Folks Soul / Folklore / Monster Kingdom / Unknown Realms etc. trailer

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betan

Veteran
New 720p trailer from gamersyde: wmv, mp4

Its Identity crisis aside, gameplay looks O.K. (from limited we have seen) but the trailer is just plain wonderful. This is one of the two trailers that really moved me. For the curious the other one is 15 min MGS4 trailer. (Two and a half if we count LBP.)

I like the Japanese anime style, great song the lyrics of which I have no idea about, stereotypical cool guy, 20th century European clothing, excessive reflection on the glasses, room/window lighting, weird but not bad voiceover, etc.

But the best part is the cloth transformation of the blond girl, it is just damn awesome.

If the art direction of the trailer is any indication of what we will see in the game, I am totally sold. I certainly hope this will be one of those cinematic experiences Sony seems to be pushing this gen.
 
Thanks for posting. I didn't pay attention to this game during Gamers Day. :)
First thing that hit me is the song. The visual is colorful, stylized and refined true to its Japanese root, plus the girl's clothing transformation rocks. What's missing is an outrageous weapon/move. Are the protagonists madly skilled in some way (to be able to traverse 7 worlds unscarthed) ? When is this game coming out ?
 
I think the same video is posted on gametrailers already.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=19804&type=wmv

The storyline seems to be
the blond girl　エレン（Ellen Reid, Lives in Dublin） finding out about her mother being alive (previously thought by the blond girl to have died when she was little), and traveling to find her mother,
and a third-class journalist キーツ(Keith?) receiving a call about a woman being threatened by death (unsure).

Both characters seem to be lured into a village named Lemrick, where storytales claim that this is where the living could meet the dead...

They then seem to enter another world (or seven other worlds) to fulfill some mission, probably tied with why they entered it in the first place

This is as far as I can imply coming from the trailer...

Below is the Japanese Transcript...

それは夢か幻か現世より異界への扉が開く
A dreamlinke or an imaginary door that opens from this world to the strange world.

神話伝承をモチーフにした壮大で奇妙な世界観
A motifed myth legend that has a grand and strange outlook on the world.

探求の旅が今、始まる
The journey to search begins now

三流オカルト雑誌の記者　キーツ
A third-class occlut magazine's journalist, Keith (unsure of this name, as it is not written in the video)

死者に会える村レムリック
The village in which one can meet the dead, Lemrick

死別したはずの母を捜す　エレン
Looking for the mother that was supposed to be dead, Ellen (Ellen Reid, from the letter at 0:40)

異界で二人を待ち受けるものは…?
And the thing that is waiting for the two of them to accept in the strange world is...?

7つの異界
7 strange worlds

異界へ誘う霊衣
The spiritual clothes that invite to the strange world

死者の声を聞き、異界と現世をつなぐ
Listen to the dead's voice, tying together the this world and the strange world

フォークスの魂を吸収し、己の力とする
Absorbing the Folks(Folklores?)' spirit, making them one's own strength

生と死を乗り越え…
Crossing over between the living and the dead

埋もれた過去を探した出せ
Uncovering the buried past

未来を生きるために
To live in the future.

Song: Nephilim
Artist: abingdon boys school

Hope my translation/transcript isn't too bad.
 
Sorry for the double post, As a correction, the journalist's name is Keats.
some more information can be found on the main Japanese site.

http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/folks/

it seems that 5 of the seven worlds are already known

each world houses creatures, named フォークス(FOLKS)

1. 妖精界
Elf World

2. 戦争界
War World

3. 海底都市
Underwater City

4. 無限回廊
Infinity Hallway

5. 地獄界
Hell

Last two are still unknown
 
patsu said:
Thanks for posting. I didn't pay attention to this game during Gamers Day. :)
Click to expand...
I am not really into action RPG stuff myself, last one I played was Diablo 2. But I was keeping an eye on the game since TGS, mainly because Genji 2 looks (unfortunately only looks) really good and I was wondering what they are going to do with the camera in this one.
Trailer certainly boosted my anticipation by a very very large margin though.
First thing that hit me is the song. The visual is colorful, stylized and refined true to its Japanese root, plus the girl's clothing transformation rocks.
Click to expand...

In the beginning of transformation, there is head and hair animation of the girl. I don't know why but it affects me a lot.

