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PS2
Ikusa Gami
- New Import |
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ŠNCS:
Lead
legions of soldiers into battle against opposing
armies and destroy the competition in hard, fast,
and vicious 3D action. Swing a sword and a hundred
foes may be dropped. Perform a powerful charged up
attack and a thousand enemies are decimated. Genki
touts 65,535 enemies on screen that span the
battlefield but we have a comment on that which
we'll flesh out in our NCS Game Notes. At the outset
of the game, the party consists only of a beastman
with the head of a lion-like creature and a maiden
in a red dress. The two roam a quiet
countryside which is the calm before the proverbial
storm...
NCS
Game Notes
* The first intro in the game is an animated cinema
which begins with reeds waving in the wind. Images
of skeletal spider-like creatures and a shrine
maiden bowing in front of a temple are shown. A
menacing clawed creature bursts from the ground and
is followed by an army of spidery beasts. The shrine
maiden holds her own for a while but the creatures
surround her. Just when it looks like the shrine
maiden is dead meat, a blue light shoots out from
the temple and lands in front of her. It
materializes into a leonine warrior named Inu Gami
who proceeds to completely destroy the army of
spidery creatures. Inu and the shrine maiden are
later shown walking to an encampment of human
soldiers who are preparing to confront the armies of
spiders which span the horizon as far as the eye can
see...
* There is a second intro after starting a normal
game which is a rendered version of the first intro.
The camera focuses on a bright moon in the sky and
the pans downwards to shoot the front of a temple
with flickering torches in front of it. The
aforementioned shrine maiden is shown running to the
temple when she is confronted by a spider creature.
It lunges at her down the stairs and is joined by
more spider creatures. The spiders close in for the
attack as she runs in front of the temple. A big
bruiser enemy joins the smaller spiders and it looks
like game over for the gal. A light descends in
front of the maiden and manifests as the leonine
warrior Inu Gami. After Inu poses for a microsecond,
he roars and slashes downwards with his sword. In
the next scene, Inu and maiden are in the
countryside - she on a horse and he standing there
pensive. A black and white flashback scene commences
where the two are shown in their initial meeting
where Inu himself as her protector and guardian. His
other mission is to seal the spiders away. A scream
breaks the flashback sequence and the two rush in
the direction of the sound.
* A map of Japan is shown afterwards which explains
the warring states era that the game takes place in
and highlights the geographic location of the first
mission in Ikusa Gami. Although a voice over
explains the scenario, Japanese text also scrolls
from left to right during the introduction.
* Inu and maiden start their game in a brown and
green colored countryside - the world map is shown
on the upper right corner of the screen while a
health meter and magic points are shown on the upper
left corner. The L-analog moves Inu and the maiden
follows him dutifully. The R-analog flicks the
camera around and "X" clicks him into a defensive
position. "O" is an action button unrelated to
fighting and the SQUARE button makes Inu slash his
sword with a beautiful flourish followed by light
trails. Pressing the TRIANGLE button will make the
leonine warrior perform an overhead forward jump
move where he flips heels over head and drops an
incendiary attack. This move will take away health
points (yellow bar on the upper right) and should
probably only be used in a pinch. The L1-trigger
changes the world camera to an up-close behind Inu
perspective or to an high overhead perspective which
takes in more of the immediate surroundings.
Pressing R1 will trigger Inu into an overdrive kill
mode which drains the yellow health bar quickly. Tap
it again to stop the overdrive kill mode.
* While roaming around, the shrine maiden alerts Inu
to arrows flying in the distance. There's a battle
afoot so head over to the upper right corner of the
world map to investigate which factions are
fighting. As Leon makes his way up the hill, a large
crowd of spiders are amassed and firing projectiles
at human warriors. When they spot Inu, they turn
their attention to him and begin an attack. Since
they're only a small contingent, Inu takes care of
them fairly quickly and saves the men who the
insects were attacking.
* The first battle gives a feel for how the hero
fights. His sword slash has both reach-around range
and strength so that one slash will damage any enemy
that is at least within a 240 degree arc of his
sword attack. The foes shriek with terror when Leon
chops them up.
