TGS 2016 is in full swing and a ton of new games has gotten new trailers:

Capcom had a new trailer for Resident Evil 7, where you are invited to dinner with the Baker family.

Also, Capcom is going for a new approach to Monster Hunter with the RPG Monter Hunter Stories for 3DS

D3 Publisher has an interesting lineup, firstly SG/ZH School Girl/Zombie Hunter, which is a shooting game set in the Onechanbara universe.

D3 is also getting on the VR train with Happy Manager on PS4/PSVR.

On the Vita, D3 is bringing out an interesting twist on the escape room formula with Idol Death Game TV.

Last, but not least, is Earth Defense Forces 5! EDF! EDF!

While Bandai Namco is showing off Tekken 7 at the show, there doesn't seem to have been any new trailer. They did however bring a new one for Summer Lesson, which is their flagship PlayStation VR launch title.

As expected there was also new Gundam games for PS4 and Vita, bringing back the super deformed look with SD G Gundam Generations Genesis.

The other trailer is a teaser for the next Gundam Versus game.

Nier Automata saw a new trailer with small glimpses of the characters as well as a release date.

Koei Tecmo has a super strong line-up, including the newly announced Musou Stars.

...a new trailer for Samurai Warriors: Sanada Maru

...new trailer for Berserk Musou

...and a new trailer for Nioh.

In case you missed it, there's also a new SaGa game in the works.

I'm not sure how well Japanese developers will support the PS4 Pro features, but Final Fantasy XV is probably one of the games that will benefit from the power boost. It looks great in this new trailer. I love the details on the old grizzled Cid.

Gravity Daze 2 really benefitted from being a PS4 game, when it comes to the visual department. It looks great as well!

The PlayStation and Project Touhou collaboration continues with Urban Legend in Limbo. This is one of the fighting games that uses a very interesting system that relies more heavily on projectile attacks.

What did I do to deserve this, my lord is also getting a new entry on PlayStation VR. This title is probably completely butchered, but according to Google translate, it's called "It's a cheeky habit of V! Brave R". If it's anything like the original, you play as the villain who has to crush all the heroic adventurers.

The Last Guardian also got a new story trailer. Personally, I've kinda cooled on the game, since it's 2016 and emotional platformers are a dime a dozen.

Valkyria: Azure Revolution, the sequel to one of the greatest video games of all time, looks fantastic. Despite it's bold new direction, I'm still interested in seeing what the end product will be.

SEGA also showed off a new battle trailer for Yakuza 6 during their liveshow. It looks amazing!

New Everybody's Golf is looking great as well. It's an open-world game now where you can go swimming and driving and stuff.

Granblue Fantasy Project Re:Link is PlayStation VR supported action RPG from Platinum Games. Let's hope it's the A-team this time.

Fall in love and mash your face against your iPad in Imprisoned Palm by Capcom.

Create a home away from home in Metal Gear Survive

This is just a fraction of the trailers coming out of TGS and there's tons more. I'll update this post as I find stuff worth sharing.

With VR still in it's relative infancy, we are starting to see trends on the type of games and experiences that are popular around the world.

While horror and porn has dominated the western market, there seems to be an expanded amount of software focusing on intimacy coming out of Asia. The big one for PlayStation VR is obviously Summer Lesson, which at the outset was only supposed to be a simple character interaction tech demo from Team Tekken, but eventually grew to become it's own thing and is now one of the most anticipated PSVR launch titles in Japan.

Currently it's also possible to experience a PlayStation VR demo at Fuji TV Japan, who has also created their own "heart-pounding VR drama" based on an existing television series, where a lady (or a dude depending on your preference) will feed you some cake and be all up in yo grill. Check that out in this video:

Finally, ZhugeEX on Twitter also reported from ChinaJoy, that there is a smartphone app that allows you to have a virtual boyfriend or girlfriend and from the looks of it, that too seems to focus more on intimacy than sex.

It's interesting to see this approach to VR. While there is a bit of fear and stigma against these sorts of experiences in the west, I think it could have many possibilities to improve the lives of the constantly growing number of those suffering with anxiety.

While it might seem as a gimmick at first, I think it could add an extra layer to existing game concepts. Imagine a new Ridge Racer game where Reiko Nagase was right there next to you in the passenger seat. Imagine a new Mass Effect game where you could hug Garrus from behind while he was in the middle of some calibrations. The possibilities are endless.

E3 is a big show with tons of games, but the unfortunate result is that Japanese games are neglected by big sites, like Giant Bomb, because anime is for jerks etc. etc. etc...

