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NCS Game Notes
* The first intro in the game is an animated cinema which begins with reeds waving in the wind. Images of skeletal spider-like creatures and a shrine maiden bowing in front of a temple are shown. A menacing clawed creature bursts from the ground and is followed by an army of spidery beasts. The shrine maiden holds her own for a while but the creatures surround her. Just when it looks like the shrine maiden is dead meat, a blue light shoots out from the temple and lands in front of her. It materializes into a leonine warrior named Inu Gami who proceeds to completely destroy the army of spidery creatures. Inu and the shrine maiden are later shown walking to an encampment of human soldiers who are preparing to confront the armies of spiders which span the horizon as far as the eye can see...

* There is a second intro after starting a normal game which is a rendered version of the first intro. The camera focuses on a bright moon in the sky and the pans downwards to shoot the front of a temple with flickering torches in front of it. The aforementioned shrine maiden is shown running to the temple when she is confronted by a spider creature. It lunges at her down the stairs and is joined by more spider creatures. The spiders close in for the attack as she runs in front of the temple. A big bruiser enemy joins the smaller spiders and it looks like game over for the gal. A light descends in front of the maiden and manifests as the leonine warrior Inu Gami. After Inu poses for a microsecond, he roars and slashes downwards with his sword. In the next scene, Inu and maiden are in the countryside - she on a horse and he standing there pensive. A black and white flashback scene commences where the two are shown in their initial meeting where Inu himself as her protector and guardian. His other mission is to seal the spiders away. A scream breaks the flashback sequence and the two rush in the direction of the sound.

* A map of Japan is shown afterwards which explains the warring states era that the game takes place in and highlights the geographic location of the first mission in Ikusa Gami. Although a voice over explains the scenario, Japanese text also scrolls from left to right during the introduction.

* Inu and maiden start their game in a brown and green colored countryside - the world map is shown on the upper right corner of the screen while a health meter and magic points are shown on the upper left corner. The L-analog moves Inu and the maiden follows him dutifully. The R-analog flicks the camera around and "X" clicks him into a defensive position. "O" is an action button unrelated to fighting and the SQUARE button makes Inu slash his sword with a beautiful flourish followed by light trails. Pressing the TRIANGLE button will make the leonine warrior perform an overhead forward jump move where he flips heels over head and drops an incendiary attack. This move will take away health points (yellow bar on the upper right) and should probably only be used in a pinch. The L1-trigger changes the world camera to an up-close behind Inu perspective or to an high overhead perspective which takes in more of the immediate surroundings. Pressing R1 will trigger Inu into an overdrive kill mode which drains the yellow health bar quickly. Tap it again to stop the overdrive kill mode.

* While roaming around, the shrine maiden alerts Inu to arrows flying in the distance. There's a battle afoot so head over to the upper right corner of the world map to investigate which factions are fighting. As Leon makes his way up the hill, a large crowd of spiders are amassed and firing projectiles at human warriors. When they spot Inu, they turn their attention to him and begin an attack. Since they're only a small contingent, Inu takes care of them fairly quickly and saves the men who the insects were attacking.

* The first battle gives a feel for how the hero fights. His sword slash has both reach-around range and strength so that one slash will damage any enemy that is at least within a 240 degree arc of his sword attack. The foes shriek with terror when Leon chops them up.

* Once the first battle is over, a larger battle is joined where even more spidery insects are attacking human soldiers. Follow the troops down the hill since there is only one path into the battle - the other areas are impassable which was/is a frustrating design flaw but perhaps Genki knows better. Rush into battle and slash the insects up. While in the frenzy of a chop, some insects will give up what looks like a pork roast that floats in midair. Grab it to recover health.

* When surrounded by hundreds of creatures, press TRIANGLE to perform the bomb blast and hundreds of the creatures will lift up from the concussive force of the bomb and die right there. Hundreds of friendly soldiers on your side will also battle the insects but they don't provide much support and it's easier to just slash and kill the insects yourself to save them the trouble. You will need the legions later on however...

* During a frenzied attack on spider creatures, the camera lens will occasionally become splotched with black colored blood that disappears after a few seconds.

* Press the SQUARE button four times to perform a sweet looking chain attack that ends with a spinning light trail.

* Once the second battle is over, go over to the mass of soldiers and press the R2 button to make them follow you. Once the vanguard force is at the wooden post with the green arrow, continue down the road and the next fighting sequence will start.

* The R1 Overdrive Mode turns Inu into a killing machine. You may toggle it on for just a second or leave it on until the meter runs down. In any event, it will allows the leonine warrior to cleave through entire fields of spider creatures and kill them with quickness.

* For a highly impressive view of the battlefield when attacked by hundreds of spiders, switch to the overhead camera view and watch the carnage unfold as your legions of soldiers, you, and the spiders clash in a chaotic battle.

* In addition to meat bonuses that may be picked up to recover health, containers may be slashed open to reveal fish which will also replenish health points.

* After each level, point tallies and scores are rewarded for superb performance. New weapons are also awarded at the end of each level to improve killing power in the next round. After the first level, players will be given a chance to save their progress. Once saved, the map of Japan appears again and the heroes move to a new area of Japan to help the forces of man battle ungodly beasts.

* In the second level, there's a powerful boss creature that looks like an oversized maggot which is capable of laying waste to many soldiers at once. It throws out a bomb attack which mimics what Inu Gami uses to blow up gangs of enemies at once when the TRIANGLE button is pressed.

* Jaded and weary of the genre after being bored by various 3D hack 'n slash fests from various publishers this past year, NCS approached Ikusa Gami with no expectations. We had watched previews and demos but nothing caught the eye. Not even the bit about 65,535 enemies on screen at once. Who cares? Is a gamer going to slash all 65,535 at one time or even focus on more than 1000 enemies at a time on screen? No, "but my car is 2.5" bigger than your car" and "My Hummer drinks 50 gallons of gas when I drive down the block." In other words, numbers that are solely used as bragging rights. Or so we thought. We looked at the 65536 number with jaded antagonism but after playing the game, we can see that it is necessary for Ikusa Gami to push that many units at once. Not only are battles happening in your local vicinity but they are happening all over the expansive battlefield and Inu may run and join in on any battle at any time by approaching it. The versatile engine allows this to happen as large conglomerations of warriors from both sides face off. Inu may also wade through hundreds of soldiers to reach his target. In addition to the enemies, there are hundreds of arrow or air attacks that are shown at any one time and we're guessing that the 65536 number includes these air objects that are shown flying through the air when two sides face off.

* We're impressed by Ikusa Gami's game engine but the missions are generally slash and hack fests that require little strategy or thought. Par for the course, we suppose, since Devil Kings, Sengoku Musou, et al are all hack festivals as well. Later missions are somewhat more interesting but it all boils down to "watch me kill these creatures by mowing them down with blazing skills." Despite the monotonous tone of the killings however, we found ourselves playing the game for more than a few hours to see what else the game designers would throw at us from the boss monsters to how many creatures we would be able to count on the battlefield at once... We stopped counting when we reached 200.

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