One of those rare visits again to the blog. Decided I'd like to type out my own comments on those trial game plays like what game magazine editors get to do all the time. Hehe.

I've been called an otaku one too many times by my friends already, it's not something I'm that proud of but well, where a situation calls for something to be done, it has to be done. Namely during a game convention, where it goes without saying to be on scene at least 1 hour before it actually begins.

This time it was the Jump Festa 2007, wow, my first time attending! :D And my third time this year going to Makuhari Messe, a whopping 2 hour journey from my hostel. Since it was scheduled to open its doors to visitors at 9am, I had to take the first Rapid train on the Chuo line, which required me to set off at (yawn) 5.35am so just I could reach the halls by 8am.

There were already tonnes of people just pouring from the station all heading towards the same destination, quite a number who were already frantic at 8am in the morning to beat the queue. When I got there, damn, I really can't describe how many people were already there. I was already starting to worry that I might miss the chance to get a ticket at the square booth to catch the exclusive video game footage in the Close Mega Theater, like what almost happened at the TGS 2007 if it wasn't for the generosity of a kind someone who offered me her ticket since she said she couldn't make the time.

I didn't run (but boy did I walk like lightning) to make the queue outside the hall but I couldn't help but give into the temptation to when I got in. I was determined not to let the chance for exclusive trial game playing and viewing yet un publicised video came clips slip me by this time. Not the third time no way.

Good thing was this was the Jump Festa. People come here for the anime, the game booths play a somewhat secondary role. Or so that's my theory, because when I got to the Square Enix booth, I could still see some space at the end of the marked out areas for queues. In fact I took a glance over at the Capcom booth and the DMC4 queue wasn't that long either.

Learnt my lesson from the TGS and went directly for the Closed Mega Theater, expecting them to be distributing tickets for the individual showing times, and they were. If you missed getting a ticket (because they give them out continuously until they're all gone) then you'd have absolutely no chance of getting in for the entire day. I got one for the 10am showing and it was about 9+am when I got my ticket. Turned a swift u-turn back to the Dissidia Final Fantasy queue after making a quick decision to try that out instead of KH 358/2 (Roxas and Axel's side of the story to KHII) since I own a PSP and not a DS. Despite the 60 min estimation on waiting time on the signboard, the queue moved fairly quickly and I was probably in the game playing area within about 30 min or so.

Dissidia's general gameplay system involves versus combat. For the trial session, you were made to choose one character out of 5 FF characters made playable including Squall and Zidane. The other chars come from the older FFs of which I'm not too familiar with. As expected of SE, the gameplay requires some technical skill and getting used to the controls. The terrain on which the chars fight on is 3D, with pillars on which your char can run vertically on provided you press the triangle button when the blinking arrows indicate the path you can choose to take other than on solid ground. There were also slopes and steps on which you could get your char to slide on either to get closer to the opponent or dodge a blow or something...? I don't know.. they got pretty annoying after a while because half the time I didn't know where I was sliding towards. In addition to the HP bar, there's a 3 digit number that I suppose has got something to do with your attack power. By successfully advancing towards the opponent and hitting the square button, your char can steal some of that power indicated by the change of the numbers. And when you manage to steal all of your opponent's power, that is, when the number hits 0, its indicated as 'Break' and your char's attack power will in turn increase significantly. Besides the usual attack and jump, pressing R + X + direction away from your opponent, this will allow you to dodge an oncoming attack. Your char does something like a backward somersault forwards and while airborne you can use the opportunity to launch an attack.

I didn't really get the hang of the system and controls and therefore wasn't able to fully utilise all the tricks available but if I remember correctly (or got the right idea of what was going on) there are some kind of power ups made available once in a while on the terrain which helps your char power up something like a power gauge which when full allows your char to enter some super mode to deal critical damage..... or something. I experienced some scenarios not explained on the manual which described the general controls and gameplay system, whereby after receiving damage and in the process airborned, you could press X to counter (?) can't remember exactly, but it was in response to receiving damage. And sometimes it was followed by either a prompt to press the square or circle to further attack, but I really can't say for certain.

Half the time being all confused trying to figure out where the opponent was while Squall climbed the pillars and the next half of the time trying to get to where the opponent was without getting hit, in the end, I managed to clear all the stages of the trial session which involved fighting all the playable chars. I certainly wouldn't have made it through if it was the normal difficulty cos I notice I was probably hit more times than I actually hit anyone. You could choose from two modes, can't remember the exact names but I bet it was something like simple cum easy mode and advanced cum normal mode or something.

