Report version 0.3

Went to the TGS on Friday (press day) with Hitoshi, adn others....

The Namco booth had something that grabbed my attention.... Tales of
Phantasia... (yes, that game which came out a long time ago on the Super
Famicon (SNES) in Japan, sold out very quickly... Some (few )stores
re-stocked, and a samll number of them are still available, if ou look
for it hard enough in Akihabara ^_^;;; (but the price is NOT
cheap......)

The reason it's popular, and grabbed my attention is, not just due to
the good game system, but the character desgins are done by Fujishima
Kousuke... (yes... he did this before Sakura Taisen.....) (most of you
probably know this already ^_^;)

The Playstation version was announced to be released a while ago, and at
this Game Show, there it was,at the Namco booth..... grabbing Fujishima
fan's attention.....
The Tales of Destiny was a good hit as well (the following game after
Tales of Phantasia), and made Inomata Mutsumi a very famous person
(she's the character designer on that game) because of that game.... 

The booth was playing the Opening animation of the Tales of Phantasia
(Play Station version) and it was VERY impressive... (I think I stood
there and watched it 3 times........) much better then the Super Famicon
version (it better be ^_^;) and using similar technology used in Tales
of Destiny opening animation..... (and thank go, it;s not "full polygon"
like Square's Final Fantasy 8 demo opening...)
(got to go back there tommorow, and negotiate for a press kit ^_^;;;)

Side note... The Square booth had the Final Fantasy 8 opening movie on
display... the CG polygon technology imprved even more... looks like
it's going to be have good visuals again... (the only problem with
Square is, since Final Fantasy 4 (Japanese version), their technology
advanced greatly (good programers, and heavy investment.... as
usual....) but the game story... it seems to be getting... uhmm....
weaker... ;_;

The other companies had rather impressive stuff as well... can't fit it
in here (AMG ML)(and since it's off topic, I won't post it here... don't
want to be flamed ^_^;;;) Maybe I'll continue post on the otaku-ml
insetad ^_^;;;

Kenji Shimizu