Space World 2001: Hands-On: Rune for GameCube

From Software, the developer of popular PlayStation titles such as Armored Core and King's Field, has signed on as a third-party developer for the Nintendo GameCube. The company's first game is tentatively titled Rune, which is an action role-playing game in which you use cards to summon monsters in battles. As the game's story goes, small towns in a fictional land began disappearing within dark, mysterious mists, and the Kingdom of Orange is now in danger of becoming the next victim. With the absence of the king, Princess Katia Gerber opens a chest in the royal vault and finds a golden key and a card. You will assume the role of the princess, and battle will begin against the darkness.

The version we played at Space World was 30 percent complete and let us choose from one of three locations on a map. After you select a location, the game takes you into the field map/dungeon, where you can walk around, find treasure chests, and progress through the game. The battles are random encounters, as in most console RPGs--for example, you can switch from the field map into a diorama-like battle area (which is actually the same spot on the field map, except isolated). During battle, you need to concentrate on keeping the character away from enemy attacks as much as possible. The princess herself can't attack the enemies, and this is where the deck of cards come into play. Cards do everything, from attacking enemies to healing the character. The bottom left of the screen shows the deck of cards, and four cards will be drawn and displayed (like a cross) at the bottom right of the screen during battle. Though it is not known how many cards you will have at the beginning of the game (since the demo version already gave us a starter pack), treasure chests in the field map sometimes contain cards to add to your deck. Each card is assigned one of the following four buttons: A,B,X, or Y. Using the cards requires a certain number of runes. The more powerful the card, the more rune it requires. Though most cards are used up after a single use, the card will continue to remain in the deck for use in the next battle.

Cards such as carbunkle, lizardman, skeleton, and dullahan appear and serve as nonplayer characters (NPCs), which walk around the battlefield and attack enemies or just appear for a few seconds to execute the attack and disappear. Other cards, such as the unicorn and fairy, heal the character. The more powerful cards, such as stone elephant, sandworm, and the dragon, are the equivalents to Bahamut and Efrit in the Final Fantasy games. When using these powerful cards, the main character disappears and is replaced by the summon card, performing its destructive feats and leaving no trace of the enemy most of the time. Killing enemies will reward you with runes, replenishing ones you have consumed during battle. After the battle, the screen displays how much experience points were gained, and you can then press the A button to return to the field map. As you level up, your stats (like hit points) increase, and some of the cards will evolve into a better version.

The graphics look more like those in a PC game, as opposed to visuals you see on console RPGs. However, From Software has been known to develop games such as King's Field, Shadow Tower, and Evergrace, all of which have this type of visual style.

Rune for the GameCube is expected to hit store shelves in Japan sometime this winter.