Posted Sep 10, 2006 at 09:36PM by Gino D. Listed in: Interviews, Previews, Games, Genji: Days of the Blade Tags: Japan, Game Informer, Dan-no-ura, heikegani
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Kick-punch-block! Kick-chop-kick!


Game Informer was able to have a beefy sit-down with Kyle Shubel, producer of the PS3's Genji: Days of the Blade. It seems like the game is going full throttle with the next-gen platform and that fans surely have a lot to look forward to. The demo's been out since E3, but now we go in-depth into more details about your journey across ancient Japan.

First, let's talk about the camera angles of the game. People have speculated about how the camera remained fixed in the short demo, but Shubel claims that this is only a start. He says that while the player doesn't have control of the camera, it will still be dynamic in the sense that it slides around the battles in a fluid motion. This allows a more continuous movement in viewing the battle, instead of watching it as if they were cutscenes, switching erratically from one angle to another.

Speaking of battles, the player can choose between four different characters, and their combo moves will also differ. Each of them have around five to eight sets of weapons to choose from, and each of those characters will have varying animations for their combo attacks. From jabbing attacks to swinging motions, each weapon - each combo - will have its own pros and cons, whether it will do more damage or be more defensive. Your arsenal of strategies is sure to be tested with all these possible choices.

So you've got battles and weapons served up, but what about the enemies? Well, one creature that's been getting a lot of airtime on the net (forums, message boards, etc.) is the giant crab - more popularly known in Japan as the heikegani. As a side story, Shubel mentions that in Japanese lore, the epic war of Dan-no-ura (which you'd be able to play through as one of the levels) led to massive deathtolls among the samurais that fought in it. Their numbers totalled so great that their spirits had "possessed" these giant crabs and gave them faces which resembled those of the samurais (the crab below, left, is a real crab with the samurai mask on its back). It is this little factoid that brings this game to a whole new dimension. Yes, it may be a bit too fantastic, but isn't that what gamers enjoy?

Crabby crabby crabby... - Image 1 Crabby crabby crabby... - Image 2




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5 Comments


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   by Annony - 2006-09-10
 » What the h3ll?

Is that how they justify the 'historically accurate' "Giant Enemy Crab"s? They're 'possessed'? Pssht...

Oh well, E3 will make Genji a 'must have' just for the nostalgic value =P Not that I have anything against the game (except the 'crab' thing) but I haven't seen anything 'amazing' from it yet...


   by JayJay (Unregistered) - 2006-09-11
 » Genji

i swear, that giant enemy crab has like totally killed the credibility of this game, im not gonna lie it turned me off from it too. but i recently saw videos of gameplay and it looked like it played very similar to Onimusha and Onimusha was great ( i never played previous genji) so if it does play like genji and they can make it fun and not repetitive, and a good deep storyline, im up for it

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   by senjutsu - 2006-09-11
 » same as genji 1

camera: exactly the same
battles: exactly the same exept for the number of characters ( 2 in genji 1, 4 in genji 2 )

Genji on ps2 was really great, a big hit if the game could be more long ( take about 10 hours to finish, or a little more if you are a slowpoke ( some like to play slowpoke-like )) and I'm sure genji 2 won't be longer, or only a litle bit. just hoping they put some unlockable stuff or special stuff you can do after you finished the game, something better than simply a new difficulty. Anyway, genji 1 was really great, WAY better than onimusha, and the battles were cool. You can become so good in the battle that after a good while you can kill some units in only one blow, and not "cheap" ennemies, but even big ones, because if you press a the right time, it's a one shot "stylist" kill =D, and you gain powers-like to slow down the time so you can see the button you have to press to do the one-shot kill ( critical atk one bosses ). you can even slow down time 3-4 times to see it really well, but after some practice you shouldn't have problems. I suppose they putted the same control because it's the same status bars ( almost ) with the ° about how many times you can slow down time, I didn'T watch all the gameplay videos, but the game looks the same with better graphs ( and the graph on ps2 was great ). BUT the story was short and not really good, and the game was really short, so I won't buy the second, because 59$US for 15 hours or less is just too much! I'll buy MGS4 and final fantasy 13 instead. lol ( and heavy rain, I know I know, indigo prophecy was short too, less than 10 hours... BUT it was sooo coooolll, movie-like immersive :D so I suppose it only depend on your taste for what you buy, but you should buy genji on ps2 before it shouldn't be at 49$ anymore, maybe 19.99$ ? for a super good game =D, better than 59$ for a game you will maybe dislike! or rent it, it takes about 10 hours to conplete ( but not with everything )

   by Luken51 - 2006-09-11
 » Riiiiidge Racer!

GIANT ENEMY CRAAAAAAB! XD

   by Gino D. (QJ. NET Staff) - 2006-09-11
 » @ Luken51

LOL XD



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