图文feature：翻看 Sammy 在 Gamescom 与 Tokyo Game Show 拍的照片

I’ve been wanting to share some of my adventures from Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show for weeks now, but I wasn’t really sure how best to package it.

Then, earlier this week while I was out running, I realised I didn’t really need a big overarching theme or some inspirational message – what if I just posted the best bits in a big fat gallery-style article, with anecdotes?

I don’t know how many people will be interested in this, but this is content sitting on the cutting room floor, so I’m going to give it a go.

Also, I think it’s fun to show some of the stuff happening outside of the previews; obviously they’re the meat-and-potatoes of why you come to the site, but we’re trying to be a bit looser and more personal with our content these days, so why not give it a try?

Gamescom, then. This was my second time attending the show, and I went armed with ample experience from the year prior.

The main thing is that even on the business days, you’re not going to get into the event early. And if you want to see the booths, then you better make damn sure you have a free schedule on the morning of the first day to walk around.

My plan was simple: I wanted to explore the HoYoverse on the morning of my first day. As many of you will already know, I’m a huge fan of games like Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero, and so I wanted to spend a bit of personal time engaging with their activities before taking my normal appointments.

This was a pretty cool booth because the Chinese dev has so many games now, it was able to divide it up into sections, with different activities for Genshin Impact and its upcoming games Honkai: Nexus Anima and Petit Planet.

After exploring, I queued up for the merch – which already had a sizable line – and ended up spending way too much money. They did have some items I hadn’t seen anywhere else, but actually I’d find a lot better items in Japan a few weeks later. (And cheaper too, but more on that soon!)

I think what was interesting about Gamescom and what I can reflect on now in early October is that all the Chinese devs decided to put their energy into the Cologne show instead.

To my knowledge, outside of some potential indie booths, there were zero Chinese games on display at the Tokyo Game Show, despite many of those titles being huge in Japan.

This is obviously political and I’m not going to spend too much time analysing that, but it was really interesting to see major upcoming titles like Tides of Annihilation, Arknights: Endfield, and Silver Palace really dominate the German showfloor.

I did want to acknowledge one random thing that happened while I was exploring the Gamescom.

My colleague Craig from Pure Xbox had kindly asked me to take some photos of Microsoft’s booth, which I was happy to help with. However, as I was exploring the area, I happened upon new boss Asha Sharma, who was engaged in a photoshoot.

Embarrassingly, I think she saw me stealthily snapping her picture out of the corner of her eye, so she came over to talk with me.

She was really nice, and asked me which games I recommended at the show. (I shouted out Tides of Annihilation as I’d just got back from China to play the game a week or so earlier. I don’t think she’d heard of it.)

Anyway, I didn’t get a selfie with her because the whole encounter understandably took me by surprise, but yeah that happened… Hah!

While I spent much of the rest of my time in Koelnmesse in the business area taking appointments, I did have a mixup with one meeting which gave me a bit of free time to explore the indie artist area.

Actually it was amazing to see how talented everyone is, and I ended up buying a bunch of different posters, including some Zenless Zone Zero magazine-style covers and a picture of Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries holding a cat. I’m sorry, I don’t have each individual artist’s name to hand, otherwise I’d promote their work. If any of you are reading, thank you for selling me your awesome posters!

Life doesn’t stop, so a few weeks later I headed off to Tokyo, but I’d planned a pitstop in Bangkok.

I don’t really have much to share here outside of temples and dodgy looking bars, but I did want to acknowledge one anecdote before I get into the TGS stuff.

One morning I’d decided to go to a breakfast place that was pretty highly rated on Google Maps, and it was in the general area of several used Japanese bookstores.

As I like reading manga and enjoy exploring bookshops in general, I decided to take a look inside. And in one, nestled deep in the corner, I discovered a Japanese copy of Tokyo Jungle for the PS3, selling for approximately $5. Of course I bought it.

My other major purchase in Bangkok was Lisa’s Alterego comic book, which I found in Kinokuniya. The Thai singer is of course a global ambassador for PlayStation and has her own DualSense coming out this month.

Actually I already own the individual volumes of this short series, but I decided to pick up the combined omnibus edition anyway because clearly I don’t already own enough books and tat at home.

Onwards to Japan, then, and I had a few days before TGS started proper. I won’t bore you with every single drip-and-drab of my trip, but I wanted to mention a few things I think you may be interested in.

One of my first stops was the giant flagship Animate in Ikebukuro, where, as mentioned, they had even better HoYoverse merch than at Gamescom. (Please note the giant NTE ad on the outside of the building – it’s the first time I’ve seen this game marketed IRL.)

One thing that caught my eye but I wasn’t able to buy purely due to logistics were these giant posters featuring the various Event keyarts from Zenless Zone Zero. If you play the game, you’ll know the team will often create gorgeous artwork for the main menus, which definitely would look great on display.

