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Posts with tag naoto-oshima

Away shuffles the rendering styles

We hate to disappoint you, but if you were desperately holding on to some insane hope that the blocky, sub-Final Fantasy VII look of Away's characters was somehow an artifact of a poor scan, these new direct-feed screens will disabuse you of that notion. The flat faces and blank, circular eyes continue to look really damn creepy, in character art and in gameplay.

Luckily, the game is Away: Shuffle Dungeon, and not Away: Hanging Out With 1996-Era Character Art. Meaning that the majority of your game time should be spent focusing on dungeon crawling, and not face-to-face chatting with the polygon-economical cast.

In fact, the actual dungeon part is 2D, character art and all. And it looks really nice. For some reason, Mistwalker and AQ Interactive have decided that the only time the characters should look embarrassingly ridiculous is when you're talking to them. Why didn't they just stick with 2D for the whole game?

Let these scans take you Away

Move over, Exit -- there's a new rescue game in town. Away, the latest from Mistwalker, and a joint effort from Hironobu Sakaguchi and Artoon's Naoto Oshima, is set to challenge players with rescuing villagers from peril in a shifting environment. Traveling on the bottom screen? Look out, the top screen may change -- and vice versa -- and players find themselves stuck waiting until the shifting has stopped before they can move on. It certainly sounds like an interesting concept, especially when rescued villagers return home to build up their town. It sounds like the more you save, the bigger the game can get.

While Away: Shuffle Dungeon certainly sounds like it could be a blast, we can't help but raise an eyebrow at the look. Oh, the environments and monster designs are fine, and maybe even great, but the characters ... they look somewhat reminiscent of MySims characters, if the MySims characters in question were very stoned and possibly annoyed. Or blank-faced and cheerful. That girl just gives us the willies. If she's in danger, we might just leave her behind. Hit the jump to see the full scans for yourself.

Continue reading Let these scans take you Away

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