What's missing is an outrageous weapon/move. Are the protagonists madly skilled in some way (to be able to traverse 7 worlds unscarthed) ? When is this game coming out ?
Click to expand...
I don't know the date but I assume sometime during the summer as the demo is coming next month to Japanese PS store. Considering lack of games targeting Japanese audience Sony better release it soon.

Apparently in the game you steal a lot of souls with sixaxis and to get a hold of the whole story you need to finish with both characters.

Strange said:
some more information can be found on the main Japanese site.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the translation, certainly helped a lot.
 
betan said:
But I was keeping an eye on the game since TGS, mainly because Genji 2 looks (unfortunately only looks) really good and I was wondering what they are going to do with the camera in this one.
Click to expand...

Yes, Genji 2 looks stunning :)

I rewatched the Folk Soul trailer. Ellen's new clothes allows her to rob/steal the monsters' souls.

Will keep a lookout for the game when it's released. Man, my workload is picking up for the rest of the year and the games are coming.
 
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As I mentioned in the Gamer's Day thread, this is probably my most anticipated game on the PS3...
 
I finally got to see this trailer in full because there is a really high quality 200MB version of it on the JP PS Store right now. And wow, just wow!

I love the art direction and theme.

This has the potential to be huge if executed right.
 
inefficient said:
I finally got to see this trailer in full because there is a really high quality 200MB version of it on the JP PS Store right now. And wow, just wow!

I love the art direction and theme.

This has the potential to be huge if executed right.
Click to expand...

JP Store video's quality is really good. I am glad to be able to notice some flickery shadows in the cut-scenes, was afraid they might be prerendered.

While rendering anime characters may be easier what I really like is that self shadowing is not the 0-1 approach many next-gen games seem to implement. Dark and light transitions are very smooth and natural. And the angle of surface seem to affect light intensity as well which for some reason is omitted most of the time. Now I am really curious about their SPU usage. Genji wasn't using any.

And why are the voiceovers in the trailer in English? Doesn't this alienate Japanese people?

On a slightly unrelated topic, JP PS Store is really empty and half of the stuff looks like GT related. It is as if Sony put all of its eggs in GT basket.
 
I think the studio is opting for more realism than anything (ironic that it's about a fantasy world and they are opting for realism :LOL: )

having two British people using Japanese "in this game" doesn't seem too right to me either.
(But I do like the Japanese voice over much better than the English voiceovers of MGS though :p)

Plus they obviously have subtitles for them...
 
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jayco said:
I tried the demo this afternoon and i have to say that this game looks great, it really does, the graphics are great, the enviroments are really detailed and the combat system feels good.

i took some photos...

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/9585/dsc01884zm4.jpg
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8178/dsc01886ml8.jpg
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/9830/dsc01887xe4.jpg
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2007/dsc01889yl6.jpg
Click to expand...

Did you pull it off the JPN store or the HK store?

I'm really excited to download this demo later today.
 
Let me summarize my impressions.
Bad:
Story presentation is nothing like the trailer. Minimal animations, no voice at all (excluding little shouting during combat), everything is told via speech bubbles. That killed the import option for me (unless of course it comes with a language I'm better at reading).
I personally don't dig the monotone music.
The black furry creature with awesome shaders was absent. :)

Good:
Comic style presentation frames are slightly animated to give liveness.
The souls you collect become your weapon (and you don't have any other kinds of weapons). Soul extraction in the middle of combat adds a nice dimension to otherwise dull combat system.
In order to get the complete story you need to play with both characters who fight against slightly different creatures (hence use different weapons).
Character design and variety.
gfx of course, especially colorful environments, textures and lighting.

I find the camera interesting. Non-combat camera is fully automatic but not static. During the combat you can take complete control if you want to.

So overall, I didn't see any of the nice stuff from the trailer but liked the weapon and combat system. I have strong suspicions about walking around and talking to NPCs but we'll see.

Apparently the game will be released in three weeks (JP).
 
betan said:
Let me summarize my impressions.
Bad:
Story presentation is nothing like the trailer. Minimal animations, no voice at all (excluding little shouting during combat), everything is told via speech bubbles. That killed the import option for me (unless of course it comes with a language I'm better at reading).
I personally don't dig the monotone music.
The black furry creature with awesome shaders was absent. :)
Click to expand...

In one of the previous links it was mentioned that the demo didn't have any voice to save space (it still managed to be over a Gig), so I wouldn't worry to much about that.
 
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