As we always say each year, it’s always a treat going to Tokyo Game Show. Whether we look forward to the new games from the biggest game publishers or from the promising indie game developers, or we check out the exclusive merchandise and unique freebies each booth would offer, it was always a refreshing experience for each year we attend, minus the aches and pains in our legs after walking for around twenty thousand steps.
But it’s always the games that give us a reason to enjoy Tokyo Game Show, the chance where we try their game demos before the games launch, and even a chance to meet the dev team to talk about their games. Lentropy already shared his games at TGS 2025 which you can watch on this YouTube video, so it’s my turn to share my game experience from the event.
Homura Hime (Playism)
I’ve been hearing about this game for quite some time, and I finally got the chance to try it at the Playism booth. It features a Yokai-themed world that mixes hack & slash with roguelike and bullet hell elements, as you dodge and parry your way through defeating waves of enemies and bosses. Combat gives you a couple of special attacks and your standard regular attack combo strings. You also have a minion that does autofire, similar to the Pods in NieR: Automata that build up DPS against enemies. The boss battle demo was challenging, which will take you several attempts, as it has several phases that change its attack style and patterns once you deplete its life bar. It’s definitely fun and doesn’t feel that difficult like Souls-like levels, but it still has that level of challenge where you may need to repeat a couple of times to learn the attack patterns. Visuals sort of reminded me of some anime from Studio Trigger (perhaps Kill la Kill?), especially the character designs, so that peaks my interest.
Homura Hime is targeting a winter release date on Steam
Majogami (Inti Creates)
Ini Creates is no stranger to sidescrollers, and their latest title, Majogami is looking to be a promising title. Mixing a theme of witches and origami, as you cut your way through enemies and platforms, you can dash and slash your way with an interesting mechanic that lets you chain slash combos on adjacent enemies for an instant kill and to traverse to hard-to-reach areas. Majogami has that familiar vibe with other Inti Creates titles like Azure Striker Gunvolt, but the art design of having an origami motif adds a bit of uniqueness to the game. The demo took me in a tutorial stage to explain the basics and a bit of venture through the level for a stage boss fight, the origami slashing mechanic was a fun approach that can clear out enemies and even the boss fast, but I’m sure there will be tougher mechanics in later levels that will test your skills in using the ability, but I enjoyed this game and I’d definitely get this on release day.
Majogami releases on October 30 on Switch, Switch 2 and Steam
Absolum (Arc System Works in Japan / Dotemu)
From the team behind Streets of Rage 4 comes Absolum, a twist of roguelike and beat ’em up that they call rogue ’em up. The game offers a fun beat ’em up experience that reminds you of Dragon’s Crown or Chronicles of Mystara, where you venture in a fantasy world, beating up goblins in solo or with a friend. But the twist starts where you can get special power-ups that offer unique builds and branching paths for a different level and random events happen in each playthrough. I played as the dwarf character, where he can pummel down enemies with his fists and a special attack with his rifle that can bounce off enemies to a wall that makes them open for juggle combos. Boss battles are challenging if unprepared, but dying allows you to upgrade your characters to make succeeding runs easier.
Absolum is now available on consoles and PC
Starlight Revolver (Pahdo Labs)
It’s roguelite meets magical girls, where you can play solo or with 3 other friends. You can choose from different magical girls (or boys) and clear out enemies in your run, and you can acquire special abilities that you can mix and match to create different builds. Its biggest highlight is the colorful art design that screams pop and anime, and any magical schoolgirl fan will enjoy the aesthetics. The game can be played solo, but it’s recommended to play with more people for cooperative play.
Starlight Revolver is available on Steam as an Early Access game
Steel Knight ARMIS (Izanami Game Lab)
A sci-fi mecha roguelite shooter, or some would call a bullet-haven game. You get to pilot a mech and survive waves of enemies rushing at you. There are different weapons and power-ups to obtain when leveling up that let you set up a build for each run, though they are random, so it’s more about how you will gamble on which power-ups to choose. Steel Knight ARMIS feels like your usual bullet-heaven games, with nothing much to offer that is very new, but if you are into science fiction and mechs, then maybe this would be your jam, so far I enjoyed it since I love anything mecha and how it translates the bullet-heaven elements to the theme works well, and you can get to unlock more mechs for each stage you cleared.
Steel Knight ARMIS is now available on Steam
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (Square Enix)
Finally, I got to experience the remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics at the event, and it has been decades since I last played the game, yet I can still remember how to play it. The biggest change is the addition of the voice-overs that added more life to the game, even during battles, your units have short lines when performing actions or getting hit with damage. The UI was overhauled to make it cleaner and easier to read. The game runs well with a higher framerate and loads fast during my demo session, but I would like to see how it performs on the Nintendo Switch.
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is now available on consoles and PC
Final Fantasy VII Intergrade on the Nintendo Switch 2 (Square Enix)
Though I already played Final Fantasy VII Remake before, I’m more curious about how the performance goes on the Switch 2 version. So far, I’m impressed that it runs pretty well with not many hiccups on the demo that I played. Running at around 40 fps may not be a cup of tea for some picky players, but when playing it in person, I’m satisfied with it and it felt better than the PlayStation 4 version. The details were great except for the hair textures that had aliasing issues in some cutscenes. I haven’t experienced any slowdowns during battles, so I’m guessing this will be a smooth run when played through the end. Oh, and this will also become available on Xbox consoles for those who might plan to get this for their ROG Xbox Ally.
