Xaeris
Oct 14, 2005, 08:02 PM
Well, that was fun. In addition to PSU, there was all sorts of other stuff set up. Sonic Riders, Shadow the Hedgehog...and there were some tournaments too. Dance Dance Revolution Extreme stood out the most; there were two player machines set up for single players to play on; that's right, one person playing a two player match at a ridiculously sick speed. Once you see that, you feel your own gaming skills are surprisingly inadequate. Oh well, nothing SCII ownage can't fix.
But of course, that's not why you're here. What was set up were two "scenes" from the single player game. The game regrettably still had JP VAs, but at least had English subtitles so I could be privy to what was going on. So of course, I wasn't able to test drive the character creation and was just stuck as Ethan with a party of Karen, Hyuga and Dr....um...a doctor. Yeah. Anyway, they basically just follow you around and engage when enemies are close. I probably won't reveal anything we don't already know, but here's a report all the same.
First scene takes the party to a place resembling Forest. The map follows the same template as the PSO games; a room with enemies in it, kill them, and you can go through the door. The rooms are quite a bit bigger though.
Combat is...a little different. There were no instructions so I had to figure this out as I went along. I think I was pretty through though. The square button, for the most part, acts as a basic attack with whatever weapon you're equipped. Triangle activates a special technique unique to that weapon...or weapon class. I didn't have enough inventory to determine that much. R1 allows you to use the sidearm in your left hand, in my case, a gun. I had to hold it and then press square to shoot.
For example, one of my set ups was a saber and gun combo. Square made a basic slash that I could chain up to three times. Triangle unleashes an attack called Cross Rush. No, that's not nearly as cool as it sounds. It's basically a normal slash with a slightly bigger flash on contact. Still, at the end of a string of squares, you can keep going with three Cross Rushes. Additionally, holding R1 made Ethan aim his gun and let me shoot.
Now, targeting was something to get used to. Hold L1 lights up the crosshairs on the closest enemy, allowing your attacks to home in on that targer. It's not necessary to be locked on like it was in PSO, but damn, it sure helps. Plus, while locked on, you can strafe about the enemy.
Now, and this will probably really important in the complete game, the O button. O brings up a small side menu with various weapon setups, probably predetermined by the user's customizations (this demo didn't allow access to any main menu). Here, you can swap between them. What I had lined up at my disposal was a gun and saber combo, a gun and dagger combo, a sword (think orange Flowen's Sword), and a rod.
Each of these weapons had their own traits and triangle skills. The saber, as mentioned before, had Cross Rush. The dagger had Spin Cut. The sword had Shield Break. Now, we're all used to swords being slow, but Christ, it's like Ethan was trying to heave around a brick. I stuck with the saber and gun combo most of the time. The short range of the dagger was just annoying.
Now, onto the rod. It's triangle skill was Resta, but it had a square attack that wasn't just a swing of the staff. No, it was Gifoie. And it kicked ass, even if Ethan is a human. Makes me wonder how techs are in the hands of numen.
Now, near as I can tell, we don't have TP anymore. Rather, what determines the frequency to which we can use these spells is something I'd call weapon durability. On the right hand of the screen, there was a bar and a fraction displayed. For example, for my saber, it was something like 100/100. After swinging it around for a while and using quite a few Cross Rushes, durability dropped to 91. There weren't enough enemies for me to get durability down to 0 to see what happens, but it's a pretty safe assumption that it's bad if that does happen.
Thankfully though, the rod had a crazy amount of charge; a max of 450 for it. What troubles me is the monofluid I found. Like I said, couldn't access a menu, so I can only guess it's used to restore durability.
Anyways, on with the demo. Scene 1 was fairly easy; hack down some mindless enemies (well, mostly mindless; they did jump back from my swings every now and then) right to the very end and a boss fight.
Enter De Goran. Or was it Rogan...whatever. Anyway, just think dragon remix. Heck, it was a bit loud to hear, but I'm pretty sure I heard Growl, from the Depths of the Earth playing during the battle. It was a pretty easy fight. It flew into the air and launched fire blasts, and I got the hell out of the way. CPU wasn't quite as smart so I had to babysit them with Resta. It would come down every now and then to breath fire and I'd take my opportunity to slash away at its legs.
Sometimes, I'd need to stay away from the body, so I'd just take potshots at the head with the gun. Good stuff overall. I won and it was onto Scene 2.
Scene 2 takes place in what I can only dub a better lit version of Ruins 1. I had the same inventory and the same party to work with. After hacking down a room of the same enemies, I ended up in what seemed like an event battle against a mobile armor. It had multiple areas to target so I made short work of it with the sword.
The room springs to life with more of the same armors so Karen instructs Ethan to take the doctor and run while she and Hyuga hold off the armors. One room of enemies later (Resta = win), and I got into a cutscene where Ethan apparently confronts Renvolt for the first time. Unfortunately, I didn't get to fight as the scene ends there as does the demo.
I played through both scenes three times apiece. Overall, I think it's gonna be great. Battle isn't quite as fast as I'd like it, but it's smooth regardless. And the line really wasn't all that long. In fact, there was no line for the two machines set up with the demo. Granted though, it was midday Friday; place will probably be packed tomorrow.
