TGS: Booth Round-Up - The Best Of The Rest

Author: by Simon Carless, Tokyo

While Gamasutra's previous round-ups have covered the majority of the most important games showcased at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show, there were more than 120 companies (as always, barring Nintendo, who do not traditionally rent a booth at TGS) exhibiting at the show that haven't yet been specifically referenced. As for the smaller first-tier and second-tier console publishers, firms such as Koei, SNK Playmore, Atlus, D3 Publisher, and Tecmo had major exhibits in either the main or secondary halls. Koei's main games were the still-too-early racing title Fatal Inertia and epic samurai tale Ni-Oh for next-generation consoles, along with many new entries in the company's signature Dynasty Warriors series. Moving on, SNK Playmore continued its fighting game dynasty with the 3D engine but 2D gameplay of King Of Fighters: Maximum Impact 2, as well as the latest Samurai Shodown for PlayStation 2, and a host of console conversions of older arcade fighting and action games. Atlus' line-up seemed relatively denuded, with RPG remake Princess Crown for PSP, Devil Summoner: Kuzuha Rydoh for PlayStation 2, and Snowboard Kids for DS the few highlights. Wacky, largely budget publisher D3 was also showcasing its deal with Buena Vista Games, including the portable Nightmare Before Christmas and the forthcoming Narnia games, alongside its K1-licensed fighting game and a host of weird value titles. Finally, Tecmo's Dead Or Alive 4, showing on the Microsoft booth, was the company's biggest draw, and many of its other titles (Ninja Gaiden Black, Tecmo Classic Arcade) are only for Xbox, but the latest version of the Monster Farm collection RPG series, Monster Farm 5: Circus Caravan looked promising, as did the innovative PSP group-action title Karakuro. Wandering around the rest of the show, there were prominent stands for some of the major MMO firms, with GungHo (Ragnarok Online licensee, with new titles A3 and Tantra) and Ragnarok creator itself Gravity (showing Ragnarok 2 and Stylia) some of the most prominent. In addition, cell phone companies were out in force, with KDDI and DoCoMo, two of the three major Japanese carriers, taking large booths to show the exclusive game content available on their networks - and, having struck deals with most of the major console game publishers, from Square Enix through Capcom, their line-ups were fairly impressive. There were also some Western-headquartered firms that were doing their best to blend in, with Atari Japan showing Getting Up and Fahrenheit, Ubisoft also taking a booth, and ATI showing off its PC graphics card technology, still a worthwhile niche in Japan, using games such as Dungeon Siege 2. The fringes of the show, meanwhile, had cosplayers galore, merchandise stands for companies such as Capcom with TGS-exclusive (and expensive) clothing and figurines, and even a small 'Kids' Area' in a separate hall, where tiny demo booths showed off games from companies such as Sega and Konami to the pint-sized attendees on the public days.