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Platform: Xbox Genre: Survival Horror RPG Publisher: TBA Developer: NeoCell Factory ETA: Fall 2004
Related Links: Review: Resident Evil Zero (Gamecube) Review: Eternal Darkness (Gamecube)
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Resonance
Gamers in the mood for a spooky RPG with some action elements peppered therein have something to look forward to in the future, as NeoCell Factory has a survival horror RPG in the works for the console. Taking place in a world heavily influenced by the Renaissance with a very eager inquisition roaming the land in search of those who seem to be veering a little too far from the Church’s teachings, players take control of Faye Winter, a woman of noble blood with special powers. She works as an agent to the king (of what country we do not know) as a means to learn more about her abilities. It looks like the game will try to play off of the unnatural, on the one hand we have Faye who is, for all intent and purposes, a witch, at least in the eyes of the inquisition. And on the other hand we have the fact that the game is part survival horror, so encountering a number of nasty unnatural beasts would be a safe bet.
Resonance will have a good deal of open-endedness to it, with dozens of side quests, and very open environments to explore. Usually when a game has survival horror facets to it, the areas to explore are very small, giving a tense, almost claustrophobic sense to players, so it will be interesting to see how NeoCell takes the more explorative sensibilities of role-playing games and combines it with the way survival horror games make gamers scared to peak around a corner, let along traverse large worlds.
It would appear, though, that genre melding is of great importance to the developers in this game. Resonance will, after all, be meshing together the spookier aspects of survival horror with a very action-oriented combat system, then slapping on a RPG-based level-up system. Unfortunately information is still quite sparse in terms of nitty-gritty details as to what to expect from the game, with only vague promises, lists of how many special moves to expect, gushingly optimistic press releases, and the like. Whatever the final game might hold, there’s no denying that it’s an ambitious project. Hopefully it will all come together nicely and not become more ammo for game writers’ reviews that start along the lines of, “It was a good idea, but with poor execution…”
At this point Resonance is slated for a Fall 2004 release. - Mr. Nash (December 4, 2003) |
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