After mini game collections, small downloadable titles and simple side scrollers, it looks like Naka is directing his next big title. The game is called Tenkuu no Kishi Rodea (something like Sky Knight Rodea) and seems to be an action adventure with both flight and land based gameplay, that in an older interview he had mentioned uses a “new way” he discovered to make flight games easy to control, that if he had still been with SEGA would have been used for a Nights sequel. You can see some scans here and read some basic information here. The controls sound weird and probably have to be experienced. What’s odd is that SEGA is not involved with this game, as Naka is working closely with Kadokawa Games for its creation. It will be released on both the 3DS & Wii.
Hmm, looks interesting.
Official screens and art here and here. A video page says “coming soon”.
More details from the announcement event. According to a US trademark that popped up, the name will be Rodea the Sky Soldier. I’m getting a cool 90s vibe from the whole thing.
let’s see, how do you think the control sheme sounds?
"Rodea’s actions are controlled entirely through the Wiimote. You point the Wiimote at the location you’d like to travel, press B, and shake to make Rodea fly off in the target direction. You can then keep Rodea flying by pointing at your desired location and pressing B.
You can also make Rodea perform attacks. Pressing A makes Rodea attack with his gun. You can pick up items in the stages to add more powerful offensive capabilities – a machine gun item is mentioned in Famitsu as one example.
Point at enemies and objects you find around the stages and press A, and Rodea will perform a spinning attack. Stages are packed with a variety of gimmicks, but you’ll find that everything can be interacted with via just the Wiimote."
I’ll wait for some gameplay vids. But it does seem like Yugi Naka is creating his Nights into Dreams sequel in his own way, just masking it with different characters!
They sound simple and Nintendo-like, but if they’re well done and intuitive depends on many factors, from how much freedom you have in the levels, to how the camera moves.
The flying part sounds almost like a combination of free roaming and on rails, as if choosing to fly somewhere puts you in on rails mode, but at any moment you can change direction or destination by pointing somewhere and pressing B.
Or it could be somewhat misinterpreted and you don’t have to press B for anything more than taking off, and then you just control your direction with the pointer, kind of like a rail shooter like Panzer Dragoon, except the more you move the cursor toward the edges of the screen (any edge) the more sharply your camera and character turn.
Then again that wouldn’t be much of a “new way” to control things as it’s how pretty much every first person or third person shooter (or non shooter, like Silent Hill) works on Wii, they just don’t tend to include flying (or swimming, which would be similar).
I dunno, we have to at least see it as you said, if not experience it.
I also wonder how they’ll translate it to 3DS since it seems so pointer heavy. I don’t know if using the stylus would be as comfortable or intuitive. Perhaps they will have two modes, one for stylus and one for the gyroscopes, where you actually physically move the DS around to turn your view and character, like some other games are doing, which sounds neat but not so convenient depending on where you are.
The combat controls sound weird also. If you press A to fire your weapons, how do you also press A to do your spinning attack? Unless you only have weapons in flight mode or something, or perhaps it’s dictated by the distance to the enemy that’s in your crosshair.
The current screens don’t look very technically advanced (even for Wii) but that also depends on the scope and freedom the levels allow. If they’re small then it’s a bit rubbish, if they’re gigantic and fully explorable from land or air then it makes sense that up close elements don’t look so great unlike other titles.
But I’m digging the direction of the project so far, down to the cheesy airplane wings tail of the main character, so I hope it all works out well.
The game looks great, I love the iron-giant thingy in that screenshot, the style of the game is wonderful!
As for not being too technically impressive, I don’t know about you but that robot model looks pretty neato to me in terms of detail, I think it is better to wait until seeing the game in motion before making a judgment about technicalities.
Interestingly enough the game was patented in the US as a digital download wasn’t it?
I sure hope it’s not only a digital download… I want a retail version!
I meant the obvious low res textures and low polycounts here and there. It just doesn’t look like the best the Wii can do, depending on the freedom allowed and scope of the levels. I like the style also, floating islands are always cool.
I don’t think it’s downloadable, I doubt it would fit WiiWare limits (although, titles like Jett Rocket show ingenuity goes a long way), and the Japanese articles just list Wii and 3DS as the platforms, it’s almost always shown as WiiWare if that’s the case.
The trailer is on the official website now. It looks pretty decent. Very Naka for sure, Sonic & Nights design is evident in my opinion. With some Sin & Punishment (or Space Harrier) and Shadow of the Colossus to complete the package, lol. It doesn’t do much to explain the controls and the scope of the game, but it’s a start. Youtube version.
This game is looking great. It has a definite NiGHTS feel too it.
And, yes, that enemy/boss in the trailer reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus too.
all right the game looks very fun, very nights-like which is great. And I am looking forward to playing it…
But come on: Did they have to copy Shadow of the Colossus? Seriously, is it so hard to come up with enemy types that you have to draw inspiration blatantly, from another developer? The same thing happened in Castlevania Lords of Shadow. It pisses me off!!
And one other thing: the cutscenes look horrible! Talk about low end stiff character animation. 
That is all.
There is a definite NiGHTS + Panzer Dragoon + Skies of Arcadia vibe to it. I love all those properties, which is good. Although I’m slightly skeptical of the final product.
As for copying Shadow of the Colossus… a little bit. The enemy LOOKS like a colossus, but unlike Castlevania: Lords of Shadow it looks like a totally different type of battle. You don’t have to climb up it and hold on while it tries to shake you off… large bosses with weak points are a staple of classic video games. If it was directly inspired by SotC, I think they’re still within acceptable bounds.
Looks pretty good so far. Lets hope it plays as fun as it looks