Sega Nerds

TGS07: Imabikisou hands-on impressions

by Graham on September 27th, 2007

Of course you know the next game, I’m about to take a look at.  We covered the announcement a few months ago, remember?

Ok, so next to the Valkyrie of the Battlefield booth, which was pretty nice and open, we were greeted with a big black wall.  On the wall was a TV set playing the demo video (like with almost all the big booths) and next to the screen was a large vertical sign, displaying the Japanese name of the game.

It was along the front wall that we had to queue, and at the opposite end to the sign, there was a sinister looking tear, which we had to walk through.  After being greeted and almost dragged into the queue by a Sega guy, (he was pointing and pretty much ushered me into the line), I waited for about 10 minutes, and a small number of us were let inside.

Once inside, we found stools to sit upon, and were treated to a long trailer for the game.  Like with Valkyrie of the Battlefield, the video was all in Japanese, so I couldn’t understand any of the writing or the voice acting. 

The video pretty much showed off exactly what to expect in the game - lot’s of writing and vivid, freaky images.  And Sega used some extra lighting effects and loud speakers to help promote fear into the viewers.  To be honest that didn’t work too well for me, but I’m sure all the nice Japanese people around me were shi%*ing themselves.

As a non-Japanese speaker, though, it was pretty hard to follow.  Fortunately, I had read a little about the game before hand, so I could just get by.  Part of the story line involves mystserious deaths, in which people spontaneously combust, and one really cool moment in the video, was when you see a man and woman driving along a mountain road, and the womans nails turn black and start to smoke.  Then the guy looks at the woman and you see fire reflect in his eyes.  Then you see the car burst into flames, and fly off a cliff.

[youtube width=”400″ height=”335″]VF1ErRAbpC8[/youtube]

~Note: This video is meant to be from TGS - but it is slightly different to the one I was shown~

After the video we were led into a dark corridor, which had several small rooms along the walls.  Naturally, each room contained a small stool and a PS3… it also contained the new Dual Shock 3.

I won’t go into much detail about the controller, other than it’s much like the Dual Shock 2, but wireless and has better L and R buttons.  So basically like a normal PS3 controller, but rumbles.

Back to the game!

Ok so if you don’t know, Imabikisou is not a game per-se, it is classified as a ‘Sound Novel.’  The Sound Novel is essentially like reading a book, on your computer.  So you don’t actually control any character or solve any puzzles, and definitely no shooting. But unlike a normal book, it has sounds and visual aides, to help move the story along, and in the case of Imabikisou, should help to scare the crap out of the ‘players.’

ChunSoft (the developers) have been making sound Novels since the Snes, but none of them (I believe) ever saw it out of Japan, no doubt due to heavy text use and that there is no real action.  It’s something the Japanese market will lap up, but will only sell about 3 copies anywhere else.

I got to play the game for about 5-10 minutes.  Really it is exactly how I expected it, from seeing videos before hand.  You scroll through scores of text, and have images appear behind the writing, and ocassionally you will see a sort of cutscene - basically a screen with no writing on, but may have some video on it.

The images you see, be it video or a picture, are mainly real life actors and objects, but also include some added CGI to the mix.  Essentially it is like watching a foreign movie, with lots of subtitles.

What I played, I didn’t get much of the story, I literally sat there and tapped X to go through the writing.  Heck, I couldn’t read a word of it, no point in sitting looking at shapes on a screen.

Summary:

I think the general idea and story behind Imabikisou is pretty good.  I just can’t comment too much on it, as the language barrier is too great.

So far no word of a western release has been announced, I did actually ask someone from Sega, and they said they doubt it would happen.  He worked for Sega Japan, but was actually American, so the conversation between us was pretty good - no mix up of words.

So with no western release, PS3 owners would have to import the game, and really unless you can read Japanese, you are not going to be able to follow it whatsoever.  It’s not like importing a Japanese RPG, where you still get to have cool fights and explore, you will just be reading and watching the screen.

To be honest, I don’t see why ChunSoft don’t just use the money to make a movie, because that is basically what this is, a movie you have to read through.

~G~

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POSTED IN: G, Japan, News, Sony PlayStation 3, Video