Show 2017! As usual, there were a lot of other things going that I couldn't include in this article. For instance, I should mention that VR was heavily represented this year, with many booths having at least one “VR Experience” for patrons to demo. But in the interest of keeping this coverage both anime-related and manageable to read, I've stuck mainly with console games with overt anime influences.

If there's one takeaway from Tokyo Game Show 2017 it's this: if you're an anime fan, you should be feeling well served by the games coming out.


discuss this in the forum (1 post) |
bookmark/share with: short url

Interest homepage / archives