IGN: Our Top 10 Most Anticipated Japanese Console Games
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A celebration of game development in the land of the rising sun.
The Japanese industry has had a rough time of it over the past few years. With a few obvious exceptions, the industry has been hit hard by year after year of recession and a diminished home market, and thus has begun – more and more – to look to the global market. Going global is seen as a core focus for most of the big Japanese publishers and a way to ensure staying viable. That's all well and good, but it's a tricky transition to go from making games for a Japanese audience (that may or may not appeal to players outside Japan) to trying to make games for a global audience. The real question is – what's left if Japanese developers try not to make their games too Japanese?
That's a question for another feature, however. For now we're going to take a moment to highlight some of the teams in Japan that are making truly incredible titles. Japan may be in a transition stage but it's still a hotbed of talent and great game design.
A couple of caveats for this feature, however - we've restricted our choices to console games only, and we've restricted our choices to titles we saw at this year's Tokyo Game Show. So no, Kirby's Epic Yarn isn't on the list. Here we go!
The Japanese industry has had a rough time of it over the past few years. With a few obvious exceptions, the industry has been hit hard by year after year of recession and a diminished home market, and thus has begun – more and more – to look to the global market. Going global is seen as a core focus for most of the big Japanese publishers and a way to ensure staying viable. That's all well and good, but it's a tricky transition to go from making games for a Japanese audience (that may or may not appeal to players outside Japan) to trying to make games for a global audience. The real question is – what's left if Japanese developers try not to make their games too Japanese?
That's a question for another feature, however. For now we're going to take a moment to highlight some of the teams in Japan that are making truly incredible titles. Japan may be in a transition stage but it's still a hotbed of talent and great game design.
A couple of caveats for this feature, however - we've restricted our choices to console games only, and we've restricted our choices to titles we saw at this year's Tokyo Game Show. So no, Kirby's Epic Yarn isn't on the list. Here we go!
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10. Codename D
To us it feels like Microsoft and other Western publishers are falling over themselves to reach a casual audience with their Kinect titles, which is obviously disappointing for gamers who like to shoot things in the head, but it looks like it's Japan to the rescue. TGS saw five new Kinect titles unveiled – all of which are coming from Japanese developers and all of which seem more targeted towards a 'core' audience. Interesting eh? Western developers are desperate to reach a casual market, whereas Japanese developers are desperate to reach a global market, which still means 'core' to them. Thank ? .
While we don't know much about them, we're going to nominate Suda 51's Codename D as the one we're most looking forward to, simply because he's such a unique talent and he's bound to surprise us. The trailer is below, but can be summarised by this sentence: "dude with baseball faces off against a creepy menagerie of animal-headed figures in a demented fairground and heads soon explode".
Of course, we're pretty excited about the other games too. Dragon riding flight combat game Project Draco, for instance, is destined to be more Panzer Dragoon than Lair. Why? Because it's being developed by Grounding Inc., a studio established by Yukio Futatsugi of Panzer Dragoon fame. BAM! You can check out the announcement trailer here.
We're also keen to see more of Haunt, from NanaOn-Sha, Masaya Matsuura's studio - the guys behind PaRappa the Rapper and Vib Ribbon. Announcement trailer ahoy!
And let's not forget Steel Battalion. The original game came out on Xbox and is famous for having a controller the size of two basketball courts that was gyroscopically balanced and required a series of flatbed trucks to be shipped to people's homes. It was cool, but just a smidge on the niche side. So imagine if that mech cockpit was all virtual and you could simply reach out to flick virtual switches? That's the idea of Steel Battalion: Heavy Armour for Kinect. Check out the debut trailer here.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p1.html#ixzz10ppF7owx -
9. Shadow of the Damned
Now this is a dream team – Suda 51 (Killer 7, No More Heroes) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe) team up as Executive Director and Creative Producer respectively, with Akira Yamaoka as Sound Director (you may know him from Silent Hill) on a game that looks like it will combine their individual strengths like Voltron. Suda is bringing his punk rock aesthetic, while Mikami will bring rock solid game mechanics, and Yamaoka will ensure the dark, shadowy creatures and bleak gothic environments sound as freaky as they look.
