Not often enough do we get to experience the sheer pandemonium abundant in the action RPG genre. It seems that dominant genres such as shooters and MMOs are somewhat overshadowing the lesser explored genres, which may be narrowing the market a little. Namco Bandai is hoping to change this notion with Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle, their anime styled beat ‘em up PS3 exclusive by developers Dimps Corporation.
Gematsu: "Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle may be coming to North America, if the ESRB are anything to go by. The organization recently assigned a “Teen” rating to the game."
well, if that's true, then this is going to be the first Saint Seiya game to be released in America.
Is this Japanese PS3 import worth picking up for Western gamers?
Here is a snippet:
"In addition to the good looking cut scenes the graphical style of the game is very impressive indeed with everything presented in a very colourful anime style. The character design fares a little worse as the lead character simply does not live up to the well designed arenas and levels and despite Seiya being instantly recognisable his actual movements have the feeling that his is somewhat floating rather than walking/running."
"I'm quite surprised a game like Saint Seiya made it over to the UK. The anime of Saint Seiya was popular in places like Italy, Spain and France, but it never had chance to grow big in the UK and wasn't translated into English until 2003. That might not sound so shocking till you understand that the anime first started in 1986 in Japan, meaning it started the same year as the original DragonBall anime. Namco already has a popular anime franchise that goes by the name of Naruto. Both Saint Seiya and the latest Naruto game were released in March, but Saint Seiya has gone unnoticed in the hectic month of releases know as March Madness. Even so, I’m just happy that Namco Bandai are giving lesser known games a chance over here, since so many publishers often lock them in their country of origin."