Ahahahahahahahaha

This...this is just too much.

Maybe it's because I'm neck-deep in Dynasty Warriors 8, or maybe it's just because I never thought something like this would happen because the last time something like this was pitched, it was turned down.  Maybe it's just because that last piece could truly mean this is Panic Mode Nintendo doing whatever the hell they can to try and spur sales.  Or maybe it's just because they picked honestly one of their least ideal franchises to add the Warriors treatment to.  I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it just makes me laugh when I try to wrap my head around it.

There's practically no information on the game - even the logo hasn't been created, nor is "Hyrule Warriors" necessarily the final name of the product.  So there's really not even that much for me to talk about beyond speculation.  As far as speculation goes, well, I'm not really sure what to think.  Being a Dynasty Warriors game means having access to -everyone- who is a unique character (and potentially even some who aren't), but being a Nintendo game means not...usually getting to be the bad guy.  So Ganondorf might seem like a lock for the actual game, but I'm wary on saying he'll be playable.  He should be, by all means, but I'm not sure.  I can't imagine them saying "Oh, here's a Dynasty Warriors game where you only play Link" and being able to keep a straight face, but I also don't know quite how many characters they can scrounge up.  Malon?  Zelda?  Shiek?  ....Tingle?  Perhaps the different -kinds- of Link over the years with different attacks based on the game, but even that's a bit boring.

It'll be interesting to find out about as it gets further along in development, as that trailer was clearly not from finished product footage.  Beta at the -latest-, though I'm willing to bet it's still pre-beta.  I guess if I'm taking a guess as to a release time, I'll say....Summer?  Seems long enough to finish it up and put it out the door, depending on the amount of work involved, but what do I know?  I can't see it taking til next Holiday season if it's meant to be a stop-gap between now and the next -actual- Zelda game, but it's clearly not ready yet either, so it's a hard guess.  Still, Summer is what I'm going with.  Who knows, maybe I'll have bought a Wii U by then!  Probably not, but I think this pretty much confirms a purchase in the future unless it just looks -really- bad somehow.  I...don't see that happening.

the only real worse candidates that I could think of were Star Fox and Metroid - can you imagine the dumb?

Yes, I'm Talking About Dynasty Warriors 8 Again

Today, I have finally beaten the final Story Mode mission contained within Dynasty Warriors 8 and by my approximation, I'm roughly 35% complete with the game now.  Four full story modes and 9 or 10 unaffiliated "Other" Story Missions (basically taking the "Other" characters who are famous but not among the ranks of Wei, Wu, Shu or Later Wei/Jin and taking an a-historical account of a famous battle of their in most cases, generally one that they -lost- historically) all told.  The four story modes also had branching paths at the 2/3rds mark, meaning when you got to the branch you were...half done.  Since you had to do -both- branches eventually and combined they were usually like eight missions or so on their own.  All of that is pretty much only 35% of the game in terms of 'completeness' which I'm gauging by the Trophy List for convenience.

Basically what I'm saying is that Dynasty Warriors 8 is surprisingly packed with content.  Perhaps too much so.

With Story mode done completely, as in I've unlocked all branches, beaten every stage and gotten every star for performing special tasks (Which I don't think is actually necessary for a trophy in the case of missions where it's not necessary to do the star to unlock a branch, but, eh, completionist) I have Free mode and Ambition mode left ahead of me, neither of which I've even strayed into at all.  Free mode is unexpectedly daunting for what it honestly is:  in Free Mode, you just get to pick a battle, pick a side and play any character in it, meaning if you want to be Sun Jian fighting for Shu in the defense of Chengdu from the forces of Later Wei, then have at it, you can totes do that.  The daunting part comes into play when you realize there are a -ton- of stages that are mostly unique maps (granted, maps like Luoyang Castle and Xucheng get used for several missions, but you don't tend to notice right away) and you have to play each one at least once for one of the shiny silver trophies the game has to offer.  I'm -pretty sure- that means only once total, not only once as each possible faction, because the latter would be fucking insanity.

