Anime NYC Day 2 – Games and Cosplay!

Day 2 of Anime NYC was a blast as there were a lot of events scheduled by the organizers of the event in preparation for the large crowd that will come on Saturday and there was a lot of people attending the event.  Aside from that, the convention just felt lively to see all the people having the time of their lives and interacting with people who share similar interests is always a blessing.  This can be said for any occasion, but the convention felt a little bit special as there was the large amount of people and a lot of them were very friendly to approach even if you’re a little timid such as myself.  The convention was overall a huge success and made the community feel a lot closer as a whole and this even includes the gaming panel especially those who were extremely passionate about the games they have made.  This even includes the cosplayers who put a lot effort and time into making their cosplays, wanting to bring these characters to life.

There were so many games that it was hard to play them and get the chance to review them properly, however with some of them being demos it would be hard to give them a final graded review.  As for the games that stood out on that day Florida Man, Glaive Bound, and Dojo City were the ones that caught my eye.  Florida Man (the game) is derived from the various memes generated surrounding the internet term “Florida man”.  Moreover, the game allows player to recreate some of those weird titles in an open world game quite similar to Goat Simulator.  With a great game to take inspiration from and using memes to make a game it feels like a game like Florida Man should have been made sooner due to numerous hijinks that can occur.  Aside from that there are two other games that need to be discussed.

Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid cosplayed by Augustus Martis

Militaires Sans Frontières Soldier from Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker cosplayed by Sam_Falcon42

Glaive Bound is a top-down adventure puzzle game that can be played via co-op and takes some inspirations from the GameCube title The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and changes them up for the better.  One of the major comparisons is that Glaive Bound makes each character feel unique to make puzzle solving, combat, and exploration feel a lot more of a proper adventure between 4 people as opposed to carbon copy clones that could specialize in a certain teamplay aspect.  While the The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures allows player to play certain roles, they are all interchangeable making the game more of a first come first served sort of game when encountering certain areas.  Glaive Bound focuses on this issue by making each character unique and able to be controlled in co-op for a more party-based adventure game that holds its own.  Dojo City while in beta is a great pit fighter for now as the developers are ambitious and looking to make the game take on more genres of games to really flesh out the game.  While this plan might seem ambitious when discussing with the developers on how they plan to take the game step by step it showed that they dedicated to making the best game that they can.  It is from that sentiment of making a better game is what drives people to be great.  Also, there were some cosplayers bringing some of characters to life and really capture the essence of the characters they are cosplaying as.

The cosplayers overall really captured the essence of the character and brought them to life to the best of their abilities as it is by no easy task to do so especially for those were cosplaying characters from the mobile game Goddess of Victory: Nikke.  Furthermore, there were some cosplayers who really stood out and recreated emotional moments in games and anime that felt strong.  The following photos were edited a bit to highlight the characters and capture some of those impactful moments in games and to ensure that the focus is on the cosplayer.

Helm from Goddess of Victory: Nikke cosplayed by Oiliva.usagi

Jackal from Goddess of Victory: Nikke cosplayed by Angelz.Doll

MS-05L Zaku Sniper Type from Gundam by David Murphy

A mimic eating Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End cosplayed by tomaniyee

Aside from that there was a panel regarding the indie horror genre by Angel Rose that shows the importance of a certain game.

Yume Nikki was the game in question that went on to become a major influence in the horror indie genre during the panel by Angel Rose.  During the panel she went into great length on how impactful Yume Nikki had on the indie horror genre.  Moreover, for those who were unfamiliar on the subject matter were brought up to speed on the themes of the game such as, “the fear of the unknown” and “the power of allowing the player to imagine” (Angel Rose AnimeNYC).  These themes, become the center points for the discussion going forward for the rest of the panel when discussing other games and tying them all back to Yume Nikki as part of the inspirations for a lot of games.  Overall, it was a good panel discussing the overall themes of the fear of the unknown and how the player’s imagination can be used to further the narrative in a darker way.

Related: Anime NYC Pics and Impressions

Kyle Manila

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I would describe myself when interacting with games as a strategist with a pension for stealth and loud explosions.

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