Code Age Commanders Hands-On: Square Enix Party 2005

MAKUHARI MESSE--The Square Enix Party 2005 has given us the chance to check out Code Age Commanders, which is a new action role-playing game produced by Yusuke Naora, an artist who has worked on major titles including Final Fantasy X and Unlimited SaGa. You might have heard of Code Age before, since there's already a manga series named Code Age Archives running in Square Enix's monthly magazine. Square Enix is taking a media-mix strategy in expanding its Code Age franchise, and aside from a PS2 game and a manga series, there's a game for mobile phones in the works, titled Code Age Brawls. All three games take place in the same unique sci-fi world, though they seem to happen in different timelines. Likewise, the main characters are different for all of them. Here's what we've gleaned so far about this unusual new series.

To give a quick rundown of Code Age's back story, its world relies on something called the Central Code, which is the foundation of all of creation. Every 10,000 years, the Central Code triggers a phenomenon called "rebirth," where the Earth is destroyed and then reincarnated. Humankind builds a massive arc for cryogenic sleep so that it can survive through this event and wake up in the new world. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned, and the arc breaks down. Code Age Commander's main character, Gene, has survived despite his fall from the arc. In order to live in his new environment where the Central Code isn't working as it used to, Gene ends up turning into a mutant, which are referred to in the game as the "warheads."

At the show, we got to play as Gene and two other mutants named Fiona and Gerald. The game is mission based, and your character changes depending on the stage. At a glance, Code Age Commanders looks like a third-person 3D action game with a similar feel to Kingdom Hearts. You control your character using the left analog stick, and you change around your camera angle using the right analog stick. L1 is used for fixing your camera angle in the direction that your character is facing, and R1 lets you lock onto a certain enemy for attacking. The square button is used for guarding against attacks.

But this is as close as Code Age Commanders comes to previous action games by Square Enix. The game gets a little bit complicated after this in terms of controls. In Code Age Commanders, your character fights by mutating its hand into various forms. Since you've got two hands, you'll be fighting using two buttons. The circle button is for right-hand attacks, and the X button is for left-hand attacks. You mutate your hands into a weapon by finding small inorganic-looking characters called the Otello, which are moving around on the field. When you find them, just press the circle or X button, and you can absorb them into your hand to mutate it.

Once that happens, you can perform close-up attacks with your hand as a weapon with the two buttons. You can also use the L2 or R2 buttons to shoot the Otello out of your hand as an attack, although that can reset your hand's mutation. We noticed that we could stock about three Otellos in each hand, so there shouldn't be too many concerns over using them as projectiles, and there were a lot of Otellos on the field to begin with. Some areas of the stage had such a high concentration of Otellos that it was hard to search for the enemies.

You aren't alone in your fights in Code Age Commanders--the game features computer-controlled party members. The party members seem to have minds of their own, so they won't trail behind you like in some games. The shot attacks using the L2 or R2 button have different effects depending on what kind of Otello you've absorbed, and while they generally seem to do damage to enemies, some of them can also be used to recover life for you and your party members.

The enemies in Code Age Commanders are called the Codeds, and they look like human beings that failed to successfully mutate, which is essentially what they are. By hitting them successively with your left and right hands, you'll be able to perform combination attacks. Aside from being able to do more damage than just a single hit, attacking in combinations also have an additional bonus. At the top of the screen is a meter that rises when you do combos, and when it maxes out, you can press the triangle button to execute a move called the Code Drive. The Code Drive is a powerful move, so it takes a while to come out, meaning you need to make sure the enemy won't attack you before you pull it off. Once you hit your enemy with it, though, the screen will switch to a close-up of your character. You'll be prompted to press the circle button at certain times, and if you succeed, you'll execute a devastating attack with some nice flashy effects.

When you finish your mission, you'll get rewarded with "code points" depending on your performance. You can use them to buy accessories that power up your character, through a menu screen called the "code extension." In addition to accessories that strengthen your attacks, such as through additional combination hits and wider attack range, there are accessories for your life, defense, and other characteristics. Aside from powering up with items, your character will evolve according to your fighting pattern, though the demo didn't provide enough time for us to check that out.

The graphics in Code Age Commanders are smooth and well rendered, but whether players can get into them may have more to do with its character designs, which are avant-garde and vastly different from anything produced by Square Enix in the past.

The game will be coming out in Japan on October 13. Square Enix also had a slideshow demo of Code Age Brawls running on a mobile phone. While specific system details haven't been disclosed yet, we were able to confirm that Code Age Brawls will be an online mobile game, which makes it the second Net-enabled mobile title by Square Enix, following Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more information about each of these.