Ambition Mode is a complete unknown to me, however.  I can make an educated guess and say that it's likely like Legend Mode from Dynasty Warriors 7:  Xtreme Legends which I have bitched about in the past, but with less of a finite structure, given that there are trophies for winning 5, 20 and 100 battles straight within Ambition mode.  I'm...not entirely sure this is a good thing nor can I be certain it's something that will be unwelcome.  A bulk of the trophies come from Ambition mode, in all honesty which is a little strange - not only does Ambition mode seem to be something that would be in Xtreme Legends, but there's so few trophies attached to the actual Story mode (directly, the collection stuff necessitates them regardless) given the obvious effort put into it.  Honestly, it's almost a little disheartening, but on the other hand I'm hoping that much harder that Ambition mode proves to be worth it.

Now that I've played the story through, however, I've gotten a feel for the new characters and I gotta say, by and large, they're pretty good.  Jia Chong is top-tier along with Guan Xing (for his musou and rage musou) and Zhang Chunhua, though not especially for her moveset.  Li Dian and Wen Yang, however, are unfortunately bad on....well, most counts, really.  Their movesets are boring (Dian's is slow as well) and their characterizations are more or less off-putting.  Wen Yang is just bland and uninspired (mild play-ups to him being Later Wei's Zhao Yun when he has nowhere near the charisma needed) where Li Dian is just....so intentionally 'look how weird I am' that it's frustrating.  The other new additions run somewhere in the middle skewed more to the Jia Chong/Guan Xing side, thankfully, though Zuo Ci is disappointingly not as much of a beast as he was in Dynasty Warriors 5.

I'm still finding myself impressed with DW8 even if I'm not just blown away like I was with DW7.  Since 8 focused on a lot of refinement and addition, or at least tries to, it's obvious that it'd be more subtle with its great things, but they're still there and they're still great.  I almost cannot believe yet that every character is unique, something that I've literally been wanting from the series since I first started playing it, and it's finally happened.  I can only imagine that it's going to remain like this going forward - no real reason to migrate Sima Shi back to a regular rapier now that he's got a Lightning Sword and no reason to give Zhurong Throwing Knives again now that she's got her Boomerang back, after all.  Which isn't to say that I anticipate everyone keeping their -exact- weapons for Dynasty Warriors 9, just that I don't see them cloning anyone back up.  Huang Gai in particular is probably going to get his Cudgel back at -some- point since I don't believe anyone is just running around with a one-handed club.  And I can always dream about Pang De just using a goddamn coffin in battle.  Maybe one day.

it's wild that I'm already thinking about a Dynasty Warriors 9, because good lord that's a high number comparatively

Dynasty Warriors 8 is Damn Good

After my foray into Beyond: Two Souls that ended with me liking it, but not necessarily ready to jump back into it for the trophies, I turned to my backlog, specifically games from this year, and decided that I should probably play one of them.  Preferably one that I hadn't played yet.  There's an embarrassingly high amount of games that could be included in this, but in the end I decided on going to my comfort zone because I need comfort these days.  So I grabbed Dynasty Warriors 8 which I purchased way back when it came out in July, unwrapped it (yes, it was still in plastic, yes that kind of made me a little ill) and tossed it into my PS3 with the intent on cutting swaths through Feudal China.  Something I've done countless times before and will do countless times yet.

I got that with Dynasty Warriors 8.  I got that in spades.  Originally, you'll remember that I really liked Dynasty Warriors 7 because it changed up the formula immensely, bringing more and more cinematic bits into it and really incorporating them in a worthwhile way, while also completely overhauling the weapon system with weapon switching and such.  I eventually concluded, though perhaps not in a post, that Dynasty Warriors 7 is the best Dynasty Warriors since 3 which is the absolute best through nostalgia-rimmed glasses at least (since I haven't played it in a long time).  8 was shaping up to be 7, but with more stuff, which by all metrics should have put it at 'better' than 7 itself.

I'm not so sure I would put it on that level, however.  Initially, I definitely would not have, but the more I play it, the more I start appreciating it and the effort that went into it, while also slowly realizing awesome things about it.  Some things are a straight step backwards - the game is overall less cinematic and less story-focused if for the simple fact that the little text-dumps in-between missions are not narrated for the first time since...ever and the text is rather small to boot, and you can no longer equip new weapons mid-battle thanks to the Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic they've almost arbitrarily added to weapons now - but everything else is either maintained or improved upon.  Including one thing that's like a fucking revelation after playing the games for as long as I have been.

