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Agetec Lineup: Cool Stuff From From, Agetec
Company: Agetec

We recently got ahold of some new media for two upcoming From Software titles--King's Field IV and Evergrace II. Thankfully, both of these games are being released here in the US, published by Agetec. The former is entitled King's Field: The Ancient City and the latter is now known as Forever Kingdom, but despite the name changes the underlying gameplay looks to be close to the respective series' roots.

Those who have never experienced the King's Field series have perhaps heard of Eternal Ring, another From/Agetec game that uses the same general premise. King's Field: The Ancient City is an action RPG, combining both skill in aiming attacks and even arrows--after looking at a demo tape with a few clips of some arrows arcing realistically in the air, it seems skill is definitely needed--with more traditional RPG fare, such as levels and spells and the like. The storyline looks to be fairly typical for the genre; a man is sent to save a town devestated by a strange occurance, and of course there's all sorts of strangeness going on there.

Forever Kingdom is the sequel to Evergrace, a PS2 launch title here in the States that had a lot of potential but didn't quite make the bar. It looks like Forever Kingdom may make up for its predecessor's problems, however. It tells the story of Yuterald, one of the characters in the original game, along with two of his friends. Instead of swapping between the characters at particular points, however, you'll be using the three characters constantly. The graphics are sharp, and if the core gameplay is refined Forever Kingdom could definitely be a winner. What other game makes matching clothing a necessary part of character advancement?

While From and Agetec's offerings have always been less mainstream than many other companies (although Artdink definitely has them beat in the 'odd' department, The Adventures of Cookie and Cream was decidedly unique), King's Field: The Ancient City and Forever Kingdom could well be their breakout games into the mainstream RPG field. From what we've seen, they look good, and I can't wait to get my hands on them. Stay tuned for our reviews once they're released in the next few months.


-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications
AKA Phil Bordelon
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