If Dissidia was just to be a one-to-one combat game I probably would give it second thoughts as to whether I should buy it, but the Close Mega Theater provided greater depth as to the overall flow of the game. There is story and there are definitely more characters, some that look like obvious baddies like Sephy and what looks like an Edea from FFVIII. Some memorable cutscenes included Squall going head on with Sephy, a breath of fresh air from the usual stagnant scenes of Cloud vs Sephy and a Tidus playing some kind of a supportive role to Kuja during some combat scene followed by the former running at some ultra super high speed dodging some flame balls being hurled by... I can't remember who. Its really nice to see them pay tribute to the old FF chars in comparison to the recent emphasis on the FFVII compilation. Enough of CLOUD AND SEPHY ALREADYY!! Let me relive those days of playing FFVIII in secondary school with the stoic and stubborn and thus annoying at times Squall and those days from Spira and Sin's toxin!! Yea to Dissidia! Woohoo!

They also showed some clips from the 3 new KH games slated for release next year. KH coded for the handphone has a very basic fighting system it seems, from what I notice about the command bar - it only has the attack, magic and item commands. The clips offered some clues about gameplay including a High Speed Mode whereby you can zoom Sora around those pesky heartless and thus take them out more effortlessly. In addition to that, the Crash mode (? hope I got the name right) converts the current 3D battlescene into 2D (like rockman). The battlescenes seemed to involve destructible blocks which you can smash. No idea what the story for Coded's gonna be about but Sora was in the same clothes he wore in KH so it seemed pretty nostalgic, like we were going back to where everything started and tracing things back where they started.

KH Birth by Sleep involves Roxas, in his Twilight Town image with some unknown black haired fellow who seems to be a really good friend of his. 'Cept for some baddy-looking bald evil yellowed eyed guy (is he Xehanort? GASP!) who seemed to be arguing with the black haired guy about the use of the keyblade, while the latter saying it should be used for friendship.. blah blah. Yes such idealistic notions, oh the beauty of friendship. What striked me about the fighting scene was that the command bars were actually chargeable gauges, not sure what for but they were undoubtedly charging. I couldn't read off the Japanese that quickly, worse still it was in Katakana, but I did remember seeing a 'Fire' command undergoing charging so that might be an integral part of the gameplay system. Ooh can't wait to find out what its all about. Wonder when they'll make birth by sleep trial playable. Good thing again its for the PSP so I am sooo definitely going to buy that when its out.

Haha okay, and in addition to the KH spinoffs there was this completely out of nowhere irrelevant out of place game called The 3rd Birthday, hahaha, its name in itself a laughable mystery, I find. They showed a girl dressed as a bride walking down the aisle of a completely empty church and when she gets to the front, a shadow of a man appears at the doorway. He whips out a machine gun and showers bullets all over the place and the bride takes out a handgun, swiftly turns round and fires some shots. A ring flies outta nowhere and falls to the ground followed by blood spreading all over the floor. Whose blood I don't know, and then the man is seen carrying what I suppose is a woman as he turns to walk out the door... Right.. okay. NEXT!

The FFXIII cutscenes were more or less the same ones from the TGS closed theater, this time providing greater emphasis on the chars' expressions. Save for Agito, one can see the very distinct influence of foreign actors and films as depicted by the character designs. At the TGS, besides the very gloomy dark protagonist from Versus XIII they revealed a girl who based on the protagonist's reaction when he confronted her (by brandishing a sword, while she in turn morphed out some weapon) must have conflicting interests, and a joker looking Huckleberry Finn equivalent blond goofball touting a crazy looking shot barreled shotgun to boot. This time they further revealed a gang of other guys, about 2 or 3 more, who look like they're in cahoots with Mr Huckleberry. One of which looked very latino, and another one who looked like one of those smart brained baddies in Hollywood flicks, wearing spectacles and always the mastermind behind carefully planned attacks on the authorities. HAHAHA. The voices were muted but from their lip movement I don't think what they were speaking was English because it looked too strange coupled with such English speaking looking faces, I couldn't help but feel that Versus's different influences weren't very properly geled together, making it thus look a tad bit awkward. It's like they look like Caucasians but yet their movement looked a bit Japanese, or looked like what a Japanese thought a Caucasian from a Hollywood film would behave like. Now thats insightful. And also upon full body view, the chars look part Caucasian part gamish part Japanese and you could tell exactly which part of them looked like what. Like their proportions are definitely not realistic (long limbs and prominent but yet modest looking muscle - typically game char design), their clothes look like what a Japanese person would think looks cool, but they look Caucasian so.... you might be able to imagine, this could be the result of what a Japanese trying to play stylist for a Hollywood actor might turn out to be like. So funny yet confusing yet strange yet insightful. Oh they even threw in a scene that looked like the big leaders of the world in suits discussing recent spates of terrorist attacks round a table as in the movies. And there must always be a bearded guy!

