「RISINGSUPERBLOG」

In 2023, I visited Tokyo Game Show for the first time, and while it was fun, I couldn’t help but be a bit frustrated by how the event shook out for me. I’d been to many gaming events in North America, but this was my first Japanese one. Like every other Japanese event I’d gone to, the crowds were extremely dense (though also as usual, crowd management was very good). The venue- Makuhari Messe- Also has a unique construction that places the main halls end-to-end with each other, with outdoor passages in between. Combined with the super high ceilings, the venue is actually super well-ventilated and breathable!

Sadly, the flip side of high crowd density is what bummed me out so much last time- instantly capped lines. Last year, I was basically completely unable to play any marginally big game on the first day because I really just didn’t get that you have to show up ASAP and queue instantly. On the second day, I beelined straight for the then-unreleased Soul Covenant (a VR pseudo-hunting game billed as a spiritual successor to Vita’s crown jewel, Soul Sacrifice). Even though I went immediately from opening time, I was saddened to hear that the line was already fully capped for the day. Boo. Still got to try a bunch of cool indie games, though.

This year, I was wondering if I’d even want to go to TGS, but as the date approached it became clear that I really shouldn’t miss out while I can. My wife had the bright idea that I ought to see what they offer for “influencers”, a term which I heavily emphasize the quotation marks on because I still think back to the days when our old group jokingly referred to ourselves as “shit-tier e-celebs”. Crazy to think that was already a decade ago! Sure enough though, they offered influencer passes openly to people who had a surprisingly low number of followers, so it was a piece of cake! This got me access to the latter of the two press days, where it’d just be us internet media folk and the journalists. Good stuff!

All that said, I actually had a legit great time at TGS this year! Though I was only able to attend on the Friday press day and no other day, I played more games that interested me overall and had more opportunities to see some of my friends and acquaintances in the industry. So, in the order I played them, here are my thoughts on six games I enjoyed at TGS!

Double Dragon Revive

Publisher: Arc System Works
Release Date: 2025
Screenshots used sourced from publisher

In what may be an odd bit of pacing for this article, we’re starting off with easily my favourite TGS demo. My buddy (and terminal Double Dragon fan) Matt asked me to check this one out for him, understanding that my superior opinions on beat ‘em ups (Streets of Rage is the best one) would finally get him a straight answer on how good this one is.

I feel like in general, as much as I love beat ‘em ups, I’m quite the cynic towards them. I often advocate for a “less is more” approach which I think is increasingly an unpopular opinion in a world that views infinite juggle potential and style meters as mandatory elements of action games. Couple my cynicism with Double Dragon’s repeated mediocre reimaginings, and I did not have high hopes for this one.

Fortunately, it’s good! I think!

With the demo’s timer capped at a scant ten minutes, I didn’t have long to play it (indeed, I didn’t quite have enough time to empty the demo boss’ health bar before I was cut off), but I really liked what I saw.

Revive puts a massive emphasis on environmental interactions in a way that I think makes for excellent combat arena variety. Wall bounces are in, which is pretty standard stuff, but the ability to knock enemies into the background walls? That’s one you don’t see too often. Universal wall jumps, cool, but also hanging objects that allow you to swing off of them and deliver a unique air super? Even more unusual! The game sports so many fun little environmental mechanics that it really feels fresh in the beat ‘em up space in a way that deviates cleverly from the unproductive race for juggles and extended combos.

Basic combat feels good and simple, and is supported by advanced commands like back attacks, anti-airs, and sweeps mapped to button combinations. In general, the moveset feels utilitarian in a way I find very cool, but I will say that the breadth of this comes at a slight usability cost, with the player having to remember a few button combinations in order to access all of their tools. The player’s moveset is great, but could possibly be more elegant in its simplicity.

My only other complaint was a slight fiddly feeling to the grabs, which is not good for such a highly committal move. Of course, I only played for ten minutes, but during that time I whiffed quite a few grabs in situations where I felt they ought to land, which didn’t feel great.