I assigned myself a shopping list this time, because I’m always anxious about buying too much tat in Japan. (It’s tough to resist.)

One thing I had on my list was X-Men vs Street Fighter for SEGA Saturn, and I was able to pick up a reasonably priced boxed copy in the nearby Super Potato, with minimal damage and the original 4MB RAM Cartridge included. Actually, I’d budgeted much more for this, so I was happy to get it for much less. (I did stare longingly at that copy of Pepsiman, but ultimately walked away.)

Another place I wanted to shop at in Tokyo was the Tower Records in Shibuya. Like most people, I don’t really buy much physical music these days, but Soyeon’s new album had just come out while I was in Thailand and it was another item on my list.

I will say, physical music does feel like it’s in the best place it’s been for a while. Even in my hometown here in the UK – which is admittedly a bit hipster – a record store has opened recently, and it’s always packed with various people browsing. (I’m fascinated by how it seems to attract younger and older generations equally.)

I digress. Anyway, despite multiple trips to Tokyo, I’d never actually been to Nakano Broadway, which is an indoor shopping mall mostly occupied by Mandrake. Effectively, it’s a bunch of thrift stores selling used books, games, figurines, and more.

I was a bit non-plussed about this place until I got upstairs and actually found the things I was looking for.

But I ended up taking hundreds of photos here, and I could have spent a fortune if I didn’t impose a limit on myself.

If I’m going to point out a few things that caught my eye, I really loved the Mai Shiranui shirt from Fatal Fury, which I did actually go back to pick up a few days later. And yes, I finally found one of those famous ‘Used Panties’ gacha machines – they’re real. I’d never seen one of those before.

As I mentioned in a recent article, I’ve been collecting the Sakura Wars games, so I was really excited to find a copy of Hanagumi Taisen Columns for SEGA Saturn with its original obi intact in Nakano Broadway.

This is one I’d been hunting for on a few separate trips, and I was happy to add it to my collection.

The next day I’d resolved to spend some time bouncing around various book shops, but I did want to spend a little time in the other Animate store in Akihabara, as I was vaguely aware they’d set up an SNK pop-up store on one of the floors.

This place was really cool, with a massive graffiti wall showcasing art from various Neo Geo games and franchises. They also had the new Neo Geo AES+ on display, which has sadly been delayed until 2027, but looks ace.

I ended up buying a bunch of little blind boxes here, and while I hate this concept because you never truly get the character you want, I came away happy as a lot of the old King of Fighters and Fatal Fury concept art is cool as hell.

That took me all the way to the evening before TGS, and SEGA’s annual pre-show party.

This year’s event was still in Ginza, but in an underground nightclub instead of the top floor at a skyscraper the publisher usually uses.

Actually while I arrived fashionably late, I got to hear the tail-end of a Persona performance, which led right into a Crazy Taxi-themed set and then a band playing songs from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. They had a vocalist and a violinist, and I fought my way to the front to get some cool photos.

Once inside TGS itself, I was a bit taken aback by how busy it was even on the morning of the first business day. (Spoiler, I did not return for the public days, but my understanding is you basically couldn’t move.)

This year’s show was big on spectacle, as is always the case, but I think it did feel stretched without the aforementioned Chinese devs to fill out the floor space further.

While many parts of the convention felt utterly bottlenecked – particularly around SEGA’s booth – it struck me that other areas seemed sparse.

There are a few things I’d like to point out here: Stranger Than Heaven had a really nice walkthrough area showing off all the locations from the game, which I really enjoyed.

Konami had a similar area to celebrate its 30th anniversary, and they’d actually put up concept art from the likes of Castlevania, which was incredibly cool to look at. (Despite the hustle and bustle around me.)

I think Palworld in particular was flexing; it had a booth on par with the likes of PlayStation and Bandai Namco, with rideable creatures from the games and tons of enormous statues. This didn’t feel like an indie studio, and honestly, maybe I’m petty, but it felt like a big f**k you to Nintendo, who obviously tried to pull the game from sale.

I’ve already written about the PlayStation booth in a separate dedicated article, so I’ll point you to that piece if you want to get a better look at what Sony was up to, but as has been well reported on social media, the platform holder’s GTA 6 theatre experience pulled massive crowds on each day of the event.

As many of you may know, there was a typhoon in Japan which cut this extended TGS short, and meant my flight home was disrupted.

The majority of my last day in Tokyo was spent inside Starbucks working – I wrote up my interview with Koei Tecmo on the upcoming The Apothecary Diaries game – before the weather cleared and I was forced to stay a night in Shanghai.

It’s here I discovered that apparently KFC flavoured Oreos are a real product the Chinese have decided to flog, and I’ll just divert your attention to my full and frank review below:

And that about wrapped up a busy couple of months for me. I hope you found this article fun and a little bit different. I don’t know whether this format will have any longevity, but I may as well push it out on a quiet Sunday evening, eh?

Thanks for reading!