I apologize for the fact that I’m practically yelling at Shibata-san; this dude over at the neighboring Alienware booth was incredibly, obnoxiously loud. If you were there, you know who I’m talking about.

Anyways, with a good deal more development to go, we’ll keep tabs on this game for you, and report back at the next milestone.

While at the Tecmo Koei booth we got a chance to chat to Akihiro Suzuki, the Director of Koei’s upcoming PS3 exclusive action RPG, Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll.

It’s the latest in the Zill O’ll series, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing that — the previous games never made it outside of Japan. It’s a pretty popular series over there and now it’s coming to both the US and Europe, so we’ll be able to see what all the fuss is about when it releases next year.

It’s a prequel to the Zill O’ll series, so story-wise it promises to be very accessible. In terms of gameplay it’s also a departure from the norm for the series, as it leaves its turn-based RPG roots behind and embraces a more action-orientated approach.

Online mode opens up for you once you’ve completed Chapter 1 in Story Mode, and features 3 main facets of play – GeoNet, Georama, and Subquests.

GeoNet is a social networking service for WKC online players, where you can meet and interact with other players to get set for multiplayer quests.

Georama is where you can design your own “HomeTown”, which serves as a lobby for the online mode. There are 3 different fields to build your Georama in with 18 different combinations. You’ll drop in buildings, infrastructure, and even modify the earth itself. A 2D city sim this is not. Examples were shown where players could make hedge mazes or pixel art in the towns. What’s cool is you can recruit NPCs from the story mode to come live in your town. The NPCs have jobs of different levels, which will further change the town. Also, you and others can shop in the shops that you create. Up to a dozen players can enter one Georama at once, and from there you can head out questing. Hundreds (or more) parts and elements were shown – it’s pretty deep. Of note: North American players will be able to visit the Georama town of European friends, and vice versa.

Subquest – unlike the story mode, which centers around Leonard, you control your own avatar in this mode. As the story unfolds, quests will become available. When you are successful, you’ll accumulate points which will build your guild rank. The higher the rank, the more quests and weapons that are available for you. You can quest with friends or use the random matching system to be paired up with like minded strangers. 50 subquests will be available at launch, and new ones will be added along the way online.

Oh, btw: Voice Chat confirmed! It’ll also be patched into the Japanese version at some point in the future. An additional exclusive feature for North American and European gamers: Rogue Galaxy’s Live Talk feature will be implemented. Characters will issue forth a “huge variety” of context-specific commentary as the quests unfold. Of course, all the updates the Japanese release has seen will be on the disc when it hits North America and Europe in Spring 2010.

For more on the game, look for an interview with Level-5 on the PS.Blog soon.

Though Ueda-san wasn’t up for spilling *too many* details on the upcoming The Last Guardian, he did give some interesting insight into the way he and his team make games. He also hints that maybe we don’t know how this game is going to play out, after all.

Oh, and there was one pressing question that I didn’t ask – because Joystiq and Kotaku already beat me to it (“Will there ever be a PS3 remake of Ico/Shadow of the Colossus a la the God of War collection?”). Check out their stories for his answer.

When the convention center at Makuhari Messe opened its doors, our first meeting was with Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert. As is customary with this Kyoto-based team, every time you see them, they’re showing something new. We’ll be reporting on some new PixelJunk Shooter level reveals soon, but first -PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe is complete and ready to roll out this week (October 1) on PSP.

In this interview featuring new footage, Dylan details the new island, new trap tower, new enemies, and online play.

I’ve made no secret of my love of last year’s Valkyria Chronicles, the beautiful PS3-exclusive strategy RPG. I know I’m not alone in that regard, based on the favorable reaction to last week’s announcement of Valkyria Chronicles 2, coming next summer to PSP.

We caught up with who answered some of your questions, confirmed online play modes, and indicated openness to create another Valkyria game for PS3.

What made you decide to develop the official sequel for Valkyria Chronicles on the PSP? (Submitted by user: Trollkotte)

For the original PS3 version of the game there were two key features: The Canvas graphics system and the BLiTZ combat system. So when we were discussing the sequel we obviously wanted to bring these two features over, but we wanted to upgrade it somehow. When we looked at the BLiTZ battle system specifically — especially in the Japanese market — co-op play and wireless play is becoming more and more popular and we felt that would expand the gameplay for the title in a great way. When we went further in that direction we discovered that the PSP is the perfect platform to take advantage of that.

Are you adding new unit classes, weapon types or vehicles? Will there be any returning characters from Valkyria Chronicles 1? (Submitted by user: BigBoss712)

Yes. In terms of new weapons and units, not only will there be more of each, but there will be expanded customisation options for both. We have Scouts and Stormtroopers, as we did in the first game, but Scouts may branch into Scouts who run faster or are more meant for battle. In that way, each of the units will branch into new units. In terms of weapons, in the first game a rifle might branch into three different rifles as you progress in the game. The amount of variation is even greater in the sequel. In terms of returning characters, you’ll definitely see Alicia and Welkin come back and you might see other members of Squad 7, too.

We can also customise tanks this time around. You can equip different weapons and change the colour, which will affect how the tank moves. There are many ways for you to customise your own troops, just based on all the different character, tank and weapon options.