Two other things before I move along. Firstly, while the game’s not going to win any awards for art, in motion it looks really great. Enemies have good hit reactions and look great as they’re bounced off of the environment, and animations are generally good with solid tells and signals from enemies. Second, this game has a tremendously fun parry mechanic where you can throw out a super to counter extremely powerful highlighted attacks, like a full body charge from series standby and demo stage miniboss Abobo. This mechanic has the great risk/reward balance you’d expect from any good parry, but since it also costs meter to perform the parry, botching it has an extra high cost, making it really exciting to pull off. I think the last time I’ve seen such an exciting and risky parry mechanic was 2015’s Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviours with its insane Burst Counter system. Love it.

I seriously can’t emphasize enough how jaded I felt walking up to the booth and waiting in line. There’s no way yet another attempt at rebooting Double Dragon is going to be particularly good. And by Yuke’s (WWE Series, various Earth Defense Force spinoffs), no less? No way. This was an incredible surprise, and I’m so glad Matt asked me to go check it out.

Guilty Gear GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- Nintendo Switch Edition

Publisher: Arc System Works
Release Date: January 23rd, 2025
Screenshots used sourced from publisher, platform unclear

Sitting literally right next to Double Dragon Revive in the Arc System Works booth was this fresh new port of the latest Guilty Gear. Longtime followers will know I’m an absolute freak for ports down to weaker hardware, especially when that means getting a portable version of titles previously thought unrealistic. As a big Vita fighting game guy and Switch Mortal Kombat enjoyer (sue me), the prospect of Strive on Switch is exciting, to say the least!

I played for a brief five minutes, feeling that it was all I really needed given what was available to play (versus matches only). I played one match on the 30 something inch TV that was about a foot from my face, and requested to be able to undock the Switch for a second match (thankfully after a quick check, the staff let me do so). Up front, the graphics are not as sharp as the other versions. Shocking, I know. But in all seriousness stuff was pretty crunchy on the TV, which was what made me want to undock it. Thankfully in handheld mode (and probably any TV at a sensible distance) the game looks excellent and seems to perform at very least reasonably well. Though I’m not the most eagle-eyed for this sort of stuff, I didn’t notice any real performance issues and was able to perfectly execute on my standard level of Guilty Gear gameplay (not good) with ease. I really don’t have much else to say about it given that I had such limited access to the game’s content, but in my books it seems to be a pretty perfect port as far as the local versus mode is concerned, and that’s enough for me! I’ve always wanted to play watch Strive’s story, and I’m glad that it seems like I’ll be able to do it from bed. And uh, on a Switch I guess. I guess I could just watch it on my phone, huh…

Man, I really wish Arc System Works would make a story mode with actual gameplay one of these days.

Reanimal

Publisher: THQ Nordic
Release Date: TBD
Screenshots used sourced from publisher

Right out front, big ups to whoever designed and built the Reanimal booth for TGS. It’s this big spooky monolith with its contents fully hidden from the outside world (presumably this was actually because of the anticipated high age rating but I digress). The booth’s interior contained tall fake trees, seemingly reaching all the way to the ceiling, while smoke machines and spotlights created a lovely haunted house atmosphere. This was slightly diffused by THQ Nordic (the publisher) having taken sponsorship deals for the monitors we were playing on, so every setup was flanked by an ad for the screens. Ugly!

Reanimal is basically Tarsier Studios’ latest Little Nightmares game. For anyone out of the loop, they made the first two, and the upcoming Little Nightmares III is actually being developed by Supermassive Games (The Quarry, The Dark Pictures anthology). The studios have historically worked together on various LittleBigPlanet games, so Supermassive seems to me like the most natural pick to take over from Tarsier if they have other ambitions.

Reanimal swaps out Little Nightmares’ ghoulish humanoids for ghoulish animals, hellbent on trying to eat the protagonist, I suppose. The gameplay is pure Little Nightmares, and I don’t mean that as a knock on it- if you like that series, you’ll love this as well. Two player co-op is the big gameplay addition this time (amusingly enough, just like Little Nightmares 3) which has led to larger gameplay environments in order to accommodate two players.

I actually happened to have been playing the original Little Nightmares for the first time just as I visited TGS, so the first thing that struck me with Reanimal was just how much smoother it felt. The first game is a bit clunky and awkward at times. Not so much that it’s actively a negative, but it’s a quirk. Reanimal smooths a lot out without compromising the vulnerable feeling you’re meant to suffer through with. Having not played Little Nightmares II, I’m not sure how this compares to that, but I tentatively think this is good stuff!

