
	Platform Portable Playstation (PSP) Genre Action Publisher Konami Developer Hudson Soft ETA March 2005
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Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory

Usually when the thought of a game with randomly generated dungeons comes to mind, people think of swords and sorcery sorts of RPGs. In an attempt to buck the trend, Hudson Soft and Konami are bringing Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory to the PSP. Taking a sci-fi approach, players will control a robot that must blast the crap out of enemies, while slowly enhancing itself, with the final goal of unlocking the secrets of the tower (complete with random dungeons) that it is trapped in.

The nameless robot hero finds itself in a cybernetic tower called Rengoku. The dilemma the robot faces isn’t so much the fact that most of the tower’s inhabitants are quite intent on destroying our metal hero, as that the robot has become sentient and is starting to ask itself all the big questions people ask themselves at one point or another in their life: “Why am I here?”, “What purpose does my life serve?”, “Does this shirt make me look fat?”, and so forth (well, not so much the last one). To find the answers to these questions, players need to get the top level of the tower, and talk to structure’s master, who can make everything clearer, and hopefully bring the game’s hero to some sort of spiritual epiphany.

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As players make their way to the cybernetic wiseman of the tower, they will have to traverse eight randomly generated dungeons. Usually when a game has dungeons like this, the gameplay is very stop-and-go since players have to stop to go through a battle sequence, and then get back to the business of exploring the dungeon. Since Rengoku has a more fast-paced, action-oriented stance, the game may provide players with a more frenetic experience for this sub-genre. One drawback already noticeable about the

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game, though, is the lack of variation in how the surroundings look. Granted players are in a cybernetic world, but even from looking at early images of the game, there seems to be an overkill of stark metal walls, and the like. The Japanese press took exception to this when they reviewed Rengoku last year. Hopefully Konami took note of this and will spruce things up a bit more for the game’s North American release.

In terms of the arsenal at players’ disposal, the robot will be able to attach a maximum of four weapons at a time, each controlled by one of the four face buttons of the PSP. Each button controls an attack of a different level of strength, and over time players can upgrade their gear for better results.

Rengoku looks to be an ambitious reinvention of the randomly generated dungeon, tossing the swords and spells out the window, and replacing them with head-mounted cannons, cybernetic limbs, and a liberal splash of explosives. Gamers will have a chance to see if this title is their cup of tea when it is released for the PSP's North American launch.

Features:

- Intense fighting action with randomized level layouts

- Strategic weapon upgrades – upgrade body part armaments

- Graphics from famed Japanese illustrator Jun Suemi

- 1-4 player wireless multiplayer gameplay

Mr. Nash

March 5, 2005