You see, in previous iterations, there have always been some characters that simply have the same exact moveset since they share a tenuous weapon choice.  So Cao Cao would play almost exactly like Sun Jian who would play almost exactly like Liu Bei because they all wielded a Longsword and while there was some personalization, it wasn't a -lot-.  It's been in the games with varying degrees with Dynasty Warriors 6 being the worst of it where there were honestly maybe a dozen movesets spread across the 50-some characters in the roster.  In Dynasty Warriors 7, they tried to mitigate the clone issue by assigning "EX" attacks, which were attacks unique to that character with their preferred weapon.  So even though Liu Shan, Sima Shi and Yuan Shao all fought with a Rapier, they had different EX attacks assigned to a different charge, not to mention the different musou attacks.  Dynasty Warriors 8 has a more...elegant solution that is almost mind-blowing in the realization that they've finally done it.

There are no clones.  Everyone has their own weapon type which in turn has its own moveset with nary an overlap between them.  Liu Shan wields a Rapier where Sima Shi wields a "Lightning Sword" where Yuan Shao wields an "Extension Blade" which are all -basically- rapiers, but entirely different weapons in their own right with different moves and the whole spread.  Cao Cao wields a General's Swod where Sun Jian wields a Nine-Rings Blade where Sun Quan wields a Sword (seriously, just basic sword) where Sima Zhao wields a Striking Sword and they're all -wildly- different as you might expect from my previous mentions.  It's honestly a little surreal, having a scenario in which everyone has their own weapon, but it's been something that has needed to happen for a while and it's almost astounding that they finally managed it.  It's strangely liberating even.

All in all, Dynasty Warriors 8 attempts to be a complete refinement of 7 and in a lot of ways, it truly is - maps are nice, large and details, character models look nice (except in cutscenes where they're very...plastic-y), there's like seven weapons of each type and that whole non-clone thing is wonderful.  While it's a step back in a couple important areas, it's not -that- bad, even if it's enough to allow me to continue lofting Dynasty Warriors 7 up high for naught but the best of accolades.  It's enough to get me hyped up for Dynasty Warriors 8:  Xtreme Legends...which probably won't get a physical release over here.  More than a little depressing seeing as I can't reliably download a single goddamn gig these days thanks to what I'm assuming is Playstation 4 traffic.  Still...it has Zhu Ran, so I might just have to find a way.

when I realized that there were no cloned movesets, I literally had no goddamn clue what to do, it was that shocking

Toukiden Is On the Way West

The last time I said anything substantial about Toukiden was over a year ago when it was revealed, from which it eventually released, sold and did all that over in Japan with nary a word of western shores in its sights.  For some reason, I had thought Toukiden being localized was a foregone conclusion so when I heard that it was officially announced, I was a little confused at first.  "Didn't we know this already?," I said and it turns out that we did not.  So, good news everyone, Toukiden is releasing in North America (on carts! also digitally) as Toukiden:  [The?] Age of Demons.  (I'm seeing conflicting reports on whether or not the 'The' is there.  It is superfluous anyway.)  As far as I know, Toukiden isn't a real word, but it's damn fun to say, and a lot easier to figure out how to pronounce than Ys:  Memories of Celceta, which I learned from experience last wednesday, but that's a topic for a different night.

That's the good news about the situation.  The bad news begins to to the tune of the knowledge that the game is yet another Monster Hunter clone, but an actual really real one this time, not something that's just called a Monster Hunter clone because of poor reporting.  However everything in that trailer above screams Monster Hunter, from the segmented maps, to the giant monsters, to the four-player co-op with the bars on the upper left side literally like the MH UI (though not unique to that game) to the hub town and you get the point.  It's Monster Hunter with a side of Monster Hunter on a Monster Hunter plate in a Monster Hunter restaurant that calls itself Toukiden from KOEI and it's more than a little disappointing.