The demo scenario wasn’t hugely long, but it involved an awesome chase sequence, just as tense and scary as the ones that feature in Little Nightmares. As a newly acquired Little Nightmares fan, Reanimal pretty much jumped near the top of my most anticipated games list with its clear improvements to graphics and gameplay over the original title. It doesn’t feel like a revolutionary sequel, but for anyone already into Little Nightmares, it’s exciting that it seems we’ve got two separate Little Nightmares III’s coming down the pipe!

Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero

Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software
Release Date: January 30th, 2025
Screenshots used sourced from publisher, platform unclear

Phantom Brave is probably my favourite Disgaea game, and I want you to bear in mind that I don’t enjoy Disgaea games very much and you’ll have to forgive me talking down on the series through this section. Yes, I’ve tried whichever Disgaea you’re about to suggest- I’ve pretty much played them all at least a little bit, and I can never stick with them. Phantom Brave first came into my life via the enhanced Wii version, and it showed me that you can, in fact, improve on Disgaea.

In short, Phantom Brave is a tactical RPG with a lot of Disgaea elements present (massive numbers, borderline endless gameplay for stockholm syndrome havers, etc). The grid-based gameplay is swapped out for circular movement ranges, and the player’s main unit, Marona, must be used to summon your ghostly allies to the arena instead of pre-arranging them. There are many other differences, but I think those are kind of the most evident for TRPG fans.

The demo was only available in Japanese, so I sadly have nothing to say about the game’s story or writing. The original Phantom Brave has a surprisingly solid story, so I’m curious to see if they can live up to that. Thankfully, I was right at home with the gameplay, which I’m happy to report feels very similar to the original in a good way. Marona is still the first on the field, and you conjure your allies into nearby terrain pieces and objects, as usual. Good news, then!

The bad news is that the game’s performance in the demoed Switch version was sadly quite shaky and the game actually fully crashed on me around ten minutes into my session. Maybe not a huge deal this far out from release, but sadly it doesn’t really give me much to talk about besides the fact that they really seem to be nailing the gameplay feel of the original, while cleaning up the awkwardness of some cursor based interactions and overwhelming menus. I think the graphics are also the best version yet of Nippon Ichi Software’s recent TRPGs, with the 3D art looking the best it ever has, and the island vibes completely on-point.

Hopefully the next time I’ll get to play it, it’ll be in English and not crash on me. A boy can hope!

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road

Publisher: Level-5
Release Date: June, 2025
Screenshots used sourced from publisher

Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road has had, quite frankly, one of the most turbulent development cycles in recent history. I’ll keep it brief and refer you to its Wikipedia article for more, but the game was originally announced in 2016 under a different name, and I’m sure the fact that we both know the current date more or less says the rest.

Now we find ourselves eight years out from the original announcement, with a playable TGS demo coming a scant few months after the public beta’s release, and I’m happy to report that it’s real good.

The TGS demo was exclusively soccer match gameplay, and I’ll talk about it in a second, but I’d actually like to talk about the public beta’s story mode first! The public beta contained a chunk of the game’s first chapter, and having not played an Inazuma Eleven game since the original title was ported to 3DS, I was kind of blown away. Gorgeous anime cutscenes, a full 3D world moody music, RPG battles aplenty, and a surprisingly touching and emotional start to the story. This is truly the Level-5 everyone longs for, with their overwhelmingly lavish sense of polish and worldbuilding.

Before the beta, I had literally zero intention of playing the game at all, but I’m so glad I tried it, because now I really want to see everything the story mode has to offer with how compelling the first chapter was. Amusingly, however, the first chapter didn’t contain a single soccer match across it’s seventy-ish minute runtime.

Now, this didn’t bother me at all because I actually really don’t care for soccer whatsoever, but I know it’s kind of an important part of soccer games. I didn’t really care to check out the soccer gameplay available in the beta via another non-story mode menu, so I figured I’d see it when the game came out, but then TGS happened.

At the event, Level-5 had an obscenely big booth. Perhaps the biggest booth of the show? Definitely top 3. Inazuma Eleven got about a quarter of it, and they took advantage of it to build a huge set of soccer stands from where you play the demo, which was a non-story, soccer-only experience. Not totally my jam, but with so many seats the queue was short, so I went for it!

