NISa goes retro; Cladun first impressions and trailer

8:45 PM on 07.16.2010   |   Tim Sheehy

Yesterday, NIS America showed off a whole host of upcoming games at their annual press event. While I know some of you guys might have been a bit sad that they didn't have any new anime franchises to announce, or were expecting some news on Nippon Ichi's upcoming Prinny sequel, the games that were shown looked fantastic.

Cladun: This is an RPG, or simply Classic Dungeon as it was called in Japan, easily surprised me the most. While some other games like 3D Dot Game Heroes try too hard to emulate the classic action-based RPGs like Legend of Zelda, and Secret of Mana, it really failed to evoke the sense of nostalgia that I get from playing those classic games.

Cladun, on the other hand, actually did more in terms of evoking that nostalgia than any other retro-esque title I've played in recent years. The visuals seemed spot on, the music was absolutely wonderful, and the gameplay certainly felt just right. Couple that with the host of features that the title boasts, such as randomly generated dungeons, ad-hoc multiplayer, and insane levels of customization, and I'm pretty much sold on wanting to buy it.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to experience any of the multiplayer facets of the game in the short amount of time I had with it. Still, I'm quite excited to see how the game shapes up when it's finally released for the PSP, exclusively via PSN, later this fall.

Check out the trailer after the break.