Retronauts - 723: Tokyo Game Show 2025

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Diamond Feit reports from the largest Tokyo Game Show ever and interviews Hamster CEO Satoshi Hamada about the Arcade Archives series of classic game rereleases. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

This week on Retronauts, we discuss the Kanto Imperative. diamond fight and I'm here in Japan. But wait. Aren't I often in Japan? It's true. I live here. But no, today we are here in Tokyo because it's time for Tokyo game show. Again, it's 2025. It's the annual show. And I'm out here, although officially we're in Chiba. Who cares about that? Out here playing games, talking to people. And that's what today's episode is about. I'll have some voices that you know, discussing what we've seen here at the Tokyo Game Show. And I've got another long-form interview with a person you might not know, but I think it'll be happy to hear from them as they talk about their work

and their passion for arcade games. And what could be more retro than arcade games in 2025? I ask you, nothing's more retro than arcade games in 2025. But relax, take a seat. I will transition from this outdoor location to a different audio segment and we'll start the show. Hey, it's us. It's here. We're here. Outside the Tokyo game show in not Tokyo. Dirty Secret, they tell you this took a game show. We're not in Tokyo. Not at all, really. No, sir. But I'm here with a voice that Retronauts fans should already know. Mr. John Lineman of Digital Foundry. Hello, Diamond. Hello. Good to see you.

here. By the way, digital foundry, diamond fights, same initials. Oh, my gosh. What are we going to do conversation-wise about this? How are we going to solve this problem? I think we're just going to have to agree that they're both excellent. I'll just continue to go with it. I notice that solution doesn't involve me getting any money, but I'll let it go. I'll let it go. You didn't pick, did you pick the name? No. Okay. Then my problem's not with you. Anyway, so John, welcome back to Japan. You're a TGS veteran, no? Yeah, yeah, yeah. been around i know i've seen you here at the shows past and you've probably been to the show even more times than that so first impressions we're here on day one so yeah what do you think

in tokyo game show this year what's your impression the first thing i noticed is that one they changed the layout of some of the typical processes yeah yeah so you come in a little bit different and then immediately i'm like wait it's way more crowded this year yes like it's business day and i'm like what is going on here it feels almost like the first public day yeah i don't I know that there is a way to just buy entrance on these public. It's a different, it's a more expensive ticket. But I think you can just buy a ticket. And yeah, this morning, you know, I went in the, with the first few people, media people at 10 a.m.

And when I came back out around 11 a.m. to sort of catch my breath and get a snack, there was a huge line of people like inside the hall, but waiting to get into the actual, like, TGS show floor. all that. Like hundreds and hundreds of people. I'm like, what, why are the people lined up here? It's, the doors have been open for an hour. That many people were waiting to get in here. It's kind of frightening. I can't say I've seen it on a business day, but I have heard that all of the other days are completely sold out this year. So there's going to be quite a crowd.

So if you didn't already get a ticket, you probably won't be able to make it. And if you did, you're going to be waiting in line and being crammed within a lot of people. Yeah, I've heard someone else said that was sold out. I don't know what that means. I've never heard that. I don't know. I've heard this from multiple people now, so I'm pretty sure that there must be something going on with that. But either way, they may have reached capacity, which doesn't seem fun. Just all the more reason to avoid Saturday and Sunday at this podcast convention center, if at all possible.

Absolutely, man, absolutely. But today was fun. There was some nice stuff to see, nice people to meet. I've enjoyed it, as usual. It's warm, but not as warm as it's been in the past. Yes, yes. thankfully Japanese summer just like ended last week

and now it's just kind of like modern, modern. It's just warm. It's just warm. Yes. Exactly. So yeah, it's cool, man. So we had a bunch of appointments. But as always, as this tradition, we kick it off by stopping by the indie area. Yeah. Because one thing I love

about the show is that you have the indie space, lots of developers just chilling by their game, right? There's no PR fence. There's no barrier to entry here. You decide. like plop down and you're like hey here's a game and they're just like often just standing right there ready to talk to you and it's pretty darn awesome uh but because of our tighter schedule this year i didn't just play that many uh the first one i actually checked out weirdly enough was uh a new version of hashire heberake oh the old sonsoff game right yeah so it's a super family

comic game originally uh it's back but it's with uh i'm forgetting the name of the publisher but it's actually being done by a Korean developer. Uh-huh. And it seems like it was just licensed out from Sunsoft. So I have friends at Sunsoft still. And so this is not really their internal project. Unlike Heber Recki, too, they didn't work with a partner developer,

but it was more closely internal. This seems to be like an external thing. But it's really cool because they actually captured the look of the game, but in high-resolution widescreen. Oh. In a way that doesn't look cheap. It doesn't look like a cheap flash game. It actually genuinely looks cool.

It's sort of a top-down, isometric, on-foot racing game with items and the cute characters from Heberake. So that was fun. Yeah. And then we did a little bit of merch shopping, and I was very happy to find a T-shirt and bag for the, let's see if you're familiar with this, the Wogginizer. The Wagonizer? Yeah. So, you know Woggyon Land, right? The Namco series.

With the little cute kaiju Okay, okay, yeah Right, it was, so I listened to a podcast About this recently Another good podcast, if I may say, Bright Bit Brothers It's a Japanese podcast

Sure And they talked about this And I've played a lot of the Wagon games But what I didn't realize Is it actually started off In like game centers here And like a cute little cage And it would kind of talk back at you

And everything And people could kind of toy with it But they did actually release a toy called the Wogianizer Wow. And it looks, it's shaped like Wagon's head, but it's also in the shape of a gun. The idea is you point it to people, pull the trigger, and in record mode, and it records something, and you click it over to playback mode, you pull the trigger, and it plays a sound back.

So it's like a sound gun. What? It's like, the thing at Home Alone, too. A little bit, yeah, but it's like straight up like a gun. And then they went on to make the series, and it's a cool little series, especially Wagon Paradise, which the director of Clanoa. and Ninja Guide and made. Wow.

And some of the enemies that appear in Klanoa 1 actually first appeared in Wagian Paradise. Wow, we're unlocking secrets here. But why didn't it become big with the import community? Because, well, one big reason.

It has Shiti Tori sections as boss fights. Oh. Which means if you can't read Japanese, you cannot play it. Is it timed? It is extremely timed. Oh, geez.

Oh, geez. Look, I... Okay, I'll talk to me. So, Shiti Tordi is a Japanese word game. Yes. It's incredibly common. Very common. They love it. Basically, it's like you say a word, and then you take the last character of that word, and you say a new word.

And the idea is it's a back and forth. Usually, it's like to a beat. Some of you might have a theme, like, okay, we're doing food today. Yes, like animals today. Yeah. And kids do this all the time. Adults do this all the time. They do it on TV all the time.

But, yeah, that would be really, like, time-consuming to localize, and it wouldn't be. interesting because like you know doesn't work the same yeah because like you could do this you could do like with a letter like oh if i say apple then you pick one with an e but like that's just that's not the same as not the same picking a character that has a and here they you know they have all the images of the of the animals or objects or whatever in a large grid of like you know like four by four or five by five and it's just the picture and they reveal like the letter at the bottom and you have to pick from there oh and it's super timed and if you get it wrong you get to read you the whole stage so basically it is hard i i've managed to finish some of those games and they're quite

fun but if you can't do it you're missing out but either way you can enjoy the wogunizer itself and of course the t-shirt and goods they are selling here which is awesome i have to google this toy now and then get a picture man maybe i've seen it and didn't realize it's very funny i think it showed up in another i think it shows up in wogian land possibly but it's a fun little thing but um that was kind of like namca's old mascot it's a fun little series but after that uh what do we do i did play so i did get a chance to play some saga stuff today yeah the big one i guess was uh like a dragon series they're bringing back the third game from playstation three right the kiwami version yeah kewami three yeah and it looks great i mean it seems like they're

still using the dragon engine 60 frames per second played on PS5, a beautiful direction as usual. Like, nobody does, you know the scenes where it's like, the dudes are like, all right, like, are you really ready to do this? They zoom in, and he puts his arm up by the top of his shirt, and then it's just in one fell swoop, rips the shirt off, and you got the tattoo on the back, and he's all muscled up. And you know it's about to get real.

Nobody does that better than that studio. Yeah, I feel like that's going to be a significant one, just because I remember when Yonkers III first came out in English, it was immediately sort of became a new story how much Sega just cut out of the English version because they really would, I guess they weren't confident or they weren't sure about, you know, sales numbers

and like they cut a whole bunch of stuff out, like, you know, just, the mini, like, side content, but it's like it's stuff that you always see in the Yakuza games. And I feel like now that we have our Yakuza Sans, Yakuza Renaissance, Yakuza Renaissance, Liga Gotokokosans. I think it's great that they're going back to Kuwami. It's like, okay, we're going to do QWAMI.

We're doing three. We're doing QWami 3. And you've got to assume they're going to have everything and more. Like even they're going to add kitchen sinks. Exactly. Yeah. And I guess at this rate, they'll probably end up doing Qami 4 and 5. Probably not 6, though.

Because that feels like that's too new. It's already on the Dragon Engine. So that was that. That was fun. What else here? We played Dench Attack, which was announced back at Key 3, Or, wait, no, that would have been the gamescom show. Yeah?

I don't know. Have you seen this? Densha Tech. It's literally called Denshattack. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Where is that? I got to fly that. It's in the indie hall and the upper spot.

Okay. Because they actually added a new area for Indies on the upper deck, which is usually open for, like, meetings and, like, just chilling, but just here they cram more indies in there. Oh, gee, I didn't even look. I just assumed it. Yeah, I assumed it was like, you know, like a snack bar or something. It usually is.