With Valkyria Chronicles 2 going portable next year there have been rumours of its return to the PS3. Is that likely? (Submitted by user: G-Force08)

We’re still developing Valkyria Chronicles 2 so, to be honest, we’re not really thinking about Valkyria Chronicles 3, 4 or 5 at this point. Just in terms of how our team develops titles and our way of thinking when we choose the platform for each of our titles, it’s not necessarily “let’s make a PS3 game!”. It’s more a case of “what kind of game do we want to make?”. For example, the first Valkyria was on the PS3 because of all the features we wanted to incorporate into the game and we felt the PS3 was the most suitable platform, so that’s how we develop games in our team. So potentially Valkyria Chronicles 3, or another title that we work on next might be on the PS3, it might still be on the PSP, we don’t know at this point.

Because we’ve already got experience of working on the PS3 and now we’re developing another game on the PSP, that just adds to our level of experience and understanding of these platforms and will definitely help us in determining what is the best platform for the next game that we make.

The PSP is seeing a lot of success, particularly in Japan, with regards to its online and ad-hoc multiplayer. Will you be taking advantage of that in Valkyria Chronicles 2?

We are incorporating wireless ad-hoc play into the game, which will feature both co-op and versus modes. We can’t really talk too much about it in detail yet.

Are there any plans to add a versus mode to Valkyria Chronicles 1?

Valkyria Chronicles’ engine wasn’t made for this sort of gameplay, so we can’t just patch a versus mode into the first game. But if fans really want that, and the development team really feels that it would be a compelling addition to the Valkyria Chronicles franchise, then that might be when we create another Valkyria Chronicles game for the PS3.

How does the difficulty of Valkyria Chronicles 2 and the character progression system differ from the first game?

What has changed the most is the way the game flows. If you remember back to the first game, it’s like reading through a book, with a certain number of missions per chapter. So if you hit a particularly hard mission you have to use trial and error to get past it, or you’ll never progress. But Valkyria Chronicles 2 is mission based, so if you reach a mission you can’t clear, you have the option of trying other missions before returning to the more difficult one. By doing that you can level up your characters or you might meet someone who can help you clear this mission. It’s a different method of progressing through the game. Overall the game’s difficulty will be about the same as Valkyria Chronicles, but because the game flow is different you might find the game is easier or, depending on the player, more difficult.

After the interview, we went down to the show floor to go hands-on with the game for the first time. As a fan, I can safely say that Valkyria Chronicles brings everything that I loved about the original game to the PSP: It handles very similarly, looks great, and has the added benefit of portability.

SEGA also released a new batch of (Japanese) screens for VC2, you can find some of them here.

Customarily starting with some sales figures, it was revealed that the new, slimmer 120 GB PS3 has sparked a massive sales surge, with over 1 million PS3s sold through to consumers worldwide in the three weeks since its launch on September 1st.

Hirai also showed off the PS3 motion controller, reiterating that it would be released in the Spring of 2010. They feature a pair of motion sensors, a three-axes gyroscope and a three-axes accelerometer, along with Bluetooth and a rechargable Li-on battery. A list of games in development for the peripherals was revealed, (click here for the release) and it was confirmed that PAIN, Flower, Hustle Kings, High Velocity Bowling and EyePet will get compatibility patches to add motion controller functionality. Later on, LittleBigPlanet and Resident Evil 5 were also demonstrated to be working with the motion controller.

The PSPgo will also be getting a couple of new peripherals in January – a Bluetooth Stereo Head-set Receiver and a Converter Cable Adaptor. The latter will allow you to use any PSP 1000, 2000, or 3000 peripheral with the PSPgo. For a full list of upcoming PSPgo accessories and their prices, check the press release.

Finally, Gran Turismo 5 now has a Japanese release window – March 2010. An American and European release date will be announced in due course.

We’ll be looking to go into more detail with the above information over the coming weeks, and stay tuned for more from Tokyo Game Show on the PlayStation.Blog.

We’ll have an in-depth interview with Ueda-san later from the show!

Now as far as Tetris and Sudoku are concerned, both work pretty much as you’d expect. Fortunately, they take advantage of the PSP’s display for the highest resolution versions of these classics that I’ve yet seen. You can see that for yourself next week.

While we’d love to take you all with us to TGS, we can only do so in spirit. So please, send us packing with some great questions to ask the developers we’ll be meeting in Japan.

Developers of which games? Ah, I’m glad you asked. Here’s a (somewhat complete) list of games whose developers we’ll be meeting with:

• PixelJunk Shooter
• PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe
• White Knight Chronicles
• Gran Turismo 5/ GT PSP
• Heavy Rain
• Valkyria Chronicles II
• Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker
• Quantum
• Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll

There’ll probably be more (fingers crossed for 3D Dot Game Heroes), but this is a good start.
Ah, and some clarification of what we mean by “great questions”; the ones we’ll pick are the ones that everyone else *won’t* be asking (you know, dates, inclusion of trophies… the easy stuff that will get announced anyway). Make us look intelligent! Or at least reasonably so.

OK, fire away in the comments!

See you (virtually) from the show floor,
Jeff & Jem