By top games, I mean the 14 games I played at TGS 2022!
DRAGON BALL: THE BREAKERS (Namco Bandai)
I got there so early that I played with six members of staff and only one regular dude. It was advertised to me as Dragonball By Daylight by Ty and I can see that. I also thought it had a dash of Fortnite, because the arena was huge and a lot of it was about finding huts / caves to find keys. The arenas were actually broken up into segments (A/B/C/D/E) and you and the team had to find a key (or multiple keys?) in each part. While doing this a huge Dragonball guy that looks like Mewtwo was chasing you and would wreck you up in seconds if he found you. Two deaths and it’s game over. This game is complicated, but I’m sure someone like Ty could put 4000 hours into it and get good.
No Place for Bravery (Ysbryd Games)
Sprite based, hack and slash, souls-like game with great animation and lots of blood! I like the parrying system. Controls well, looks nice! It’s pronounced iz-brid games.
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake (THQ Nordic)
I love the show, but I’ve never played a SpongeBob game because I just assumed it was all licensed trash. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when this turned out to be a very good 3D Mario game! Controls are solid, butt-bash is nice, glide works well. Basically you collect stuff and explore. Voices are all authentic, the humour is spot-on, the graphics are colourful and smooth (I played it on Xbox though). If the Switch port is good, this would be a no brainer for kids who’ve already got 999 Moons in Odyssey.
Super Bomberman R 2 (Konami)
Wow, who had “played a good Konami video game” on their TGS bingo card? I didn’t. Did you play Super Bomberman R? Yeah it’s another one of those. The Konami costumes are back, I played as Mr Castlevania Man. I played it on a PS5 on a couch with two random girls, I destroyed them in a best of 5 match. Fun! Hope it’s not a free-to-play game with iAPs.
It Takes Two (EA)
Have you ever seen a booth at a game show where it’s completely empty? Like inside and out? Welcome to the It Takes Two booth at TGS! This game is co-op only, so the booth girl played with me. The graphics looked rough, you could tell this was a squeeze to get it running on Switch. It was fine though, it ran OK, it’s a fun game! I guess everyone already knows about this game because it’s #OLD so I’ll leave it at that.
So to Speak (Erik Andersen, Indie booth)
It’s a kanji learning game, currently on PC but may come to consoles! You move around a map, click on objects then click the matching kanji. It makes you do it several times to reinforce your understanding. I could see this being useful at schools, maybe if the word list could be swapped out to different languages?
Candle Knight (Dracma Studios, Indie booth)
If you have Knight in your game title it automatically makes it good! Maybe. Anyway this is a polygon based 2D platformer where you guy has a candle for a head, you hit torches with your sword and things happen. Looks nice, the demo was a little buggy and blocked my progress. I wanted to ask the dev to restart the machine but I think he was on the toilet at the time.
Wanted Dead (Soleil / 10 Industries)
One of our Patrons told me to play this game, “it’s from the team who did Devil’s Third” he said. Against my better instincts but as a favour to a paying Patron I checked it out. I actually met the producer, Mr Okamoto, who informed me that Mr Itagaki wouldn’t be coming today because he was still recovering from the previous night’s events. His words not mine. The game itself plays pretty much like Devil’s Third, hold the left trigger to aim, right trigger to shoot, face buttons to do melee attacks, very generic stuff except this time the main character is a hard boiled - lady! Ohhhh. The booth was awesome though, they had recreated an American diner from the first scene of the demo, fully decked out with a jukebox, food menus, and waitresses in skimpy outfits. It’s not coming to Wii U (I asked), or Switch.
LEGO Brawls (Bandai Namco)
Yet another Smash wannabe eh? I liked how they had themed game types like pirates, underwater pirates, and even a licensed Jurassic World! In the latter mode you actually collected things to eventually earn the ability to become a t-rex where you then easily squish and eat everyone and everything. You collect LEGO blocks to earn your special moves, which give you special weapons or machines to use in the battle. Not bad! I told the booth guy that Smash Bros X was called Smash Bros Brawl in English and it blew his mind.
Stream Card (TASSEI)
OK this is pretty wild, I played “Stray” the PS5 game with a Switch Pro controller! OK let me explain, basically there’s a special cart that you slot into your Switch (still in prototype form) which lets you stream from any console or PC to your Switch! There was some delay but hardly noticeable. If this thing comes to market you’d just download an app from the eShop, slot in the card and you’ll be ready to go! There’s a sub-10% chance this thing will ever get the approval from Nintendo, but the concept is super cool!
Glitch Busters (Toylogic, Skybound Games)
This is a cute, cartoony 4 player co-op shooter, where you play as little emoji dudes tasked with wiping out viruses and defragging a Windows PC from the inside. I think it must have been designed by embittered Mac users who gave up on PC’s years ago (I can sympathise).
It was quite popular as we had to get a ticket and come back at a specific time, I played with Ty and 2 other randos from the show floor. It’s co-op but Ty went full try-hard and collected every coin and killed every enemy before anyone else and got the MVP award. We got some badges as prizes from a capsule machine, Ty was ecstatic!
Steam Deck (Steam)
My first time seeing the device in real life, and first time playing Elden Ring and Spiderman Remastered too! The first device they gave me went to a DOS style error screen when I pressed the library button (I got flashbacks from when I was a Windows user), but the second device worked flawlessly! The games I chose were big ones so loading took a while but everything after that was very smooth! The Steam UI seems to have been nicely reformatted to the small screen, along with cute little animations telling you how each game is controlled. This could be really big in Japan if they market it the right way, and the trailers and presentations they were showing on the show floor seem to be nailing it in that regard! Good luck to them I say.
Ruins Magus (CharacterBank inc, Indie booth)
I bumped into a wild PushDustin in the indie section and felt obliged to play his team’s new VR game! It’s an FPS fantasy shooter where you shoot creatures with your magical hands. I’m pretty much a VR newb so it took a while to nail all the moves, and by the time I was cooking I started to feel motion sick and had to quit! Had fun while I was playing though!
The Company Man (Forust Studio)
This is one fun 2D platformer! The sprite work is exceptionally good on this one, slick animation too. The story is based around being trapped as a lonely intern in a mega corporation fighting your way through the company, taking out various evil doers as you do. The humour is spot on, as are the voice clips and sound effects. You have a jump and an air dash similar to modern Castlevania or some sorts, but you’re playing a guy in a business suit and you revive yourself at coffee machines! Big fan of this one, and there’s a demo on the eShop right now. Check it out.
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