But this time, it's there. It rules. They've got T-lopes and others in the soundtrack It's basically like what if you had like 3D boost Sonic meets Like Tony Hawk except for you play as a train Yes Like wall riding jumping tracks drifting around corners Multi-track drifting's in

Yes yes yes I Ever since I saw that video was like yes I want to try that That is here, it's awesome I'm gonna find that maybe today It's probably the coolest thing I've seen at the show It's so freaking cool man I love what they're doing with it I'm super stoked

Man, I'm going to be able to be able to be able to be. So, I'm going to be able to be. Um, after that, though, I went to KoiTekmo and played Neo3. Neo3. So this one is really interesting because they're switching more to a multi sort of regional but larger open map design this time. Yeah? Not exactly like, but closer to something like an Eldon Ring. Oh.

And so, like, that means that things like, you know, if you get stuck on a really hard boss, you can actually go and go somewhere else, go explore, get some weapons, level up. then come back and face them so it kind of changes the flow of it a little bit but at its core it's still neo they added a ninja a class option now so you got ninjas in there no team ninja uh it's 60 frames a second looks great on the PS5 um I really like how it played so far I'm here to see more the new big area they they have in the demo was like a snowy region which looked great it's still their own in-house technology um i don't know it's worth checking out after that though my buddy thomas and i here we got to go interview people on the neo team and uh the main guy for the uh dynasty warrior series oh so and that was very fun because it was my first time doing i got to do the

full interview in japanese did not have a translator person oh my goodness i did it all and it was stressful at first but they turned out to be so darn nice that we had a great time and lots of interesting info comes out there, especially weirdly enough on Dynasty Warriors side because that dude, man, he's been there so long. He was involved in the original Shin-San Gokomuso. Okay, okay. And like talking about back on the PS2

when they're just like, wait, like one of the main programmers figured out like, wait, like we were just going to do like a fighting game, a sequel to the actual Dynasty Warriors, right? Because the first game is just a fighting game. Right. And then they're like, we can actually do like this AI stuff. like coded a system that can handle all these dudes in the screen it's like what if we did something with that and sure enough they came up with this like idea and it worked and the fellow we met

today actually he did like all the level design and ui and stuff from that original game by himself it was insane amounts of work uh and i had to ask though because i always wondered why is it dynasty warriors too but then it's just shin san go kumuso in japan right they always were staggered Yeah. And he said back then it was just a different team that decided what to do with the overseas versions. And they're the ones that did that. Right. And the development team didn't have anything to do with that.

And he's happy that finally with Dynasty Warriors origins, or Sengoku Muso origins, I guess, I don't know what they call it. But they're both origins now. Yes. So, like, they're finally together. No more staggered releases for these guys, which is funny. But. Yeah, I mean, if you go back to, like, the 90s. in 2000s, there are a lot of cases of games

that just didn't get released abroad, and then a sequel does, so they've, you know, someone in America or Europe is like, okay, well, we can't put a number in this, we'll just pretend it's the first game, and then a series breaks out and all of a sudden, you've got a disparity, but usually they figure it out,

a few games in, it's like, all right, let's just, let's bring these together. Like 5-5-7's the famous one, they're just like, oh, screw it, it's seven. Yeah, and then retroactively they, they, you know, fixed what was going on. But yeah, Dynasty Warriors has, no, they just march forward, yeah. It was always

forward like that. And then they also announced that they're doing that remake version of the second game, which is the third called three in North America. Right. Which they did after this, and he didn't actually want to make that,

he said. It was like not something that was too interested in doing, and it kind of embarrassing to go back to the work, but said like everything like from Dynasty Warriors 7 and earlier, before 7, you can't play it on modern systems at all. Right. The fans have been asking for this.

So, like, the one that the fans seemingly wanted the most was Dynasty Warriors 3. And so they went back to it and decided to, like, really, it's not just like a graphics remake, it's like a full-on, like, they're actually making gameplay changes. Cool. Control changes and trying to make it more modern and work within the context of, like, 2025. So that's pretty darn cool, I thought. So, yeah, and then after that, man, there's just a lot of transit time here, you know? Like walking between buildings, it's crazy busy in there. We're going to go see some other stuff soon.

I think the Samurai Pizza Cats game after this. Yeah, I did. I saw that. How was it? No, no, I just, I saw the booth. Oh, you saw that. Oh, there is, there is that game. That exists, doesn't it?

I have to make time for it. Because let's face it, it looks cool. Also, I think Blackfinger Jet is under that label now. Oh, is it? You remember it was two years ago? They were here with the video. That's the former metal salt guy. Oh, I didn't see that game.

I got to look for that. It didn't show up last year, but it might be here this year. Or at least that label now, like Red Dune Games, I think. Yes. They've taken that over. Okay. We're getting it made. So it looks cool, but clearly they still had a long way to go.

Yeah. I was in that booth today walking around and I saw a pretty impressive-looking Metroidvania with some good pixel art. I believe the title is Silent Planet. Okay, okay. And

yeah, very much. Like, you can tell the character and the movement is very symphony-inspired. You know, like the character stops for a second and turns around and the space between like areas is like a CD-loading, like a CD-

loading hole, like, complete with a CD icon. Like, they know. Oh, they know what they're doing. Yeah, they know what they're doing. Is that in the indie hall? No, no, it's in the Red Dunes. Oh, it's in the Red Dunes. Yeah, it's in the Red Dunes booth area.

Dang, Red Dunes is hot then. Uh, yeah. It's got to be early, early on because, like, the demo, like, half, there was no music, and, like, half the sound effects didn't even work. So, it's just, you know, it's clearly work in progress. So I'm guessing 2026 at the earliest. But, you know, initial impressions, pretty cool, pretty cool. I will definitely check that out as well.

Yeah. I wasn't familiar with their game, but red dunes, I mean. Yeah. Actually, there's a lot of stuff in there. I kind of just moved on, but, yeah. That's sweet. Heck, yeah. Do you see anything else that caught your eye?

I mean, the first day has been mostly just kind of like finding the most busiest booths and trying to get in there today before it gets too crowded. But I don't know. I know I wanted to go see what was going on with Konami's science. There's no demo for Silent Hill F, but there is some kind of space you can go into. And if you go in there, they give you something. And there's a bunch of cosplayers, some really good cosplayers outside the booth handing out, like, flyers. Like, they got these ladies who are doing, like, the contortion stuff and, like, just sort of shambling a little bit.

I can report that Diamond is doing it right now. Yeah. Very skillfully. They're wearing masks. It's really, it's really impressive. I think I re-shared someone's picture on Blue Sky of the cosplay girls

because like and I think girls because they're wearing like schoolgirls offices they're probably you know they're probably in their 20s doesn't matter it's fine

they're professionals they're professionals is who they are it's what I'm talking about exactly exactly that's interesting I think the game is actually out today yes as we're recording this the game is on store shelves

and indeed they have some kind of giveaway if you can show them evidence that you already bought the game I think they give you some swag oh But I didn't buy the game yet because I'm here. I'm not going to buy the game now, but I do want to buy that game and play it.

I played three hours back at Gamescom. I loved it. Yeah, I think so far the impression. Actually, now we can't actually talk about it. You know, it wasn't more than a week ago. We had a big embargo brew, ha-ha, because someone just started talking about it on Reddit. Oh, I saw that, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, now it's out now, so whatever. Say whichever you want. Yeah, I mean, that was wild because it just wasn't that clear. in the document, I guess, but, like, they just kind of made this call, like, oh, I guess I can talk about it, which is, if you've been around, you know, that's really not how it works. No, no, no. Companies do not like that at all. Yeah.

Nor other reporters who maybe saw that. I also don't like it. Yeah. If you saw it and you were waiting and someone's like, hey, I can talk about this game, right? No. No, you can. Exactly, exactly. So that's cool.

That's how. I guess the thing that always gets me, though, when we come here is, like, we're standing out front right now, right? And you look around and it's like, oh, we got. We've got Call of Duty, Black Off 7, we got Fallout, we've got Borderlands 4. Yeah. All these very Western games. I've got Ninja Guide and 4 up there as well.

It always strikes me. So I think Microsoft seems to always invest money in this part of the area. I saw a few, this is an Xbox. Yes, yes. Down to the bottom of the stairs there. There was a big sign, this is an Xbox, but it was a handheld, the rogue ally, whatever. The problem is I tried to play the banner. and it didn't work.

So I take issue with their marketing. It was not an Xbox, in fact. Yeah, well, clearly the new strategy is if anything's, if everything's an Xbox, then nothing is an Xbox. Nothing is an Xbox. We are all Xboxes, and somehow by default, they've won the console war because they've sold more units than anybody. They sure have.

They sure have. Yeah, but all serious, yeah, don't get Microsoft for your money at this point. Sorry. Sorry, folks. I don't know. No, don't want to bring, don't mean Captain Bring down, but they don't deserve your money at this point in time. Maybe they'll fix things. Who knows? Indeed. But yeah, I mean, from my end, that's about it for today. It's been a fun time so far as usual. But, you know, we tend to just do a single day here because it's very tiring. Yes. Especially if you're staying in town and you want to come out here in the morning. It's like over an hour.

Yes. Yeah. And in fact, for me, it was close to two hours because I went to the train station and I was going to take the Aminote line, which is the loop line that goes around Tokyo. And the loop line just stopped. That's unusual. It just stopped for about 20, 30 minutes. That's extremely unusual. And, you know, something happened, obviously. And I was like, you know, I left early. I thought I'd be here in a timely fashion. but then I spent 30 minutes just sort of waiting on a, waiting in a train station on a train. I'm glad we took the Psycheo line then. Yeah, it was just, yeah, not a great start to the show.

But I made it. I made it. I'm here. You did make it. Yeah. We're doing it. But, yeah. Thank you for joining me here, John. The people of our trust know you, but just in case, if they want to look you up on internet world, what should they look for? Anything Digital Founder, you can find at Dark1X.x.

Blue Sky, whatever. Yeah. It varies other social media stuff. But mostly over there. Check out our Patreon. We recently went independent, and all the support means a lot to us. So, you know, come hang out on the Discord.

Check out YouTube.com slash Digital Foundry where you can find our stuff, including a review of Silent Hill F, I think, that Oliver put up. Okay. So, yeah, thanks a lot for having me. All right. Thank you, John.

