Otogi: Myth of Demons Hands-On

Sega has a number of games on display at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, and one of them that's particularly close to completion is Otogi: Myth of Demos, a samurai action game for the Xbox developed by From Software. We were eager to get our hands on the game and hack our way through one of its wide-open, enemy-infested levels and trounce the end boss, whom we most certainly did trounce, we'll have you know.

Otogi is 80 percent complete at this point. We were able to easily pick up and get into the game because we noticed that the gameplay is actually very reminiscent of Sega's own Shinobi, a ninja action game from Overworks that was released for the PS2 last year.

Gameplay is paced somewhat more slowly than in Shinobi, in which the main character jumped very quickly. Here, the jumping is much floatier, but just like in Shinobi, the main character can double-jump and then use a sort of shadow dash move to gain some more distance. Unfortunately there's no running on walls here, though. You can execute light and heavy slashes, the former of which allows you to spin like a helicopter wing, maintaining a longer midair hang time while cutting any nearby foes, and the latter of which makes you drop with a crushing double-bladed strike that's so powerful it can destroy entire buildings. It's a pretty good effect, and it makes the character seem very powerful.

Similarities between Shinobi and Otogi extend even further, as just like the main character in Shinobi had a flowing red scarf, the main character here has a flowing black plume. The character looks poised and dangerous, and his moves look appropriately deadly. His foes consist of creatures based on Japanese mythology, and they attack from all angles. The boss monster we eventually squared off against, after locating and collecting three magical chalices, was a huge minotaurlike creature armed with an ax. We took on this opponent mostly in midair, laying into it with our blades while avoiding its rather slow attacks.

Shinobi had great gameplay, so we're looking forward to Otogi for a similar--and similarly Japanese--experience. The game is slated for release in the fall for the Xbox, and we'll bring you more on it between now and then.