Trinity Universe: Etna in 3D?

I am a bit naive when it comes to fan-service. When I see a game like X-Edge or Final Fantasy X-2 I am just like “All my favorite characters in one game!? How convenient!”  It doesn’t usually dawn on me until the first unnecessary all-female onsen scene that what I am playing has more than one purpose.  Anyway, Idea Factory’s Trinity Universe for the PS3 may be one of these games, but it looks too good to ignore.

As its name suggests, the game is a collaborative project combining characters from three different game companies: Idea Factory, Gust, and Nippon Ichi Software.  There are two different stories the player can choose from, each with their own main character:

In case you were a bit confused, the “Universal-Drift” phenomena (as I am choosing to translate it) concerns a variety of human artifacts floating through space.  These items range from sushi, cake, stuffed animals, tea pots etc.  When examining them, an event will be triggered and you’ll be able to challenge a new dungeon.  Dungeon crawling takes place in the third dimension.

As you may have guessed, that means battles take place in 3D as well.  This is a definite first for many of the supporting characters which can be recruited throughout the game:

• Captain Etna, Disgaea Series, Nippon Ichi Software
• Galaxy Flonne, Disgaea Series, Nippon Ichi Software
• Prinny, Disgaea Series, Nippon Ichi Software
• Viorate Platane, Atelier Viorate – Alchemist of Gramnad 2, Gust
• Pamela Ibis, Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, Gust
• …and more to come

Battles are turn based, with an attack and defense phase.  There is however a time-limit during the player’s attack phase, and when time is up, the enemy will act, initiating the defense phase.  Performing attacks consumes AP, and certain skills will consume more or less AP, where others consume more or less time.  For this reason, the player will need to carefully observe both attributes and select skills based on which they have more of, time or AP.  I hope that makes sense…

I am intrigued by the large HP stats of the characters in shown in the battle-screen.  This leads me to believe we may be seeing some nice, big numbers in terms of damage.   This may be the first 3D turn-based RPG featuring big numbers… which excites me greatly.

Another unique feature of Trinity Universe is what the creators are calling the AAA (Active Animation Adventure) system.  The AAA system actively animates characters during the dialog mode.  Their mouths move when speaking,their chests move as though breathing, and their eyes blink.  Also, a full range of emotion will be expressed with an assortment of manga-themed icons.  Frankly, this doesn’t really seem like a huge deal to me.  Maybe it’s just an attempt to make people more open-minded to 2D graphics on the PS3.

Trinity Universe will be released this August in Japan in both standard and limited editions.  Currently, the contents of the limited edition are unknown, but I would venture to guess it contains at least an OST…  The game’s main teaser website can be found here and you can view some recent scans of the game here.  I am having an intense déjà vu sensation from when I was first excited about X-Edge… only there is like this whole other dimension.  Weird.

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