However!

There were quite a lot of cool Japanese games at E3, so I thought I'd round them up here. First of all: Props to @marino for uploading trailers for everything. It's usually not something that happens here, by virtue of the front page getting rapidly spammed if that was to happen on a daily basis, but it really helps to bring every game into the limelight, so thank you for that. Here we go!

Persona 5

The one big Japanese game on the showfloor is obviously Persona 5. There's already a trailer on the site, but 12 minutes of gameplay was also shown to E3 attendees. There are several off-screen recorded footage videos, but Gamespot's seems to have the best mix of audio and video quality.

Nioh

It's like Dark Souls, but good. That's what I think at least, but it's certainly up to personal preference, if you prefer the esoteric and bizarre storytelling of From Software's game or something that is slightly more cohesive like this. Things are certainly still mysterious, but it looks to be more story-heavy.

Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom

While feedback to the Japanese release hasn't been overwhelmingly positive, since it's apparently pretty easy, you can't deny that it doesn't look cool. A story trailer is already on the site, but there's also this gameplay trailer showing the game in action.

Yakuza 0

If you are looking forward to Shenmue 3, you should definitely check out the Yakuza series. Again, a story trailer is on the site, but Toshihiro Nagoshi was on the showfloor and showing off the game to several outlets. PlayStation has a nice video showing off a typical sidestory and side activity. From a historical standpoint I'm super interested in this, because while Anime and games have given us a view into how contemporary Japan looks, I don't think I've ever played anything that explore the 80's.

Nier Automata

While the first Nier was weirdly Zelda-like in it's structure, Nier Automata seems to be more in the vain of a character action game like Bayonetta, but still with some open world stuff to it. Check out this nice, smooth gameplay!

Then check out these open world shenanigans.

Wild Guns Reloaded

I think this is one of the biggest, small E3 games and I've been excited to see it in action, ever since it was announced a month or so ago. It was thrilling to see that Natsume hasn't gone the weird 3D route, but instead kept to the classic pixelart of the original game, but with the stages in 16:9 and support for 4 players. According to their press release, there's not only new playable characters, but also new stages. The E3 demo only had the first stage from the original game, but it looks amazing. Check out this gameplay and also check the trailer for a glimpse of the two new characters.

River City: Tokyo Rumble

Natsume also brought River City: Tokyo Rumble for 3DS to E3. It seems like a mash-up of the various Kunio-kun games, with added guest characters from Double Dragon.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Igarashi was on set to show off the progress of his Kickstarter success story. It looks like it's coming along nicely.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

I swear that I have to look up the name every time I think about this game. It wasn't super well received in Japan, pleasing neither Shin Megami Tensei fans or Fire Emblem fans, but I think it looks super cool. Nintendo Treehouse showed off 30 minutes of gameplay.

Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse

Slightly darker than Tokyo Mirage sessions is SMTIV: Apocalypse. It was announced a few months ago that Atlus were going to localize it, but they brought this nice trailer to E3.

Final Fantasy XV VR Experience

Several trailers for Final Fantasy XV showed up during E3 and can be found on the site, but on the showfloor there was also a VR experience where you get to fight Bahamut as Prompto. The demo ends with a nice car ride with Cidney/Cindy and according to YouTube personality Patrick Klepek, everyone playing the demo leaned in to oogle the graphical fidelity of her character model. Video of that below!

Let it Die

Suda 51 was also at E3 to show off Let it Die. In this gameplay demo with Twitch, he talks about how he went back to the drawing board and started working on gameplay first and then build a story around it second. It looks very cool, but one snag is that it's a F2P game...

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

A while ago, Sony announced that they were bringing Touhou games to PlayStation. Weird thing; it's none of the SHMUPS. Instead we are getting this action RPG. Hey, that might be cool too.

Qurare: Magic Library

Card battling RPG makes it's way from Android to PS4. It seems to have some endless runner segments as well? Real curious to see what this one is about.

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

This sounds like a title they came up with by mashing the "suggested words" on an iPhone message, but the gameplay looks cool and it doesn't seem like your average dungeon crawler.

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star

I like myself some musou and it looks like this next Fate game has that in spades. The only gameplay that seems to be floating around out there is this blurry phone recording, but it definitely put the game on my radar.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

The first Trails of Cold Steel was very well received, so there is a bit of hype for the sequel, even if it is just a PS3 and PS Vita release.

I Am Setsuna

If you were missing the classic 90's JRPG, Square Enix is promising to deliver with this game.