I'm glad I just ran into it here. Indeed. Because we didn't play this. It just kind of happened. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. All right. Welcome back to Retronaut's special Tokyo Game Show episode.

We are here in a somewhat secluded concrete corner of the Makkahadimese Convention Center. There's still people walking around. Don't get me wrong. You can never be truly alone at Tokyo Game Show. Not nowhere. Nowhere is safe. Not even in the toilets. There's someone.

There's someone in the stall next to you. Maybe a very famous someone. You never know. But famous to me, because I've known him for about 20 years. We did the math on this. I've met him about 20 years ago. Richard Eisenbeiss back on the show. Hello, Richard.

Hello. How are you doing today, Diamond? I'm doing all right. I'm braving this very busy Tokyo game show. We're recording this on the second day. Right. And the figures came out from the first day. And there were 52,000 people.

here yesterday. That is 10,000 more than the last year and that was 10,000 more than the previous year. So they are... It felt like it. It felt like it out there on the floor. I'm not going to why. It is very busy.

It is very busy. Everything is everything fills up very quickly. I know I came back this morning hoping to get in a couple different things and basically you get to pick one thing you can go in and go right away. But anything other than thing once you go there, you're going to have to wait, or if it's very popular, you're out

of luck. Yeah, you're out of luck. There are some things that were just by 1015, you know, the doors open 10.15, by 10.15, some things were just like, you cannot play this today, try again tomorrow. There are even more people here. Right. Right. Oh, man. Yeah, remember, yeah, these are the business days. This is literally just industry people. The, the main thrust of Japan hasn't come yet, and they will soon be here in mass. Yeah, yeah. But that's the future. We're talking about things we've already done.

That's the focus of retronauts, things that have already happened. And, well, we're going to bend the rules a little bit because we want to talk about some games we played that I think will be interesting to the folks at home, even though all three of them are new games. Certainly they have their own, they have their own individual legacies, I would say. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Why don't we lead off with a little talk about Resident Evil? I've been calling it Resident Evil Renanquium, and it is not, it's still funny to me every time I say it, reninquium. Obviously, here in Japan, it's biohazard reninquium. But also, I think it's funny that even when you play it, you know, the demo is multilingual, because of course it is. Right. But even if you change the language setting from Japanese to English, it still says biohazard. And it's the same way with, like, Revelations 2 and Revelations 1, which I recently replayed.

bought them on the Japanese store. And, yeah, it's the same thing where it does that of all the things that don't get localized. Yeah. So you played it? I played. I actually played it twice. We can talk about that. But you're the guest here, Richard.

What happened? What happened when you went to that, when you went to that scary place and met that lady? Yeah. So, well, so I got to play it on the Switch 2, which they just announced here. And just to be clear, like, it wasn't docked. So I have no idea what it's like when you docked. rocket and put it up on a TV. But like in the handheld mode, there was not a single time where I noticed like frame skip or anything, anything that felt like I was losing frames or it was not powerful enough to be on the switch too. So that's, that's a really almost surprising thing. Like I felt like I was getting the same experience. I'm sure the fidelity isn't the same. Obviously. I'm not getting 4K. But like it played smooth. And that's in the end the most important thing about pretty much any game. absolutely um and so yeah like uh i felt that the the demo portion which is you're basically

you wake up you're in like a hallway with like three rooms connected to it and a metal door or a metal uh portcullis almost that you have to raise to get out like that's it it's very very quickly obvious what you're supposed to do like there's very good visual storytelling clues like oh there's this barred door how do you get past it oh next to it is a fuse box the fuse box is missing a fuse. It's obvious what you need to do. Oh, look, there's a key over there on that table that will open one of the rooms you couldn't go in before.

You know, and then, like, in that room, oh, you find a lighter, which allows you go into a room that was too dark to see before. And I felt like, okay, this is good survival horror. It's obvious enough of where you need to go that you're not going to get stuck. And yet it doesn't have her go, oh, man, now that I have this lighter,

I can go into that dark room I went in before. Like, you don't have to have that. Like, they trust you to be smart enough to figure out that new things grant you new access to new places. I had a fun moment, you know, because when the demo starts, you're strapped down,

and there's a little video where you, you know, you free yourself from this contraption. And during the, during that experience, you knock over an IV. Yeah. And you make a big mess. So when you, you know, when you're done, you can just leave the room,

but you can also walk around the room and look at some stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I looked back at where I was strapped, and I got, like, a little, you know, interaction prompt. Right. And I looked at the broken IV and the big stain on the floor and just text-wise just says, that's a lot of blood. I was like, yes. That is all.

This is what I want. This is what I want from Resident Evil Games. I want to hear, I mean, survival horror in general. I want to look at something and press a button and have that person tell me what they're looking at. Yes. Yes. No, and I did like, I actually like that. that because it's like the way that the line is delivered is actually really good because it's like

oh oh my god i was almost dead like like i was bleeding out kind of thing like like that horrible realization of how close yeah i think i'm pretty sure the demo is only available like spoken language-wise in english right i don't think there was a japanese voice not i didn't see an option for that yeah yeah not that i've seen you could like the display language you could change but i think the voices were only recorded in english at least so far yeah yeah so you got to hear our protagonist um you know freak out a little bit curse a little bit because let's be honest you're walking this tiny little hallway you'll find some dead people which you know whatever but then you find something that is not dead and it wants to eat you yeah

and i think i think i reacted much like she did where i was like what the fuck is that yeah Yeah, like, and like, yeah, it's like, what is this, and like, there's nowhere to run. Yeah, it's like, you, you, you have a hallway that dead ends in two places or three places, basically. Like, there's, like, that was actually the thing that got me while I was playing it is, of course, this big scary monster shows up several times, right? Yeah. But, like, there's no loop. Like, usually in these kind of games, you have this kind of loop that you can use the loop to lose them, but this, there's no. No, loop. It's like, you have to dead end yourself and hope it doesn't come and eat you. Mm-hmm. And I found that somewhat terrifying because it's just like, oh, man, like, I don't know what to do here.

I guess I better hope. And it gets around very quickly. Like, there was one case. Actually, I played the demo twice. I played it once on PlayStation 5. The staff said it was a normal piece of PS5, not pro. And then I played it again today on the Switch 2. Oh, okay.

and when playing it twice I got to sort of experience the monster doing different things and like the first time I played the game the monster jumped out of me I was like oh boy I just ran down one hallway as far as I could and I didn't hear any noises

and Grace sort of said to herself like what the hell was that? Like she was breathing him and it's like oh the game is telling me that it's not behind me anymore I looked and it wasn't behind me anymore this time when I got scared I ran down the same hallway monster popped out in front of me.

Whoa, no, okay, that did not happen to me. It popped out in front of me, forced me to run back to where I came from. And so I was kind of running back and forth a little bit. I was trying to try to us to hide. You have a crouch, and there are some objects you can sort of hide behind. But there's also an object you cannot hide behind because it's a, it's kind of a, I think it's kind of a scripted moment because she comes in there and you're in this sort of office as a cart.

and you can move the cart. And you're supposed to move the cart. Yeah, you're supposed to move it because you're supposed to move it over from where and climb up and pick up something on a high shelf. But when she comes in there, and I think we're assigning gender to this monster, it seems like a she. It does seem like a she. It does seem like a she energy.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Long hair, nightgown. Yeah, we didn't ask the monster's pronouns, but we're guessing here. When she comes in there, she always, and I, this was repeated, my two, Oh, okay. She always smacks the cart. Whether you're next to the cart or not, she will smack the cart. And when she smacks it, it goes right next to where you need it to be to climb up and get the thing.

Oh. Yeah. So my experience with that is like when I had the cart in about the middle of the room when she was coming. So I thought, okay, I'll use it to block line of sight and hide behind it. And when that knockback happened, so it was knocked into one corner of this very tiny room, I was knocked into the other corner and I literally had not enough space to get out of the way of the monster

like I couldn't run past it and I literally just stopped moving I couldn't move left I couldn't move light I was stuck in a corner and I so I ended up like okay I guess I'm dying I guess I lose this demo and then she picks me up bites my head

and then when she put me down I had just enough space to run by suddenly and I was like okay okay well at least I didn't dead end in the dumbest way possible but yeah it was one of those things where it kind of left me going well what was I supposed to do and I still feel like I don't quite have an answer of what I was supposed to do in that situation that I'm sure it's there and I just somehow didn't see it I look forward to figuring out how the creature works because clearly it has different behaviors it makes noises like it's sniffing yes so I think there

must be some kind of like sense of smell there's definitely hearing it definitely hears you because When you're exploring the room, there's a scripted, like, thing falls down, makes a noise, and then it comes right back to the room to get you. Right. I think it can see you, but also I don't think it likes light so much. Like, yeah, that was my question. I was wondering if I should work out the lighter. Like, is the lighter hindrance or help? Yeah, I wonder about that, too.

Like, whenever I ran away from it, I put the lighter away. Me too. Because I assumed it was going to follow the light. But I also noticed that it tends to hang out in the dark. And if you do escape, when the demo ends, if you're, you're going to. you actually open the gate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I managed to get out there, and when it followed me out into the room,

which was very well-lit room, it was kind of, like, sizzling a little bit. Oh. Like, it didn't like the light, but it still, like, could do it. Did monster stuff. So it was like, it didn't, you know, it's not a vampire. It didn't, you know, it didn't melt or anything. My only complaint, really, about it is the, so the second time, or you encounter it, like, in this room where I said I ran past it and I escaped,

you know, I just booked it. And I was booking it to as far away as I knew how to go, which is a room with a few box in it and I ran to that room but the fact of the matter is like like I didn't go all the way there I stopped at the hallway and I waited to see it was going to come around the corner and it never did but the problem is where it was was a dead end like so I just waited and waited and waited and I was like it's got to be in there there's no other way out and it's a giant and then I go into the room after a while and yet it's not there and I was kind of like so I mean this isn't like alien isolation where the aliens going through the duct

There is no ducts. It does have some viability in that it makes holes certain places. It does. I think, yeah, yeah. But, like, there was no hole or anything like that. And so I was kind of, like, confused by it because, like, it should have been trapped still in that room. I should not have been able to go to that room. Logically, it was stupid for me to have gone to that room because it should still be there.

