To my knowledge, the first Arcaic Sealed Heat footage appeared today, and did so with a bang. A trailer, Japanese TV spot, a CGI scene, and two gameplay videos have stormed the Internet, and ASH seems poised to make a strong contribution (maybe the strongest) to an already-solid DS RPG line-up (I'm looking at you, FFIVand DQIX).
Let's go ahead and get this out of the way: ASH looks amazing. The CGI is absolutely stellar, as is the real-time gameplay. It's too early to tell, but ASH's production values are some of the best I've ever seen on the DS and seem to blow Final Fantasy IV DS's out of the graphical water. To boot, none of the characters are super-deformed, or even a little bit deformed.
The gameplay looks like a solid mix of traditional, turn-based RPG and tactics-style strategy. The trick seems to be to dole out Ability Points to members of your party, and then to confront an enemy. While the battles look like they could easily become time-consuming, at least they won't be the monotonous "just push A until it's over"-fest in which RPGs so often engage.
Blue Dragon may have gotten mixed reviews, but I'm excited to see what Sakaguchi-san and Mistwalker are up to. Seeing what they manage to squeeze out of the DS will be interesting, and even if ASH doesn't revolutionize the portable RPG scene, I don't see any reason why it won't be rock solid. ASH drops in Japan on October 4, and if it doesn't see a U.S. release, I may have to look into those Japanese 104 fliers I keep seeing around campus.
Oh, and here are some scans from Shonen Jump, for your perusing pleasure. Make the jump for more videos.
Joseph Leray is a founding Destructoid editor and has better hair than you. He speaks French and needs to send us his updated bio in English, preferably.
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I"ve been wanting to see footage of this for awhile, and thank you kind sir for posting it, it looks good the gameplay seem confusing to look at but that could just be me.
Been watching this baby for a while now. This is the kind of rpg DS needs more of. I tire of SD characters sometimes, so I'm glad Mistwalker have broke that wall down, that that's all DS can do.
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4:59 PM on 09.19.2007
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Think I may have to import it, it looks so sweet.