These were just the games that I personally found most interesting. Noteworthy mentions that might be worth checking out also are DragonBall Xenoverse 2, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X (which will get PSVR support at some point), Yokai Watch 1 & 2, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, Rabi-Ribi, Fault -Milestone One- and Kingdom Hearts II.8: Final Chapter Prologue (go home Square Enix, you're drunk).

Video Games! Still happening, even if the E3 showfloor seems spacious!

Modern Japanese arcade gaming is as unapproachable and complex as ever. Back in my day, games were simpler and it was pretty easy to discern if it was a platformer, a brawler, a fighting game or something else like that, but these days they all seem to be weird action RPGs that spit out collectible cards that you can level up like Amiibo or something. It's a pretty novel idea, actually, and probably one of the reasons for arcade game's staying power in Japan.

One of SEGA's current popular games is based on the equally popular Kantai Collection, wherein World War II-era battleships are re-envisioned as cute girls, battling evil monsters who sometimes also are cute boat girls... Look, don't worry about it.

Gallery

While the original mobile version of the game is a rather simple RPG, the arcade game has a lot more going for it. You need to steer your fleet around the ocean to avoid enemy attacks, but like the original you are still reliant on RNG to carry you through when it comes to your attacks. It all does look very flashy though and as I mentioned earlier, you get physical card rewards for playing.

Gallery

While it took years for Puzzle & Dragons to make it west, it eventually did happen, so who knows if it'll happen for Kantai Collection? Maybe Nintendo will be the ones to do it again, turning Luigi into a boat or something?

In any event, SEGA has uploaded uploaded this nice gameplay demonstration, starring voice actress Rina Hidaka who lends her voice to at least four different boats in the anime and the game.

Nice Boat!

One thing I'm always impressed with in these beautiful AAA games, is the amount of work they put into the small things that helps brings the world alive... Those things that you barely notice, because your brain is so focused on processing gameplay data; identifying enemies, items and loot.

We all see and play so many games, but stopping and looking at art for a moment and considering the fact that someone took time to create it for the game, can be fun too.

Ubisoft is notoriously boring with their games, opting to keep a drab and serious look to their textures, where artists at places like Rockstar or even the Call of Duty studios do something more fun and easter-eggy.

I took a whole bunch of screenshots of some of the more interesting stuff I found

Only a few days now until The Phantom Pain comes out and I believe the world will change.

Maybe it's the wait that makes you crazy, but I started seeing patterns and threads connecting all sorts of events with Kojima and Konami leading up to the release. Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize the end of an era for Konami, whom I adore as being one of the kings of the arcade... or maybe there's something to it?

Read on!

Kiefer Sutherland

I recently re-watched "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" starring Donald Sutherland. That movie is without a doubt one of Kojima's favorite as he's basically made a game about it with Terminators and one of the unlockable missions in Ground Zeroes is literally about taking out Body Snatchers.

Is the presence of Kiefer Sutherland merely because Kojima is pursuing a lifelong dream to work with an actor related to one of his favorite movies, or is it a clue... That the Big Boss you play as in Ground Zeroes isn't the real Big Boss?

In the video introducing Kiefer, he never explicitly state himself that he is playing Big Boss.

The Medic

For some reason they really went out of their way to obscure the Medic's face throughout this whole cut scene. When he speaks, you can easily make out that it's Kiefer Sutherland pitched down a bit.

The sequence ends with the medic taking the brunt of the explosion and having his face burned. Will he turn out to be important for the story?

The Doctor

The doctor at the end of the trailer bears a striking resemblance to a Dr. Sergio Canavero who has been been brought to the attention of media across the world, because he's planning to perform the worlds first head transplant on something called "Project Heaven".

I won't go in to all the details here, but there's a thread on NeoGaf about the similarities between this "real world" doctor and the one in Metal Gear.

At the start of the marketing campaign for The Phantom Pain, Kojima himself also had his head "replaced" as part of the whole Joakim Mogren ruse.

Of course, Dr. Sergio Canavero denies having anything to do with Metal Gear and Kojima, but what if it is a trick?

Kojima's magnum opus would without a doubt be to trick the world and showing us how information can be manipulated and skewered through modern media in the current, socially connected world. If every news outlet could fall for the story about head transplants, then what other stories could he have brewed up?

"Truth" is a concept that springs from facts as much as opinion. As long as enough people share the same opinion, it will ultimately be deemed as being the truth.

Konami

Konami's been making big waves in gaming news, ever since Kojima's name was scrubbed from the game cases, he's evidently been removed from the board of directors, P.T. was taken down and Silent Hills was cancelled.

