TGS has come and gone. It was an exhausting, and immensely fun filled trip. Four days filed with much gaming, but little food or sleep. I noticed that a lot of press didn’t show up for the fourth day this year, as the press room were nearly deserted. Still, for you guys, we once again boarded our train at Toke station and arrived at the show.

It was as crowded as always, but as a sign in the press room said, it was not as crowded as last year. Still, it was quite packed. There were gamers as far as the eye could see, but far less people with a press pass. This was actually helpful because the staff at the various booths had more time to chat with me. By now I had already played most of the big games I needed to try, so I used this last day to play some of the smaller games and find a few that I missed.

For example, I finally got to try my hand at the “paddle add-on” for the DS and I have to shadow the comments from Jools. It is fantastic. It looked cheap in the pictures I saw, but it is actually very solid and weighted perfectly. Arkanoid was simple but fun. Space Invaders was fantastic.

Another game I had been meaning to play the previous days was Cooking Mama 2. Long time 4cr readers will know of the staff’s (especially Coffeeman’s) affection for this quirky series. I was in fact ordered to play it by the rest of the staff. It was a command I had no problem accepting.

Much like the Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright) series, the Cooking Mama sequel does nothing new or revolutionary in it’s second installment. Again, just like Gyakuten Saiban, it delivers more of what people loved in the first place.

The graphics and gameplay (similar to WarioWare) are essentially unchanged. The main difference between this game and the previous titles seems to be the new recipes. There is also apparently a new “Cook-off” multiplayer mode, but it was not available to try at the game kiosk.

Basically if you liked the first game, there is no reason for you to not like this second installment. If you didn’t like Cooking Mama before, there is nothing new enough to change your mind now. I would consider myself a fan of the first game, but even I will have some reservations about spending the money again for a very similar game. Still, the hardcore Cooking Mama fans will “eat this up”.

Continuing on the trend of games the 4cr staff is obsessed with; I needed to finally check out Opoona. I really like the art style of Opoona and the game itself has quite a pedigree. The planning director is Sachiko Yukimura (Dragon Quest), Shintaro Majima (also Dragon Quest) is the lead artist and Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy XII) is doing the music. I’ve been following the development of this title closely.

The strange thing is that when I actually saw the game running at Tokyo Game Show, it was a bit anticlimactic. It was located in the back of Koei’s booth next to Sengoku Musō: Katana (also for Wii). I hadn’t even noticed that it was at the show until checking my guide map. There were 3 demo kiosks, and they weren’t very full. It just didn’t seem like Koei was pushing this game very hard.

I still think the game looks great and I will want to pick it up. But, where’s the hype? This game comes out on November 1st. They should be getting the crowd excited for this title, right? Or… do they know something I don’t? Is it really not all that good, and they are shuffling it to the back? The bit I saw looked compelling, but compared to the tangible excitement other companies are paying to their “A” titles, I’m just not getting that buzz from Opoona. Then again, maybe it’s one of those hidden gems that passes under the radar, and goes on to become a cult classic. I guess we will have to wait until November to see.

Next is a game I didn’t expect to see at TGS, or at all for that matter. D3 Publisher has decided to bring a chapter of their Sexy, Ultra-violent, Cowboy-hat-and-bikini-wearing-sword-slashing-zombie-killing game, Oneechanbara to the Wii as “Oneechanbara R”.

Whereas some publishers like Konami insists that the Wii is only suitable for cute (but fun) content like Elebits and Dewy’s Adventure, D3 took a look at the Wii library and went “Hmm.. Not nearly enough Bikini’s and there is always room for more zombies”. Excellent.

The game plays very similarly to the other games in the series which are available for the PS2 and Xbox 360. There is not much plot to speak of. You just go around and slice zombies in half. Then slice up those pieces before you get kicked to death by the bottom half of the torso. There are tons of enemies on screen, fun special attacks, many costumes, and tons of blood. There is not a lot of depth, but I guess I would consider myself a fan.

The Wii version is extremely fun. It plays a lot like Devil May Cry or Soul Calibur Legends (review coming soon), but it feels much faster due to the number of enemies on screen at once. The massive amount of blood flying everywhere also helps, I suppose. The Wii version allows you to wield the sword with the Wii remote and at times uses two swords at once (the other is controlled by the nunchuck). It’s a pure hack and slash game and it was also one of my biggest unexpected delights of the show.

I did not think this game would come to the Wii. The original games were violent enough to garner them the notorious “Cero Z” rating which is basically the Japanese equivalent to the American “AO” rating. And this was without the motion controls of the Wii. I think D3 is noticing the controversy caused by Manhunt 2 and is taking some steps to tone it down a bit. For one, the blood, while still copious, is now a weird purple hue (like Klingon blood). It reminds me of when Sam Rami decided to use different colors of blood for the movie “Evil Dead 2″ in an attempt to bring the films rating down to an “R”. The girls are also wearing slightly more clothing (but not much more).

I have no idea if this title will receive a release outside of Japan (the first 2 were released in the UK as Zombie Zone and Zombie Hunters), but I hope it does. I also hope that it remains a budget title like the rest of the series (I have a very limited Cowboy-hat-and-bikini-wearing-sword-slashing-zombie-killing game budget). I would be hard pressed to call it the “Game of the Show” but it was definitely the most surprising.

This is the last known photo of SeanOrange.

After the show I went to Akihabara (where they made me King I guess). I visited all the famous game shops and saw a lot of very rare, very expensive, games. We visited “Super Potato” which in the 4 years since I last visited, seems to have become a bit of a “Gaijin Mecca of Video Games”. I attribute this to all the coverage English language news sites have been giving it. Perhaps because of this newfound fame I found that the prices were much higher than the other game stores in the area (which was not the case 4 years ago). Also, and I’m not sure why, but the second floor of the packed store had a strong smell of feces. I was only too happy to get out of there.

At another (less crowded, cheaper) store I bought a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 for my Famicom Disk System. That was the only item I bought this trip, however the other game journalists I was with were buying games like they were Nintendo stock. It was a fun experience, but I’ll stick with Famicom Dojo.

We got back to hotel quite late and though I had planned to get a few posts up, I went right to bed. The next morning, I recorded some footage that will be put in an upcoming video and then I had to get to the airport and board my plane, where I am now. I am writing this post in-flight on my way back to Kyushu. I don’t have Internet at my house right now (due to moving) so I am not really sure when this is going online. But if you are reading this, it must be up.

TGS is wonderful. I love to go, and to report about it. But I am glad it only happens once a year. It leaves me exhausted and poor every time. Still you can bet your Wii points that I will be back again next year.

This may be the last of my TGS Journals, but the 4cr TGS coverage continues. We are hard at work writing up more hands-on impressions and editing new video content. Also, there might be something for the guys coming up. Stick with 4cr in the coming days so you don’t miss any of it.