By the way, Shadow the Hedgehog will suck. You heard it here first. And that concludes my day at the expo, for whatever it's worth.
But of course, that's not why you're here. What was set up were two "scenes" from the single player game. The game regrettably still had JP VAs, but at least had English subtitles so I could be privy to what was going on. So of course, I wasn't able to test drive the character creation and was just stuck as Ethan with a party of Karen, Hyuga and Dr....um...a doctor. Yeah. Anyway, they basically just follow you around and engage when enemies are close. I probably won't reveal anything we don't already know, but here's a report all the same.
First scene takes the party to a place resembling Forest. The map follows the same template as the PSO games; a room with enemies in it, kill them, and you can go through the door. The rooms are quite a bit bigger though.
Combat is...a little different. There were no instructions so I had to figure this out as I went along. I think I was pretty through though. The square button, for the most part, acts as a basic attack with whatever weapon you're equipped. Triangle activates a special technique unique to that weapon...or weapon class. I didn't have enough inventory to determine that much. R1 allows you to use the sidearm in your left hand, in my case, a gun. I had to hold it and then press square to shoot.
For example, one of my set ups was a saber and gun combo. Square made a basic slash that I could chain up to three times. Triangle unleashes an attack called Cross Rush. No, that's not nearly as cool as it sounds. It's basically a normal slash with a slightly bigger flash on contact. Still, at the end of a string of squares, you can keep going with three Cross Rushes. Additionally, holding R1 made Ethan aim his gun and let me shoot.
Now, targeting was something to get used to. Hold L1 lights up the crosshairs on the closest enemy, allowing your attacks to home in on that targer. It's not necessary to be locked on like it was in PSO, but damn, it sure helps. Plus, while locked on, you can strafe about the enemy.
Now, and this will probably really important in the complete game, the O button. O brings up a small side menu with various weapon setups, probably predetermined by the user's customizations (this demo didn't allow access to any main menu). Here, you can swap between them. What I had lined up at my disposal was a gun and saber combo, a gun and dagger combo, a sword (think orange Flowen's Sword), and a rod.
Each of these weapons had their own traits and triangle skills. The saber, as mentioned before, had Cross Rush. The dagger had Spin Cut. The sword had Shield Break. Now, we're all used to swords being slow, but Christ, it's like Ethan was trying to heave around a brick. I stuck with the saber and gun combo most of the time. The short range of the dagger was just annoying.
Now, onto the rod. It's triangle skill was Resta, but it had a square attack that wasn't just a swing of the staff. No, it was Gifoie. And it kicked ass, even if Ethan is a human. Makes me wonder how techs are in the hands of numen.
Now, near as I can tell, we don't have TP anymore. Rather, what determines the frequency to which we can use these spells is something I'd call weapon durability. On the right hand of the screen, there was a bar and a fraction displayed. For example, for my saber, it was something like 100/100. After swinging it around for a while and using quite a few Cross Rushes, durability dropped to 91. There weren't enough enemies for me to get durability down to 0 to see what happens, but it's a pretty safe assumption that it's bad if that does happen.
Thankfully though, the rod had a crazy amount of charge; a max of 450 for it. What troubles me is the monofluid I found. Like I said, couldn't access a menu, so I can only guess it's used to restore durability.
Anyways, on with the demo. Scene 1 was fairly easy; hack down some mindless enemies (well, mostly mindless; they did jump back from my swings every now and then) right to the very end and a boss fight.
Enter De Goran. Or was it Rogan...whatever. Anyway, just think dragon remix. Heck, it was a bit loud to hear, but I'm pretty sure I heard Growl, from the Depths of the Earth playing during the battle. It was a pretty easy fight. It flew into the air and launched fire blasts, and I got the hell out of the way. CPU wasn't quite as smart so I had to babysit them with Resta. It would come down every now and then to breath fire and I'd take my opportunity to slash away at its legs.
Sometimes, I'd need to stay away from the body, so I'd just take potshots at the head with the gun. Good stuff overall. I won and it was onto Scene 2.
Scene 2 takes place in what I can only dub a better lit version of Ruins 1. I had the same inventory and the same party to work with. After hacking down a room of the same enemies, I ended up in what seemed like an event battle against a mobile armor. It had multiple areas to target so I made short work of it with the sword.
The room springs to life with more of the same armors so Karen instructs Ethan to take the doctor and run while she and Hyuga hold off the armors. One room of enemies later (Resta = win), and I got into a cutscene where Ethan apparently confronts Renvolt for the first time. Unfortunately, I didn't get to fight as the scene ends there as does the demo.
I played through both scenes three times apiece. Overall, I think it's gonna be great. Battle isn't quite as fast as I'd like it, but it's smooth regardless. And the line really wasn't all that long. In fact, there was no line for the two machines set up with the demo. Granted though, it was midday Friday; place will probably be packed tomorrow.
By the way, Shadow the Hedgehog will suck. You heard it here first. And that concludes my day at the expo, for whatever it's worth.