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| Jesse Woo |
Welcome back, Tri-Ace.
08.01.15 - 1:20 PM
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky is the collaboration project between Spike Chunsoft and Tri-Ace that has piqued our curiosity for the past week. Now, Famitsu has revealed the first details on the game along with some appealing art and screenshots. It has also announced that the game will come out in Japan on the PlayStation 4 and Vita later this year.
Exist Archive's setting spans modern day Tokyo and the alien planet Protolexa, where 12 young protagonists are swept up in a battle between the gods. The story begins when the evil god Yamatoga causes an explosion in Tokyo, killing the 12 aforementioned protagonists including the main character Kanata Kujou. As a result, these youngsters become possessed by a fragment of Yamatoga's soul and are drawn into his conflict. Thematically, the story's keyword is "sharp," which apparently means the story breaks from traditional senses of morality. Also, the player must periodically choose which characters to send back to Earth, and those choices will affect the end game content. The game will take around 40 to 50 hours to complete, and will include significant post-game content.
Exist Archive's gameplay is reminiscent of Valkyrie Profile: dungeons are presented from side-view perspective and required jumping, dashing, and platforming to solve puzzles, enemy avatars are present on screen and players will benefit in battle by hitting them with field attacks, and the Active Chain Battle system maps up to four characters to the four main buttons allowing for precisely timed combos that can result in greater drops or experience. Characters can be placed in either the front or back row, where front row characters hit harder but draw more aggro while back row characters are weaker but protected. Finally, each of the 12 characters can unleash a powerful special attack thanks to the piece of Yamatoga's soul they carry. There will be new elements however, like the online boss battle time attack mode.
The similarities to Valkyrie Profile are not accidental. The two games share a director in Masaki Norimoto as well as a studio in Tri-Ace. Other key staff are Yuichiro Saito (producer), Yoshiharu Gotanda (lead programmer), Motoi Sakuraba (composer), and Mino Taro (character designer).
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky comes out this year in Japan on the PlayStation 4 and Vita. No word on a Western release. The teaser site featuring some of Sakuraba-san's music is linked below, and the full site will launch on August 3rd.