Okay so enough of amusing myself with Versus XIII, FFXIII showed more scenes of this other girl who looks almost alike as the protagonist herself. I would say she bears some resemblance to VIII's Selphie, green eyes, cheerful disposition. Particularly notable was a closeup of the protagonist's face while she was confronted by some foot soldiers. Again what I would describe as a partly confusing mix between eastern and western influences. Her facial expression wasn't distinct and changed ever so slightly, shifting of the eyes, opening closing of the eyes, lip movement, and all to summarise one scene. The look from her eyes gives her a rather sleepy eyed dazed look, a somewhat lazy expression but mixed with determination at the last spurt of facial muscle movement where her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. But I'm quite sure I saw some what I describe as very darty movement of the eyes. I think its probably impossible for anyone to really tell what she was thinking or what kind of emotion she had while giving such a fzcial expression.

Other impressions from the Jump Festa... not much to say the least really. Having slept a meagre 1+ hour or so I was already suffering from the zombie withdrawal symptoms at about 1pm. In fact when I woke up that morning I was thinking What?! Already??! I contemplated trial playing DMC 4 again since I quite screwed the first time up with the controls and wasting valuable game playing time, and they were giving out some crystal strap again. But nah, too much queueing makes Jack a dull boy (does such an expression even exist?! HAHA). They had started extending ticket distribution te Dissidia and KH 358/2 somewhere in the late morning whilst I was wandering around the halls so by the time I decided I wanted to attack the queue for KH the gameplay tickets had already been completely distributed so no KH for me this time round. Another lesson to be learnt. No space for breathers in between, just do everything you came for first and relax later on.

Not one to leave more than an hour before closing time, I decided what the heck, lets just play FFIV on the DS even though its already out and I haven't that much of an interest, just so I could get the clear file they were giving out to those who trial played the game. For KH, they gave out a handphone strap and for Dissidia, a UMD holder with the game's logo on it. For those who entered the Close and Open theaters, they gave out a clear file with the FF 20th Anniversary logo as well as a pack of Christmas and new year themed postcards, really really cool with an assortment of game designs. You get random designs so you can't get all of 'em by just getting one pack. Since I was there alone, I really couldn't be bothered to go attack the queues for the same event again so I decided to heck it.

Despite part of me wanting to go home and sleep, the other part just thought it was ridiculous to come all the way to Makuhari and go back at 1+pm so the most obvious thing to do other than trial game playing was to purchase character goods. It's really incredible, this Jump Festa. They've got all the big merchandise companies down with their limited edition or early launch special anime merchandise of all the popular Jump anime. Naruto, One Piece, Prince of Tennis, Reborn, Bleach and others I can't keep track of. So you could be walking over to the Bandai booth and see a whole assortment of all the Jump character merchandise and then you walk down the Animate booth and you see a whole different assortment of the same characters. If that wasn't enough, there was a limited entry area for purchase of limited edition Jump Festa limited merchandise which you had to go all the way outside to queue for again. Queueing, I tell you its part of being Japanese. It's in their blood. They have a Queue gene that imprints the idea that queueing is part and parcel of daily life in their minds.

I think part of me was screaming out to be filled by retail therapy. It's like a little voice that echos out at the bottom of your heart that goes " I don't care what but just BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY! And MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE! WAHAHAHAHAHA! Don't you stop". But there wasn't really anything I thought was worth buying. Anime merchandise has come to the point that its just so predictable, they always produce the same ol things over and over again, same kind of average designs on characters. I just bought the ones I found rather amusing, like a Gintama file with a classroom scene in the usual chaos of character interaction. I bought a Naruto versus Sasuke themed wall clock (like wth right, wallclock) with a background of some mystical legendary animals like two gods waging war against each other. And then just to kill more time after buying the limited Jump goods that involved queueing both outside and inside again, I decided to hop into the SE goods queue since I saw a Cactuar plushie and I thought what the heck lets go queue again and get that for the brother. As a result of that spurt of unfounded urge to spend, besides the stuff above, I ended up with a black and white Naruto vs Sasuke themed Noren (piece of cloth hung over doorways in Japanese homes) and a small souvenir pack of custard cakes that says on the packaging, I was at the Jump Festa 2007!

What I thought was interesting too was a 2000yen priced One Piece themed Pirate Bento with rather satisfying-looking contents with what looked like a chicken leg which you had to hold up in one hand to bite off from, and skull shaped rice.

All my trips to Makuhari always end up exhausting and two out of the three times I've been there I had to go alone which is rather... sad but oh well, you know what they say. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And I got to play Dissidia and enter the Close Mega Theater and be entertained more than I bargained for.

Guess that sums things up as 'a good day' :)