Cy Girls Updated Impressions

At today's Konami press event in San Francisco, the company gave us an updated look at Cy Girls, a third-person action game based on the Takara action-figure license. In Cy Girls, you take on the dual roles of Ice and Aska, a pair of tight-clothed special agents, whose task is to stop an evil conglomerate from taking over the world. The conglomerate aims to do so by using a "cyberworld" that it has created. This cyberworld exists as somewhat of a combination between reality and virtual reality, and most people cannot enter it, since existing in the cyberworld is similar in nature to being underwater. The Cy Girls, however, have the ability to bounce back and forth between worlds, though their time spent in the cyberworld is limited to only 10 minutes at a time.

As stated in our previous coverage of Cy Girls, the game's heroines each have their own unique abilities and styles of attack. Ice is the more outgoing of the two, with a futuristic look, and her combat style is focused on projectile and gun attacks. Aska is basically a techno-ninja, relying heavily on stealth and sword combat. Both characters have their own motivations, with Ice coming into the game as a former assassin and Aska taking part in the fight against the conglomerate strictly for revenge.

The gameplay will shift somewhat depending on which world the characters are in. In the real world, Ice and Aska will simply rely on weapon combat, but in the cyberworld they won't have access to their weapons. Instead, each character will be able to learn new skills and attacks via interfaces found throughout the world. Some of the skills we saw in the demo of the game included new martial arts moves, like spin kicks, and the ability to slow time down, so the girls could beat up on enemies with ease. Enemies will also be much different in the cyberworld--instead of people, you'll be taking on the conglomerate's various guard programs.

From what we could see of the game's visuals, the game looked pretty good, with lots of smooth, fluid animation and a number of cool-looking environments. Both of the Cy Girls themselves looked well done and appropriately futuristic without being too hokey. Currently, Cy Girls is slated for a February release on the PlayStation 2. We'll have more on the game in the coming weeks.