A lot of bad news about their work ethics have since surfaced, which it turn has turned out to be not so bad by Japanese standards and even odder is the fact that Jim Sterling has some alleged contacts inside Konami who says the Nikkei article is false.

It seems like they pulled a lot of bad stunts, which might be why they removed themselves from the stock exchange back in April, but is this because they're actually restructuring Konami to be some kind of Yakuza front, or is it because they are protecting their stock until The Phantom Pain comes out and shows that it is all another Kojima trick?

P.T.

The critically acclaimed horror demo for Silent Hills starring Norman Reedus seems to have mysteriously vanished as Silent Hills was cancelled. It seemed like another, elaborate, scheme for Konami to purge Kojima's name from their company, but there's a few questions left:

What does P.T. stand for? They told us on stage during the presentation that it stands for "Playable Teaser, of course", but I don't think that it says than in writing in any of the game's related material.

Why does the letters PT along with a symbol for fear appear in the latest Gameplay Demo for The Phantom Pain?

Sunset Riders

As fans of the Game Room on Xbox Live will tell you, Game Room can be launched today and you'd still see trailers for this classic Konami arcade game, without any option to buy it... could this be another clue?

Let's look how these two games stack up

Could the Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain in reality be a secret Sunset Riders sequel??

All these questions will hopefully be answered when The Phantom Pain comes out.

Limbo, Never Alone, Tearaway... All games with simple mechanics that are designed to tug at our heartstrings. There's no denying that the Emotional Platformer is here to stay, but which game was the first? Which game was the one that defined the genre?

A bit of background info; I've recently gotten into collecting bootleg Famicom carts. It's honestly a waste of money and you should really either collect the original carts or just download the roms, if you don't care about the collection aspect. The reason I'm collecting them is for the funny labels and because you sometimes stumble upon Chinese games that only ever appeared on these multicarts.

It was on one of these carts that I stumbled upon a romhack of Adventure Island II called "Dad,where are you g'oing?". Considering that this romhack probably was put together sometime back in the 90s, I think this makes it the game that helped redefine the platformer genre for a more emotional generation that doesn't care about getting killstreaks or K/D ratios, but feelings.

With a few simple sprite changes, it is now no longer Takahashi Meijin riding a dinosaur, but a boy getting carried by his dad. With the title and the sprite change, the game suddenly becomes an emotional rollercoaster, where you try to find your dad in an egg (as you do) and get to the end of each stage.

When dad is carrying you, there's nothing that you can't do. Dad is strong and can break rocks with his kick-attacks... Something that you cannot do on your own. Dad will go anywhere you ask him to, but if you get hit by an enemy attack, you will lose dad again... and it will be your fault.

The concept of rapidly deteriorating health, found in the original Adventure Island II, is still present in "Dad,where are you g'oing?", so even if dad is gone, it's still important be a good boy (at platforming) and eat your vegetables. Maybe, just maybe, that will mean that you get to see dad again.

As you venture deeper into the game, you start to realize that there is more than just one dad, such as fireball-dad and underwater-swimming-dad who will carry you on their shoulders towards your future and protect you from the relentless attacks of tiny animals, who are all symbolic of the scrutiny a child with multiple dads might experience... very progressive for a 90's video game.

Whether it was intentional "Dad,where are you g'oing?" is undoubtedly a timeless classic that I firmly believe is the unknown originator of the modern emotional platformer genre. Whatever the family situation may be like in your life, this game perfectly captivates what it means to have or to lose a father figure: That strong person who will carry you on his shoulders, shoot fireballs and makes you feel safe as you know you can take that extra hit and still get through the level.

I was watching the Quicklook for Assassin's Creed IV and was reminded of the very specific way Ubisoft creates games.

In Assassin's Creed IV you play an incredibly "meta" role as a play tester for Abstergo and you're able to rate every mission in the game with 1 to 5 stars, which obviously is feedback that goes directly to Ubisoft.

I think everyone's noticed by now, the way in which gameplay elements blend over between games like Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, Far Cry and Watch_Dogs, which all seems to be features that people generally preferred in those games. One of the most lauded additions to Assassin's Creed 3 was the sailboat missions and that Assassin's Creed IV suddenly is a game about pirates hardly feels coincidental.

I'm not saying that there's no creativity at Ubisoft, but doesn't it feel like they are trying to distill "fun" and create a "product", rather than creating "art"?