The demo opened with an amusing warning- don’t attempt to recreate any of the special moves in real life. I had an actual laugh when I heard that, never having considered the health hazards associated with trying the acrobatic Captain Tsubasa- like maneuvers. Be careful, I guess! Beyond that, I was sent into a sizeable tutorial and then a regular match.

I am extremely mixed on what I proceeded to play, but also still extremely interested because I fundamentally did not fully understand everything in about a half hour of play. The game is absolutely jam packed with mechanics, meters, and gameplay techniques. More than any other soccer game I’ve played, this game codifies itself as an action RPG with two large opposing parties more than a straightforward sports title. There’s an unbelievable amount of “video gameyness” to the proceedings, and that definitely got its hooks into me even if I’m still not sure whether I fully like it or not. Take one look at the screenshots here and tell me this doesn’t look mechanically more like an action RPG than a sports game!

When stuff went right, the experience was awesome. A series of good reads ending in a goal feels wonderful, the audiovisual experience supports it tremendously well. On the other hand, with my inexperience and novice level understanding, the opposite situation could feel frustrating. Why can’t I overcome the computer? Is it just getting lucky? Truly, I don’t know, but I want to find out! The game also offered an option for a Manager Mode, which pulled you away from the action somewhat and had you controlling high level tactics while your team auto-battled their way across the field (pitch? I don’t know what the grass is called). I spent about half my time in the default mode and they both seemed interesting and equally well implemented, which is impressive.

All in all, the main thing I feel like saying about Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is that it seems that a decade of development may actually lead to a really great game this time around. I have no doubt that the actual development story isn’t so straightforward, and this project has surely been fully rebooted during that time, but whatever is going on now as we shoot towards its summer 2025 release is really working, and I’m excited to play more when I can. If you’re an RPG fan (or a soccer fan, I guess), I recommend keeping an eye on this one! I was surprised, and you might be, too!

Dome-King Cabbage

Publisher: HYPER REAL
Release Date: TBD
Screenshots used sourced from publisher

The eclectic Dome-King Cabbage is a tile I’ve had my eye on for a while, and when I walked past an unoccupied demo station, well, I couldn’t help myself. To be frank, this was not the best venue in which I think I can truly enjoy a visual novel, but Dome-King Cabbage is pretty darn special. What begins as a VN quickly segues into a fake game console front end, then into a 90s era monster catching RPG, before going back to being a visual novel. I’ve seen screenshots in the past indicating other types of battle and interaction screens, so there’s a lot going on here. If you’re seeing the screenshots I’ve posted here, I’m sure you’ve noticed that this game’s art style absolutely rocks. It’s a cool idea to focus in on this vinyl toy-ish look (though there are a lot of other ideas going on, too), and Dome-King Cabbage really nails it. I played for around twenty minutes, very much feeling like I was still completely in the dark on what the story was actually about, but the variety of scenes was already solid and it generally interested me enough that I’d rather wait to play the full thing when it’s ready.

I’m not yet sure about whether the ”mostly-solo” developer (a description he himself offers up, but an impressive feat by any measure) is a great storyteller, but I can confidently say that so far I’m beyond convinced that he’s a hell of an artist. Dome-King Cabbage looks truly unlike any game I’ve seen before, and while much of it is extremely high quality pre-rendered scenes, I don’t think you could name even a single other game with this sort of look to it. Cutscenes are immaculately paced, the varied UI looks great in all the different forms it takes, and everything is pretty darn polished, to boot. The only flaw I perceived- and it’s a real nit that I’m picking at here- is that in more than one instance you could see where the video file was looping, as if a few frames were missing or being skipped when it restarted. Otherwise- absolutely pristine. Very excited to play this one when it releases.

All in all, another fun TGS under the belt! Big ups to the handful of you who stopped to say hi during the show, I appreciate it! I’m already hoping I can get another influencer pass next year and game the system harder than ever before! Also… I have to figure out how to write a shorter article next time… this took a lot longer than I expected! I’ll leave you here with a pretty random collection of photos I took at the event, see if you recognize anything!