The Japanese games press attended the Jump Festa this year and brought back a series of reports on the event, complete with info that I missed as I waited in line to play the games.

In this update, I'm putting up the information from those stories along with the pictures I took from the event and a few other observations

First up, some links to Japanese coverage from the event:

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• Impress Watch general report
• Famitsu.com general report
• 4gamer general report
• Gpara report on Tales
• Gpara report on Blue Dragon stage
• Gpara report on Dragon Ball Z Story stage
• Gpara report on the Summon Night X stage
• Gpara report on the One Piece stage
• Dengeki Online report on the Square Enix booth
• Inside Games report on Maga On
• Inside Games report on Dragon Quest IX
• Inside Games report on Monster Hunter 3
• Inside Games report on Deca Sporta 2
• Inside Games report on Mario Tennis GC

And, links to the stories that I wrote up:

• Square Enix's Christmas gift
• Mt. Jumpmore
• Summon Night X Hands-On
• Blue Dragon Hands-On
• Dragon Quest IX Hands-On
• Blue Dragon detailed
• Nothing new on Tales of Wii
• Good and bad news from the Square Enix booth
• Sea of People
• Jump Festa 2009 preview

The big story that I appear to have totally missed out on was the new Wii entry in the Tales series. I wrote that there was nothing new shown on the Wii Tales game, but this was apparently wrong.

Midway through the Tales of Hearts stage, following a brief presentation on the Wii Tales game and a presentation on Blue Dragon, producer Hideo Baba began referring to something called "Tales of Ten." I was unaware that this was actually the Wii game, but Gpara reports that it is.

The name of the Wii game isn't actually "Tales of Ten," though. Following Gpara's report on the game, the site updated its story saying that Bandai Namco had asked them to refer to the game instead as "Next Tales of," so presumably Tales of Ten was just a nickname.

As detailed by Baba during the stage event (and also in the Gpara article), this new Wii entry in the series has been in development for some two years now. Baba also said that the character designer is currently a secret. Tales of Hearts' voice performers Marina Inoue and Masaya Matsukaze joked that maybe they could appear as guests in the game, to which Baba replied that voice recording has been nearly completed. Baba also revealed that the game has a middle ages European world theme.

The Bandai Namco booth. This booth was pretty camera-shy for non-press (I technically wasn't press), so this is the best shot I could get.

Also taking place in the Bandai Namco booth was the unveiling of Dragon Ball Z Story Saya Jinraishu, a new DS title that's due for Spring 2009 release. The introduction came at the end of an Infinite world tournament, which was also attended by Goku voice star Masako Nozawa. Gpara says the game is a menu-driven RPG where players create battle parties of three members, selecting from six characters

Other games in the Bandai Namco both included the first playable version of One Piece Unlimited Cruise Episode 2 and playable builds of Naruto Narutimate Storm, and Tales of the World Radiant Mythology 2. I played and put up impressions from Summon Night X and Blue Dragon.

Another big surprise that I didn't notice was the announcement of another multimedia viewing service for Wii. According to Inside Games, Shueisha had a booth set up at the show for Mangaon, presumably a WiiWare version of its Jumpland manga portal online manga viewing app. While the information at the booth was pretty vague, the service will offer different display methods depending on the title. Artwork shown suggested that perhaps there could be some 3D elements to the viewer as well. In terms of content, the service will see major works and classics, along with unreleased episodes and even rare comics that are hard to track down. Service will kick off in 2009.

A DS version of the viewer will also be offered. This was demoed at the booth and, according to Inside, felt like the DSVision manga service.

Back to the games, over in the Capcom booth, Impress Watch reports that Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes saw the unveiling of its theme song. The PSP fighter that's based on the series known in Western markets as Devil Kings will feature a theme song from Olivia called Sailing Free. Aside from this, the game's demo and stage events were the same as at TGS, although Impress says that 90% of the people waiting in line to play the game were girls. Famitsu.com also reported on this, saying that Battle Heroes is popular among female audiences.