In essence, I'm starting to feel that Ubisoft is the McDonald's of game development. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, because despite all the hypocrisy, everyone has had McDonald's at one time or another followed with varying degrees of regret, but can their efforts every hope to aspire to something truly unique or will they end up just making the same game over and over again?

So, the Wii U was just released in America.

It's not out in my end of the world until the 30th, but I am looking forward to it.

It seems that there has been a lot of confusion surrounding the system. Jeff mentioned that he stood in line with people who weren't quite sure why they were getting it and probably just were following the consumer pattern of feeling the need to get the next gadget.

The big question on everyones mind is "Which direction will Nintendo take the Wii U?". I think the knee-jerk reaction for most people might be "Well, it's the next Wii so it's obviously the family console for casual gamers", but if you really think about it, the casual gamers have moved on to Facebook and Smartphone games. Also, I still think that the name "Wii U" doesn't have quite the same consumer-penetration as something like "Super Wii" which totally is the name they should have used.

The way for Nintendo to really get success with the Wii U is, in my opinion, to bank on niche games and "gamers games". Forget about broadening the appeal, it's all about standing out. I think Nintendo is aware of this as well. Just take a look at the most prolific, exclusive, 3rd party launch game ZombiU (which incidentally could have had the excellent name "Super Zombie" if Nintendo had gone for the Super Wii name). Looking past the fact that Zombies and difficult games are super popular right now, it really is a title that tries to do something new, rather than being a shooter where you aim with the tablet, like the early stage demos would lead you to believe. This is also game which have sparked polarizing reviews and really have made it apparent who wants diverse gameplay experiences and who is satisfied with bombastic roller coaster rides. Forbes have written an excellent article that explains this at length and you really should give that a read.

Upcoming games like Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 also looks to be promising games that might not have the mass appeal of Call of Duty, but this is good, because who really needs a 3rd console to play the same multi-plat game on?

Of course, people buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games like the Marios and the Zeldas, but in my opinion the Wii U really needs more than that to be relevant. I don't think people buy a platform because of the way you control it. After the Wii, Playstation Move and Kinect, it's become apparent that it's actually about the games. I hope Nintendo realizes this as well and I hope the Wii U will be home for some of the most interesting 3rd party titles yet and revive the middle tier of niche games that aren't quite AAA titles and aren't quite Indie.

So, Free 2 Play, right?

It's kinda been this thing that for years have been synonymous with weird Korean MMORPGs and Facebook games meant to spam your wall with ads.

I've been giving some of them a go over the years, most notably was the game Granado Espada, which is a pretty standard Korean MMO that sets itself apart from having the player create a party of three characters to control at once, effectively creating your own party. The great thing about it is that the A.I. who controlled your party members and your chosen character if you were idle, did a pretty good job of attacking the closest target with your ranged character, tank it with your tank when it got in close and heal everyone up with the healer... oh, and did I mention that it was set in a sort of renaissance fantasy universe and had a Euro Trance soundtrack? It was quite possibly the best screensaver I ever had, while still being Korean, grindy and broken.

Now is the dawn of the pretty decent ones. I was just playing Iron Grip: Marauders today, which is an excellent turn based strategy/management type deal, yesterday I played Rusty Hearts, which is a loot driven brawler sorta game and I've also gotten started on D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter, which is a turn based social dungeon crawler where you don't really have to bother your friends for resources every two seconds.

These games are all well and fine, but I still feel a bit dirty paying for progression in these. I realize that it's a very feasible business model for these kinds of games, but it kinda feels like paying for cheat codes and morality tells me that you feel better about accomplishing something that you've put hard work into.

Quality is certainly going up though and the games I've mentioned earlier certainly points the way of what F2P should be. Question is if it's something that will hurt the industry in the long run? As it is right now, you never seem to hear about any professionals who really reviews these games and a lot of the reason for this is that these games are free... You can just pop it on and have a go for yourself if you think it looks interesting.

Problem with this is that if sites like Giant Bomb will start to fade away because no one is reviewing free games, the consumers wont know what to play and the market will be drown in titles and eat itself up, kinda like the video game crash of the 80's or the current iPhone market place.

Maybe then games will evolve into this thing where they are integrated into everything and you'll end up having XP bars on your TV and get bonuses for watching the same channel daily and sharing clips with your friends. It sorta already is like this. I got a message in my Twitter feed from Gabe over at Penny Arcade that told me the percentage of a book he had read on his Kindle and I started wondering if he got achievements on that thing as well.

No one can really presume to know the future of gaming, but it is interesting to see the Free 2 Play model evolving and I believe that as long as imagination is alive we will continue to get great stories told through that medium.