I'd personally hoped for something a little....less like that, clearly.  While my enjoyment of the KOEI games is well-known here, I don't necessarily want them to only make hack-n-slash games, so while that's what I expected with this, I would have been happy to have been wrong in most cases.  Perhaps with a proper Action-Adventure title, something along the lines of a Ninja Gaiden game, but actually fun, would have been great.  As it is, I'm assured that Toukiden will at least be a little more fast-paced than Monster Hunter which is one of my issues with it, and I'm hoping there's more variation to the game than "go here, kill monster", but I don't know what to expect and I don't want to spoil it for myself by reading impressions on the Japanese version of it.  It will serve me better to simply blindly pre-order and buy it and hopefully not be disappointed.

That is part of the other half of the bad news.  The game is releasing in February of 2014 which is right dead-smack in the middle of Christmas II which just so happens to include March this year, meaning they decided to release it the Sega way; at a time where it has the least chance of being bought 'just because'.  I'll be buying it because KOEI has so many fucking games to localize and I don't want them to be able to use their own shitty logic to leverage less and less localization projects because I fucking -want- to play these things.  I want Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends on my Vita, preferably with Dynasty Warriors 8 built into it, because I still don't know how DW8XL being on Vita/PS4 is going to work when DW8 proper is on PS3 and the selling thing of Xtreme Legends in the past has always been connecting the two games to expand on the original.  Despite my whinging, it does look like a nice game and seems capable of tricking everyone into forgetting that it's not actual Monster Hunter, but rather something close enough like it that they can just play it instead.  Because damned if a Monster Hunter wouldn't help matters.  CAPCOM.

I just want to run around maps and cut things and not worry about small areas and hrrrgh

Dynasty Warriors 8 is a Thing, I Had No Idea

The other night, one of my friends said "Hey, you getting Dynasty Warriors 8?" and for a moment, I had no idea of what to say.  That I knew -of- a Dynasty Warriors 8 was, of course, reality, but my knowledge of it did not include the fact that it was being localized and had already had a release date (which GameStop pegs as July 16th) and such.  As that knowledge sank in, however, my choice became obvious.  "Is it coming out for PS3?" I asked.  "Yes."  "On-disk?"  "It is."

"Well, yes then."  It really isn't a difficult choice.

I've made it known several times on this blog that I am certainly not at all happy with KOEI, given that they took a game of theirs that I wanted so very badly and did the one thing that guarantees that I just don't fucking get to play it.  Deciding that for one region and one region only, for one platform only, they were not going to release Warriors Orochi 3 physically pissed me off immeasurably, especially for the fact that it was the North American PS3 release which, obviously was what I was going to go with and blah blah blah b-bu-but Sony policy is never going to fucking fly with me.  All it was was a shrewd move to cut costs wherever possible and North America was the only region where the "no english VA, no Disk" excuse was going to fly.  All in all, it probably saved them a bit of money, enough to convince them it was worth it since they continued to do the same thing with all of their releases thereafter, so whatever.

But the issue was always, always, "Goddamnit KOEI, I want to fucking play your games" and not, "Okay, fuck you, KOEI, I'm not going to play your games".  So of course the first game that came out physically, meaning I could play it, I snatched right up in Dynasty Warriors Next.  It's the same reason why I'm going to pre-order the shit out of Dynasty Warriors 8 - I fucking want to play it.  This is why I've always adopted a "Buy what you want" stance, versus the whole "Company has annoyed me, so I'm going to boycott them even though I like what they put out" stance that the internet seems to take every now and then about this and that - usually a game from ActiBlizzard, EA or Ubisoft.  Some might argue that I'm simply buying into bad practices by purchasing DW8, but I can assure you quite plainly that I'm doing just the opposite.

The simple truth is, I cannot download and store Warriors Orochi 3, One Piece Warriors or any other game that KOEI has only released digitally, so thus, I don't want them.  I want to play them, of course, but I don't want them as a product because I cannot use them.  So I don't buy them.  Buying those would be buying into bad practices since I'm simply encouraging them to continue beating me over the head with games that I'll buy without the ability to play.  Buying Dynasty Warriors Next on a gamestick sends two very clear messages - I want Dynasty Warriors on Physical Media and I want Dynasty Warriors on Vita - where buying Dynasty Warriors 8 on blu-ray for PS3 sends exactly the same message.  I want the fucking game, here is how I want it, I'm proving it by throwing money in your face.  It's that easy.

