First up for us was the prequel to Valkyrie Profile, Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria. The game is one of Square-Enix’s experimental hybrid games, made by the same people responsible for such iconoclast titles as Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. One part 2-D platformer and one part party based combat game; Valkyrie Profile 2 pushes the limits of PS2 visuals. In combat each of the four characters in your party at the time corresponds to a single button on the controller. Each time you hit their button, they’ll do something. Once you are out of attack points for your round, the enemies get to attack. The guy who was demoing the game for us was blazing through the combat with a flurry of button combinations, but I’m not exactly sure how much fun the combat system really is. But, I won’t have to wait long since Square-Enix is planning on releasing this 40 hour game this September.
After Valkyrie Profile 2, we were lead over to the Final Fantasy: Dirge of Cerberus demo stations. Dirge of Cerberus is a sequel to the classic Final Fantasy VII. The game takes place a year after the end of the recent Final Fantasy: Advent Children movie, which itself was set 2 years after the end of FFVII. In Dirge of Cerberus, you play Vincent Valentine, the brooding, half-monster, gun-wielding character from FFVII. Dirge of Cerberus is more of a first-person shooter than a traditional RPG. You move around in 3rd person view behind Vincent and switch to a first-person view when you shoot your enemies. Depending on where you hit them, you’ll do more or less damage; just like in a traditional first person shooter. Vincent can also melee his foes, and if he takes enough damage he’s able to transform into one of his monster forms. Throughout the game you’ll find various bits of material and gun parts that you can put together to make new weapons for Vincent. As you complete each mission, you’ll get points you can upgrade your stats with. For me, Dirge of Cerberus was a big disappointment. I was expecting more of a Devil May Cry style of lose, high-energy action, but Dirge of Cerberus trades that in for pin-point accuracy tend to be rather clunky on a controller. Luckily, Square-Enix does provide support for the PS2 mouse and keyboard to make this a little easier.
After those two games we were shown two DS games: Rocket Slime and Children of Mana. Rocket Slime is a spin-off game from the Dragon Quest series. You play the role of an elastic slime that has to stretch and slide through various puzzles and battles. The game is described as an action RPG and is slated to run about 20 hours for most players. Rocket Slime also offers a multi-player versus mode where players load cannons to blast at each other’s fortresses. The game looks like it could be loads of fun for fans of the old over-head style Zelda games, but the lack of stylus support seems like a horrible oversight. The game feels like it was meant to grab and stretch the slime with the stylus, but for some reason that’s not in the release game at all.
Children of Mana is a straight dungeon-crawling RPG. There are 8 different dungeons for the players to explore, and 4 different characters to explore them with. Players will have a variety of weapons that will have two different actions, depending on if a player holds down the button or just taps it. Players will also have access to various types of summons and spells as they progress in the game. The cool part of Children of Mana is that there are co-operative and versus modes in the game. Certain parts of the game are built to encourage people to play the game with their friends, making various dungeon puzzles much easier than attempting them solo.
And the TV says to me, "I will eat your children." I look back, and say, "Only if I get to play their games after you're done."
