Bitter December cold. Check. Chance of rain. Check. Over an hour on a train packed with families on their one outing of the season. Check. Thousands of way-too-excited Japanese kids running around with their faces glued to their DS systems and their Blue Dragon cards, bumping into everyone over four feet tall along the way. Check…mate?
We really should hate attending the Jump Festa videogame and comic show. But the promise of Square Enix titles making their playable debut is way too much to pass up, so every year we take the hour-long train ride out to the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba and try our best to keep our manners and refrain from stepping on one of these little tornadoes and/or knocking out their parents for not keeping them on a leash. Ahem.
At this year’s event, open to the public on Saturday and Sunday, Square Enix was once again the main attraction for the videogame crowd. With the promise of playable debuts for the Final Fantasy fighting game for PSP, Final Fantasy: Dissidia, the new DS Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, and the new mobile Final Fantasy IV spinoff, Final Fantasy IV: The After, we were expecting to spend the whole day waiting in line at the one booth — but thankfully the company implemented a ticket system guaranteeing players a spot to play games later in the day with no need to wait. Sadly, Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts tickets disappeared within an hour of the show’s start, leaving many without a chance to try out the two biggest titles of the show.
The tradition of the Closed Mega Theater continued at the Squenix booth, now with new signs reminding people about the dangers of recording the footage, and extra staff on hand to ensure that viewers stowed their baggage under their chairs (presumably a safety precaution in the event of a water landing). This year’s showcase had Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy XIII sandwiching short clips of the Parasite Eve mobile sequel and the Blu-ray version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
The FFXIII clips were, once again, remixes of past footage with a few new sequences thrown in. The main FFXIII game showed off an Ifrit summon spell for the first time, although we couldn’t confirm if, like Shiva, Ifrit will transform into a vehicle. All the characters that have been featured in past clips, including “blonde guy” (not to be confused with Cloud, by the way) and hotter-than-Tifa “pigtail girl” got extended segments, but still no real details on their backgrounds.
Versus XIII footage was all CG once again, but like the game’s Tokyo Game Show trailer, the updated trailer was so moving that we’re convinced Square Enix should make the game into a collect-athon where you attempt to gather CG trailer clips. The trailer introduced a couple of new characters, bringing the nameless main character’s group of nameless ruffians to four.
In case you were wondering, both clips ended with “Only For PlayStation 3.” Square Enix apparently isn’t ready to go multiplatform. At least not yet…
The Kingdom Hearts footage was a little more down to earth, suggesting that the three Kingdom Hearts titles will be coming out a bit sooner. Coded — yes, the mobile game — was the standout of the three clips. Footage highlighted stage variations, most notably “Crash Stages,” which look like a side-scrolling platformer. Visually, the game looks better than the DS 358/2 Days, although we’re not sure how Square Enix is going to make an action-heavy game like KH control well on cell phones.
The one bit of actual news from the Square Enix booth came during the trailers. Both Coded and Final Fantasy Agito XIII were confirmed as DoCoMo FOMA titles. This may not mean much to you if you’re outside of Japan, although there are a few rumors suggesting that Apple will be siding with DoCoMo for the iPhone’s Japanese distribution.
Jump isn’t just the Square Enix Show, though. All the major third parties and first parties attend every year as well, with most placing the focus on anime properties. This is easy for a company like Konami who barely had to tap its license vault to put games like Death Note, Yu-Gi-Oh, and The Prince of Tennis on playable display. Metal Gear Solid 4? Not at this show!
Sega had a tiny booth this year. The Wii version of Nights was playable, although we’d been hoping to see the PS2 remake of the original instead, since the Wii title is already out. Drawing bigger waits of over 100 minutes was Phantasy Star Portable, which was playable in four-player multiplayer mode. The game looks close to the PS2 version of Phantasy Star Universe and should make for a great alternative to Monster Hunter.
Capcom had the odd title out at the Jump Festa event: Devil May Cry 4. While the DS adaptation of Rozario & Vampire, also in the Capcom booth, is a vampire game that fits in a bit better with the Jump theme, attendees were interested in Dante & Nero, to the tune of over 150 minute waits. Capcom also had some Tokyo Game Show-style talk events featuring DMC4 producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and Monster Hunter Freedom 2 producer Ryouzou Tsujimoto.
But the biggest non-Square Enix third party booth came from Bandai Namco. Jump isn’t usually known for news stories, but Bandai Namco used the event to break first word on Tales of Vesperia, a new Tales of game featuring character designs by Kousuke Fujishima and animation from Production I.G. No platform was announced for the cell shaded title, although a 2008 release date suggests that details will be forthcoming any time now. Perhaps this is the next “real” Tales game from Team Symphonia/Abyss? Let’s hope, because it looked hot.
Bandai Namco also had some big playable debuts. Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit, playable on both the 360 and PS3 had awesome visuals, but didn’t really seem to do too much to the DBZ formula. More popular, to the tune of 90 minute waits, was Tales of Symphonia: The Knight of Ratatosk, the follow-up to the GameCube’s most popular RPG. While the game doesn’t seem to do anything especially interesting with the Wiimote, it does have an updated graphics engine which makes it look far better than the GameCube original.
On the first party side of things, the biggest happenings were in Nintendo’s booth, which featured a playable build of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The gaming media, including 1UP, has already been privy to playable samplings of what will likely be the Wii’s biggest hit for next year, but for the general Japanese public, this was the game’s playable debut. Attendees could sample the game on one of thirty demo kiosks and take part in a special tournament.
Other games in the Nintendo booth included Super Mario Galaxy and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Both are already out, but the kiddies were willing to wait over 60 minutes to try them.
On the note of displaying games that are already out, Microsoft’s booth didn’t have anything new at all. Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Viva Pinata: Party Animals and PGR4 drew waits of up to 60 minutes while a Christmas Tree display let attendees simulate what getting a 360 for Christmas might be like.
Rather than the year-old Blue Dragon original, we were more interested in seeing Blue Dragon DS. Sadly, its publisher AQ Interactive was not at the show. This also left Mistwalker’s other DS game, Away, out of contention.
Sony was at the show as well, although it took us a while to find the company’s small booth. The usual Bleach titles for the PSP and PS2 were on display. PS3 was represented by Eye of Judgment, which is almost like a new title since no one bought it when it was released earlier in the year.
Aside from the Tales and FOMA announcements, there weren’t any major videogame happenings at this year’s Jump Festa event. But seeing as how this is a consumer-oriented event rather than a trade show, it’s not too surprising. Lack of news aside, the chance to try out new Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Phantasy Star titles is always welcome, so we’re already looking forward to next year’s event, even if it means having to bathe ourselves amongst those crazy kids again.
Source: 1UP
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