Hiya!

Well, Tokyo Game Show has come and gone. As a card-carrying Sony PlayStation fangirl, I was looking forward to their then upcoming State of Play as, well, this is Tokyo Game Show! I was expecting some really huge announcements and reveals to coincide with the event. I had high hopes for more details on Arc System Work‘s Marvel TOKON or maybe a shadow drop for a demo for the upcoming Resident Evil: Requiem. After all, this is Tokyo Game Show! Sony had to bring in some big guns for this major event, right?

Sadly, I was wrong. So very wrong.

It looks like I was expecting too much from Sony as, if I’m being honest, it just didn’t meet up to my self-imposed high expectations for it. However, that’s not really it. Even if I didn’t think Sony was going to go all-out for their State of Play during Japan’s biggest gaming event and they were going to be more conservative about it, this was still a big disappointment in my opinion.

First off, I will have to mention the one bloody shining reveal during the show: Marvel‘s Wolverine. The game is being developed by Insomniac Games, the same company behind Marvel’s Spider-Man games on the PlayStation consoles. They were great games but I was worried Insomniac Games would wuss out and make Wolverine, a guy who has claws coming out of his fists, be a very safe game to make it more kiddie friendly for the younger comic book lovers out there.

Thankfully, I was wrong here as well as Wolverine looks like it’s going to have very visceral combat. That’s putting it lightly, by the way! Sadly, Marvel’s Wolverine was only shown during the very end of the State of Play. This means I had to trudge through a lot of boring stuff in order to get to the bloody disgusting good thing about the show!

I initially did keep my hopes up when they showed off SAROS, the spiritual successor to Returnal. As I don’t have a PlayStation 5 as of yet (but I’m gifting myself one for the upcoming Holiday season), I didn’t play Returnal but I have heard a lot of good things about it. The thing is, one of the things I heard about it is its brutal difficulty. I’m not exactly someone who has the quickest reflexes so playing a bullet-hell third person shooter game isn’t exactly something I know I’m not going to be good at.

Well, SAROS is pretty much the sequel so I would expect it to be Returnal… but only more difficult and more bullet hell-y. So, while I do think SAROS looks cool, I don’t think I should play it when I do get my PlayStation 5 on Christmas. I mean, I don’t want to be smashing my brand spanking new DualSense controller into the floor out of frustration, do I? Those things are expensive!

I guess the most surprising game I saw during the State of Play was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. I mean, seeing a game with the name Microsoft, the same guys who make the Xbox consoles, one of their primary competitors, show up on a Sony PlayStation broadcast was trippy. Then again, I already knew this was happening as this was announced earlier in the year or something but it’s still very weird to see it. Even so, I have no inkling to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 anyways. So, while it was strange, it wasn’t strange enough to really pique my interest for the game.

We then got through a cavalcade of what I would say very underwhelming game announcements. I’m not trying to yuck on anyone’s yum here. I know there are going to be some gamers who are excited for some of the games they showed. However, I’m totally unexcited for future entries like The Seven Deadly Sins: Origins, Battlefield 6, Code Vein II and Let It Die: Inferno.

I guess I was a little tickled by some games like Nioh 3 and Crimson Desert. They did show some promise, I guess. My issue is, for the former, is I don’t have any connection to the Nioh franchise as I’ve never played or seen any of the earlier games. For the latter, there’s just a certain level of blandness in the art direction as it looks like something from Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. I kind of need more than just the generic medieval look they showed to get me more interested. Maybe if they showed a bit more of both Nioh 3 and Crimson Desert, I would be more enthused.

However, for me, the worst thing about the State of Play Sony produced for the Tokyo Game Show would be their hardware reveals. They showed off a couple of new things: speakers and a recolored controller. Let’s tackle the second thing first, which would be the God of War 20th Anniversary Limited DualSense controller. Now, I played the 2005 God of War game and I thought it was great. That was way back on the PlayStation 2. So, making a limited-edition controller to celebrate God of War’s 20th anniversary is something I actually can get behind. What I can’t get behind is not also announcing the original game being made available for current systems! Yeah, I know it’s an old PlayStation 2 game. Even so, if you’re going to celebrate God of War’s 20th anniversary, I would rather celebrate it by playing the game rather than a controller that just so happens to have Kratos‘ color scheme on it!

Then we have the speakers. Oh, sorry. I mean the PULSE Elevate Wireless Speakers. Not to be a negative nancy or anything as I’m sure there are some audiophiles who saw this and started to swoon at the potential of… tilting speakers? I’m sorry but I don’t get it. I understand the idea of 3D surround sound and all that but I just don’t think it’s that important in video games as a whole. Maybe I’m missing out and my immersion could be enhanced if I believed otherwise but, as of right now, this just seems like a colossal waste of money, especially when I could use that money to instead buy, say, more games.

Look, I really wanted Sony’s State of Play during the Tokyo Game Show to be one of the most exciting things I’ve seen. I might have just ruined my experience by hyping myself too much and that’s why I feel this was a huge disappointment. Even with that, I’m not going to turn in my PlayStation fangirl card as I do know they’re just saving their best stuff for The Game Awards.

See, Sony? I’m already vouching for you! Don’t make me a liar!

Byee!

What did you think of the most recent PlayStation State of Play? Let me know in the comments section below!