Our TGS 2015 Localization Wish List

Part of the fun at TGS is seeing all the Japanese games on the horizon that have yet to be announced for North America. It's always a guessing game whether or not we'll see some of these games, but it does give me some announcements to anticipate. Matt Miller and I walked around Tokyo Game Show this year to discover a lot of interesting in games in the works. These are the ones that look most promising to us.

Exist Archive
Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward) and Tri-Ace (Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile) has teamed up to create this new RPG for the PS4 and Vita. This sounds like a great collaboration, so I immediately got my hands-on the game at the show and wasn't disappointed. You platform your way through various obstacles and engage in an interesting turn-based/action battle system hybrid. There's an action and guard phase. During your action phase, you can pile on a certain number of hits on enemies by pressing various action buttons. When your guard phase comes up, you don't just stand there either - you can block and counter oncoming attacks. The demo was in Japanese, so I didn't get to take away much about the story, but Tri-Ace has said it considers this game to be a spiritual successor to Valkyrie Profile, which is more than enough to generate my interest. This is by far my most wanted game for localization. 

Nioh
Koei Tecmo reintroduced Nioh at the pre-TGS Sony press conference. The game was originally announced for PS3 in 2005, but it's now launching on PS4 in 2016 in Japan. In it, you play as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed samurai named Williams. Williams is in Japan to confront a long, lost enemy. He'll grow as samurai and "Yokai hunter" throughout the trek. At first glance, The game has overtones of From Software's Dark Souls series. Williams can use swords and spears in the action combat and also switch to different stances for an edge in combat. It's one of the more interesting games to come from Koei Tecmo, and it's cool to see it work on something other than Dynasty Warriors for a change. 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Vanillaware and Atlus are teaming up again this time for 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim for PS4 and Vita. The game was revealed in a cool trailer at Sony's pre-TGS press conference. While no details have been discussed yet, the trailer showed a world much more grounded in reality than past games we've seen from Vanillaware, but with a sci-fi twist and giant robots! I'm super excited to see what it does with such a different setting, especially since major themes of the game are despair and destruction of everyday life due to catastrophe. 

Dragon Quest Builders
Dragon Quest meets Minecraft? It's the crossover you never knew you wanted, until you start playing it. Dragon Quest Builders takes all the iconic aspects of the series and turns it into to a fun game about surviving. You build places like work areas and bedrooms. Building up the world allows more NPCs to come to your town. Crafting is a huge aspect, letting you make stuff to put in your buildings and to help you get by. In my hands-on demo, I attacked blue slimes, and their gel allowed me to create a healing potion. If you're a Dragon Quest fan, it's fun to just see how the series gets incorporated into the building up the world.

Up next: Monster Hunter and Atelier love!

Monster Hunter X and Monster Hunter Stories
Capcom come had two Monster Hunter games unannounced for North America on display at the show: Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter X. Monster Hunter X is the action/RPG experience we've come to know and love from the series, but Monster Hunter Stories, on the hand, embraces a more anime art style and is a turn-based RPG. We'd like to see both come over. Monster Hunter X features a new village, in addition to three others we've already seen in the series. All fourteen weapons types from Monster Hunter 4 ultimate are also making their way to the game. New hunting arts and styles bring some unique options to franchise, adding special weapon attacks and buffs and healing spells to the equation. With all the recent success of Monster Hunter in North America, we're hoping Capcom takes that as reason enough to localize both games, but of the two, Monster Hunter X probably has the better chance of gracing our shores. 

Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist Of The Mysterious Book
I've been enjoying the Atelier series for some time now, and hope that Koei Tecmo continues localizing them for North America. Next up is Atelier Sophie. I got hands-on time with the game, but my limited Japanese skills didn't do me any favors with figuring much out. I used alchemy to create some healing items and then walked around the village and got introduced to new characters. It appears some new features have been added to alchemy, such as arranging the ingredients in a puzzle for bonuses. Atelier Sophie takes place in an era before alchemy was rampant, so Sophie doesn't have a mentor to keep her out of trouble, which seems to lend its own fun. However, when she comes across a mysterious book, she must take things seriously as needs to put its memories back together.

God Eater Resurrection
The God Eater series hasn't exactly made waves in North America, so this one doesn't have a great chance of being localized, but I thought the demo was fun and wanted to give it a nod. The action/RPG  is set to hit both PS4 and Vita in Japan. Resurrection is a remake of the first God Eater game and its visual upgrade stands out. It also features a new predator mode, which allows new devouring options, such as mid-air, from above, and dashing. The game will feature weapons from previous games, while the story has been enhanced with new scenarios that connect it better to God Eater 2. With this being a remake of the original God Eater, now would be a good time for Bandai Namco to consider reintroducing the series to North America. Here's hoping!

7th Dragon III: Code VFO
This is a series I'm sad never made its way over. I've always wanted to play it, and I used TGS to see what it's all about, and I came away loving the new entry for 3DS. You create your own classes for characters and dungeon crawl to level them up by taking out massive dragon bosses. If you like Etrian Odyssey, but don't want the hassle of drawing a map, this game is for you. The turn-based battles are fast and fun, especially as you get new skills for your characters. This entry seemed more futuristic from the demo, with my character using a machine of some sort to access the dungeons. A sinister-looking rabbit was also tormenting or encouraging me to fight. Man, I really need to learn more Japanese...

What games do you hope to see localized from the show? Let us know in the comments below!