Video games at their best for the 16th Impact

For the 16th Impact, about a dozen video game stars had once more come to attend the festival and meet you.

Let’s start with our Video Game Guest of Honor, Shigeru MIYAMOTO, creator of Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and many more. On the exceptional occasion of his coming to Japan Expo, he presented the new gameplay features of a game to be released by the end of 2015 for Wii U: Star Fox Zero. The masterclass got more and more entertaining with a few surprises such as two more guest stars coming on stage, Takashi TEZUKA and Tsubasa SAKAGUCHI.

Japan Expo has offered you the opportunity to attend a public appearance of Takashi TEZUKA, the producer of Super Mario Maker but also the director and creator of many hits in the history of Nintendo. After presenting Super Mario Maker, Takashi TEZUKA showed more thoroughly the level creation tool with all its features, bringing Mario’s archenemy, Bowser, in the game through the ages. Mario had to pass the level while avoiding Bowser’s various designs, from Super Mario Bros. 1 to New Super Mario Bros. Wii U: tough! Then followed a special level created by Michel ANCEL (Rayman’s dad), recreating Paris.

The third part of the masterclass saw the co-director of Splatoon come on stage: Tsubasa SAKAGUCHI. Armed with a water gun, he splatooned the audience and announced a new event for the game!

At the end of the masterclass, Shigeru MIYAMOTO, Takashi TEZUKA, and Tsubasa SAKAGUCHI stood up and came close to the audience of the Ichigô stage for some photos and to thank the public for their warm welcome and their standing ovations!

The famous chara-designer Yûsuke KOZAKI was part of the 16th Impact guest list. He took part in many events during which he explained his former works such as No More Heroes and tackled his current work on Fire Emblem Fates. He fascinated the audience thanks to his breathtaking live drawing on the Také stage.

The string quartet from JAGMO, the first professional video game music orchestra in Japan, also performed on the Také stage, for a showcase and a quiz during which they challenged you: did you recognized the pieces they played? 

BANDAI NAMCO’s booth highlighted new releases with many game terminals to play and a dedicated stage for contents and special events.

There, you have discovered One Piece, Pirate Warriors 3, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, Sword Art Online, Tales of Zestiria, Saint Seiya Soldier's Soul, J-Star Victory Versus +, and Tekken 7 for arcade terminals. And if you were careful enough, you could play against the producer of Tekken himself, Katsuhiro HARADA, who also gave signings.

The president of studio CyberConnect 2 and producer of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 attended Japan Expo too. On this occasion, Hiroshi MATSUYAMA was wearing his most beautiful Naruto outfit.

As for One Piece Pirate Warriors 3, the game producers, Hisashi KOINUMA and Koji NAKAJIMA, presented the game with many events and activities.

Gold Saint, Ryo MITO, producer of Saint Seiya Soldier's Soul, came to present the game and you met him for photos and signings.

The publisher also expected you at the Také stage for the two BANDAI NAMCO Festival events with exclusive announces!

If you called on Capcom’s booth, you were along the first to discover and try Street Fighter V, which was available for the public to play for the first time ever: of course, you needed a bit of patience and some line to get to it. A small stage allowed hosts to explain the new gameplay and to organize tournaments.

The Také also hosted Street Fighter V tournaments with web stars.

As for Monster Hunter, the series director, Kaname FUJIOKA, came for the week-end on Nintendo’s booth for discovery activities and challenges, as well as signings.

Nintendo’s huge booth, easy to spot inside the hall, hosted many competitions with Super Smash Bros Wii U, Mario Kart 8, and the new Splatoon. Its co-director, Tsubasa SAKAGUCHI, challenged the players.

You could also try Star Fox Zero, as well as Super Mario Maker for the first time at a public event.

Warner Bros.’s booth had adopted the dark colors of Mortal Kombat X. You could play the game on arcade terminals, and it showed to the audience on the booth stage. The game French finals took place at Japan Expo! The professional player KAYANE even made a few demonstrations on the Také stage.

Square Enix had invited two great names of video games to be part of Japan Expo. Naoki YOSHIDA presented Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and its extension Heavensward. As for Dragon Quest Heroes, it was presented by the license creator himself, Yuji HORII. Their coming and presentations were very successful. Many fans came for the signings and to try the games which you could play on the booth, like Final Fantasy Type-0 for PC.

Square Enix’s presentation on the Také stage brought together about 1,000 people who had come to listen to those news!

If you felt like dancing to the brand new Just Dance, the place to be was Ubisoft’s booth. With overexcited hosts, the Just Dance 2016 stage got very hot, as well as the Také stage during the exclusive presentation!

Japan Expo works with many associations who promote video games and propose many activities during the festival. Tsuki Smash for example organized Super Smash Bros. tournaments.

DDR Belgium and Epitanime-JVM invited you to try rhythm games, and to dance to fight your adversaries. From Guitar Hero to Taiko no Tatsujin or the everlasting Dance Dance Revolution, there was a game to please everyone! Did you prefer Just Dance or Project Diva?

For retrogaming fans, MO5.COM’s booth allowed you to get enough of all the hits from the 90s and 2000s. A Saturn Bomberman tournament was also organized, with the finals on the Také stage on Sunday afternoon.