Other games shown in the Capcom booth included Monster Hunter 3 and Street Fighter IV. For Monster Hunter 3, Capcom distributed play tickets to those who wanted to play. Capcom staff told 4gamer that tickets ran out 15 minutes into the start of the show. For Street Fighter IV, Capcom had kiosks for both control pad play and joystick play. I wish they'd do this more often... I suck at joystick play for fighting games.

Street Fighter IV to the left and Monster Hunter 3 to the right.

Monster Hunter plushes.

The Nintendo booth apparently had something that I didn't notice at first: games worht playing. I was only able to see the DSi experience area and an Animal Crossing demo section. But Nintendo also apparently had one demo unit each set up for Pikmin and Mario Tennis GC's Play on the Wii adaptations (this series is known, unfortunately, as "New Play Control" in America). Control schemes for these games were revealed in a recent Famitsu article (see this story at IGN Wii). The Tennis demo apparently allowed players to select either Wiimote controls or Wiimote/nunchuck duo controls.

Nintendo's typically sanitary booth. Check out the cute little Mario and Luigi figures next to the DSi units in the shot to the right.

Over in the tiny Koei booth, Shin Sangoku Musou Multi-Raid was the main attraction. Players could try out four player multiplayer, something that wasn't featured at TGS.

Multi-Raid (left) and Saihai no Yukue (right).

Sony also had somewhat of a surprise in its booth. Although the two titles shown, Patapon 2 and LocoRoco 2, are already out, both were shown as special versions with players having a chance to find hidden Bleach characters. Two words, Sony: Download Content.

Sony's booth had a Japanese theme this year.

Sega had Let's Tap and Phantasy Star Zero playable. The Phantasy Star Zero demo was, according to Impress, pre-loaded with Takeshi Tsuruno chat messages. These will be distributed as free download content starting launch day.

Sega's booth.

Marvelous Entertainment's booth was more about huge stage events than actual games. Arc Rise Fantasia was shown in its latest form, complete with the ability to do combat in a fighting dojo, according to Impress.

The Marvelous Booth. Arc Rise Fantasia was in the back somewhere.

Takara Tomy had Katei Kyoshi Hitman Reborn! Fate of Heat Unmei no Futari shown in video form. This appears to be a new DS entry in the series -- presumably a direct sequel to the Katei Kyoshi Hitman title that was released in May.

Hudson showed off Hataraku Hito (already released) demo kiosks and also had Deca Sporta 2 shown in a stage event. I didn't attend the stage event, but you can go here for details on the game.

Master Higgins appears at a Hudson stage event (right).

Digital Works Entertainment had playable kiosks for the DS adaptation of Claymore.

Konami's booth... I didn't go there because I was scared off by the Castlevania Judgment Simon Bellmont cosplayer (you can see him to the lower right in the below pic -- be thankful that he's facing away from the camera).

And I think that's it!

Oh wait... Square Enix. I already put up Dragon Quest IX impressions from the show floor and detailed my failure at getting into the Closed Mega Theater.

Impress Watch and 4gamer offered some details on the Square Enix booth that I missed. The PSP version of Kingdom Hearts was the exact same demo as the TGS version, with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty stages. Kingdom Hearts on the DS offered two additional characters for multiplayer mode along with balance adjustments.

I'm going to have to chime in here and say that the supposed balance adjustments do not keep the DS entry in the series from controlling as poorly as it did at the DKS3171 event, when I last played it (I didn't try it out at TGS). At Jump, I sampled both Halloween Town and Beast's Castle and just couldn't get used to the lack of movement precision through the d-pad. The game is presumably going to ship like this, so hopefully there will be an enjoyable story to make up for the control problems.

This Sora figure is always at Jump.

As for the Square Enix Closed Megatheater presentation, which I missed because tickets for the day ran out within 45 minutes of the show's opening, you can easily find translations of message board impressions of what was new. Impress says that it was told by Square Enix staff that the FFXIII footage included sections that were actually being controlled by players -- this would be the first actual controllable game footage for the game.

This week's Famitsu is also scheduled to have a Final Fantasy XIII update, which means more solid trailer information should start leaking out around Wednesday.