Yeah. And so I kind of, like, that's my only real minor complaint is, like, it's not playing by the rules of, like, reality, which is scary, but also, like, counterintuitive for a resonant evil game. Yeah. Because they're, they're monsters, not ghosts. Right. I'm very curious because, yes, actually, the monster in general has a very supernatural vibe to it. You know, it is not a zombie. It is not a tyrant.

It looks like a freaky ghost lady. With a giant hand. Yeah. So I'm very curious what happens in the full game. I'm very much looking forward to it. Also, one reason I played it twice is I wanted to see, like the other recent first-person Resident Evil games that were made to be first-person,

there's a third-person option. And here at the demo here at TGS, you can choose to do either one. So I end up playing it twice, so I wanted to do both. And they do. The game feels very different, whether you're first person or third-person. I think the first person really matches,

the vibe they're going for in that, you know, you're walking down a hallway, which honestly, it's not a PT situation, but I had like a PT vibe where it's like, oh boy, I'm walking on this hallway, there's some flickering lights, I don't know what's around this corner, I'm scared. And certainly, when the monster first appears, it's in a first person cutscene. Yes. That is very much camera framed around the fact that you can only see a certain part part of the screen. Yeah.

But in third person, what? It's like obvious from the start, the big monster there or what? No, it just, it's, if you play in the third person, the cutscene is still first person. Oh. Yeah. When you're playing the game and running around, you're third person. Also, they're doing that thing again where if you're running around, her hair is always just sort of like covering her face. So even though you get cutscenes and you know exactly what this lady looks like.

Yeah. In third person, the camera is always firmly behind you and her hair is always sort of like this, she got this little bob, you know, maybe some curls. so you can't see your face, which is, in my opinion, a little weird because if you play any other Resident Evil game with a third-person view, you know who you're playing. We all know what Leon looks like.

We all know what Claire looks like. This is a lady that we see in cutscenes so we know what she looks like, but then when you're playing, it's kind of conspicuously obscured, which I was a little weird. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

But, I mean, I've heard similar kind of things about, like, when they released like the director's cut thing of Village of Resident Evil 8 where they added in the third person into that mode. It was a very similar kind of kind of thing where like game clearly designed for first person

but third person is an option now and it kind of messes with the vibe like it's still playable and might be fun in different ways but I think they've realized at this point that by doing both they simply make everyone happy. They reach more players than that they only

did one but I feel like the game as I played it really feels like they meant this to be first person. So, you know, if you're at home, you play it how you want to play it. But my suggested you is play it the first person because clearly they want you to be locked into this lady's eyes as she, you know, runs around hallways, opens drawers, slicks on light switches. And it's, you know, definitely freaky. Definitely it's, you know, I don't, you know, there's no combat in the demo.

There's no weapons in the demo. The only thing that you can possibly get is like some glass bottles. can throw. Like I guess what you're supposed to be sound distractions, right? I think so, yes, because I definitely, but it only works if the thing can't see you, because I definitely, I definitely tried one where the monster was right in front of me and I was like, oh, glass bottle go. And I threw it past the monster and the monster's like, did not even turn its head. It's like, no, no, no, I see you, come here, it's time to bite. It's biting time. It's biting time. Byte time. Fantastic.

I'm going to be able to be. Well, let's move on to another Capcom game that's here at the show. It's got a lot of hype because it's sort of, it's not part of an established franchise, although some fans have speculated if it started life with some, some other kind of game. I don't know. But it's hard sci-fi, pragmata. Yeah. Pragmata? How do you pronounce it?

That's how I've called it. It's pragmata, but I actually have no idea. Like stigmata. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. There's no bloody hands, though. You're some kind of spaceman wearing a spacesuit. You've got a little girl who is, I guess. She's supposed to be an Android, right?

She's got some kind of, yeah, she's got some kind of computer powers. We don't know if she's, you know, augmented or she's got robot guts. We don't know what's happening here. But we know she can hack stuff. She can point her hand at things and make machines do funny business. And her eyes, she's got some funny eyes, stuff going on. And in the demo that I played, you're just like, you're in this base, which, you know, it's kind of a generic, like, space base kind of thing.

But as you, you're exploring around, you're going back and forth, you're opening locks, you're opening new paths, you're moving different platforms that you can sort of climb up on and jump around. And you're shooting stuff. Mm-hmm. But why don't you tell the audience about the shooting? Because the shooting is very different. Well, yeah. So, like, just before that, though, like, I wanted, like, this game is, despite what it looks like,

it is very much built on the framework of a soul's like. Yeah. You have, instead of bonfires, you have escape hatches, which lead back to the safe room. And you go down those, and then you can return to that same point. And, you know, that's where you level up. and you, you know, get new skills and redo your stats and kind of stuff like that. Although, it's not really stats. It's more like, you know, level up a weapon and give yourself an extra thing of healing

and make your pistol do more or whatever. It's that kind of stuff. And then you go back to it. And then, of course, all the enemies respond because it's a bonfire. It's a Dark Souls bonfire only with sci-fi code of paint. But the reason I think that's important when we come to talk about, like, the gun fighting is it's also very soulslike in the combat despite the fact that you're using a gun and not a thing. And I know there's soulslikes like remnant or whatever that are gun-based. But like this is, so it's a kind of a very slow-based combat because every battle you start by hacking.

You've got to do the hacking minigame with the girls. So you're using your face buttons to hack and you're just basically playing a game of snake. Yeah, basically, except the thing doesn't move, it's like you're basically moving a cursor on a, like, you aim at something and you basically lock onto that thing, and then a little UI thing pops up. And so while it's, you know, it's still, the time doesn't freeze. The thing is still moving around. Right, right. That's the important bit. But you get to basically use the face buttons to sort of manipulate this cursor around in a snake-like fashion, and you want to get to a little node, and once you get there, the thing suddenly, like, somehow it's like, you push a button and it's like, oh, I'm popped up my inside.

Science. Oh, how embarrassing. So what there is is, on the grid, there will be certain debuffs. Like, I don't know how far you got into it. I luckily had, I had 30 minutes with it. Okay. So I got a bit, probably got a bit farther. But there's certain debuffs, like one, but the main debuff they give you at the beginning is it's a little blue thing.

And what it is is if you pass the snake through there, it will pop up in their armor. Oh, okay. And then there's a green power button, which activates the hack. So that's where you need to end your hacking. But later on, there was one, like, a yellow shield that would also lower defenses. I saw that one, yeah. Right, so you could go through, you go blue, yellow, and you know, you snake around and you end up in green, and then it pops open their armor. And now you can actually do damage.

Yeah, it's a really interesting system because obviously you're trying to fight and you, you know, the things are always moving. You know, none of this is, none of this, like, pauses the game at all. So it's like, I want to, you know, push the, push the May button as possible to make the enemy as weak as possible so I can do damage. But also, the more time you spend in that thing, the less time you can, you know. right you're less time you're spending actually shooting at it right you're really dual focusing you're trying to solve a relatively easy puzzle but at the same time you're trying to dodge something trying to kill you yeah and i found that to be like surprisingly fun yeah it's it's interesting there's a lot of hacking stuff that's not just that there were other hacks that were like the other hacking mini games yeah they were like you know push buttons in a sequence or flipping little levers that appear and they all control a little bit differently and it really does it's kind of amazing and i guess just because, you know, we've played games for a long time. We know how the controller works. It's surprisingly sensible, given how many things you're doing at the same time.

Like, your left thumb is obviously moving your character around. Your right thumb might be moving. It's obviously pushing buttons, but also, like, you've got the camera there because you've got to look for monsters or whatever. That's true. I think the right bumper button is like a dodge button. Yeah, it's a boost. Yeah. It's like a quick boost.

Jet boost, yeah. Yeah. So, like, if you're, so I fought a boss, and, like, the boss charges at you. And when that happens, you definitely want to boost to get out of its way. Right, right. And then it's like, oh, now it's behind you. Then you've got a quick turn around, try to hack it again, and it has a weak spot on its back. But it's not like, actually, that's one thing I know is once you unlocked, once you hack something and you unlock it, the UI sort of highlights points on the robots.

They're all robots, basically. And I think those are weak points. Because the boss had a big tank on its back, and that was always, whenever I hacked it, the tank was glowing, and I felt like I did more damage when I shot it. Yeah, for me, when I noticed that on different enemies, too, it wasn't, it didn't, like, yes, once they're hacked and once they're opened, it didn't glow until I shot it, and then it glowed. Okay. And so it was like, ah, you have hit a weak point. I am showing you, you have hit a weak point, and then it would stay glowing for several seconds. Also, a lot of numbers, it's one of those games where you shoot things in nine.

numbers pop out, which I always love shooting and having numbers pop up. Yes. It's a big, big numbers makes you feel good. Yes, yes. That's a simple, simple arithmetic right there. But, yeah, like, and that's the thing, though. But it is, I feel, though, it was slow-paced enough. Like, even when they started throwing two or three enemies at me at once, like, it almost

made the puzzle a little more complicated. It was, like, who do I hack first? Mm-hmm. Like, do I hack the big scary thing first? Probably not. I should take out the faster ones with ranged weapons rather than this. And then you, you know, you do it like that. And then there's also the other weapons you find.

Your base weapon is just a pistol, but it recharges automatically. And then you'll find other weapons that have a limited number of shots that do not recharge that you'll need to pick up and find later. And then, you know, you have your good old Dark Souls heel. You have your health flask, which will give you one heel until you go back to base and rest and it, you know, or until you go to the bonfire and rest and get it back. Yeah. And you can get more charges of it.

