Extensive new details on SCEI's Wanda, Genji

The mysterious Web site on Sony's Japanese PlayStation home page, which featured a countdown leading to the announcement of two "awesome" titles, ended in the wee hours of the morning today. As promised, fans were treated to first looks at two stunning titles--Wanda and the Colossus and Genji. "Wanda to Kyozou” translates into English as “Wanda and the Colossus".

Internally referred to for the last two years as "Nico," Wanda and the Colossus is the sophomore effort from the internal team at SCEI that produced 2001's critically acclaimed adventure ICO. Directed by Fumito Ueda and produced by Kenji Kaido, the title is not a direct sequel, although it shares much of the first game's graphic design.

The main character in Wanda and the Colossus is a boy who travels on a horse, carrying the soulless body of a little girl day and night until he reaches a shrine surrounded by vast wilderness. As the boy lays the dearly beloved girl's body at the shrine, lighting suddenly strikes, and the boy hears voices from the heavens that tells him that he can bring back the girl's soul if he defeats all the giant statues in the land without regard for his own life. There is no one in the vast desolated land except for the boy, his horse, and the godlike moving statues that appear in front of them as more lightning strikes the land. Bound together with their love for the little girl, the boy and his horse go to fight against the colossal stone beings without any hesitation.

During the actual game, you'll take the role of the boy, fighting against the huge ancient stone beings that were sealed off in the land. Aside from the human looking Golem shown on the official website, there are various types of other colossal stone beings, such as those that can fly, or swim in the water. Your basic strategy in the game is to use the R1 button to grasp onto the Colossus and to climb up on them until you find their weak spot to attack and defeat it. You'll have to use various strategies in order to reach the weak points for some of the Colossus, such as hitting them on a certain location of their body so that they'll change their posture into something that's climbable.

The Colossus will not only attack you, but they'll also move their body around to try and fling you off. But you're not alone in fighting against the Colossus; you've got your horse as your partner, which becomes useful in running around the vast land, catching up to fast enemies, and other purposes. The horse moves semi-automatically with artificial intelligence, and knows not run into danger--it won't dash off of cliffs or charge into trees.

The development of Wanda and the Colossus started immediately after ICO's release in Japan. "After we finished development on ICO, I was asking myself whether fans of ICO would really want a sequel, considering that ICO's world and storyline concluded pretty well," commented Wanda and the Colossus producer Kenji Kaido on the site. "So I decided that we would make something new. ICO was a rather serene game, which might have been a reason why I went on a rebound and felt like making something intense. I wanted to make a game where you could enjoy playing as the main character... The game's fundamental roots aren't different from ICO, but we hope that fans can enjoy the dynamic thrill and the fears of facing a huge enemy."

Genji, meanwhile, is the long-awaited first title from Game Republic, the studio founded last year by ex-Capcom producer Yoshiki Okamoto. In the action game, you'll take the role of Minamotono Yoshitsune, a historical warrior from the late 12th century who was known as a handsome general. Together with his monk/warrior partner, Musashibo Benkei, the two must fight to defeat lord Tairano Kiyomori and his clan, whose violent dictatorship has gone to the extreme after they successfully beat Yoshitsune's father Yoshitomo’s clan and conquered the country with the help of mythical stones called Ama-hagane (which brings superior fighting capability to its possessors). The game is based on historical characters, although there's obviously some science fiction mixed into the game's storyline.

Genji seems to have quite a lot of focus on its visuals; the characters will be designed by Keita Amamiya, who also worked on the characters in Onimusha 3 and Clock Tower 3. Sword fighting scenes will be directed by Mitsuhiko Seike, who has worked on various samurai dramas in Japan. The game's visuals focus in presenting "elegance" in Japanese style art--and true to its word, screen shots released on the game seemed to use a lot of bright colors and gold in its graphics.

This will be the third Japanese sword fighting title themed on Yoshitsune announced for release in 2005. In July, From Software announced that it will release an action game titled The Story of Yoshitsune; and last month Banpresto announced that it will release a game called Yoshitsune-ki. The timing of the games is not a coincidence--early next year, a much-publicized TV drama series depicting the life of the young hero will run on national television in Japan.

The teaser sites for Wanda and the Colossus and Genji will be updated with more information on the 24th of this month, concurrent with the two games' debut at the Tokyo Game Show. Both titles are scheduled for release in 2005.