Always giving what the fans demand.

We kept missing the video of KOEI’s newest upcoming game, Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll,  displayed on the giant screen hanging over KOEI’s sizable booth.  As a series well known Japan but not so familiar in the west, they’ve set this new installment as a prequel, and discarded menu based combat for a visceral, Diablo-style RPG.  Coming to the Playstation 3, Trinity features three very different heroes in the warrior, wizard, and assassin, all fighting on the field at once.  The player can level them up, gear them up, and freely switch between them, setting up some powerful combo attacks, such as having the wizard freezing enemies before the warrior smashes them to bits.  With Omega Force behind it, I’m hoping for a game that will spark the same joy as the massively underrated Crimson Sea series.

Warriors Orochi 2 PSP needed no introduction.  After nearly a hundred hours logged in the 360 version, I knew this clash of Dynasty and Samurai Warriors well, though I still hadn’t leveled, or even used, every warrior, or finished every level.  Now the PSP version will top the already insane content with ninety six total fighters and a dozen new dream missions.  Nothing has sacrificed to make this happen.  KOEI have been putting their legendary series on the PSP for a while now, and it’s reached the point where the gameplay is just as fast, fluid, and fun as the console brothers.  Two player co-op and versus is still here, including the Soul Calibur like three on three brawler.  With the entirely new fighters of Gyuki, Dodomeki, San Zang and Benkei, even the most hardcore of the hardcore Dynasty fans have something to sink their teeth into this August 25th.

Monster Racers for the DS was new to me, though it’s clear it takes its lead from a clever combination of Pokemon’s monster capturing and training, and a side scrolling race inspired by the versus mode of Sonic 2.  The result offers a surprising amount of depth.  With the variety of race terrain and increasingly more difficult challenges and tournaments, trainers need to hunt down the best monsters for the right events, training them up and then taking direct control of a side-scrolling race that can be played either against the AI or up to three friends.  The racing itself is a lot more than just getting to the other side.  Levels are littered with obstacles to trip you up, and power-ups to knock the wind out of a speedy opponent.  Playing it myself, a race in Monster Racers isn’t settled until one beast crosses the finish line.  Skilled play can recover from early mistakes, and take home the gold starting August 25th.