'Time & Eternity' from NIS America.
Video game producer Kei Hirano is most well known recently for his involvement on the ultra-difficult role-playing game Dark Souls, published by Namco Bandai in 2011. Like its predecessor, Demons' Souls, Dark Souls was gritty, , and nearly impossible to complete. Those expecting something similar in attitude in his next big title, Time & Eternity, will be in for a surprise as the upcoming RPG features not only a completely different art style, but a completely different attitude altogether.
"The [game's] theme itself is based on marriage," explained Hirano in an interview with News10 Game Guy Barry White. "But on top of that, it has a lot of comedic moments to it and it's very light-hearted as well."
Time & Eternity tells the story of a royal couple set to wed. The groom gets murdered, sending his bride (along with his disembodied soul) into an infinite loop into a set of time before the gruesome act to discover who the murderer is and how to stop him/her. But this story is only part of the draw as the game features fully hand-drawn animation that the player can control freely -- a process that took roughly three years to get right. Hirano says that there was a very good reason the game's development team undertook the project in the manner they did.
"There are certain aspects in the game that only animation could express -- for instance, having sort of a softer nature to it in comparison to computer graphics," the game producer said.
A PlayStation 3 exclusive, Hirono hopes to see Time & Eternity released this Summer.
News10/KXTV