For Wii and 3DS, Thought by Many to be Spiritual NiGHTS Successor
Yuji Naka and Prope appear back in action.
Tenkuu no Kishi Rodea was revealed this week by Japanese magazine Famitsu. It is Yuji Naka’s next big project; he will serve as executive producer for the game, which is being developed for both Nintendo Wii and 3DS. Much of the action will take place in the air, and if scans from NintendoEverything are any indication, damned if it doesn’t look like a more mature and refined, less surreal version of NiGHTS at first glance.
The Wii version, at least, will be controlled completely by the Wiimote, and players will control the protagonist Rodea, according to a translation from Andriasang:
Point at enemies and objects you find around the stages and press A, and Rodea will perform a spinning attack. Stages are packed with a variety of gimmicks, but you’ll find that everything can be interacted with via just the Wiimote.
Simplicity seems to be one of the major points of the game’s controls. This doesn’t mean that you won’t find complex situations. Screenshots show advanced flight sequences that have Rodea attacking enemies while in pursuit. The game also has massive bosses which have weak points that players will have to figure out.
In comments shared with the magazine, Yuji Naka boasted of the simplicity of the controls, which have apparently been in place since the game’s prototype phase. Work on Rodea began back in Fall of 2009, explained Naka. A project Prope had been working on was cancelled, and Naka set up an experiment where he had his staff split into two teams to create their next game. This resulted in a prototype which had a new and fresh control scheme. This prototype served as the base for Rodea.
It’s far too early to tell whether this will come stateside; there’s not even a timetable given for release in Japan. If this does some stateside, given the likelihood NiGHTS won’t be returning anytime soon, this may be the best way for fans of that franchise to relive some magic. Thanks to Silverwind and Skai Cyan for sending this to us. If you have news to share, be sure to share it with us by clicking Send News Tips at the top of every page.
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IGN mistakened this game for a Sonic game. I hope that had nothing to do with that mysterious Sonic 3DS game that we know nothing about. I have a bad feeling that this game was mistakenly listed as Sonic game in E3 2010… I hope that’s not the case.
@Slug
Why? I’d rather see this than see Sonic embarrass himself in “3D”. The less Sonic games I see this year, the more hopeful I will be for the quality of his Anniversary stuff.
@ChaoticFox
Even when Sonic Colors was released 3 MONTHS AGO, you have the nerve to say “I’d rather see this than see Sonic embarrass himself in “3D” Why would you say that? The more of Sonic I see this year the better because that would piss people off. Seeing Sonic still having games, and people getting angry over nothing… priceless.
@RaggtimeSonic
I think what he means is that he dosent want sega to pull another 2006 on us and release 5 to 6 sonic games ranging from mediocre to downright horrible. this is sonics 20th year in gaming, and therefore fewer sonic games with higher quality is the way to go.
@penguithing777
Something like Sonic 06 will never happen again because of 2 things 1. SEGA takes their time nowadays and makes their games very polished and 2. Sonic Colors shows that Sonic Team is getting back on track.
@RaggtimeSonic
Honestly, in order for my faith to be completely restored in sonic team, im gonna need to see 3 amazing sonic titles to make up for 06. we’ve already got Sonic Unleashed (ps3 and 360), and Sonic Colors, so hopefully, sonic team can keep this trend of awesome sonic titles going this year and beyond.
@Raggtime
I meant in “3D” 3D… like in your face 3DS 3D. I just have a feeling that that might not work out so well, especially when the format is so new and untested. Think of Sonic Riders and the Kinect. Ugh.
Penguin has it exactly right. I’m very excited for Sonic’s anniversary, so I’m hoping that Sega and Sonic Team aren’t wearing themselves thin (as well as putting their collective feet in their mouths) by releasing a horde of unpolished games.
You say Sega has learned their lesson, but only time will tell if that is really true. We now have one truly outstanding game and a whole new year of potential titles that could be as awful as Sonic 4. You say Sega is now willing to take the time to polish their games, but we only have ONE example of that being true. If they release 10 new games this year, odds are NONE of them will be as good as Colors was, because their resources and development teams will be stretched so thin, and they’ll continue on with their old mindset of “quantity over quality”.