TGS 2008: Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin Hands-On

We report for duty in the second Warriors Orochi game to come to the PSP.

It's no secret that developer Koei has found a specific niche with its many Warriors games, and Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin is no exception. When Warriors Orochi first came to the PSP earlier this year, it brought with it the familiar one-against-many combat scenarios and a rich character roster. We hunted down the sequel at Tokyo Game Show 2008, grabbed our halberd/sword/staff, and waded into the fray.
Like its predecessor, Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin is all about combat. You choose a team of three characters from the quasi-historical roster and do battle in samurai keeps, open plains, mountainous passes, and a variety of other environments. Though you represent a team of three warriors, you use only one of them at a time, magically switching between them with the press of a button. Each warrior has a handful of attacks, varying in strength and range, and you'll find yourself employing them all during the course of a battle. In addition to the legions of cannon-fodder enemies, we also encountered stronger foes whose attacks were more varied and powerful. As we cut our way through the demo levels, we found that making use of our full range of attacks was the best way to slaughter hundreds of hapless foes, and was downright necessary when facing stronger opponents.
The battles you engage in are spread across a variety of game modes, ranging from the relatively forgiving Story Mode to the brutally difficult Dramatic Mode. The latter mode grants you but one life, and succumbing to the swords of your enemies will end your game straight away. There is also a Survival Mode that lets you take your favorite characters into one-on-one combat, and a versus and two-player matching mode for online play.
As you might expect, Warriors Orochi's second outing feels a lot like the first. We got a glimpse of a wide variety of game modes, but each seemed to play to the series' strengths: giving players control of a powerful warrior and setting them loose in a densely populated battlefield. Koei isn't reinventing the wheel, but the company seems to have dialed in on what Warriors fans want, and is continuing to deliver with Musou Orochi: Maou Sairin. Keep an eye on GameSpot in the coming months for word on a possible North American release, as well as updated impressions of this hack-and-slash-apalooza.

By Chris Watters, GameSpot

TGS 2008: Final Fantasy Agito XIII Trailer Impressions

Don't be agitated: Square Enix showed off a brief teaser of its upcoming role-playing game for the PSP.

TOKYO--More CGI goodness was on display today at Square Enix's remarkably dark Mega Theater on the TGS show floor. All three Final Fantasy XIII games were represented by trailers, including the PSP iteration, Final Fantasy Agito XIII. The trailer was remarkably similar to the one we'd already seen earlier this year, but in case we missed a detail or two, we thought we'd bring you a quick look at yet another promising game in the famed Final Fantasy series.

The trailer begins by showing us an enormous crystal lighting up as the famous Final Fantasy arpeggios set the stage for the coming drama. We then see imagery that is bound to give most viewers a chill: a Hitler-esque leader stands on a dais, calling out propaganda in a commanding speech to the legions of apparent soldiers ready to cater to his every wish. The placement of the leader and his subjects, as well as the scratchy, black-and-white visual style, hark back to the heyday of the Nazi regime, and it's chilling to see such imagery, even today.
In an even-more chilling twist, the buildings lining the street around the soldiers transform and then fly into the air. They are, in fact, enormous battleships, and they fly across the sky en masse, a terrifying sight to a peaceful nation. The view then changes, and we see a tall, thin spire rising into the air. The camera moves downward toward the crystal that we saw at the beginning of the trailer. The crystal cracks and shatters, and the camera pulls away to reveal its island residence. The entire isle then explodes, perhaps taking all of its residents with it.
But maybe there is a survivor after all. From chaos, a shrouded figure emerges and is soon surrounded by the regimented troops so ready to commit to their apparently evil cause. The troops aim, but our hero isn't a single renegade after all. As the camera rotates, we see that more caped silhouettes join the lone rebel, until there are a dozen or even more. The trailer also cut to something that we didn't see in many of the other trailers in Square Enix's shadowed theater: gameplay footage. Although there wasn't much, we did see that the game will let you command a party of four, and based on that footage, it seems that each party member is assigned one of the four face buttons.
And in a final gasp, the trailer informed us that Final Fantasy Agito XIII will be released for the PSP, but it indicated no release date. Of course, we'd rather show you the footage than describe it, but for now, it seems that there is plenty to look forward to where Agito XIII is concerned, and indeed, for all of the upcoming games in that crystal-themed collection. Keep your eyes open: We'll bring you more news as it becomes available.

By Kevin VanOrd, GameSpot