The Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX for short, is one of the largest video game conventions open to the public.  I’ve been going to it annually for nearly ten years now.  PAX West in Seattle was last weekend, so here are my impressions of the show!  The convention is so big that I had to split my articles into three parts.  Before I get started, I wanted to let you all know that I couldn’t cover EVERYTHING at the show.  I’m just one person and just tried to focus on games that interest me and what would fit the theme of this site.  Anyway, in this first part, we’ll go over games featured by major publishers, like Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Capcom, SEGA, and Square-Enix!

Nintendo

What surprised me about Nintendo is that they had a much smaller presence at this year’s PAX.  Usually they have a larger showing, probably because it’s easy for them to go since their Redmond headquarters is close to Seattle.  I don’t know if it’s because the NX is coming out next year or what, but this year they did have a more limited showing than usual.

Their man booth on the show floor mostly focused on Pokémon Sun & Moon.

They also showed Dragon Quest 7 on 3DS (they’ll release every Dragon Quest game here now except for the sequel to Rocket Slime…grrr!), and Yo-Kai Watch 2.  Here’s a display with the toys and games from the popular new franchise.

They also had a display with some of the newer amiibo figures.  I have them all except for some of the Mario figures in the middle.  I wish they would’ve shown some of the new Zelda amiibo they announced at E3 and the latest Nintendo Direct.

The last thing on display at their booth was the NES Classic Edition.  It’s a smaller NES-shaped device that houses dozens of NES game favorites.  It’ll be out this holiday season and they showed it next to the original NES here for size comparison.

Probably because of the popularity of Pokémon GO and the upcoming release of Sun & Moon, Pokémon was a big deal at this year’s PAX.  So much so that they even had a Pokémon Center store that folks were lined up to shop at!  In fact, usually near some escalators at the convention center, Nintendo showcases a bunch of new and upcoming 3DS games, but that area was strangely empty this year.  Instead, that area was just the line to get into the store, as well as big signs directing people where to find it.  Here’s a picture of one of those signs.

Heck, even outside the convention center, Pokémon was big at PAX!  Even at the local coffee shops, Poke-Fever was big.  Check out this sign:

And that’s nearly everything Nintendo had to show at PAX.  I was a little disappointed they didn’t show anything about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, like they did at E3.  I also wish they would’ve shown some of the things they announced during the recent Nintendo Direct.  Maybe this would be asking too much, but even a smidgen of info on the NX would’ve been nice.  But oh well.

However, there was one saving grace for Nintendo at PAX, and that was the “Nindies Game Lounge” on the 6^th floor.  It was a room where you can play upcoming downloadable games on the 3DS and Wii U.  The cool thing is I’ve already got a few of them to review later, so keep checking the site to see those. 

I did play a few games at the Nindies Game Lounge, though, and one of my favorites was Gurumin 3D.  Gurumin was originally on the PSP and PC, and it was one of my top five favorite games on the PSP, alongside others like Loco Roco, Mega Man Powered Up, Half-Minute Hero, and Ys Seven.  This version is a port of the original game, with added features like 3D graphics, better camera options and tutorials, and controls.  In the game you play as a young girl who moves to a new town.  She’s lonely at first, until she meets up with some friendly monsters who need her help!  Now she must embark on a colorful 3D platforming hack and slash adventure, using a drill as a weapon.  I played this game to death back in the day, and to me, it kind of has a Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends vibe to it.  The cool thing is this game was made by Nihon Falcom, makers of other popular game franchises like the Ys series.  In fact, there are some secrets and references to Ys in the Gurumin game for expert players.  The game will come out in a few weeks, and will only be about 15 bucks, which is a steal for this type of game.  Even better, if you buy it you’ll get a free Gurumin 3DS theme!  I only wish it would have a physical release, like the PSP did, but oh well.

Another game I played for the 3DS was Runbow Pocket.  It’s a portable version of the Wii U title, which I reviewed last year.  The portable version adds all the DLC from the Wii U game, like new playable characters such as Shantae!  You’ll even be able to play with up to 8 others online!  I wish you could do local download play, too, but maybe they can work that out later.  Another game from the same company was Pirate Pop Plus.  It’s a throwback to black and white Game Boy titles and plays like Buster Bros.  It’ll be a cross-buy on the Wii U and 3DS, and looks right up my alley.  It comes out later this fall, and I hope to get to review it!  Finally, I also checked out Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, developed by WayForward and published by XSEED.  I’ve always been a huge fan of the Shantae series, and I even still have my boxed copy of the original Game Boy game!  I can’t wait for this new title to come out at the end of the month.  It’s a good thing that my birthday is coming soon!

Bandai Namco Games

My all-time favorite game is Pac-Man, and I also love other arcade classics, so Bandai Namco Games is one of my favorite game companies for that reason.  They were at PAX this year, but I was disappointed they didn’t have Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 playable on the show floor, even though they had a video of it on one of the large monitors.  Most of the space at their booth was dedicated to Tekken 7.  They even had a large area where you could get your picture taken with people dressed up like Tekken fighters.  I think the guy on the far right must’ve eaten a can of spinach for breakfast.

The back side of their booth was focused on anime games like Dragonball Xenoverse 2.  On that same side was also a lady who I think was dressed as one of the characters from God Eater 2.  I don’t really know much about the God Eater franchise other than it’s Namco’s take on Monster Hunter and the music from the first game was made by my favorite video game music composer: Go Shiina.

