PSP World

Hexyz Force PSP Preview

Our favorite third-party PSP publisher, Atlus, has announced a new game called Hexys Force. This RPG is a PSP-exclusive title designed by Sting (developers of Riviera, Yggdra Union, and the award-winning Knights in the Nightmare). The game has already been quite successful in Japan, and it will arrive in North America on May 25th. It will be available as a PSN download and a UMD purchase, priced at $29.99. With this newly announced game and a strong lineup of other releases, 2010 is shaping up to be the year of the JRPG.

Built from the ground up to take full advantage of the power of PSP system, extensively optimized to deliver virtually non-existent load times, and boasting some of the most polished visuals and sounds found to date in a handheld RPG, Hexyz Force is the consummate gamer's game. Atlus is calling it something of a "pure fan's RPG" which sounds mighty good to us. Read on for the details.

Hexyz Force stands out as one of the most narrative-driven portable RPGs of all time, giving users not one, but two separate campaigns to embark upon. Complete and whole unto themselves, the two stories present radically different sides of a sweeping saga, satisfying gamers in search of a deep, handheld roleplaying experience while ultimately providing value-minded players with two games for the price of one. Action takes place in a fully-realized 3D world, but the plot is advanced through hand-drawn anime cutscenes.

The story involves a complex mythology of a struggle between various deities. Long ago, Norvia, the Goddess of Creation, descended from the heavens. Using the Holy Vessel, a divine chalice charged with all Force (the spiritual energy in the universe), she created life and the Divinities. These good guys are sort of like the shepherds of existence. For a while, all was good. After a time, Delgaia, the God of Destruction, brought about a great calamity known as the Gods' Remorse. He intended to return all Force to the Holy Vessel, returning Berge to the void. The Divinities sacrificed themselves to defeat Delgaia, delivering Berge from doom and sealing the God of Destruction away deep within the earth.

As Berge lay in ruin, a result of its bitter war, Norvia makes a covenant. She will restore Berge to its former beauty on one condition. An Hour of Judgment would eventually come to pass, and in it, the world would have to decide its ultimate path: creation or destruction.