That's another thing you have to basically manipulate because while you're, your left thumb, your left stick is moving your character. You also got to drift over to the D-pad to change guns. Yes. Because some of the guns are very specific uses. There's basically like a slow gun that creates an area

of an area of effect. The net gun, yeah. That slows everything down. But more than once, I use that to slow everyone down and then hack them, but then I shot it again. It's like, no, no, no. Once they're slowed and you hack them, you've got to change guns because then you want to do the actual damage. Right. And like the bigger ones, like, you're

pistol like I even upgraded the pistol three times while I was playing and so it was actually doing a fair amount of damage but even then like the point of when you get those the big there's kind of some big hulky guys you open them up you're supposed to be using the shotgun yes absolutely I tried to use the pistol on that thing and I unloaded like two clips of pistol ammo into it I was like you know I just found the shotgun let's try that and then one shotgun blast basically like knocked it to pieces just boom yeah and it's like okay but that's also the thing it's like okay these very specific things for like, oh, is there a group? You want to fire the net gun. Is there, you know, a big strong guy? Okay, you want to hack him and then shoot him with the shotgun. And the pistol is your, you know, your normal small enemy weapon and your, oh, I stupidly wasted all my other ammo weapon. So I've got to try to get this done. And I think the, I felt that the jet boost on trigger on R1 was a bit awkward. Um, but you need all the face buttons for hacking. So I get it. Yeah. Um, but yeah. Um, I, I enjoyed it a lot.

I was like, okay, I think I could really enjoy this game. I just hope that there's things get more complex. Like the mini games get more complex in some way than, because like, you know, already 30 minutes in, the snake game was solved as far as I was concerned. I was able to do that real, real quick, had no issues. But, you know, like, it could be infinite. Maybe it's every different type of enemy by the end. We'll have a different hacking mini game, which could be really cool.

Yeah. But just overall, I think, really strong demo and really got me intrigued because, you know, I've seen the charts for this game. I wasn't particularly excited about it. Like, oh, okay, it looks like a third-person shooter. But having played it now, I was like, okay, this is something different. It feels different. That said, my only, literally my only complaint is I really do not like the kid's voice. It feels like a woman trying to pretending to be a little girl and ending up as, like, a teenager, even though the little girl is supposed to be, like, 10 or 9.

Yeah, she's very, this is a very tiny little girl, absolutely. But as I call it, this is a science fiction, Bioshock where you're the big daddy. Like, that's what it is. You have the magical little girl on your back, and you walk around as big, strong armor man, and beat everything up. Yeah.

Yeah. You're definitely a guy. We don't know if you have robot parts inside you or not, but you're definitely more human than the girl. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you're wearing a suit. Yeah, you're wearing a suit,

and if your suit gets in trouble, I guess, you know, you just, that's it. Yeah. But yeah, a lot of fun. But yeah, it's a, what reminds me most of Souls games, or Dead Space. Yeah. Because it's kind of a slower-paced game. Right.

Not the horror element, but like the kind of way combat works in Dead Space. The right tool for the right job, you know. Yeah. And even even then when, like, in the opening, when the little girl, like, fixes your suit, it kind of looks like Isaac's, like, little laser gun thing. It's like it unfolds and, like, shoots little laser beams, and, like, somehow these are good laser beams that fix you? Yeah, okay. Exactly.

Oh, you said it for good. Oh, this feels wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. And I like that, like, as you play, like, as you're just walking around, like, in sometime idle a little bit, like, she does, like, she's on your back and she'll, like, actually start tweaking your suit and little things. Like, it looks like she's repairing stuff as well, like, while she just has idle time. And I thought that's kind of cool, better than just, like, sitting static on your back. Speaking of hair, though, the little girl has got very long hair.

Oh, yes. And, again, it's a demo version. Obviously, they're still working on it, but it's funny to me how often the hair just seem to be, like, flopping around, like, nonstop. Like, I think they might want to, I don't know, tighten up the physics on her follicles there. She's got a very active, very active hair. Yeah, actually, that's very true, especially, like, if you're using the jet boost. Like, yeah.

But, I mean, it does, I think it's trying to make it convey motion more. Maybe they're doing it a little, a little down. Just a little down, just a little. I mean, you know, it's better that than having, you know, giving her like a plastic, you know, wig that sort of, you know, latched onto her head in five places. But certainly the opening cutscene, at least when I played it, the opening cutscene, like, she just looks in, like, shoof, and all of a sudden it's like a shampoo commercial. Do robot girls use shampoo?

That's the question, listeners. write that into us. Tell us your theories. Does, do robot girls use shampoo, or do they, is their hair made of something less, less manageable? Or more manageable? Or is it just some sort of fiber optics? Probably. Maybe. Oh, it's my solar power generator.

She is blonde. She is blonde. Well, Don't let's not Na la la la la la Yeah, La la la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la Well I want to talk about one more game that you brought to my attention this morning, Richard, Because I really haven't heard much about this game But it's clearly got a lot of a lot of it's... clearly got a lot of attention, you know. As I mentioned at the top of this segment, I didn't walk to this booth first thing in the morning. And when I did walk to this booth at like 10.20 or so,

it was clear that no one else was getting into this booth today. Nobody. Yeah, yeah. They closed the line. In fact, I went to it straight away. But anyway, so the game we're talking about is Ananta, which is, I think the Japanese title is Mugindai Anata. Right.

And what Ananta is, is so it was originally, announced, I think, a little more than, like, two years ago as Project Mugan. Okay. And that original trailer looks almost nothing like what we're getting now. Yeah. And then nine months ago, they put out their first big, what is this trailer? And what it was, the trailer was basically the GTA-6 trailer, but with anime girls and, like, SCP-style monsters.

And it was very clear that what they were saying visually, visual design is, hey, anime Grant that bottom. That's what we are making. There is absolutely nothing to be confused about here. That's what we're making. And then also, you get a little bit of web slinging in it, even in that original trailer. And it was like, also Spider-Man. And yeah, so this, they released a new trailer, a new, and the first hands-on demo here at TGS. And yeah, it's basically all the combat is Spider-Man or Batman Arkham Asylum, like that kind of, you know, you have a counter button or a block button that turns into a counter button, and then you have a, you know, your, your normal just attack, which is context sensitive based on where you're putting the thumbstick towards,

and that's who you hit. And yeah, so, you know, everybody who said like, oh, yeah, you know, it looks like watchdogs meets Grand Theft Auto meets Spider-Man meets all this stuff. That's exactly what it is. It is, like, unabashedly, the main character has basically Venom's powers from Spider-Man, too. Like, that's, or the, you know, the symbiate suit. powers from Spider-Man, too. Yes.

And, like, it's an interesting thing because, like, you know, I've heard people, like, kind of badmouth it, and then I'm just like, well, you don't, you can't copyright a fighting system in a game. Like, it's not like, oh, we've got to pretend that Neo no longer exists because Dark Souls exists, right? You know, you can have games based on a very similar kind of system and have them be good. And the fact that we just haven't had a Spider-Man clone or haven't had a, you know, recently haven't had too many

GTA clones I mean we had Saints Row back in the day but we haven't had anything really super GTA-like recently I don't think it's bad I think it's like why not look at what went right in other games and do it right? Like why reinvent

the wheel for no reason? Did the demo give you any sense of kind of story stuff or was it just like an open sandbox kind of thing? So the demo was two parts the first part is you can actually find it on YouTube And, like, I think they called it their, not their gameplay trailer, but it's like a 10-minute piece of gameplay. And that's exactly what the first part of the demo was at TGS.

And it, yeah, it just starts off, like, you come out of a bar, you're attacked by a gang of thugs, you beat them in Spider-Man backslash, Arkham Asylum Combat, and then you get picked up by a random cat girl in a Lamborghini. Sure. And you go and do a driving sequence out of Grand Theft Auto where she, she's driving, you're shooting your machine gun to take out the cars that are chasing you. At one point, you get knocked out of the car into the air and you land in the driver's seat, so now you're driving and she's, you know, in the passenger seat, etc., etc. And yeah, it's then in the end, you know, you do this whole car chase thing.

And when it ends, you find out that the catgirl is basically the chief of the local SCP and has been looking for you to scout you. because you apparently did something crazy on a like social media video fighting SEP style monsters. Right. And like that's all that demo story was. And that's the first half of the demo.

The second half is they allowed you to free ring. And so yeah, they just drop you into the city. And I only had a few minutes left of my time because the story obviously takes a certain amount of time. And they wouldn't let you go directly into freeplay. You had to do the story first. And I didn't want to do it, but you know, whatever. And so yeah, like first year, the guy.

the main character, I did some web slinging, you know? Like, it was, you hold one of the shoulder buttons, and you web sling. You press two of the buttons, two of the shoulder buttons together. You shoot a web forward and connect to a light pole. Like, I was like, I know how to play this. I have played Spider-Man. Okay, cool. And then I decided to swap over to Taffy, which is the bunny girl you see in all the commercials

for her, or trailers for the game. And she plays completely different. Yeah. And what's great is the, the, it does that thing that would happen in Grand Theft Auto when you'd, five, when you'd switch characters. It zooms up into the stratosphere and then zooms down on the person and they're in a car or doing something. Right. She is playing hooky. She's supposed to be working and she's just sitting in a room playing video games.

And you get like this cool conversation between her and the main character where she's like, oh yeah, no, I'm totally on it. And she's like, oh, man, I thought I was, you know, screwed kind of thing. And the cool thing is, in front of me is a window. I'm sure I was supposed to jump out that window It's a giant bay window And it clearly can be opened I'm like I'm supposed to jump out that window I turned around and I walked through the apartment

So I got to see where she lives Open the front door, went to the hallway Went to the elevator And rode the elevator down It was actually programmed in that I could go down that way And I was like Oh no, they're already doing all the fun little Extra World Building stuff

And yeah then I went out on the street And she can't web sling, but instead she has a little like, she's kind of like an inventor, and she has this hammer that will turn into like a segue. And so I'm on the streets in this little segue. Oh, Segway. Yeah. And I found a random group of thugs and beat them up. And again, it's context sensitive Spider-Man Arkham Asylum Combat, but it's a completely different weapon.

