One of the most bizarre Japanese developers of all time is making a “rhythm action game” based on one of the most bizarre anime series of all time. Huh?
There are tons and tons of licensed games based on popular anime titles that never make it outside of Japan, but this one has a particularly interesting pedigree: Yesterday, Dengeki PlayStation announced that Namco Bandai would be releasing a new title for the PSP based on Gainax’s landmark 1995 mecha series Neon Genesis Evangelion, a bizarre and cerebral journey about an adolescent boy forced to fight strange alien monsters by his jerkass dad.
The title – named Evangelion Sound Impact – will be developed by Grasshopper Manufacture, the studio responsible for notoriously bizarre and off-the-wall fare like the lauded Killer7 and No More Heroes. Grasshopper’s offbeat mastermind, Goichi “Suda51” Suda is listed as the game’s creative producer.
Okay, so we have a PSP game based on an infamously strange anime, created by a studio best known for its infamously strange videogames. But it gets (potentially) weirder: Also involved is Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka, who will be responsible for arranging and remixing 30 pieces of music from the Evangelion series, because Evangelion Sound Impact is actually a rhythm game.
Rather, it’s a “rhythm action game,” whatever that means. According to Andriasang, the title will include six different types of games that will “mix music and visuals” from the anime series. So I’m guessing it’s kind of like WarioWare meets Elite Beat Agents, made by the studio that did Killer7 and based off of the anime that depicted the world ending with everyone turning into orange goo while strangely upbeat music played in the background.
This is too weird for me. I think I need to sit down.
(On the other hand, if the game played like the synchronized battle sequence you see here to the right, that would be amazing.)