I suppose I should state somewhere in this post why exactly I specifically want Dynasty Warriors 8 other than "it's a Dynasty Warriors game I can fucking buy and play how goddamn revolutionary", because there definitely -is- a reason!  Up to Dynasty Warriors 7 each iteration of the franchise tried to do something, anything to really sort of make it 'click' with not only us, but the developers as well, yet each try at that found itself lacking.  4 and 6 are among the most divisive since they do things very, very differently (4's weapon upgrade system rather than acquiring weapons, and 6's much-reviled Renbu system which I thought was actually okay) but every game was very, very different than the last.  When 7 came out to prove itself different than every game before it, it also did something else - it proved itself to be awesome.

Dynasty Warriors 7 was the first game in the main series that introduced a system wherein you could carry two weapons into the field and switch between them at will, oftentimes as part of your combo, thereby extending it into use of your next weapon.  Needless to say, it could get pretty friggin' sweet to watch with some of the possible combos, but also served a utilitarian purpose in allowing characters whose main weapon was something you didn't mesh with to still be useful by equipping a weapon that you -were- familiar with.  Not only that, but it was the first game to take the term 'cinematic' and mean it which really knocked it out of the park for a few things.  Dynamic mission switching (in which you finished a mission and were then instantly lead into another one, oftentimes as a different character) and the like were rife in the rather intricate Story Mode of the game and made that one of the best it's been.

The thing about Dynasty Warriors 8?  KOEI basically went and looked and said "Well, 7 is awesome, so let's just make that better instead of revamping it again".  Which is all amounts of "yessssss" that I can physically give.  Dynasty Warriors 7 was indeed awesome and managed to butt in to the conversation whenever "Best Dynasty Warriors game" was being discussed and the merits of 3 and 5 were being touted because 2, 4 and 6 'sucked'.  Which....doesn't mean a whole lot to folks who aren't series fans, I imagine, but it's a -thing-, I assure you.  So DW8 as an improved DW7 basically means all the awesome weapon systems, the cinematic feel, the improvements made since in iterative titles of DW7 and additional cool things like more characters on top of the already-impressive roster and, y'know, Free Mode, which was completely absent from 7.  Free Mode, obviously, lets you take a battle in particular and insert yourself on whichever side you like as whoever you want to be.  So if you want to play a guy from Shu on Wei's side fighting -against- Shu?  Go for it.  It sounds like a little thing, but it adds so much replayability to the game and the series -thrives- on that.  So DW8 is definitely something to be excited about from my perspective.

I'm giddy about a KOEI game again, what sorcery is this because it is the best kind of sorcery

Finally, That's Over With

Can you spot Ryu?

I find it odd that I have a sense of relief, at least greater relief than normal, now that I am more or less completely done with Game of the Year stuff.  Yeah, I'll probably still do a "Games That Weren't My Games" post since there are plenty of worthy titles that could bear that, but I don't have to do that right away by any means.  What makes it odd, I should say is that, rather than just being glad that I had so much to talk about this time around, I find that I'm just happy that I don't have to do the GotY posts any longer.  At least, not until next year, and I can honestly wait for that with no real issues.  For the last couple of days, I dreamed to be at this point where I didn't have to put down three games on a post and go on and on about why I loved them this much which was, by some measure, less and more than the games above and under it in some form.

Really, I think the thing that started to bug me is that I started feeling like it was coming off as a little self-centered.  I mean, I know it wasn't, or at least no more than any other post on this, an opinion blog about my personal feelings on things, but it was just a different feel.  I'm being silly, I realize, and perhaps I was just manifesting feelings of creative closure by projecting something else.  Since I knew every night for six days in a row exactly what I was going to write about which, in a way, was exactly like what I wrote the previous night and would be what I wrote the next night, it left little to the imagination.  It should've been perfect in that respect - I didn't have to worry about finding some news piece or picking out something that was significant enough during the day to speak on.  Yet, writing the same thing for, basically, a week straight got a little old fast I admit.

