'Odin Sphere' developer announces '13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim' for PS4 and PS Vita

After months of waiting and teasing, developer Vanillaware has announced “13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim” for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, during the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) event. Frequent collaborator Atlus, the company that also helped release “Dragon’s Crown” for the PlayStation 3 and “Odin Sphere” for the PlayStation 2, will once again publish the game.

Vanillaware also released a short trailer for the game, which can be seen below. While not much gameplay was featured, the trailer does showcase the gorgeous graphical style that Vanillaware has become famous for. The use of beautifully drawn 2D character models with well-rendered 3D backgrounds has been done before with “Dragon’s Crown”, but has the potential to look better in a current-gen console.

Prior to the official announcement, Vanillaware was teasing a brand new project and even released a short video of it according to Polygon. The end of the trailer stated that more details would come in September, so it seems like “13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim” was that project.

The game’s story hasn’t been revealed yet, but judging from the trailer it’s clearly a take on the mecha genre with some high school drama. This bears similarities to the incredibly popular anime “Evangelion”, which shouldn’t be surprising since many consider the anime to be incredibly influential, despite its numerous flaws and unlikeable protagonist.

It’s subtitle “Aegis Rim” seems to hint at a “Pacific Rim” influence as well. If the game includes mechs fighting giant monsters, this could be a massive success with gamers, though nothing in the trailer confirms this. Very few concepts are as appealing as “mechs fighting giant monsters” and the high school drama could add intrigue to the characters and their situations.

This isn’t the only project that’s being worked on by Atlus and Vanillaware. IGN says that the two companies are also working on “Odin Sphere: Leiftrasir”, an HD re-release of the cult-classic PlayStation 2 game. This version of the game will be coming to the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita sometime next year.

Fans interested in the work of Vanillaware can try “Odin Sphere” right now, since it’s available in the PSN Store as a PS2 classic. This is a direct port of the game, so fans shouldn’t expect HD graphics like in the upcoming re-release.

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