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| John McCarroll |
Nostalgia and Muramasa playable.
06.04.09 - 9:06 PM
We had a chance to stop by the booth of Ignition, showing off the Vanillaware-developed Muramasa: The Demon Blade and the RED Entertainment DS RPG Nostalgia. The publisher is new to the RPG genre, having had one of their biggest localization projects in the recently released Lux-Pain. They are looking to expand further into the RPG genre, and have done so with the games on the show floor.
Muramasa is a title that will have an import review on RPGFan soon, but we had a chance to give it a whirl on the show floor anyway. The title plays very similarly to Vanillaware's PS2 RPG, Odin Sphere, although battles are segmented into rooms on a map and players are graded and given experience based on each individual battle. The battles are very visceral, and are focused more on more visceral action than its PS2 predecessor. We didn't have a whole great deal of information on the story of the game, but the two playable characters, Momohime and Kisuke will have intertwining stories that will have some overlap, but are distinct as their own adventures. The title is slated for release in September in North America.
RED Entertainment's Nostalgia is the other RPG headed to North American shores from Ignition. Described by Ignition staff as an "epic" RPG for the DS, the game takes place in an alternate Earth during the 19th century in a world where steampunk-style airships roam the world. The main character, Eddie, is the son of an an adventurer who has gone missing. Eddie takes his father's airship to go on a quest to find him in a long quest.
The game's battle system is fairly straightforward, with special abilities, melee attacks and magic. Battles can take place either inside dungeons or inside the airship, and both are affected by the statistics of the player characters. Each character will man a different portion of the airship, and based on their type of weapon in melee combat they will have different weapons on the ship. All the battles are ranked, and based on how players do, they will get additional bonuses for good rankings. Nostalgia is also slated for release in September.
