Take down space T-Rexes in the upcoming Phantasy Star Nova hunting game

Tokyo Game Show was full of two types of games this year: hunting games, and horror games. The one we’re talking about this round is of the former genre, and it’s called Phantasy Star Nova.

Announced at a pre-Tokyo Game Show press conference, Phantasy Star Nova is slated for a November 2014 release in Japan, with the Traditional Chinese edition to follow in Spring 2015. Given its release date, the game is as complete as it can be, with the Tokyo Game Show 2014 floor demo allowing players to engage with one of the Gigantes, the game’s new (and gigantic) enemy race.

While a press release states that the story will centre around “promises” and “survival”, the demo we tried was a combat-centric one. As with Phantasy Star Online 2, you dive into battles with a party of four, and receive direction from your HQ up in the stars.

Combat and movement in Phantasy Star Online 2 feels freer and more spacious compared to its MMORPG sister. While the auto-targeting is still present for ranged weapons, the camera is more mobile than ever, and gives the game a great sense of freedom that Phantasy Star Online 2 just doesn’t have. The Playstation Vita console definitely helps in making battles feel more intuitive, too.

The map also seems larger in scale, perhaps due to its need to accommodate the Gigantes monsters. Also, the same weapon sets, and presumably the same systematic bells and whistles of Phantasy Star Online 2, endure as well.

What really struck me about Phantasy Star Nova was the Gigantes itself. It was essentially a T-Rex in space-age armor, and its heavy-footed lumbering is reminiscent of the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus. You’ve got to tackle it in the same way as well.

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The Gigantes I fought required you to activate a force field that you had to jump on in order to attack him from up top. The Phantasy Star Online 2 combat I experienced was always a little more straightforward than that, and I appreciate the depth the hunting game genre has given to the series’ battle system.

The demo was pretty short, and definitely not for hunting game noobs like myself, even on casual difficulty. However I can see Phantasy Star Nova becoming a fast favorite with fans of Phantasy Star Online 2. With the extra space the larger maps afford, and the Playstation Vita’s suitability for hunting games (hello, two analog sticks!), the Phantasy Star battle system has evolved to be less of an auto-targeting grind to a true combat experience.

Now all that remains to be seen is if Phantasy Star Nova will be released for an international audience in a timely fashion. We waited years for Phantasy Star Online 2 to be published officially in English; Nova is definitely one game that can’t take that long.

This story is part of our Tokyo Game Show 2014 coverage.