ASH for NDS Status Update

One of the more surprising titles from Nintendo's DS press conference earlier this month was ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat, a new project from Hironobu Sakaguchi's development studio Mistwalker. The video shown of the game looked like no other DS game we'd ever seen, with a highly detailed characters and worlds.

Sakaguchi is featured in the latest interview of Famitsu where he discusses the game, from its unique approach to visuals to its mysterious storyline. First, the visuals. ASH doesn't use 2D and it doesn't use polygons. Instead, the game makes use of pre-rendered CG for its battle visuals. While Mistwalker had the opportunity to use 2D or low-level polygon visuals like many other DS games, Sakaguchi found that pre-rendered visuals created a fresh feeling. He states that, while the visuals would look rather bad on a large screen, they look crisp and clean on the tiny DS screen.

A few of the more mysterious details on the game's storyline are cleared up in the magazine. As announced at the press conference, the Archaic Sealed Heat of the title is a flame that was sealed away in ancient times. People who are burned by this flame are turned to ash. The story focuses on main character Aisha, the queen of a kingdom. One day, her castle burns down and she is the only survivor. However, her servants come partially back to life. Their bodies remain in ash form, but their memories and heart return.

These ash people are actually Aisha's allies. Without quite understanding why, they'll accompany her on her adventures. The game promises over twenty primary, named characters, along with a number of unit characters that grow as you play.

Players will have to play ASH for themselves to see two of the story's primary mysteries unravel. The ash people have a strong sense of duty, but they feel pain in their hearts. In addition, the game has an element of science fiction, with people from the future slipping back in time to the present day. Details on these two elements of the story will become clear as you play.

You'll play ASH exclusively with the stylus, as Sakaguchi has previously hinted, and this makes sense given the genre. ASH features conventional strategy elements, including a grid-based map where you move units around. To that, it promises an RPG-like feel for battles.

The game uses the DS's two screens as one would expect given the exclusive use of the stylus. You move your units on a map shown on the bottom screen. Meanwhile, the top screen shows a close up look at the characters. During battle scenes, the top screen shows a view of your characters with the bottom screen showing the enemies and menu command window, with commands selected via the stylus. During story sequences, the top screen is used to display movies.

As detailed by Sakaguchi at the press conference, ASH's development staff refers to the game's genre as "Team Tactics." In fact, Sakaguchi has already discussed with Nintendo the possibility of releasing the game as "Team Tactics Series ASH." While specifics are being held back for now, the Team Tactics label comes about from the RPG elements that are included in the battle system. With ASH, you'll have to think half like you're playing a strategy RPG and half like you're playing a true RPG.

One of the more mysterious elements of the game (yes, there's a lot of mystery surrounding ASH -- and all of Mistwalker's games, for that matter) is its weapon system. Character designer Hideo Minaba reveals to the magazine that he created the Aisha character with a gun that can be equipped with swords. His idea was that it would be cool if players could equip a variety of swords to their gun. It's unclear if this will actually make it into the game, although Sakaguchi seems to be interested in the idea.

ASH is still a ways off from completion. The game's plot has just been finished, and the ideas behind the Team Tactics system solidified. We'll have to wait until late next year to play the game, though, as Sakaguchi states that ASH is a year away from completion.