Beyond that, all we really know from the announcement and trailer is that the game will be set in hell (or at least somewhere called Hell), is presented from an over the shoulder perspective, and stars a scarred, leather-wearing demon hunter who wields some pretty cool weaponry. Hell, what gun isn't made cooler by embedding a skull at its end? So far we've seen a staff/sceptre thing with a glowing tip used to impale an enemy, a machine gun (with aforementioned skull) and this bizarre contraption with about ten muzzles in an array like spider legs, each of which has a laser site. What else can you expect? Big bosses, demons with glowing eyes, Absinthe vending machines and a female demon hunter - if the trailer's anything to go by.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p1.html#ixzz10ppPZvzV -
8.Ni no Kuni: Queen of the Holy Ashes
So it's not a game based on a Ghibli property (which is probably for the best, frankly), but Ni no Kuni is a game which sees Level 5 team up with Studio Ghibli, and the result is pretty damn special. Thanks to Ghibli's input and expertise, the characters, animations and cutscenes look like they've stepped out of one of the studio's productions, which makes for a game that's both stunning to look at and brimming with personality.
The real test, of course, will be delivering on characters and a story that can do the visuals justice. That's going to be a tall order. We only know the story in broad strokes so far, but we do know that the game stars a 13 year old boy named Oliver who feels responsible for the death of his mother, and 'Ni no Kuni' is a place that exists in parallel with our world. He's able to travel between the two in his quest to try and save his mother. His guide is the cute little munchkin named Shizuku with a lantern on the end of his nose who you've probably seen in screens and videos, and battles are turn-based and see Oliver issuing commands to his party rather than fighting himself.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p1.html#ixzz10pqALF1m -
7. Asura's Wrath
Woah. This is one impressive trailer. Powered by Unreal Engine 3, Asura's Wrath is visually stunning, with a style that seems heavily influenced by Capcom's efforts with Street Fighter IV. The content is ridiculously over the top, with a lead character that's able to take dozens of spears through his body and simply shrug them off as he assaults an army. The game already seems to possess a great balance between being bad-ass and amusing too - the protagonist arcing high up through the air during a fistfight has shades of ? Hand for us, while what game isn't made better by the inclusion of a "? Finger"? Watch the trailer and you'll see what we're talking about.
During Capcom's TGS press conference Keiji Inafune and members of the development team at CyberConnect2 spoke about how they butted heads repeatedly for the first year of their work on this game. According to Inafune, Capcom wanted a straight-up beat 'em up / action game, whereas CyberConnect2 came to the table with something completely different. According to the devs it took a long time to arrive at the final game design, but that it's really strong as a result of all the back and forth. We'll have to take their word for it for the moment, but it does beg the question – just what sort of game is this? The trailer has snippets that look like traditional gameplay – such as when the protagonist picks up the massive column and runs with it, but the rest looks driven solely by Quicktime Event-style commands... which may look spectacular but is a bit worrying from a gameplay perspective. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p2.html#ixzz10pqxTzZF -
6. El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
For El Shaddai, developer Ignition Tokyo has called on the 'Book of Enoch' for inspiration, so – from what I can gather from briefly skimming the Wikipedia page for all of twenty seconds - that means this game is all about fallen angels and the titular Enoch's adventures in heaven. Whatever the source material, this is a game that grabs you by your rocks from the moment you see it.
Stylish doesn't even begin to describe El Shaddai's incredible mix of watercolour characters and more traditional anime-style environments. The feel is thoroughly otherworldly, and the game leaps elegantly between 2D side-scrolling platforming sequences and full-blown three dimensional combat. The emphasis is on intuitive, accessible play, so there are only three buttons – jump, attack and block, with combos created through timing. Players can snag and use enemy weapons, and Enoch begins to glow when he can unleash his special attack. With no HUD and an automated upgrade system that's based on how you play, El Shaddai is deliberately minimalist and we can't wait to see how it comes together.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p2.html#ixzz10ps3P2j8 -
5. Child of Eden
There's little doubt that Child of Eden is the Kinect title we're most excited about right now, as Tetsuya Mizuguchi's games have always been about the link between visuals, sound and control, and now that control element is tied even more viscerally to the other aspects. It may not have the vibration feedback that Mizuguchi loves (yet), but it essentially allows the player to conduct the game and feel connected to what's going on. We'll have some in-depth impressions on Child of Eden up soon, so keep an eye on the site.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p2.html#ixzz10ptKkmUm -
4. Metal Gear Solid: Rising
Taking place between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4, Rising stars Raiden and will flesh out his character, but will also see the return of other – as yet unannounced – familiar faces. It's first and foremost an action game, however, with the main theme being "Zan-Datsu" – to cut and then to take, which is shown off in the E3 trailer below. With cutting stuff such a core component of the game, Kojima Productions has made it as flexible as possible, with the player able to cut through just about everything, from enemies to watermelons and cars, and at just about any angle – the game is capable of great precision, but what this will mean for the moment to moment gameplay – except, perhaps, during bullet-time-style slowdown – remains to be seen.
