Like the demo itself I?m going to keep this short and sweet.
20 minutes of hacking and slashing fun, with some stunning FMV thrown in and a rather simplistic interface marred by short loading times between menus and a seriously unsteady frame-rate.
On first play it seems rather basic, game play is very much linear with set events happening once you've killed a certain number of opponents or have reached a certain location. But on repeat plays you start trying new combinations of attacks and after a 3rd or 4th go you really start to appreciate that it's just as much a rhythm game as it is a slasher. From what I can gather the end of level score is going to play a big part in the game, so a lot of time will be spent replaying levels trying to maximize your combo multipliers.
If anybody has played PSO and knows how you can time the hits to minimize downtime between attacks, it's basically that taken to the next level.
The game play window is nice and clean, you get a small mini-map in the top right corner, the health-bar of the last (or nearest) enemy you hit in the top left, and then 4 indicator bars in the bottom left, showing EXP, your health, your special move power bar (which charges up every time you collect the red orb dropped by fallen enemies), and a forth bar which I couldn?t really figure out, I?d guess it was a ?rage? meter of sorts as it seems to go up when you?re flipping out and killing people.
The in-game graphics are good, but the stunning FMV really does take away from it somewhat. For some reason the demo doesn't look as good as most of the movies/pictures flying about the internet. Shadowing and lighting seem to have been toned down with no sign of the ?blooms? we?ve all seen in the screenshot and simple shadows, the character models are brilliant but a few suffer from some dodgy texture alignment which will hopefully be ironed out. The main character ?Inphyy? whom you play as for the demo is stunning, maybe not as stunning as her FMV representation but when you see the in-game cut scenes of her wings reflecting the surroundings, even without the bloom it?s jaw droppingly good. But, if you've watched that FMV intro 20 times over in anticipation then you're going to be let down, if not, you'll hopefully be pleasantly surprised by what is certainly one of the best original IP?s I?ve seen for a good few years.
I?ve heard rumours it?s based on the TGS build, in which case I?m going to be very excited about what the final release will offer. That?s if it gets released outside of Japan but judging from the hype Microsoft would b e crazy not to. It has other minor glitchs such as no shadows appearing in the cutscenes and some really weird enemy/ally AI on the battlefield but again, this shouldn't really make it into the final build so i'm not too worried.
Edit: Almost forgot to say, the frame rate is extremely unstable - while hacking and slashing it feels like a good solid 30fps, when you unleash special moves it can seriously drop to around the 4-5fps mark, and while you could argue it gives you that cool 'omfg it's going in slow mo i'm kicking so much arse' feeling, i don't think its intentional.
I'm off to watch the FMV intro again..
20 minutes of hacking and slashing fun, with some stunning FMV thrown in and a rather simplistic interface marred by short loading times between menus and a seriously unsteady frame-rate.
On first play it seems rather basic, game play is very much linear with set events happening once you've killed a certain number of opponents or have reached a certain location. But on repeat plays you start trying new combinations of attacks and after a 3rd or 4th go you really start to appreciate that it's just as much a rhythm game as it is a slasher. From what I can gather the end of level score is going to play a big part in the game, so a lot of time will be spent replaying levels trying to maximize your combo multipliers.
If anybody has played PSO and knows how you can time the hits to minimize downtime between attacks, it's basically that taken to the next level.
The game play window is nice and clean, you get a small mini-map in the top right corner, the health-bar of the last (or nearest) enemy you hit in the top left, and then 4 indicator bars in the bottom left, showing EXP, your health, your special move power bar (which charges up every time you collect the red orb dropped by fallen enemies), and a forth bar which I couldn?t really figure out, I?d guess it was a ?rage? meter of sorts as it seems to go up when you?re flipping out and killing people.
The in-game graphics are good, but the stunning FMV really does take away from it somewhat. For some reason the demo doesn't look as good as most of the movies/pictures flying about the internet. Shadowing and lighting seem to have been toned down with no sign of the ?blooms? we?ve all seen in the screenshot and simple shadows, the character models are brilliant but a few suffer from some dodgy texture alignment which will hopefully be ironed out. The main character ?Inphyy? whom you play as for the demo is stunning, maybe not as stunning as her FMV representation but when you see the in-game cut scenes of her wings reflecting the surroundings, even without the bloom it?s jaw droppingly good. But, if you've watched that FMV intro 20 times over in anticipation then you're going to be let down, if not, you'll hopefully be pleasantly surprised by what is certainly one of the best original IP?s I?ve seen for a good few years.
I?ve heard rumours it?s based on the TGS build, in which case I?m going to be very excited about what the final release will offer. That?s if it gets released outside of Japan but judging from the hype Microsoft would b e crazy not to. It has other minor glitchs such as no shadows appearing in the cutscenes and some really weird enemy/ally AI on the battlefield but again, this shouldn't really make it into the final build so i'm not too worried.
Edit: Almost forgot to say, the frame rate is extremely unstable - while hacking and slashing it feels like a good solid 30fps, when you unleash special moves it can seriously drop to around the 4-5fps mark, and while you could argue it gives you that cool 'omfg it's going in slow mo i'm kicking so much arse' feeling, i don't think its intentional.
I'm off to watch the FMV intro again..
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