TGS 2003Nebula: Echo Night Impressions

We got to play a brief demo of Nebula: Echo Night at From Software's booth at the Tokyo Game Show. The game is an adventure game with horror elements set in space, though we'd hesitate to call it a survival horror game since it's played from the first-person perspective. The demo gave a pretty good impression of how the final game will play, and so far it's looking pretty good.

The Nebula demo placed us inside a space suit as we roamed around the halls of what was presumably a space station. The viewpoint looks a bit like Metroid Prime in that it approximates the inside of a space suit helmet, although Nebula plays nothing at all like that game. Rather, you move around slowly, exploring and searching for clues and objects. We saw some ghosts roaming around the hallways, and after discovering a video disc that allowed a little girl's spirit to find the spirit of her father, all seemed to be made right for the time being and the demo ended.

The graphics in Nebula are actually pretty notable--the lighting is used in a smart way to make things look extra creepy, and the way part of your view is obscured by your helmet sometimes helps enhance the tension. Nebula: Echo Night is currently scheduled for a Q4 release in Japan, though we haven't heard about the possibility of a stateside release at this time.

See more of GameSpot's coverage of the 2003 Tokyo Game Show.