Square Enix are publishing Moon Diver (formerly known as Necromachina) to the PSN and XBLA but, as yet, we don’t have a confirmed price or date. What we do have are some concept pieces, a logo and some announcement screens and information.
So what is it and why should you care? Well, Moon Diver is a 4-player jump in/out co-op, side-scrolling action adventure game with wall sliding and huge boss fights. That all sounds like it might be a lot of fun but there’s one more reason for you to be interested: Moon Diver was designed by Kouichi Yotsui, the man who designed Strider.
Now, we realise that many of our readers will be too young to know who or what Strider is. Rest assured that Strider was a seminal arcade game and its home console ports will be remembered fondly by many. Basically, it was a kind of dystopian futuristic ninja game with some innovative (and often replicated) design elements.
That seems to be something which has been carried over into Moon Diver, also set in a dystopian future and seeming to modernise many of Strider’s original aesthetic and control ideas.
Not that Moon Diver doesn’t seem to have its own ideas. We’ve heard the promise of improving visuals as the difficulty level is increased, better combo effects when more players are active and the collection of new combo moves to use in local, or online, co-op play.
This definitely looks like it’s worth keeping an eye on.
Klart
This looks so great. Now to gather some friends for ultimate 4 player couch coop.
aerobes
I still have Strider on cassette for Amstrad464 in the loft. Ace game but absolutely solid (like many games back then). I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this.
Kronik76
Really? I had it on the Megadrive and completed it on the first day, much to my disappointment.
sesameseed
Wow, something that sounds innovative for a change. I’ll keep my eye out for this.
Symposium Cacophony
I have Strider in two collections on the PSP/PS2…. one word – brilliant. I hope this can be just as successful
Smallville2106
Looks great and a bit different.
hazelam
don’t care what they call it, multiplayer strider? i want.
yeah, i know it’s not actually strider, but it’s near enough. :)
i never did manage to finish the original game.