New Details on Three PlayStation 3 RPGs

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IGN takes a look at Time and Eternity, The Guided Fate Paradox and Disgaea D2.


Today, NIS was kind enough to swing by IGN’s office to show us its upcoming slate of PlayStation 3-exclusive JRPGs set for release both in North America and Europe in 2013. Time and Eternity, The Guided Fate Paradox and Disgaea Dimensions 2 were all shown-off on a debug PS3; one game was already translated, the other two were still in Japanese, and all three will come out at various times throughout the year. So let’s jump in and see what each one was all about.

Time and Eternity

The game I was most impressed by was the first one I was shown: Time and Eternity. Known as Toki to Towa in Japan, Time and Eternity was developed not by an internal NIS development team, but by ImageEpoch – the studio behind the Luminous Arc and Fate/Extra franchises – and it totes a beautiful art style. All of Time and Eternity’s characters and enemies are hand-drawn, allowing them to pop against the game’s more static and standard 3D environments. The version of the game I saw is already translated into English, though voice acting will be available in both English and Japanese.

What really stood out to me about Time and Eternity is its old-school slant. Sure, many JRPGs are firmly rooted in the old-school, but Time and Eternity seemed to bring it back a notch further than most. In fact, it reminded me a great deal of the original Dragon Quest in that it pits a single character against a single enemy in battle. There isn’t a party of characters to find, and while enemies may gang up on you in hordes, you’ll only fight one at a time. It’s a focused experience, one that may only last 25 hours, a startling (yet welcome) change of pace from a niche genre that, these days, often requires a time investment of scores of hours.

Time and Eternity’s core story revolves around a pair of women that are alter-egos of one another – Toki and Towa – that the player will be able to control following a marriage gone awry that unfolds at the beginning of the game. Each time you level up, the character you control changes. The plot utilizes a bunch of time travel elements (hence its name), but it really focuses on these two characters, and an in-game meter will even judge your affinity for one or the other, which will ultimately affect the game’s outcome.

Of course, some of the standard JRPG conventions can also be found in Time and Eternity. The aforementioned battles are traditional in nature, but also time-based, allowing players to both attack with a slew of melee, ranged and magic attacks while bobbing, weaving and dodging around incoming assaults. The game has a hub town that its linear quest runs around and through, though there will be plenty of side quests to keep you busy as well. And of course, there will be items, weapons, armor and gear galore to find, as both Toki and Towa can equip a gun, a blade, and four accessories.

Time and Eternity will be released on PlayStation 3 this summer.

The Guided Fate Paradox

The second game I was shown was The Guided Fate Paradox, a dungeon-crawling roguelike title that seems to take a whole lot – at least in terms of style – from the home-grown NIS hit series Disgaea. The Guided Fate Paradox is known as KamiPara in Japan and revolves around a humorous and quirky story that’s not at all meant to be taken seriously. Your character can equip all sorts of absurd and insane equipment, and you’re accompanied by angels that will help you in battle. This is a game that’s clearly meant to be played and tinkered with, and not one necessarily meant to be experienced for its plot.

The Guided Fate Paradox’s Disgaea influence is immediately evident from its comical slant to its character designs, and even to some of its grid-based (albeit not strategy-influenced) combat. As with any roguelike dungeon-crawler, the emphasis here is to grind through floor after floor of randomly-generated dungeons as you collect loot. But unlike many similar games in the genre, The Guided Fate Paradox is a little looser, a little easier and a bit more forgiving, too.

In many like-minded games, dying in a dungeon kicks you back out to a hub world, and you lose everything you’ve found – items, equipment and the like – as well as any experience you earned. That’s not the case in The Guided Fate Paradox. Dying will boot you out of the randomly-generated dungeon you’re in, sure, but you’ll be able to retain the items you found and the experience you earned so that you get an edge the next time you attempt to get through the dungeon at hand.

Better yet – at least for players not looking to be beaten into submission by a gruelingly difficult game – The Guided Fate Paradox’s dungeons crescendo in difficulty very slowly and evenly. Dungeons begin with only 10 floors and slowly build as you get more comfortable with the game’s mechanics. This is aimed to let you ease into the experience and grind for items and experience at a more leisurely pace. This may ultimately turn some of the more seasoned players off, but something tells me there’s a challenging game at the core of The Guided Fate Paradox.

The Guided Fate Paradox will be released on PlayStation 3 this fall.

Disgaea Dimensions 2: A Brighter Darkness


The last game I saw was Disgaea Dimensions 2, and it’s also the game I saw the least of. It will be released after the two previous games and, like The Guided Fate Paradox, was still in Japanese. The real hook of Disgaea Dimensions 2, however, is that it’s a direct sequel to the original Disgaea game, Hour of Darkness, on PlayStation 2. And better yet, it revolves around a trio of characters from the original game that fans of the series have since fallen in love with. In short, it’s a game very much built upon fan service for those that have been supporting Disgaea since its humble beginnings a decade ago.

What’s immediately evident in Disgaea Dimensions 2 is that this is a brighter, more vividly colored game than previous entries in the series. And its graphics really pop, just like they do in Disgaea 4 on PlayStation 3. The HD sprites look lovely and the game runs well, too. Players familiar with the series will also notice an updated, easier-to-use and more fluid menu system that makes getting through the minutiae of Disgaea more manageable and less annoying and obtuse.

Some new features in Disgaea Dimensions 2 not found in previous entries in the franchise include a dojo, which allows you to permanently upgrade character stats outside of battle, as well as an apprentice system that gives characters permanent stat boosts and weapon specializations based entirely on which other character they’re associated with. Otherwise, Disgaea fans will find exactly what they expect (and are hoping for) in Disgaea Dimensions 2: a difficult strategy RPG.

Disgaea Dimensions 2 is, like the other games in the core series, can prove to be insanely deep. In addition to the standard single and team attacks that are staples in the Disgaea series, there’s a new mode of attack in Disgaea Dimensions 2 that allows players to piggy-back onto one another in order to unleash incredibly devastating special attacks. It seems to be a core mechanic that will be emphasized greatly in the game, though I didn’t see nearly enough of the game to know just how big of a part those piggy-back attacks will ultimately be.

Disgaea Dimensions 2 will be released on PlayStation 3 this fall.

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