Tucked away in a subtle corner of Tokyo Game Show is an original tactical game from western developer Wicked Studios. Dawn of Heroes might not be Wicked Studios' premiere game, but is the team's first Nintendo DS product in development, and the company looks to hit the system hard with impressive visuals and a deep strategy design.
Dawn of Heroes will feature more than fifty missions of turn-based strategy where players control more than 25 different classes of war units, using the touch screen to maneuver their army of five across the playing field. Each character obviously has their own fighting and movement attributes, and players will take turns shifting positions and attacking their opponents using the different characters' strengths.
The demo version Wicked Studio showed us featured an incredibly detailed 3D engine for the top screen representation of the chess-like 2D overhead board where players do all of their tactical decision making. The team claims their engine allows for twice the polygonal detail of the usual Nintendo DS product, and while we won't argue that claim we can definitely see that the game has great look with fluid movements. The demo build showed a battlefield taking place on a giant bird as it flew through a series of canyons, and the camera could zoom far in to show the detail of all the characters that were dwarfed by the huge beast they were fighting on.
Another level showed off the game design's other feature: realtime weather effects. As time progressed it went from sunny to cloudy to rain, back to sunny in subtle transitions. It's not just for pretty looks -- this will clearly play into mission strategy.
The final game will also support the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service for multiplayer as well as item trading between players. The team hopes to get some sort of single cartridge multiplayer mode in there somehow, but due to the memory restrictions and the game's high visual demand, they made no promises.
Wicked Studios was at the show looking to secure a publisher to release the game to the public. A trailer of the game will be forthcoming.
Dawn of Heroes will feature more than fifty missions of turn-based strategy where players control more than 25 different classes of war units, using the touch screen to maneuver their army of five across the playing field. Each character obviously has their own fighting and movement attributes, and players will take turns shifting positions and attacking their opponents using the different characters' strengths.
The demo version Wicked Studio showed us featured an incredibly detailed 3D engine for the top screen representation of the chess-like 2D overhead board where players do all of their tactical decision making. The team claims their engine allows for twice the polygonal detail of the usual Nintendo DS product, and while we won't argue that claim we can definitely see that the game has great look with fluid movements. The demo build showed a battlefield taking place on a giant bird as it flew through a series of canyons, and the camera could zoom far in to show the detail of all the characters that were dwarfed by the huge beast they were fighting on.
Another level showed off the game design's other feature: realtime weather effects. As time progressed it went from sunny to cloudy to rain, back to sunny in subtle transitions. It's not just for pretty looks -- this will clearly play into mission strategy.
The final game will also support the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service for multiplayer as well as item trading between players. The team hopes to get some sort of single cartridge multiplayer mode in there somehow, but due to the memory restrictions and the game's high visual demand, they made no promises.
Wicked Studios was at the show looking to secure a publisher to release the game to the public. A trailer of the game will be forthcoming.