At TGS the demo at the Microsoft press briefing showed off more precision cutting, including cutting pins from the air as they were juggled. Enough with the teasing - show us more please!
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p2.html#ixzz10ptvpCee -
3. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
ZOMG! The cast in this game is off the charts! Amaterasu? Dante? Viewtiful Joe? Iron Man? Chun-Li? Dr Doom? Chris Redfield? Thor? Ryu? It just goes on and on, and with rock solid 2D gameplay, lightning fast character swaps and team attacks, and imaginative attacks and supers (especially the killer Level 3 moves) this game has even more energy than previous titles in the series. Stunningly pretty and completely over-the-top, this is a fighting game fan/Capcom nut/Marvel freak's ? . Nuff said.
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2. Gran Turismo 5
Gran Turismo 5 continues to grow more and more impressive the more its layers are gradually revealed. It's ridiculous just how much content and how many features are packed into this one. In fact, at TGS, Polyphony Digital's CEO Kazunori Yamauchi joked that development had reached an "Apollo Project scale", and in game development terms, that's probably about right.
During his presentation he announced a number of new cars that will be in the game and went into detail on a host of things, but for us the most exciting parts were:
* Gran Turismo Anywhere, as it allows players to log in to their GT5 account from a web browser, and engage in remote races using B-Spec mode. We love anything that allows us to remotely pull our PS3s out of sleep mode, and in this case it can act as a server to host races. Awesome. According to Yamauchi this feature is bridging the gap between browser games and console games, and will effectively mean you never have to leave the world of GT5.
* The X1 Prototype car, which Polyphony teamed up with Red Bull Racing and Adrian Newey (as technical adviser) to create, and which basically represents a super high spec racing car that doesn't have to conform to the technical regulations other racers do. The result is very very slick, and lightning fast.
* Dynamic weather, which may not sound that exciting, but when it's generated on the fly depending on temperature, pressure and humidity and is impossible to have complete control over, well, that's just damn cool. Conditions on the track also change depending on the weather and even take into account the difference between well-worn road and ? road. See the trailer below for a good look at it.
This really is going to be the racer to end all racers. And while Yamauchi apologised that the frame rate may drop occasionally when there's a huge amount going on on-screen, the reality is that the vast majority of the time this game is going to be running at 60fps and 1080p, which is quite an incredible achievement in and of itself. Throw in head-tracking and 3D support and this is bleeding edge stuff.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p3.html#ixzz10pwnrRg4 -
1. The Last Guardian
It's probably no real surprise to see this at the top of the list, given how much most of the staff at IGN love ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, and this game looks like it's going to be every bit as adventurous and beguiling as the previous titles from Fumito Ueda and his team. The Last Guardian is all about the bond between the boy and the Trico bird-cat, and in fact, Ueda has said that emotional attachment is a key factor in game progression. In other words, the closer the bond between the two, the more likely it will be for the Trico to obey the boy. It's a cool idea, but even cooler is the fact that the Trico isn't an automaton – it's not going to behave predictably, so interactions will be dynamic.
We still don't know a great deal about The Last Guardian, but that's by no means a bad thing – this is probably one of those games that players should go into knowing as little as possible, ready to be delighted and surprised. Late 2011 can't come fast enough.
Read more: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123158p3.html#ixzz10pzmU3qY -
Japanese games>>>Western devs rehashing 1st person shooters over and over
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