GBAtemp's E3 Show Floor Coverage: Day 2 Wrap Up & Picture Album
Welcome back, GBAtemp, to the last piece of coverage of E3 2016. The big event has come to a close, and I'm back home. Attending this year's convention was one of the funnest, craziest, and most memorable experiences I've ever had. The crowds, the lines, the sights and sounds exploding around you! It was amazing. I'd like to thank GBAtemp for making this possible, especially Costello and T-Hug, you guys were instrumental in helping me be able to cover the event for the site. And thank you, GBAtemp members, for reading, commenting, and liking my articles, it means a lot! So, with that, it's time for a little wrap-up, and a bunch of pictures I took at the event!
Day 2 was off to a big start as you can see! This is the south hall of the convention center, which led to a completely different set of exhibits than the west hall. Square Enix, Ubisoft and Capcom were most prominent here.
And speaking of Capcom, here's their Ace Attorney 6: Spirit of Justice booth! The whole booth was decked out like the Khura'in Courtroom and people were posing and taking photos on the witness stand, next to a cardboard cutout of Phoenix Wright. This was definitely one of the more memorable exhibits. You could play the demo of the first case of the game. Turnabout Foreigner, there as well, which was awesome. I'm really looking forward to this title!
Here's something cool; the Into the Pixel exhibition. This is where the ESA judges the best video game artwork of the year. There were some amazing pieces of art from all sorts of developers on display. The pieces ranged from indie games, all the way up to AAA game artwork. Some of the featured pieces of art on display were from No Man's Sky, The Witcher 3, Song of the Deep, Dishonored 2, and Guild Wars 2.
Here's some pictures of the convention in general. You can see just how crazy packed it was, especially at Atlus' and Nintendo! I could hear someone over at Atlus whisper they were worried someone would shut down their booth for being over capacity! They even had to shut down the autograph line 15 minutes after opening it, because they didn't have enough time for everyone there to get something signed. Over on the other side of the booth they had demos for 7th Dragon III Code: VFD, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X, and Yakuza 0.
In 7th Dragon, you play as a squad of heroes, with the task of traveling through time to defeat all sorts of powerful dragons throughout history. You can choose from 8 different classes, with different abilities and attacks. You can play as samurai and mages, your typical JRPG fare, but there are also other classes like Hackers, which can use all sorts of special attack to inflict statuses and debuffs to the enemy. The SEGA representative told me that this will be a very grind-heavy type of game, and that you can't just rush into boss fights. It looks like an interesting game, but I'd need to know more about it before passing down a verdict. What really stood out to me though, was the music. One of the themes that was playing next to the booth is still stuck in my head!
Next up was Hatsune Miku. If you've played a game in the series before, you'll know exactly what to expect. New to the series are rush notes, where you mash the button on the controller for a limited time to get bonus points. You can also give the singers cute little outfits for them to wear on stage. The outfits you wear affect a voltage meter if you match the same category of outfit and song together. These categories include "cute, cool, beauty, neutral and chaos". All in all, it looks very fun! And with that, by playing 4 of SEGA/Atlus' games, I filled out a punch card, which got me this awesome Persona 5 Morgana hat! It's not made of the best quality around, but it's still really cool!
It's the latest game in SEGA's Japanese mafia-styled game, Yakuza 0. I got to play about 15 minutes of the game, and while I hadn't played a game in the series before, I was able to get into it immediately and have a blast. The staff next to the booth told me that this game is a prequel for "everyone that's wanted to get into the series, but didn't want to play on outdated hardware or miss out on important story moments. It's the perfect place for newcomers and returning fans!" You play as Kiryu Kazuma (and there are multiple other characters to play as later on) and the game takes place in 1980s Japan. From what I played, you run around going from quest to quest, and sometimes, certain groups of people challenge you to a fight. In these fights, you can use the D-Pad to change your fighting style from 4 different options, and each make dramatic changes to your fighting ability. You can also pick up items off the street to bash into your opponents, it was some excellent over-the-top action. If you've been wanting to get into the Yakuza series, this is going to be the perfect entry for you. The following video has a little bit of gameplay so you can see it in action!
After having done that, I ventured back to XSEED/Marvelous AQL's booth to try out Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star. Upon first impression, the game struck me as just another Dynasty Warriors styled game, and while it does share some similarities to that series, this game has a few differences from the regular formula. The combat is pretty much exactly what you expect, with light and heavy attacks alternating into combos, and a meter for special attacks that can wipe out hundreds of enemies upon usage. However, it's also much faster-paced. As you mow down tons of enemies in your path, you must defeat the stronger Aggressor units. Once you beat them, you gain control of a small area on the map. The game involves a lot of running back and forth to places you've previously cleared, as you have to ensure the enemy doesn't re-take an area you've already claimed. I wasn't too much of a fan, but since the game isn't even out in Japan yet, there's time for Marvelous to iron out the kinks before launch. Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star will be hitting PS4 and PS Vita in Winter of this year.
And so ends my trip to the Electronic Entertainment Expo of 2016. I had so much fun being able to go and meet with people in the gaming industry and just spend a full week talking about nothing but games. This was also a really good experience for me as a writer, I learned a lot from seeing all the other media outlets in action on the show floor. And hopefully, I'll be there again next year to utilize that knowledge! I'll have a post following this one if you'd like to see more pictures of the event as well.
Live Twitter Thread Day 1 Video Coverage
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