[DS] World Destruction - Pushing the generic jrpg genre to new levels of tedium

Been pretty dead in here, so let's try to revive it a bit with some of the bigger pieces of news to come out recently.













World Destruction, a traditional turn-based RPG published by Sega, developed by Image Epoch, and a project that reunites three key members from the Xenogears staff:

Masato Kato (scenario writer), Yasunori Matsuda (meh, composer), and Kunihiko Tanaka (character designer). A cool little side note is that the guy who did the character designs for Drakengard got a special nod for his help with costume design in this game.

The stereotypical title supposedly comes from the goal of the game-- the protagonists, Kyrie and... Morute, I guess, have joined an underground organization meant to free humanity from enslavement by destroying the world. Oh, Kato. How I've missed your completely bullshit plot twists.

It's due out in Japan sometime in the Summer, so maybe North America could get it by the end of this year. No announcement, so who knows!

To save humanity by destroying the world? Sounds like a typical cliche motivation for an RPG villian. Count me in.

Lord knows I never turn down a cliche JRPG. I'll keep an eye on this one, especially with the return of some of the XG staff.

Have to say, I dig on the character designs. I get a vague Suikoden feel from the battle screens.

Wow, I'm diggin' the character design also, and the artwork and crap. Now I got something new to keep a watch out for.

Wow, this looks pretty good! I'm confident the staff will make a good JRPG here; the art looks great and the plot sounds fairly simple, but still decent enough to garner gamer's attention. Yes, I'm looking forward to this on-----wait, it's Sega? ()

Nah even if it is :SEGA:, I think this should be a beauty.

The designer of the Grandia series, Masatoshi Azumi, is also working on this game. Bonus awesome.

Originally Posted by Muzza

Yes, I'm looking forward to this on-----wait, it's Sega? ()

Nah even if it is :SEGA:, I think this should be a beauty.

Published by Sega. They have as much to do with this game as Ubisoft had to do with No More Heroes.

, where horse = my GAMING KNOWLEDGE brain.

Am I the only one more excited that Masatoshi Azumi has something to do with this game than any of the Xenogears staff? Either way, these are some pretty impressive names all collaborating on a project together. It doesn't even bother me that it's a DS game because it looks like it'll be pretty fantastic regardless.

I found the official website but there's not much there other than some character art and in-game shots. I grabbed them all so enjoy:


CHARACTER ART: (Pretty large so I'm going with spoiler tags)

Spoiler:

The first time a hero goes into battle with a gardening tool!


Amazing, a girl without a staff!





XD

IN-GAME SHOTS:

Reminds me of Kilika from FFX.

The artwork sure is pretty. Liking those character designs too. Could be one to keep an eye out for.

The artwork is very well done, I'm also happy to see Yasunori Mitsuda is doing the soundtrack.

Nice to see a game where the female characters aren't going to be dressed SUPER SLUTTAY!

So if these guys are the heroes and they are trying to destroy the world, does that mean that the villians are trying to save it? That's a pretty odd twist compared to what we're all use to seeing.

Originally Posted by Tankalex_Storm

So if these guys are the heroes and they are trying to destroy the world, does that mean that the villians are trying to save it? That's a pretty odd twist compared to what we're all use to seeing.

You're thinking about it too hard. JRPG plots are generally nonsense. Does this sound like the motivation of an actual human being? One that's not suffering from crippling schizophrenia, anyway? You play these games because you like pretty graphics, or the occasionally because it has decent gameplay.

And look pretty it does. Looks like they're making good use of the two screens; sometimes it's enough to just use the extra space to send something extra huge at you. Some sort of action point system going on there?

Originally Posted by Zephyrin

Nice to see a game where the female characters aren't going to be dressed SUPER SLUTTAY!

I dunno, those skirts are pretty durn short. I'm liking the pirate teddy bear and gunslinger maid girl though. If there's one thing you can trust Japan for, it's using non sequitur as a design philosophy.

Oh yeah, finally a 'good' traditional turn-based RPG to look out for. Got tired of these action rpgs they've been releasing on the DS.

Who needs gameplay when you can have menus!

New scans from new issue of Famitsu
One of them showing characters: