New Wii Action RPG Announced - Ougon no Kizuna

quote GAF

Kizuna 黄金の絆
Action RPG
Jaleco/Winter 2008
- Main Character name is Lian
- There's a king call Jared and a princess call Aina
- Game's graphic will have a pencil effect to them
- More than 100 quests
- Accumulated gauge techniques can be used.
- Huge bosses, find the weak point by pointing the Wii remote on screen (Shadow of the Colossus?)
- Scenario: Miwa Shouda (FFXII, Saga Frontier, Little King's Story)
- Director/Programmer: Youichi Kawaguchi (DQVIII, Little King's Story)

quote 1up

You probably haven't heard a lot from Jaleco lately. A prolific Japanese game publisher during the 8- and 16-bit eras, the company is no longer a player in the US console marketplace, despite a short stab at it in 2003 with titles like Goblin Commander. The Japanese parent company is still around, though, and they've got a surprise for Wii owners: a full-blown action RPG that's seemingly come out of nowhere and looks remarkably impressive.

Ougon no Kizuna is set in the kindgom of Navigatoria, which has been under threat from the evil demon lord Galvaran for ages. A great hero, Gelade, successfully encased Galvaran in a tree of crystal in the last war, but went missing in the process. The monsters are back, though, and this time it's Gelade's emotionless son Rian who soldiers to the rescue, along with the stubborn, tomboyish Princess Ayna and her personal tutor Mist.

The game's title is Japanese for "bonds of gold," and the story's central theme (as outlined by scenario writer Miwa Shouda, who worked on Final Fantasy XII and the Saga Frontier games for Square) revolves around the bonds Rian forges with the people he meets during his quest. The main story mode's divided into chapters, and there's over 100 additional quests to undertake, running the gamut from simple errands to monster-slaying expeditions. Details are still scant, but the "bonds" you create in filling these quests play a major role in the game -- sometimes they'll help you out when Rian is alone in battle, in fact.

The battles in Ougon no Kizuna are action-oriented, and you'll be using the Wii Nunchuk to fight them. The game has a tendency to throw hordes of monsters at your party all at once, and you'll use the Wiimote to point at the enemy you want Rian to target before striking. As you fight, you'll gradually fill up a gauge on the bottom of the screen that unlocks a screen-clearing special move -- shades of the Dynasty Warriors games there.

Kizuna looks like one to watch, and not just because of the name-brand talent behind it (including Shouda and director Yoichi Kawaguchi, an ex-Level-5 guy who's also leading up Little King's Story right now). The game seems to take cues from several other notable titles, including Prince of Persia (it shares that game's subtle cel-shaded graphic style) and Sony's Shadow of the Colossus (you'll fight massive, lumbering bosses at the end of each chapter that are a puzzle in themselves to defeat). We'll have to see how those games' magic wears on this one when it touches down this winter.

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The main story mode's divided into chapters, and there's over 100 additional quests to undertake,

quote Dragon ZERO

I want traditional turned based ones.

quote Akira_EX

Arc Rise Fantasia