Official Site: http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/namaikida/
Price: 3980yen
Release Date: Out right now
Why it rocks: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=211934
Basic Gameplay Summary
You play as the "God of Destruction" represented by a cursor in the shape of a sickle. Using this you can break stones to create paths in the undgerground and unleashing various monsters that live and reproduce on a simple ecosystem. When budding adventures decide to venture forth into the dungeon, you must move the demon lord to a place of safety so he cannot be capture, while maintaining the dungeon such that the monsters will slay these insolent adventures and put a stop to their aspirations.
Initial Impressions
Compared to the demo, the full game has much more options and reveals what sort of game it really is. As I suspected from the demo, this is definitely intended to be a puzzle/arcade style game instead of a sim. The sim elements are simply a unique base for the gameplay system. In the full game, you save the game as you complete the various training stages, and subsequently unlock Challenge missions which rank and score you. In the Story mode, you cannot save your progress at all, so it's not much of a sim. The objective is to play for the highest score possible. Your top score is saved when you die. I believe it's possible to actually beat the story mode too, but I only got to Stage 5 so far - it's pretty hard. There's also a sort of VS mode where you can customize the adventure(s) that would be invading the dungeon by renaming them, renaming their title and quote, etc. And you can then use them to attack a friend's dungeon.
Overall it's pretty much what I expected - possible the most addictive portable game in a long time and definitely a breath of fresh air in the genre. Because of the large amount of Japanese text and the 8-bit graphics, I don't expect this to take off like Lumines did even if it's brought to the US, but it definitely gives me the same feeling as something I've never played before and definitely want to play more and more of.
Price: 3980yen
Release Date: Out right now
Why it rocks: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=211934
Basic Gameplay Summary
You play as the "God of Destruction" represented by a cursor in the shape of a sickle. Using this you can break stones to create paths in the undgerground and unleashing various monsters that live and reproduce on a simple ecosystem. When budding adventures decide to venture forth into the dungeon, you must move the demon lord to a place of safety so he cannot be capture, while maintaining the dungeon such that the monsters will slay these insolent adventures and put a stop to their aspirations.
Initial Impressions
Compared to the demo, the full game has much more options and reveals what sort of game it really is. As I suspected from the demo, this is definitely intended to be a puzzle/arcade style game instead of a sim. The sim elements are simply a unique base for the gameplay system. In the full game, you save the game as you complete the various training stages, and subsequently unlock Challenge missions which rank and score you. In the Story mode, you cannot save your progress at all, so it's not much of a sim. The objective is to play for the highest score possible. Your top score is saved when you die. I believe it's possible to actually beat the story mode too, but I only got to Stage 5 so far - it's pretty hard. There's also a sort of VS mode where you can customize the adventure(s) that would be invading the dungeon by renaming them, renaming their title and quote, etc. And you can then use them to attack a friend's dungeon.
Overall it's pretty much what I expected - possible the most addictive portable game in a long time and definitely a breath of fresh air in the genre. Because of the large amount of Japanese text and the 8-bit graphics, I don't expect this to take off like Lumines did even if it's brought to the US, but it definitely gives me the same feeling as something I've never played before and definitely want to play more and more of.