Mostly Dark Souls, games from the West, and iPhone games, according to a survey of 80 key industry figures in Japan. Here’s a rundown of the noteworthy:
- Keiji Inafune, creator of Megaman and long time Capcom bigwig, was still enamored with Angry Birds.
- Fumito Ueda, the director who bore the lavish Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, and who recently parted ways with Sony while the highly-anticipated Last Guardian was still in the oven, chose Portal 2.
- Tomonobu Itagaki, famed as much for his black leather jackets as for his former work on Ninja Gaiden, picked Modern Warfare and Battlefield.
- Yousuke Hayashi, who took the helm of Team Ninja after Itagaki split, and who dodged responsibility for Metroid: Other M’s lambasted story, went with Plants Vs. Zombies for iOS.
- Hideki Kamiya, director of the balls-to-the-wall Bayonetta and the sumi-e painted Okami, didn’t like anything in particular this year, but he did vow to “make a comeback on the game scene and be known as more than just some guy who posts on Twitter.”
- Akihiro Hino, big-bossman of Level-5, who grew the company into one of the most successful in Japan, mostly on the back of the Professor Layton series, said he enjoyed Skyrim.
- Last but not least, Yasumi Matsuno, the legendary tactician who engineered a comeback this year with the successful remake of Tactics Ogre, and who you might also know as the man responsible for Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and the good bits of Final Fantasy XII, had the most baffling pick: Army of Darkness Defense for iOS.
[Andriasang, img]
-Jason Johnson