1UP Preview
On the Tokyo Game Show floor, we got to spend some time with Konami's newly announced DS adventure game, Time Hollow.
The main character Horo Tokio is a high school student with a glowing green instrument known as the Hollow Pen, which cuts through the fabric of time. Though the story specifics are vague at the moment, and what little information available on the show floor is almost entirely in Japanese, what we do know is that you must use the pen's magic to see into different times for clues on how to change bad events.
As you progress through the game, you not only uncover ways to stop accidents but also uncover information about Horo's past by having conversations with the people you encounter, as well as examining areas of interest around town. Although the visual style is distinctly different, the game gives off a Hotel Dusk vibe: The character avatars that pop up during conversations are mostly static, but change or slightly animate to convey changes to match the dialog. You can also tap objects to examine them or to open doors. But unlike Hotel Dusk, you don't hold the DS sideways like a book, and you can't walk around 3D rooms. Instead, you visit different locales by clicking on them on the bottom screen map. And once you're there, you can use the stylus to move the camera around the 2D picture.
The demo we tried started us off at the high school's courtyard where Horo talks to some of his classmates. Our understanding of the exchange was somewhat limited by our grasp of Japanese, but soon enough an event flashed on the screen and we were off to locate where it occurred. We headed to the neighborhood hotel and talked to the woman inside. After asking her a few questions, we went outside again to examine the bushes on the left side of the building. This was where the event we saw -- two girls in school uniforms, with one falling down into the bike parked behind her -- took place. So, we whipped out our Hollow Pen and drew a circle with the stylus around the area we wanted to take a look at.
The bottom screen only shows the current state of the environment, so you have to approximate where you think an object is when you draw the circle. After you cut through time with the pen, you can look through the newly formed portal and see things in other times.
You have a bar of energy that depletes each time you open up a hole, so it looks as though you can be a bit choosey with where you cut. We drew a circle around the girls' outstretched hands and tapped on them with the stylus. This changed the scene we saw earlier to both girls standing side-by-side laughing.
Afterward, we encounter another flash -- one involving a bicycle accident -- but the demo ended before we could finish it, although we get the feeling that most of these "cases" lead from one to the other with some overarching purpose.
Though we haven't seen much, there seems plenty of potential here to pique adventure gamers' interest. It'll be worth keeping tabs on Time Hollow's development and whether it'll come out in the U.S. in the coming months.
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3163112
Fehlt leider noch ein bissel der Spielinhalt, aber die Story hört sich recht interessant an.
Aber meist wird man enttäuscht >_> Sollnse lieber die Sprachausgabe so lassen, dann dauert die Lokalisierung auch nich so lang.
)
^^