Capcom

Capcom is another one of my favorite video game companies, as they do the Mega Man, Okami, and Phoenix Wright series.  Most of their booth was dedicated to Resident Evil.  I’m not sure which one, but the décor had a neat haunted house vibe to it.

At the back of the booth you could play games like Dead Rising 4 and Street Fighter V, which I didn’t understand since that game has been out for over six months now.  They also had a store with Capcom goodies I was drooling over.  I was disappointed that they only had a little corner for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice.  I was hoping they’d have the whole courtroom setup like they had at past E3 and PAX shows.  The demo you could play was also the same one you can download on the eShop, so that was also disappointing.  Luckily, the full game should be out around the time you read this.  Like I said earlier, good thing my birthday is coming up!

SEGA

It’s nice to see SEGA back in action again.  They showed a lot of games at PAX, but most of them I didn’t play, like a new Hatsune Miku music game.  But they did have a couple of new Sonic games I got to check out.  One was Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice on 3DS.  It’s similar to the first 2D Sonic Boom game on the handheld, but now you can switch between a fire and ice element to solve puzzles and find secrets.  Basically you can create ice to run on or destroy them with fire.  Bosses take up both screens and you can play as all the heroes in the Sonic Boom franchise.  It’ll have an uphill battle considering fans’ reactions to Sonic Boom, but I didn’t think the games were THAT bad.

Luckily for classic Sonic fans, SEGA has a step in the right direction with Sonic Mania, which will be a downloadable title in 2017.  It looks and plays like a classic 2D Sonic title from the Genesis days, mostly Sonic 3, as it has the fire, bubble, and electric shields.  Sonic 3 was my favorite, so that’s a good thing.  They showed off a remixed Green Hill Zone and a new area called Studiopolis Zone, which had a Hollywood movie studio theme.  In that area were popcorn machines, camera vans that warped you around via satellite, and springy clackboards.  Another cool thing about this game is the music is AWESOME!  I think this’ll win over a lot of Sonic fans soured by Boom.

Square-Enix

And finally, Square-Enix had a wide variety of games at their booth.  I like it when game companies publish all sorts of different kinds of games.  I didn’t get to play ALL of their games shown at PAX, but I did get to demo three family friendly games that interested me in a private area.

Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue

I read the fact sheet and I’m still confused as to what all this game has on it.  But I do know it has an HD version of Dream Drop Distance that was originally on the 3DS, and that’s what I played.  But it’s a fun game, and looks great here in HD on the PS4.  Think we’ll get Kingdom Hearts 3 this decade?

Dragon Quest Builders

So what happens when you combine Minecraft with Dragon Quest?  Well you get this game of course!  You play as a builder who must rebuild the world after evil took over.  The main difference here is that instead of viewing the action from a first person perspective, you see everything from top down.  But the rest of it looks a lot like Minecraft.  But they throw in a lot of Dragon Quest references.  You know how in the first DQ game, your character’s name was Eldrick?  In here your name is Bildrick!  You explore huge overworlds looking for places to plant a magic banner, which will be a safe zone where you can build towns and such.  Break apart materials and use special tree stumps to craft items like healing cream, weapons, and blocks to stand on and build walls with.  You’ll even battle classic Dragon Quest enemies while exploring!  I’ve stayed away from Minecraft because I’m afraid I’d get too addicted to it, but add Dragon Quest familiarity in there and I may have to dive into this one.  Yet another reason to get a PS4.

World of Final Fantasy

One of the big games that they were showing was Final Fantasy XV, which I wasn’t much interested in.  But when I was in high school, I loved the Final Fantasy games in the 16-bit days.  Especially 4, 5, and 9.  So I was so happy to play World of Final Fantasy, as it feels like a Final Fantasy game designed just for me!  You play as a boy and girl who look like Kingdom Hearts rejects, and they explore classic Final Fantasy worlds to help regain their memories.  The chibi characters they meet have huge heads and tiny bodies, like how they looked in old school RPGs.  Your characters can even shrink down, too, somehow.  In the first area I encountered, I visited Cornelia town and castle, and even talked with Princess Sarah from the first game!  Even the classic music is back and remixed!

Battles take a cue from Pokémon, as you can capture and fight with all sorts of classic FF monsters.  But I think you must beat the boss of a world before you can do that.  For some reason, you can stack these monsters on top of your head for some sort of strategy in battle, but I wasn’t sure exactly how that worked.  But I didn’t care.  I was just happy to play a cheerful and colorful Final Fantasy game with playful and funny (albeit cheesy) humor and dialogue.  It’ll be out on PS4, which I don’t have yet, but the cool thing is it’ll also be out on Vita.  So if I don’t get a PS4 soon, I can still play it on my Vita!  Yay!  This is definitely a game I’m keeping my eye on and it was one of my favorites to play at PAX!

One last Square-Enix related thing before we wrap up this article.  One day after the show as we were walking back to the hotel, I heard a strange car horn on the street.  But it also sounded vaguely familiar, kind of a “Kweh, kweh” sound.  Then I looked behind me and saw this:

It was a Chocobo car!  Square-Enix was using it to help promote Final Fantasy XV at PAX.  Turns out it was an Uber car that you could make reservations to ride around.  If I had known that earlier, I might’ve tried it.  But I didn’t find that out until I was about to leave for the airport home.  But luckily I did get a chance to take a picture of the front of the car as well.

And that’s all for part one!  Stay tuned for part two, where I play games from smaller developers and describe my first ever experiences playing VR games!  –Cary

Tags: Misc