And in the fight, I knocked over a guy, and he dropped a crowbar, picked up the crowbar. And now I have a completely different move set with the crowbar. Oh, okay. You know, different animations. still play the same basic way, right, attack and encounter. But like, and then at the end, I just threw the crowbar and knocked out the last guy. And then

finishing moved him, turns the thing back in her, her scooter back into a hammer, and just ground pouns him. And I was like, okay, you guys get this. And then I only got about 10 seconds with the final character when I swapped to her. And her thing is, she's a cop, and she's just arresting, like,

she's in the middle of an arrest, handing it over, putting a criminal over into the thing. And I was like, I like these cool little transitions. that show us little things about their lives. So it is exactly what it appears to be. That said, in the free realm, I think everything did play a little less cleanly than Spider-Man or a little less cleanly than GTA.

Like when I was doing the driving sequence, for example, in the story mode, when I was in control of the car, I found that the game was fighting me. Oh, no. Because what it was doing is we were actually on rails. oh yeah it took me a while to figure out so if i ever tried to do a turn too tight or too slow like it would pull me back on the course which i would overcorrect for and so i was like doing weird

s's and i was like why is this happening and i'm like oh i'm actually on rails i'm not really driving this car they didn't want me to be able to like you know accidentally go left and get that thing where it's like you left the mission area right right yeah you know that kind of BS um and then with the shooting, I don't know, like again, I don't know if this is an accessibility option that was turned on, but if I aimed even in the general direction of an enemy, it snapped to them. Okay. Like, really snapped to them to the point where I was just like, oh, oh, this is okay. Because I was even trying to shoot the tires of the trucks, the cars chasing me, to just take

everybody out at once. And sometimes it would just snap up to the guy leaning out of the wind. though. And I was like maybe, but that could just be an accessibility option. They had turned up for TGS. Like maybe that's not how it really is when you play it. Do we know the platforms for this game already? Well, here's, I was playing on a PC. Yeah. So that we know for sure. Originally long ago in the way, way before times when it was originally announced, it was supposed to be, you know, like similar to like Ginchin, where you can play it on your phone or your PlayStation or PC or whatever. That's what, when you talk about the snapping and the, and the on-rail stuff, I wonder if that just, that makes it easier for mobile phone players.

Right. You know? And, and like, again, from that point on, they never said, oh, no, it's no longer on phones. But at the same time, just watch a trailer and tell me how that runs on a phone. Because how? So, so maybe, or maybe they'll just have like a massively paired down version for the phone where there's not 10 cars on the run. road, there's one, you know, kind of thing. And the explosion effects are

animated gifs instead of particle effects. Like, I don't know how they're going to do it. But they have not announced that it's not on phones. Okay. So, we will see. Yeah. But, yeah, it's taking a lot of these, like, older, or, well, not older,

necessarily, but, like, seminal games and just being, like, unabashedly stealing their homework. And it's fun. Like, I'm, like, I'm, And it's probably the game I'm most excited for. And like, given that the booth, you know, literally I went there from the moment the doors opened, I was the last person in line before they cut off the line.

And they basically have just been opening the line once an hour to fill it up. And so, and they won't allow you to line up or loiter in the area. Sure, sure. But everybody's trying to be really inconspicuous as they wait to go. And, but then, like, they open it up and then everybody floods in and they can. count off like, you know, 40 people, and then it close the line again for the next hour. It's, like, as far as non, you know, Capcom, no, Konami, not even PlayStation, like, as far as non-bigame game company stuff, like, it, it is the most popular booth I've seen, by far.

Yeah, and certainly walking around the venue, you see a lot of people wearing that backpack. They're going to have those special backpacks for the character on it. Yeah, yeah, it's a taffy backpack that when you open it, she'd, lifts her sunglasses because the sunglasses are like the snap that closes the bag but they've actually they're backpacks yeah they're not like shoulder bags they're back back back and those aren't you don't even get those for playing no you have to go in a completely separate line which is also very long yeah and to get it but like people are lining up and uh and then they also have like a life size statue of of taffy the bunny girl standing on top of like a defeated sCP subway train with

like giant razor claws but the funny thing is you won't even see see it because the crowd blocks off like maybe 30, 40% of the statue. All you can see is Taffy standing up really high. Yeah. Uh, which is funny. And also very, like, um, like I know that Anant has been like a big kind of viral hit online, um, especially if you're into the more anime game scene, if you like your ho-yogers and stuff. And, and I'll say this, this is the, the news that came out, I believe in Famitsu about, like the day before TGS started. where they came out and announced, yeah, this was going to be a gotcha game.

We have cut the gotcha. There is no more gotcha elements. Every character you get for free just for playing. And it looks like they're going more of the GTA 5 or GTA online model, which is, you know, you want a new car, you pay for it. You want new cosmetics, you pay for it. Like, that's how you do your real world money spend. But, you know, I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or it's a, you know,

it's a bold move cotton let's see how it turns out yeah uh i hope it works gosh i would love if more games didn't go down the the gotcha rabbit hole i just i find gotcha mechanics just exhausting like when i play a game and something like that opens up and if i open the menu i can see the menu has room for it i'm just kind of like uh i just want to buy a game play the game i'm sorry yeah and if and like i think most people are okay with how gta online works because yeah you could grind out the cash and buy any car in the game if you really, really wanted to. Or you can, you know, use

the credit card, the most powerful thing in video gaming and just buy darn car. But, like, I much prefer that business model to, hey, let's get these kids hit on Gamma and, you know, prime them for that. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean,

like, big win, in my opinion. And like I said, it played, again, we're obviously still months and months away. Yeah. And they're going to be adding lots and lots more characters. But was it a little rough around the edges? Yes.

Was it perfectly playable? Absolutely. Would I play it today? Yeah, sure. I'm sure I dump hundreds of hours into it. Yeah. Well, thank you. Also, thank you for bringing them my attention.

Because I seriously, I had no idea about this game. You told me, you told me the title, was like, what is it? What is the title? Because it kind of sounds like an Atta, which is just like a very, you. Yeah, a very normal, yeah, Japanese pronoun. and, you know, but you know, it's an Ananta, Ananta. Which I believe is a, I think it's a Hindu word. It sounds like, yeah, it sounds Buddhist to nature.

But, yeah, I seem to have remembered something like that that, that it kind of, I don't want to talk about what it is because I don't remember. I don't want to half remember something and come off looking really stupid. The viewers can read it. But I do believe, yeah, you can look it up. It's out there. People have talked about what it actually. Viewers.

Listeners are out there. Look up Ananta and tell us. us what the etymology of that word is, tell us its roots, and be sure to include any any of it's about the kanji, because it's written in kanji that don't spell out ananta normally. Yeah, yeah, the Japanese is, well, they use Mugendai, yes, Mugendai, because it used to be called Project Mugin in Japanese. Well, I object to that because the name Mugan is taken. You cannot have a project Mugan.

We already have a Mugan. It's a very popular game. We don't need another one. Right, and I think that's the problem. I think that's why they changed it. They just did not want to confuse people. No. We can't do that.

sorry yeah well we could keep talking about honestly i don't take any more time at your time richard we are still here at tg s and there's more work to be done there is so before we wrap up here richard do you want to tell people who are listening where they might find your work on the internet if you want to do that yes no i absolutely do if you're interested about like what we talked about are the other games i played here um i'll have many many hands-on previews uh over at anime newsnetwork com.com. Um, yeah, in addition to this, I played a lot of Capcom games. Uh, I played, well, pretty much everything under the sun that I could get my hands on. And yeah, I'll have, uh, Neo. I did Neo. I did, uh, every, like everything I could try, you know? And I'll have as many of those

reviews up as I can in the coming days and weeks. And, uh, yeah, and if you want to follow me on the hell site known now as quote unquote X. Yeah. And we all call Twitter. Uh, I'm over there as biggest in Japan, all one word. But yeah, that's about it. All right. Thank you very much. And yeah, this episode won't go up until October, so I'm sure whatever you, whatever you write about the show will be online by the time this audio was out. Okay, good. Easily accessible for anyone who's interested in more about hands-on with Ananta or craziness of Resident Evil Nine.

Yes, okay. Well, thank you very much, Richard. Sure. It was great to be here. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do that, da, da. But, do, do, do. Hello, Welcome back to Retronauts. Hello, welcome back to Retronauts.

And welcome to the lovely skyscraper, really, skyscraper offices of Hamster Corporation. And we're here talking with the head of Hamster Corporation and many other people. Maybe everyone could just introduce themselves. Mom, I'm Diamond Fight. You know me. But maybe we could all just introduce ourselves. Just a chico showkish and we'll hear very often. We have a translator here today.

Nice to meet you. I'm Midoriu, the interpreter. Thank you very much. And, I'm going to say, I'm sorry, I'm going to say, but I'm going to say, Hamster's

I'm the president of the hamster Hamada, Satoshi. Thank you. Hello, I'm Melis, and I'm responsible for overseas promotion in Hamster Corporation.

Nice to meet you. All right, thank you so much. Amster at the Agio Sending and I'm Nakajima to

know what I'm he's Nakajima like who does sells for the hamster Thank you so much

and thank you for having us here to talk about hamster and all the work that you do I noticed in the

lobby I saw your Guinness record you know commemorating your many years of selling games

every week every week my shoe my shoe every week having a new game which is remarkable I think so that's one of the reasons

I'd like to talk to you all today but if we can start first with you Hamada San just about your background like who who are you and what brought you here to this this tower

first I'm most of Tosiba EMI to record guy so Hamada son started I started like the career from like Toshiba EMI, they had a recording, record, like, section. And then, like, it moved. They also

had, like, a game section in the record section. However, like, they had to shut down the business, like, for that section. So, like, that's how he started the hamster. And, like, it's been 26 years. And last year, they moved to Setagaya, which, because he, that's the place where Hamra's son lives and, like, he likes. Also, like, this building, like, they, like, they moved to move to this building from last year. Thank you. Is Setagaya your hometown? Have you,

Zeta Gai? Yes, yes. Jikama also Setagaya is. So his parents' house are also Setagaya, so he has lots of attachments for Setagaya. Ah, okay, I understand. So did you have a background in video game making or just a general interest?

games when you were when you were younger and you decided oh i want to work with games so like his parents were a little bit strict about video games he couldn't play video games as a child so that's why he started to go to game center to play arcade games that's how he have like feelings for arcade games i see did you have a favorite for your arcade experience So it's really difficult for me to pick my favorite arcade. There is 480 titles for arcade games or archives so far, and I love them all. Well, maybe you can ask this. Why hamster?

