Metal Gear Online is still being plugged, albeit with the promise of a new expansion pack (the Meme Expansion, for the record) to invest it with some worth. But Little Magician’s Magic Adventure on the DS is actually little but an embarrassing homage to Animal Crossing, right down to the character and world design, insect collection and room customization. Blame Nintendo for granting Konami a license for this…
Elsewhere, “Castlevania has been reborn as a 3D fighting game!” (That’s right out of the press release.) Castlevania Judgment is a far sight prettier than Soul Calibur Legends, which is ostensibly its closest same-format competition, but Judgment appears unlikely to offer Wii owners any real compensation for missing out on Soul Calibur IV.
Catlevania: Order of Ecclesia on DS is a more interesting proposition, as it continues the 2D platforming line of Castlevania, which has always been the series’ strongest suit.
Silent Hill Homecoming is looking gory as expected – and very polished gore it is too.
Winning Eleven 2009 still seems to be a PS2 game transplanted to the PS3 (in spite of Konami’s protestations), which is hardly an encouraging sight for Japanese gamers who will get the game next month. And while muddy gameplay was formerly the domain of FIFA, Konami seems to have acquired the rights with this edition of its flagship footy sim.
The saving grace for Konami’s booth is the presence of DS strategy RPG Suikoden Tierkreis, which seems to have all the visual character and deep tactical gameplay of the early PlayStation games boiled down in a potion that the DS hardware can stomach.
Like most of Konami’s games on show at this year’s TGS, Tiekreis will be available at retail in Japan before the end of 2008. As a preview of what we can expect from Konami in 2009, however, this showing disappoints.