The latest Famitsu has mention of Ni-OH, an action game that seemed to completely disappear from the radar after it was announced for the PlayStation 3 way back in 2005. Although Ni-OH is yet another Koei game based in medieval Asia, comparisons have been drawn more to God of War than previous Dynasty Warriors titles.
Ni-OH is produced by Kou Shibusawa, a Koei veteran responsible for creating the venerable Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, the original Kessen and a variety of other old school titles. There is very little to go on right now, but it’s weird that the game has suddenly appeared after all this time.
When Koei tries to do something that isn’t Dynasty Warriors, the results can be mixed. Sometimes we get something absolutely amazing like Gitaroo Man. Sometimes we get Fatal Inertia. I hope that Ni-OH falls into the former category. Perhaps new blood from the Tecmo merger could lead to an awesome hardcore action title in the same vein as Ninja Gaiden.
Either way, it’s been a while since I had something new from Koei to bust a nut over, so I’ll take what I can get.
