ECTS7 Blades Hands-On

Konami was showing off an early build of 7 Blades, one of its most recently announced PS2 games. 7 Blades put you in the role of the samurai Gokurakumaru or the female warrior Yuri, both of who spend the span of the game's plot quelling a religious uprising in feudal Japan. And while the final game should feature long stretches of cinematic sequences and a compelling storyline, the demo version of the game shown at ECTS focused primarily on fighting.

In fact, attack enemy characters with any of your seven blades was about all you could do, if you don't count running. You started the demo as Gokurakumaru, and found yourself in an odd Japanese village. After you explore a bit you'll run into an endless series of different ninja enemies. The weaker ninjas, dressed in blue, jump around like crazy frogs and don't really attack you. The stronger ninjas, such as the camouflage or red ninjas will often charge and attack you. Still, without any storyline the game mechanic got old pretty fast. I couldn't find a way out of the maze-like paths in the village, and in some cases couldn't walk where there was clearly a path.

At this stage the graphics in Seven Blades fall somewhere in the middle of the group of PS2 games I've seen. There are a few nice graphical effects, such as special lighting effects and flares, but the character models are pretty weak, and the movement isn't to convincing at this point. But the most prominent issue with the build I played was the camera. The camera wasn't all that smart, and wouldn't stay behind the character when you moved, so I found myself constantly having to adjust the angle manually just to see where I was going.

At this point there really isn't much to the game, but the video clips I've seen would indicate that Konami plans to make 7 Blades a cinematic, story driven game in the same vein as Metal Gear Solid. Hopefully I'll be able to see the game when there's a little more meat on the bone.