Much like Square Enix, Atlus USA is preparing to come out swinging in 2009, particularly on portable platforms. Already the beloved niche publisher has DS titles My World, My Way, Legacy of Ys: Books I & II and TrackMania DS all scheduled to ship before the end of March, and now two more games have been added to the line up: The Dark Spire for DS and Hammerin’ Hero for PSP.
Hammerin’ Hero will be first up on March 3rd for PSP. It’s an “arcade-style, old school, side-scrolling beat ‘em” with a oddball art style that immediately reminds me of the Viewtiful Joe games. The game follows the offbeat story of heroic carpenter Gen as he hammers away bad guys in an epic 12-stage quest to overthrown a ruthlessly evil construction company. Gen also has the ability to change jobs –from sushi chef to baseball player to deep sea diver — to open up new costumes and special abilities. Two-player ad-hoc play will also be supported for competitive high-score battles.
Up next is The Dark Spire, a hardcore, old-school, first-person RPG in the same vein as Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey series, which will be released on March 10th for DS. The game will have you building and developing a party of adventurers from the ground up in order to battle through a dark tower crawling with 80 different monsters in order to reach the top and confront the evil Archmage Tyrhung. Unique to The Dark Spire is its dual dungeon mode feature. This will give you the option to play in a Classic Mode in which the environment and interface take on a black-and-white wireframe look hearkening back to old-school PC RPGs or a Modern Mode in which the environment is rendered in full 3D and the interface is more stylized.
Screenshot galleries for both titles are below. Follow the links provided in the text above to visit each title’s respective official website.
Hammerin’ Hero Gallery:
The Dark Spire Gallery:
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