Well, this is my report on what I found in Japan. If the admin or this board mod thinks it should be moved then be my guest and do so but warn me.
First of all, I will comment on the two new handhelds that are floating around: Wonderswan Color and Gameboy Advance, as I bought one for me and the other for a cousin.
WonderSwan Color: As I knew Guilty Gear Petit was already out and Final Fantasy was in its way I though it would be a good idea to buy one. Big mistake. The control is crap, separate direction keys (there are eight, Guilty Gear uses only four) make it the worst handheld for playing fighting games. Barely more colors per sprite than NGPC. I can't see the big technological advance as to call it a next generation handheld (it only has a bigger display).
Gameboy Advance: Again more colors than NGPC and seems that it's better in that department than WSC. Better controlers than WSC (the direction keys are all stick together). Still, it looks like the SNes instead of the Play Station as I was specting.
Summing it up, I hope they keep releasing games for my NGPC (I still need to lear how to play MahJong).
Tokyo Game Show:
In general, I finally got to see some games that really used the power inside PS2 and they impressed me. A Konami game for the X Box seemed to be superior to anything in the PS2 in graphical quality, but I hope Bill Gaytes fails to seize the console market.
There were really pretty chicks in every stand and some great cosplayers (those chicks really put effort on their designs).
There were only a few stands that really cought my attention:
Konami: They were demonstrating Silent Hill 2 and it totally rocks!!! Besides they gave people some CDs with games (I haven't tried them yet). Other thing I liked was a Windows port of Antartic Adventure, made me remember the good old MSX days.
Konami Shop: Got some Suikogaiden posters, but I was expecting some better stuff (or more varied to say the least).
Capcom: They got two of the best chicks in the whole place. They found the perfect girl for the Chun Li costume. Didn't care too much about that stand.
Crapcom Shop: Utter crap for me (I'm no Resident Evil fan). The only interesting thing I found was a couple of cards with Athen and Hotaru (yeap, the SNK charas).
Square: They were displaying the full intro of Final Fantasy X and had machines playing it. Good stand.
Square Shop: I'm not a big Square fan so I couldn't find anything really interesting.
Aruze: They were demonstrating Shadow Hearts which worthes getting a PS2 and buying it. Almost no SNK games (a small TV showing a demo of Garou). The only strange thing I noticed was a small sign saying "SNK vs Capcom" with a "2" behind it. The rest was Pachinko, Pachinko, Pachinko.
There were other good stands and some crappy ones (die, X Box, die), but those were the most important (to me at least).
Pachinko:
I don't know which one is the relation of SNK with Aruze right now or how big Aruze is in the Pachinko market, but I can tell you Pachinko is BIG, really BIG. Even in small towns where you see small houses, there's always a big bright Pachinko building.
Arcades:
I've been to a lot of them. Here is my "most played 2D fighting games" list:
1) Guilty Gear X
2) KoF 2K
3) SF Zero 3 Upper
4) SF3:3S
Below that, it becomes debatable. Note that the distance between the 1 and 2 is very short, so is the one between 3 and 4 (and believe me I'm being unbiased at it).
Something I've found is that most arcades still have a Samurai Spirits 2 and some have a Last Blade 2. Just SRKers I've chacked how much play MvsC2 was getting and only found a couple of places having that game (NeoGeo Land being one of those) and the only two guys I've seen playing were doing so against the CPU.
BTW At NeoGeo Land in Osaka, I saw Beast Busters Second Nightmare (anyone remembers the old Beast Busters? It was a great game IMO). This title is somewhat old but I've never seen it before in my country (and I've seen many Hyper NeoGeo 64 games). The first level was very easy, the second was moderatedly easy with a tough boss and the third was complete hell.
On KoF2K, the striker that dominates the scene is surely Seth (but I've also seen a good Syo user). I had almost no surprises on the selected characters, just waaay better execution and timing than I'm used to.
First of all, I will comment on the two new handhelds that are floating around: Wonderswan Color and Gameboy Advance, as I bought one for me and the other for a cousin.
WonderSwan Color: As I knew Guilty Gear Petit was already out and Final Fantasy was in its way I though it would be a good idea to buy one. Big mistake. The control is crap, separate direction keys (there are eight, Guilty Gear uses only four) make it the worst handheld for playing fighting games. Barely more colors per sprite than NGPC. I can't see the big technological advance as to call it a next generation handheld (it only has a bigger display).
Gameboy Advance: Again more colors than NGPC and seems that it's better in that department than WSC. Better controlers than WSC (the direction keys are all stick together). Still, it looks like the SNes instead of the Play Station as I was specting.
Summing it up, I hope they keep releasing games for my NGPC (I still need to lear how to play MahJong).
Tokyo Game Show:
In general, I finally got to see some games that really used the power inside PS2 and they impressed me. A Konami game for the X Box seemed to be superior to anything in the PS2 in graphical quality, but I hope Bill Gaytes fails to seize the console market.
There were really pretty chicks in every stand and some great cosplayers (those chicks really put effort on their designs).
There were only a few stands that really cought my attention:
Konami: They were demonstrating Silent Hill 2 and it totally rocks!!! Besides they gave people some CDs with games (I haven't tried them yet). Other thing I liked was a Windows port of Antartic Adventure, made me remember the good old MSX days.
Konami Shop: Got some Suikogaiden posters, but I was expecting some better stuff (or more varied to say the least).
Capcom: They got two of the best chicks in the whole place. They found the perfect girl for the Chun Li costume. Didn't care too much about that stand.
Crapcom Shop: Utter crap for me (I'm no Resident Evil fan). The only interesting thing I found was a couple of cards with Athen and Hotaru (yeap, the SNK charas).
Square: They were displaying the full intro of Final Fantasy X and had machines playing it. Good stand.
Square Shop: I'm not a big Square fan so I couldn't find anything really interesting.
Aruze: They were demonstrating Shadow Hearts which worthes getting a PS2 and buying it. Almost no SNK games (a small TV showing a demo of Garou). The only strange thing I noticed was a small sign saying "SNK vs Capcom" with a "2" behind it. The rest was Pachinko, Pachinko, Pachinko.
There were other good stands and some crappy ones (die, X Box, die), but those were the most important (to me at least).
Pachinko:
I don't know which one is the relation of SNK with Aruze right now or how big Aruze is in the Pachinko market, but I can tell you Pachinko is BIG, really BIG. Even in small towns where you see small houses, there's always a big bright Pachinko building.
Arcades:
I've been to a lot of them. Here is my "most played 2D fighting games" list:
1) Guilty Gear X
2) KoF 2K
3) SF Zero 3 Upper
4) SF3:3S
Below that, it becomes debatable. Note that the distance between the 1 and 2 is very short, so is the one between 3 and 4 (and believe me I'm being unbiased at it).
Something I've found is that most arcades still have a Samurai Spirits 2 and some have a Last Blade 2. Just SRKers I've chacked how much play MvsC2 was getting and only found a couple of places having that game (NeoGeo Land being one of those) and the only two guys I've seen playing were doing so against the CPU.
BTW At NeoGeo Land in Osaka, I saw Beast Busters Second Nightmare (anyone remembers the old Beast Busters? It was a great game IMO). This title is somewhat old but I've never seen it before in my country (and I've seen many Hyper NeoGeo 64 games). The first level was very easy, the second was moderatedly easy with a tough boss and the third was complete hell.
On KoF2K, the striker that dominates the scene is surely Seth (but I've also seen a good Syo user). I had almost no surprises on the selected characters, just waaay better execution and timing than I'm used to.
