TGS 2003Otogi: Hyakki Toubatsu Emaki Impressions

We got to take a look at the new game in the Otogi series today at From Software's TGS booth. Though the first game was only recently released in the United States, it saw the light of day in Japan a long time ago, and so From is already fairly far along in development on its sequel. The game is subtitled Hyakki Toubatsu Emaki, and from the demo level we played, the new game will give fans of the first Otogi a whole lot more of what they liked about the first one.

The demo cast us as a new female character clad in flowing robes and armed with two deadly fans. Just as in the first game, you can jump and attack repeatedly, which lets you effectively stay in the air ad infinitum; this gives the game a sort of flowing, aerial quality. We fought against a host of large bone creatures through the course of the level, and at the end we took on a demonic warrior inside a large, multi-tiered wooden framework that shows the Otogi sequel is taking the first game's destructible environments to new heights. As we fought, huge pieces of the structure were smashed and reduced to rubble, such that eventually we were fighting not amidst beams of wood but splinters.

Otogi fans will be pleased to know that the first game's strangely ethereal graphical style is returning in its sequel. Otogi: Hyakki Toubatsu Emaki is currently scheduled for release by the end of the year in Japan. No plans for a US release have been announced at this time.

See more of GameSpot's coverage of the 2003 Tokyo Game Show.