You know, why I call the company Hamster? Was it a favorite pet, or do you want to live inside a ball? Why did you choose hamster for your company? Actually, the company's name doesn't come from the animal hamster. It comes from people's names. So, like, my name is Hamada. And, like, there was another other people who was called Mutal, stands for Mu. And, like, Suzuki, that stands for S hamster.

And then, like, there was multiple other people, and that became a hamster. Oh, okay. So just worked out that way, the names. I understand. So I was curious about Hamster's work before Arcade Archives. I noticed you published a lot of games in the past. You know, as you said, the company has been here since 1999. So I wondered if you could tell me a little bit about the early days of Hamster

and those kinds of those work you were doing. So we had multiple games. such as a convenience, like, where you can run your own convenience store. But, like, we always tried to do, like, arcade games back from PS1. So, like, for Prestation, like, we did Arcade hits, Prestation 2. And, like, we, but, like, we tried three times, but which didn't, wasn't that much successful, but we may, like, started, like, arcade archives from 11 years ago, which became a hit with, like, 480 titles and I guess like it was our fourth luck I see well I actually wanted to ask a little

bit about some early games like the conveni I have an interest in the the simple series and when I saw the conveni I wondered if there was maybe there might be a future for the conveni because I feel like those sort of games are still very popular I still see indie games now about making convenience stores and running convenience stores. And I think Japanese convenience stores, especially, are popular around the world now. The image of a Japanese convenience store is now very popular. So I wondered if not be a future for Zuckavini. So currently, we are focused on arcade archives.

And we want to put all the energies into the arcade archives. So we don't plan on anything for the Combeeney series at the moment. But like we want to publish more arcade archives games as much as possible. I was also curious because I looked up that Hamster published in Japan, the video game You Don't Know Jack, which was a still is a popular quiz game in English. But you published it here in Japan with, Matsatoshi Hamara, who I know is very popular in Japan. I don't think our American listeners know him, but I wondered if you could talk about that

and how that happened to get a very big star to play a video game quiz voice. Actually, for the You Know Jack game, it was made by Yoshimoto, a committee company for Japan. and we had hamster had a relationship with yoshimoto for a while so that's how like hamster was able to publish that game and um there's no relation between you and hamara mostoshi no relation okay just same name that's okay i get it Okay Okay. Well, maybe we can talk about arcade archives.

So, you know, you used to publish all these different games, the conveny and other things, and you have a history of publishing arcade games, but I wonder if you could tell me what made you focus almost, as you said, almost exclusively now on arcade games and this arcade archives project. Like, why did everything else sort of fall back and, like, okay, we're now 100% full-power arcade games, all the time?

So, like, for arcade archives, like, we feel like there's two unique points for arcade archives because, like, we release every week, which we have been, like, starting from 2017, March 3rd, which is the release date for Switch, and it's been eight years and a half for every users. And for, for the other point, like, it's because, like, we release, like, revival, like, every title, any kind of title. And like for any kind of title, like I would like to follow up that like we do any kind of series, which are like could be really famous or we could be like not that much of a spotlight kind of game, which I think it's unique. So like I guess like when you revival like a series, like people usually start from the famous series.

But like I want I feel like we want to release like the titles. which have been, like, attached to, like, people's personal emotions. So we try, like, even, like, if it's, like, not, like, a famous, like, not much spotlight games, like, some kid might have, like, played it for, like, forever and ever. So that's why we focus on, like, the not so much popular titles as well. So, releasing every week, popular title and a unpopular title, which is really really, hard, especially like checking the process and everything. So like the major titles, like there's lots of resources, a lot of data is like preserved. But for like the minor ones, unfortunately there's

not much information and like we need to do a lot of research, which is, could take a lot of time. So but like we want to continue doing this every week and deliver it to the users. So that's why we focus on this project 100% at the moment. So I'm curious, when this began back in 2017, did you know at that time, we are going to do this every week and we're not going to stop and that's it? Or did you say, we'll try this for one month, two months, and then maybe we'll have to change direction? So when the Nintendo Switch got released, like I was excited to release it every week and I had the passion for that. But whenever like there's a new bug or like a schedule jam or whatever, any kind of trouble like comes up, I always thought like maybe I can't or I have to stop. But like always there was a supporting staff helping me and like as a team like we overcome this situation and I'm happy for that.

Thank you. Oh, we were joined by a new person here. I don't know if you want to introduce yourself. Just to do you go ahead. I'm Mitoe. I'm Mitoe, one of the original members who started Hamster. I do many things, but I'm also like involved in the promotion process. So the Ha Hamster and the Mu hamster. Okay. Two-thirds. That's that's, that's, that's, that's a lot. That's a lot. exciting. So we talked about the Archite Archives and how you've been doing this for so long. I know there's many variables, but what would you say is the typical schedule? You know, how long does it take to go from? We want to release this game to we are releasing the game.

What's an example of that? Arcade Archives, about how long do I think? I would guess six, seven months, maybe. Right, right,

the right, okay, I got it. You know, you're doing, every week, so, like, you guess it right? Like, we usually take six, seven months for the research and everything, development. Lots of people think that because we release it weekly, like people think like we only prepare for one week,

but that's not true. And some of the long titles, like long processing titles takes like two years. So like we, once we pick the title, we set the title, we do tons of research and all that. Okay, so it's not a South Park situation. I understand. So, first

was the title of the title of and the time the game was going to the game

was to find to the keyban from the data to see that

so like when we pick the title we usually search for the hardware

that it was used and like we usually like um we usually like um

suck up from, like, the hardware, the data's. Hmm. So Keybon is the arcade board, I guess. Yeah. All right. So Keybon, arcade board. I get it. I got it. Okay. So obviously, there's many examples, but at this point, how do you choose, are you choosing the games? Like, we want this, we want this. Or are rights holders coming to you and saying, hello, hamster, can you do this for us? Can you, because you have, you're very famous now. I don't know. Is it both ways, or are you choosing what you want? So, like, it happens both ways.

When we first started, obviously, we were the one who was reaching out to the game makers and all that. But, like, since we have been doing it for 11 years, like, luckily, like, sometimes, like, game maker themselves, like, reach out to us. Can I ask, with Nintendo, what happened? Which way was it with Nintendo? Because that's obviously a very big, big name. Can you tell me about that? So Nintendo was always We were clients

And like We had relationship When we had a bond So like And we always had a dream of like Doing like Nintendo's Arcade games for such a long time So that's

So because of that We were the ones who reach out to Nintendo When to so that we can release it When Switch came out I guess what I'm talking about is Specifically the Nintendo arcade games I guess what I was saying Because at first, it was, you know, lots of NeoGeo games and other companies,

but then you've released a lot of Nintendo arcade games. Was that part of it? Okay, so for, like, Nintendo-specific arcade games. So, for instance, like, there's Donkey Kong, which was really remastered in multiple, like, hardwards. But, unfortunately, like, the arcade version was slightly different. But, like, I know, like, lots of kids, like, played it as a time. childhood. And, like, Nintendo also felt, like, strongly and agreed that, like, they wanted to have it, like, as part of, like, the archive game project. So, like, we got the

permission, and that's how we released it. Thank you. I noticed here in the room, you have a lot of items from the Nintendo Museum. Actually, I'm wearing a shirt from the Nintendo Museum also. I'm wearing a virtual boy shirt, for the record, because I'm virtually a boy. And I was wondering, because I've been there, and I'm kind of surprised the museum doesn't have more arcade games. I wonder, were you surprised? Have you been to the museum? Were you surprised that it's mostly home games and not arcade games? So I specifically think that, yeah, so I went to the museum, yes. And that's why we have like lots of the cushions and plushies of like from the Nintendo Museum.

And actually, like, there is, there was, like, machines from the arcade games, like, exhibited, like, in the museum. And also, of course, Famicun and, like, other, like, hardware's, like, as a main thing. And I think, like, it was overall a really good museum. So I'm curious, what kind of feedback do you get from publishers about arcade archives? Are you getting a lot of questions from them or from users? Because you have so many releases. I wonder, what's that like?

Yes, we get, like, lots of feedbacks. And especially since we do our revivals of so many titles, we try to recreate the environment as much as possible, especially like for television, for instance, like it changed a lot. So to make it like more precisely closer to the environment on those days, we get a feedback from like the original maker saying that maybe if you could like adopt it like in this way or adjust it. in this way and we use those feedback so that we can recreate it 100% as much as we can.

I'm also very curious what, if any, feedback you get from younger players because I know the switch has a very young install base, like my kids both have switches, and I wonder if you hear anything back from young people who didn't know these games, you know, they're younger than the arcade games, and maybe they're discovering these games through Arcade Archives that they never would have seen otherwise. Actually, we don't have much feedback from the young players, and we think that that's the point where we can improve. We want more young people and overseas people to know about our gorgeous archive. Well, actually, speaking of overseas, I was very curious, you know,

now that Archive archives is known in many countries, I want to, to this point, it's mostly been Japanese games. I wondered if maybe there would be more arcade archives games from other countries. I don't know, Kaigai Akeaka or Yogei, some kind of expansion in that regards. So, like, currently we only published from 24 Japanese makers' archive arcade games. And no overseas arcade games. But, like, since our motto is to revival all the arcade games, we, if we ever have the chance for an opportunity, we definitely want to revival overseas archive games too. Well, if you're taking requests, I think one great example would be a game called NARC.

It's an American game from the 80s about the drug war. and it was very famous and it's before Mortal Kombat but it uses real people in the game and I think that would be a wonderful example I don't know if you want to write that down but

that game was I don't know, I'll just come to let me see it. It is very violent, just a warning the bullug was so great, but it's, I don't know, as a kid I loved it.