* Once the first battle is over, a larger battle is
joined where even more spidery insects are attacking
human soldiers. Follow the troops down the hill
since there is only one path into the battle - the
other areas are impassable which was/is a
frustrating design flaw but perhaps Genki knows
better. Rush into battle and slash the insects up.
While in the frenzy of a chop, some insects will
give up what looks like a pork roast that floats in
midair. Grab it to recover health.
* When surrounded by hundreds of creatures, press
TRIANGLE to perform the bomb blast and hundreds of
the creatures will lift up from the concussive force
of the bomb and die right there. Hundreds of
friendly soldiers on your side will also battle the
insects but they don't provide much support and it's
easier to just slash and kill the insects yourself
to save them the trouble. You will need the legions
later on however...
* During a frenzied attack on spider creatures, the
camera lens will occasionally become splotched with
black colored blood that disappears after a few
seconds.
* Press the SQUARE button four times to perform a
sweet looking chain attack that ends with a spinning
light trail.
* Once the second battle is over, go over to the
mass of soldiers and press the R2 button to make
them follow you. Once the vanguard force is at the
wooden post with the green arrow, continue down the
road and the next fighting sequence will start.
* The R1 Overdrive Mode turns Inu into a killing
machine. You may toggle it on for just a second or
leave it on until the meter runs down. In any event,
it will allows the leonine warrior to cleave through
entire fields of spider creatures and kill them with
quickness.
* For a highly impressive view of the battlefield
when attacked by hundreds of spiders, switch to the
overhead camera view and watch the carnage unfold as
your legions of soldiers, you, and the spiders clash
in a chaotic battle.
* In addition to meat bonuses that may be picked up
to recover health, containers may be slashed open to
reveal fish which will also replenish health points.
* After each level, point tallies and scores are
rewarded for superb performance. New weapons are
also awarded at the end of each level to improve
killing power in the next round. After the first
level, players will be given a chance to save their
progress. Once saved, the map of Japan appears again
and the heroes move to a new area of Japan to help
the forces of man battle ungodly beasts.
* In the second level, there's a powerful boss
creature that looks like an oversized maggot which
is capable of laying waste to many soldiers at once.
It throws out a bomb attack which mimics what Inu
Gami uses to blow up gangs of enemies at once when
the TRIANGLE button is pressed.
* Jaded and weary of the genre after being bored by
various 3D hack 'n slash fests from various
publishers this past year, NCS approached Ikusa Gami
with no expectations. We had watched previews and
demos but nothing caught the eye. Not even the bit
about 65,535 enemies on screen at once. Who cares?
Is a gamer going to slash all 65,535 at one time or
even focus on more than 1000 enemies at a time on
screen? No, "but my car is 2.5" bigger than your
car" and "My Hummer drinks 50 gallons of gas when I
drive down the block." In other words, numbers that
are solely used as bragging rights. Or so we
thought. We looked at the 65536 number with jaded
antagonism but after playing the game, we can see
that it is necessary for Ikusa Gami to push that
many units at once. Not only are battles happening
in your local vicinity but they are happening all
over the expansive battlefield and Inu may run and
join in on any battle at any time by approaching it.
The versatile engine allows this to happen as large
conglomerations of warriors from both sides face
off. Inu may also wade through hundreds of soldiers
to reach his target. In addition to the enemies,
there are hundreds of arrow or air attacks that are
shown at any one time and we're guessing that the
65536 number includes these air objects that are
shown flying through the air when two sides face
off.
* We're impressed by Ikusa Gami's game engine but
the missions are generally slash and hack fests that
require little strategy or thought. Par for the
course, we suppose, since Devil Kings, Sengoku Musou,
et al are all hack festivals as well. Later missions
are somewhat more interesting but it all boils down
to "watch me kill these creatures by mowing them
down with blazing skills." Despite the monotonous
tone of the killings however, we found ourselves
playing the game for more than a few hours to see
what else the game designers would throw at us from
the boss monsters to how many creatures we would be
able to count on the battlefield at once...
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This document is ŠNCSX 2005. All rights reserved. No
reproduction in whole or in part of this document
may be made without express written consent of
National Console Support, Inc.
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