There's also a good chance that I've just written too much in the previous week and change.  Beyond my posts here, I spent the bulk of a night writing the rough draft of the prologue of the short story I've mentioned that I'm working on (nine pages typed much like these posts, but in OpenOffice Writer) and I've had a few other things that required a lot of writing here and there.  My nights have been more writing than not which is different and obviously a little taxing on me.  Not that I mind it in so many ways, of course, but strain is strain no matter what and it gets to be a little much.  Which is a sentiment that is defeated entirely by my spending three paragraphs talking about it.

My goal was to relax a bit tonight.  Of course, my definition of 'relax' seems a bit off, as it included writing this, doing another rather intensive writing thing elsewhere and playing the newly-downloaded Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus on my Vita.  It was provided free to Playstation Plus members and I've been itching to play it again, having not touched it since its initial incarnation on the Original XBox where I eventually conquered it with much struggling.  The game took me ten hours to download - ten, t-e-n, one-zero, TEN - and that was without the rather strange download pause-limbo that my games generally encounter during the overnight download when it's going to take a while.  Ten straight hours of downloading for 2.3 gigs of game and ten minutes into playing it, I had already considered deleting it.  Of course, I was playing the Ninja Challenges like a dummy and not the base game, which was a dumb thing to do.

Fifteen minutes into the story, the game re-introduced me to a move that I forgot completely about and that would have made my attempts at the challenges much much easier.  Which reinforces why it was a very dumb idea to go after them first.  So, in other words, playing the story is the right move and I've been enjoying it a lot even though I'm just in the second chapter.  I'm honestly surprised at how damn smoothly it plays, but by that same token, it -is- a rather old game.  When Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus 2 drops, if it's just as smooth, then that'll be something to truly admire and wow at, and for some reason, I actually have faith in Tecmo-KOEI's ability to do just that.  As for when I'll pick it up, well....that remains to be seen.  We'll see just how much I like this first one after playing it some more and getting in to the 'hard' parts.

The Rest of Sony's TGS

Quite a few things of import were announced at TGS where Sony is concerned, but for my part, I've only talked about one thing in particular because it is special.  Still, the rest of the news is good as well and it's something that I want to cover, since the bulk of it might be things that I partake in myself, or at the very least, is somewhat cool on its own merits.  While there's no real megaton big news here (TGS is never the place for 'giant' announcements) what is here is substantial in its own right, really, and I would be remiss if I looked towards anything else to talk about tonight since it seems the after-conference stuff has all been more or less sorted out as well.  As in, the stuff that doesn't get spoken of specifically during the conference, but is still out there at TGS and doesn't generally get much mention for whatever reason.  Like Earth Defense Force 3 Portable for Vita that got announced sometime after E3 if I'm remembering correctly.

First up is the above-pictured new PS3 Model which I am taking to calling the "Super Slim" because that's kind of a pretty neat name for it.  Which is appropriate because it's a neat-looking system.  Or, rather, I think it's a downright sexy-looking system, being at least much, much more sexy than the actual PS3 Slim that looks kind of terrible when put next to this or even (especially?) when put next to the original PS3.  But it was all about functionality at that point, and not-so-much form factor, and now that that's all pretty sorted, they can focus on the form factor, which they have certainly done.  There's only so many ways in my own vocabulary that I know of how to convey that the aesthetics of this model are pretty pleasing.  And that is kind of the only real thing to point out with this particular design since, aside from being sexy and lighter/smaller than the Slim, even, it's kind of fundamentally the same from what we know about it.

The main difference, at least from what I can think of, is the actual method with which the discs are loaded into the system.  You might notice that the area on the right of the system top, the ridged area, is higher than that on the left, and that's for the very simple reason of being the disk tray.  From what I can tell, instead of popping up, the tray slides to the side and then slides back.  Whether it's automated or not, I can't tell, nor can I surmise just how good of an idea it is in theory.  It's....different to think of, certainly, as disks have either slid in or were popped into a tray that popped open (PS1/2 era design), so having a sliding opening is something different entirely I think.  Again, I don't know just how practical it is, but it's...unique, and for the form factor of the device, so long as it's not an inherently bad idea, it'll work just fine.  I know that if I'm in the market for a new PS3, I'd probably shoot for one of these rather than the regular Slims.

