Egg Monster Hero E3 2004 Preshow Impressions

We had the chance to try a very brief demo of Square Enix's contribution to the Nintendo DS' software library, the tentatively named Egg Monster Hero. The demo offered two samples of the kind of gameplay offered in the game. The first was a basic fight between two monsters--a dragon and a globe that sported a volcano hat (just roll with it; we did)--displayed in the upper screen. When combat began, an overlay of our opponent appeared on the touch screen, requiring us to select target areas to attack by tapping with the stylus. Following those choices, an overlay of our monster came up, requiring us to choose which attacks we wanted to perform by tapping the touch screen. Once the choices were made, the attack played out in the upper screen in a smoothly animated sequence.

The second type of gameplay shown in the demo was a battle between two armies, which was displayed in the upper screen. We were given control of one and were required to drag our army's formation into the opposing army's formation via a simple map on the touch screen. By moving our army into our opponent's, we initiated combat, which played out automatically in the upper screen.

The graphics in both modes featured large, smoothly animated, and detailed sprites. Control was as simple as it sounds. Audio was sparse but decent in the work-in-progress demo. Look for more on Egg Monster Hero from the E3 show floor and in the coming months.