Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory Hands-On

At Konami's San Francisco press event today, we got to try a partially localized version of Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory for the PSP. The game, being developed in Japan by Hudson, will take place in the distant future and will put you in control of a battle android attempting to fight its way to the top of a mysterious tower. Though not many more story details than that are currently available, we did get a chance to see the game's introductory video sequence, which was pretty damn disturbing, to be honest. It depicted two androids locked in combat, one with a face that resembled a human skull with a revolver protruding from its forehead. Another shot showed a regimented army of similar androids on the march. Definitely a little unsettling.

The basic gameplay of Rengoku is pretty easy to get a handle on. You control your android from the third-person perspective with the D pad, and you can tap the right shoulder button to center the camera behind you or hold it down to allow you to strafe. Most important is the lock-on function, which you can engage with the left shoulder button--it naturally locks your reticle on to the nearest enemy, making it a lot easier to hit your target. The rub here is that the targeting lock is broken if you take a hit, so you'll have to be quick on your feet to keep your lock engaged and actually score some hits. Thankfully, you can double-tap the D pad to roll to the side, which comes in handy for dodging incoming attacks.

What will give Rengoku its depth is an RPG-style character-progression system. As you travel upward through the tower, you'll find various defensive upgrades and new weapons that you can equip on your android, and you can also buff out your basic stats with pickups you'll obtain occasionally. We started out fighting with just our fists, but we managed to pick up a sword after playing for a few minutes, and presumably you'll get ranged weapons and so on as you go. The android-upgrading stuff seems like the most engrossing aspect of the game, so fortunately you'll be able to share the experience with friends by trading power-up items and equipment via the PSP's wireless networking.

The look of Rengoku's in-game graphics is pretty basic so far, with brown being the predominant color in the early levels of the tower. Who knows what awaits as you climb to the upper floors, though. At least the computer we interfaced with on level two had a neat, futuristic look, with wires coming out of a half-dozen hidden places to jab at our android. The game's character designs are by Japanese sci-fi illustrator Jun Suemi, which accounts for the rather disconcerting imagery we saw in the intro sequence, and we'd go as far as to say these designs will be a major incentive to keep plowing through the game (to see what comes next, you know).

Rengoku's single-player missions will be randomly generated, and there will be a lot of equipment for you to graft onto your battle droid, so it sounds like there will be plenty of reason to keep playing if you enjoy the core action. Furthermore, you'll be able to take your customized combatant into the multiplayer arena with a four-player wireless mode that will pit your design against those of your friends. Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory is currently slated for a 2005 release, and we'll bring you more details, and a firmer release date, when they become available.