So, obviously, there is a finite number of arcade games. There's only so many games, but do you think the Arcade Archive series can just go on indefinitely? Do you think you'll ever run out? Like, oh, we have no more games. Do you think that might happen? So we released 480 titles for these 11 years. But, like, when we first originally started, our goal was to release 800 titles, actually. And we think that is possible.

So we want to produce more and more games as possible and continue. However, like, there's a strong possibility that it will run out, but, like, we don't want to run out. So, like, since, like, there's more new arcade games coming out these days, we want to feature the new ones too, and we want to support the new arcade games too. I was wondering if you could tell me why you switch to Arcade Archives 2. And if there'll be more sequels, Arcade Archives 3 or 4 or 5, maybe talk about what, why I have a 2 or 3 or whatever. So since we have been releasing like so many games for such a long time, our trouble that we could have, like, we wanted to overcome with was the platform. Like since like Switch changed to Switch 2 and like PS5 came out, there's possible.

of like PS6 and PS7 in the future. And we want to produce as much as possible, like even like overlapping platforms. And like to continue this like new challenge, we want it to give out the message that even the platform changes, it continues. On that note, I was wondering, after so many years of digital releases,

arcade archives every week, I wanted to ask you about the physical versions. I know, I've noticed now, at least in Japan, you have sort of arcade archives collections on discs or cartridge. I wonder, what brought about that idea to do physical releases of the arcade archives? So for the cartridge arcade games, like there's title ones and like the SNK-SOM ones, but like it's not all like published from, sold from Hamster. And we do get lots of like requests for like the past.

like physical cartridge games and we do want to do it in the future but currently we are so focused on the download double games but like we do have like a dream that to make it come true one day would we possibly see like an arcade archives mini you know like Nintendo and Sony and Sega have made the little consoles even S&K made a mini Neo Geo I have one it's it's very cute do you think you'll have a maybe hamster, a little hamster arcade machine, looks like a hamster? Yeah, we do talk about, like, many, like, arcade physical games, but unfortunately, like, we just talk about it at the moment, since we are so focused on the downloadable ones at the moment, but we do talk about it. All right, maybe one last question here. I may be unfair question, but is there any game in the 480 arcade archives?

releases that you are still surprised that oh we got to we got to release this one maybe just whether it's too famous or too small but inside you're like oh I can't believe we got to release this game so like we discussed earlier but like I'm still surprised that we got a chance to collaborate with Nintendo Nintendo has such a high like quality like technology and everything. So they could have done it by themselves, but they let us do the arcade archives. And I'm still happy about it. And I want to follow up that not just Nintendo, even Konami, Bondi, Kauwey, Tecmo, and like, Taito and SMK sign it, and all the companies, like, they're such a big, like, powerful company than us. So, like, we're grateful that, like,

they let us revival all the games through arcade archives. all right well thank you again for your time and i want to wrap up here and i'm just curious if anybody especially you in the promotion department is there any sort of um i don't know maybe a hamster stream or hamster social media or something that you want to let our listeners know about that you uh as a way to get news out to people So we recently has a hamster Instagram

for a so we recently started an Instagram account for young users so definitely follow us on Instagram thank you anyone else

any personal things you want to share personal things you want to share personal things? What do you want to say to say what is there? Thank you so much

for today. So I want to say that I want to say that like we revival like arcade games and like we want to do as much as possible and our motto is to tell that to younger audience the classic games that was precious to us. And also like we want to tell that to the overseas too. And maybe like the art is not as much. And maybe like the art is not as much. pretty as these modern games, but like the game is so much fun and we want everybody to play it and we want everybody to spread it to the word about arcade games. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for inviting us here. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Hello, I'm back in my house, and I'm here to tell you about three, one, two, three indie games that I played at Tokyo Game Show, that I'd like to highlight, because with the interview segments and the people at the show, I've already covered all the big stuff. So let's just talk about the indie stuff that we didn't have time for, starting with Sobacistan.

The Land of Dogs. They're calling it a darkly satirical narrative immersion in a closed-off totalitarian dog state. And what I want you to imagine is imagine a pixel art adventure game taking place in the Soviet Union, except it's a Soviet Union full of canines. Everyone's a dog. Except you, your character is a foreign journalist, so I guess you're a frog, and you're visiting this country for the first time. They've opened their borders. It's a historic day. they've decided to practice the funeral of their revered leader.

I don't know if it's a real thing people do, but they do it in this game. And you walk around, you click on things, and it's kind of an absurd environment. You see people doing impossible things. And if you look at things the wrong way or if you go the wrong way down the street, you might get warned, you might not get warned, but you can get arrested. And when you're arrested, the game ends. I got arrested. My game ended.

but the writing and the art is pretty clever and so I'm quite curious as to how this is going to turn out I don't know how many endings they're going to go for can getting arrested in different spots change the ending or is it just do you want to get arrested or not get arrested

I don't know is like a King's Quest thing anyway So Pakistan, the land of dogs check that one out next up I don't know how to pronounce this word Militzioner M-I-T-S-I-O-N-E-R they're calling it a Kafka-esque immersive sim.

And how I'd explain this game is, you're exploring a small town under surveillance from the cops. Okay, not cops, just cop, singular, one cop, a giant cop. Like, not like a big guy. I mean like a giant, like he towers over the entire area. And you could talk to him and he can talk to you. And everyone in the town knows he's there and they know you're here and they know that he's watching you.

So it's hard to deal with people and hard to deal with him, but you have to figure it out. And you can do things the nice way, you do things the hard way, you can steal stuff, you can be violent, or you can be kind and helping. Seems like all these different approaches can get you to a different ending. So again, very curious how many outcomes this game could possibly have.

It looks really nice. It's a 3D, it's 3D, environment. It's not, so it's not pixel art. But I like it. It looks like, you know, that the town has character tree, even though it's a very small town. And I don't know what's going on with this giant cop. Are giant cops? A-cab? Probably. A-G-A-B. And last one I want to highlight is Wax Wing. They're calling it a real-time, death-driven kinetic waltz. And easy way to explain this is it's a light gun game, kind of like gumshoe. Remember gumshoe for the N-ES? Where you don't shoot things on screen, you're shooting your character and making him jump.

Well, this game, the character is moving from left to right, and you shoot where you want the character to go, except when you shoot the screen, you make a little, like, ball of fire, and the character is drawn to the fire. But if the character touches the fire, they're out, and you lose. Start over with his checkpoints, but still, you have to go back. It's a loss. So you need to be constantly shooting new places to lure them in the right direction, but, you have to shoot again before they touch your last shot.

And what makes this very interesting is that you can play it in co-op, which limits you so you have to take turns shooting the screen. So you and your partner have to really establish a rapport and get a rhythm going. And it's pretty challenging, but it's pretty cool. And there's a lot of weird stuff on the screen. Like the first stages was the moth. And I get it, moth to a flame. But the second stages was like a person surrounded by other, like,

weird people and there were cars and shooting the cars with the cars on fire. I don't know what to make of this. The developers told me it's already available as like an arcade installation in Brooklyn with custom like light guns. The version I saw TGS was just kind of off the shelf light guns in a regular TV.

But still, it looks good. It plays well. I'd be very curious how this, if they're going for a global release or not, I don't own a light gun, but for a weird game like this, I might get a light gun. because it's weird.

I like it. I like weird games. And I also just want to highlight that this year's TGS was extremely crowded, as alluded to when I talked to John. The business days both had over 50,000 guests. And to put that in perspective, when I started going to TGS, you know, 15 years ago, business days usually had about 20, 25,000 people, maybe 30,000 if it was a really busy year. maybe way less if it was not a busy year. I went there from some dry spells, if you remember. Now, in recent years, I believe they've been selling tickets to the business days,

which have gone up in attendance. But still, two years ago, it was still about 30,000 people per business day. Last year, it was about 40,000. This year, over 50,000. It's kind of getting crazy. And it's funny how, as the business days go up, the public days kind of go down. But the public days are still busier than the business days because they're much cheaper. And of the weekend, of course, they're busier.

And all this is leading up to next year where they've already announced, they're going to do a five-day show over a holiday weekend. So Thursday, Friday, business days, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, public days. Clearly they're looking for a 300,000-plus person show. I mean, if I've got work to do there, I'll go for work. But it's really hard to do work. when you're in a room with 50,000 people and most of them are just there to look around and take pictures and just be overwhelmed by it all, where I'm trying to, like, play some games so I can write about them or maybe interview a developer.

You know, that's an imbalance. But, hey, I don't run the event. They don't give me a vote. All right, we're going to wrap things up today. Thank you very much to all my guests, everyone down at Hamster, John Lineman, Richard Eisenbice, and Midoriusa, who was my interpreter at The Hamster Interview. Thank you, everyone, for your help. I really appreciated it.

This was a fun episode to record. I always enjoy spending time in Tokyo. Even if I don't enjoy Tokyo culturally, I prefer Osaka. That's right, I said it. I chose the best place to live in Japan, and that's my unbiased opinion. This has been Retronauts. Thank you very much for listening to Retronauts. If you are listening to Retronauts and you did not pay us for this episode, thank you very

much for listening to Retronauts. However, if you give us $3 a month over at patreon.com slash retronauts, you get all our regular episodes one week early at a higher audio quality. If you spend $5 a month on Patreon.com, which is just $2 more than $3. It's a very basic math. What do you get? You get all the episodes a week early. You get exclusive episodes to, sometimes three exclusive episodes every month. You get columns from me every week.

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This is 2025. We're coming very close to our 12. 20th year, 2006. It's coming soon. Yes. But for now, that's a wrap. My name's Diamond Fight. You can find me on the internet by looking for Fight Club, F-E-I-T, my last name, C-L-U-B, English word you already know. Have my own website, fightclub.com.com. Otherwise, look up social media. I'm Fight Club on most services, Letterbox, YouTube, Twitch, all those things. And I don't know when I'll next be attending an event, but you know I'll be back on the Retrocks podcast. very soon. So good night.

You know,