Final Fantasy VII Intergrade will be available on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox consoles on January 22, 2026
Killer Inn (Square Enix)
The game feels like a blend of third-person shooter and murder mystery. Players are inside a mansion where they are randomly given the roles of either a wolf or a lamb, and each player must find out which side the other players are by searching clues or interacting with them. As a wolf, your job is to eliminate all of the lamb players, and as part of the lambs, your goal is to identify the wolves and survive, with the clock ticking, you have to deduce which one is the suspect of the murders by searching on corprses for clues that reveal potential suspects and solve puzzles to unlock items that will help you survive the match. The game had potential to be a big hit if more players were able to try out the game, a match can last for half an hour or shorter and looks to be a fun game for streaming or with friends, you can use voice chat based on the playtest that I joined, and its a fun experience when chasing suspects where players will be screaming on the voice chat.
Killer Inn has a beta test available on Steam, but no target release date at the moment
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales (Square Enix)
One of the new 2DHD games by Square Enix, and instead of the usual turn-based RPGs, it is an action RPG. Think of the old days of the Zelda games and even the Mana series, where you explore dungeons and solve puzzles to unlock secret rooms for treasures. For combat, you only have 2 weapons, with your 2nd weapon being of different types that will be useful in certain situations, and there will be tons of dodging and learning enemy attack patterns. You have a fairy companion that you can control with your right analog stick to guide you to areas that can unlock doors or find hidden items, or even attack monsters. Your fairy can equip certain skills that can aid you in your adventure, such as a dash ability that lets you move around maps faster. I’m definitely getting this game when I get my hands on a Switch 2.
The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales will be available on the Nintendo Switch 2 sometime in 2026.
Starbites (Happinet in Japan/ NIS America)
We’re finally seeing more turn-based RPGs, and it’s a mecha-themed game, which is a lot rarer to find in RPGs these days. Starbites puts you in a ragtag group of adventurers on a junk planet as they find ways to get to the only city on the planet. Your party will each ride their own mechs that have different attack elements and attributes, and you need to exploit your enemies’ weaknesses to stagger them, similar to the system in Octopath Traveler. The demo at the event was only in Japanese, so I was only able to explore the initial area and take a couple of battles, but this has the potential to be a good RPG, so I’m looking forward to it when the English version is out.
Starbites will be available on October 16 for PS5 and Nintendo Switch. The English version will be available in early 2026 for PS5, Nintendo Switch and Steam.
Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2 (2K games)
I’m a fan of the Borderlands series, so it’s a must that I try the latest installment on new console hardware. Unfortunately, the performance on the Switch 2 was quite disappointing; the game runs so badly that it’s difficult to fight through a ton of enemies shooting at you. I died several times as it was hard to aim at targets with the jagged framerate. It’s supposed to be running at 30 fps, but it felt lower in areas with a lot of characters on screen and with a ton of explosions. I would wait a bit for the game to be polished on the Switch 2 and hopefully, the team at Gearbox Software would fix it soon.
Borderlands 4 on the Nintendo Switch 2 was delayed and has no definite release date at the moment.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (Capcom)
The Monster Hunter series had a turn-based RPG spinoff that is getting more love, and Capcom finally announced the third chapter of Monster Hunter Stories. Now running on the Nintendo Switch 2, Twisted Reflection can have bigger maps than its predecessors and runs well without any hiccups on the console hardware. New to the game is the ability to instantly swap your Monstie with a button shortcut that’s useful when you need a Monstie that can swim or climb walls. Battles are still similar to the older games, where there is a rock-paper-scissors system for attacks and you can perform tag team attacks with your Monstie for devastating damage. I love the Monster Hunter Stories games and seeing how well the third game will be makes me want to preorder a copy.
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection will be available on March 13, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series and Steam
Vivid World (Asobism)
It’s a colorful labyrinth dungeon crawler where you recruit party members by finding their jewels around dungeons. There are a ton of characters that you can recruit can be upgraded when you acquire multiple copies of a character. The combat is automated, by you can cast spells from your pool if you managed to obtain them in your venture. It’s a fun game that you can play during a break and I previously played its predecessor, Vivid Knight, which plays the same but this time Vivid World has dialogue cutscenes and is more polished.
Vivid World will release on Steam this year
BALL x PIT (Devolver Digital)
You may have probably noticed that I’m playing a ton of roguelite games at Tokyo Game Show, but they were all great and I’m looking for a certain roguelite or roguelike game that would stand out, and so far, BALL x PIT might be that game. A roguelite game mixed with brick-breaking mechanics, think Arkanoid or Puzzle Bubble, where you shoot a ball and let it bounce around destroying obstacles. It gets really addicting, so you really want to restart the game after losing, that you realize it’s almost an hour, and you need to try out other games before the event closes, and yeah, that was my dilemma when playing the Ball x Pit demo.
BALL x PIT will be available on consoles and PC on October 16
Scott Pilgrim EX (Tribute Games)
I love Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, and learning that a new Scott Pilgrim game will be released soon, I know I should get to try it firsthand. It plays almost the same as the familiar beat ’em up gameplay, EX added more layers with more combos and special moves, a story mode that you travel to different levels with an overworld map that’s a homage to Super Mario Bros. 3 and more characters to unlock. And yes, Anamanaguchi is back to compose the music.
Scott Pilgrim EX will be available in 2026 for consoles and PC.