Speaking of reveals, there were some note-worthy ones aside from Muramasa:  The Demon Blade getting a Vita port.  The important things are not necessarily all the game reveals, however, as Soul Sacrifice revealed a new launch window of Spring 2013 that I honestly thought it had anyway, so I wasn't too disappointed by it.  Of course, the launch window is purely Japan-only as, even though it's confirmed that it's going to launch in North America, the specifics with that are more up in the air than the Japanese launch, clearly.  The game seems like it's shaping up rather nicely which is good, since it is definitely going to be a game that everybody wants you to be hyped up for.  For my part, I don't generally get into Monster Hunter type games (Including Monster Hunter), but with Ragnarok Odyssey on the horizon in my pre-order cache, I will see if that type of game does fit with me when it's not as...er....'heavy' as Monster Hunter itself.

Also revealed were a few offerings from Namco Bandai and Tecmo KOEI, throwing some new and old the Vita's way.  Namco Bandai's offerings include God Eater 2 which will be a PSP/Vita release in Japan (likely just a Vita release in everywhere else) and a Gundam game that apparently has an embargo on it because it is a rather new approach.  From what I could tell via the Joystiq liveblog, the Gundam game is based around the actual Gundam Models themselves, rather than 'actual' Gundams, and there was a lot of explosions and such.  When I say Gundam Models, I mean the type that you can assemble, so I really have no idea what to anticipate in terms of story and design around that.  Still, it's interesting nonetheless and the fact that I can't get information for it is a bit intriguing since it suggests that it will be a very new attempt, instead of a rehash or a version of a Gundam game already out there.  Maybe.

Tecmo KOEI's offerings also incorporate a little new and old as 'Toukiden' seems to be a pretty good merger of that in itself.  Billed as a new thing, Toukiden doesn't really have any screenshots floating around there, but it's going to be a good old hack-and-slash title with fantasy elements that takes place in a Feudal Japan setting.  A fictional one, of course, because the trailer (forgive the quality) features the female protagonist(? or just one of the characters perhaps) slicing up a rather gigantic spider that I'm...just going out on a limb here and suggesting isn't historically accurate.  You know, just a hunch here.  Seeing as Omega Force (the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors crew) knows how to make some action-packed trailers, I'm not going to take it as an indication of how the game is played aside from the idea that there will be slicing and possibly giant spiders, but for what it's worth, I think they have a pretty good grip on the whole hack-and-slash thing so this one's on my radar.

Tecmo KOEI also announced that Ninja Gaiden 2, like Ninja Gaiden Sigma before it, will be getting ported to the Vita as Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus.  There's literally nothing else said about it and being as I didn't play the Vita port of Sigma, I don't know what to expect.  Buuuuut, while we're on the subject of Ninja Gaiden, there was a little something else revealed at TGS.  Remember Yaiba?  The game that promised Ninjas, Zombies and giant mechs?  Well...it's still promising that, but under its new title - Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z.  It's kind of brilliant, actually, in that the main character, Yaiba, is all three of the promised things in one.  As a Ninja, he was killed by Ryu Hayabusa and then brought back to something resembling life with the assistance of some cybernetic implants which he hopes will help him get vengeance on everybody's favorite Ninja.  Like an entire arm and half a head have been replaced.  So Yaiba is literally a Cyber-Zombie Ninja.  That....is probably the coolest goddamn thing I have typed all night.

There's no way I can top that, so I'm not even going to try.  I will mention that Playstation Plus is coming to the Vita in November, featuring its own(?) Instant Game Collection, the usual fare from PS Plus, and an additional (read:  Separate from PS3) Gig of Online Storage which will be real nice for folks running out of Memory stick room.  Or cards with which to place bubbles upon.  Also coming to Vita is Playstation Mobile when it launches on October 3rd.  Neither of those are as awesome as a Cyber-Zombie Ninja (even though I am partial to PS Plus and just resubbed for a year), so I will not stay on them for any longer than this.  Because come on.  I just have to say it one more time as I close out this post, just to get it out of my system and make sure it ends on a high note.

Cyber.  Zombie.  Ninja.