That's one big 'bot.

Lunar Knights is a unique action RPG for the DS. The storyline bears a small similarity to Janny Wurt's Wars of Light and Shadow in that the land is covered with a darkness, hiding the clouds and bringing out the beasts of the night. The first and foremost foe is the vampires, who take walks in the land in force now that there is no natural light. Two heroes are at the forefront of the battle against the vampires, one with the power of light, one with the power of darkness. The player can control one at a time and switch between the two at any point, and each hero is able to power up into a number of forms.

The battle was standard action fare for the most part, but special attacks take advantage of the DS touch screen. Launching a special move allows the player to draw in the attacks; scribbling over an enemy during a fire attack sends a cascade of fiery death raining down upon the poor, hapless... vampires. This can be utilized for a number of different attacks; the demonstration also showed a tornado attack. After finishing off a boss vampire, the heroes took the boss into a casket rocket and actually shot up into the atmosphere to finish it off with the natural sunlight there.

At this point, the entire gameplay shifted from the action RPG aspect. Similar in idea to the Kingdom Hearts gummi ship, but with better execution – even in this early version – players will control the ship by dragging the stylus to and fro, tapping on enemies to fire at them. While it may seem gimmicky, the controls were actually very intuitive and quite fun. The representative stated that they wanted to polish this portion enough that it could actually stand alone as a game by itself.

Lasers are good.

This playable demo was still in the early stages (release will be winter 2006), but it did show a good bit of promise. The cut-scenes were full anime-style and quite gorgeous; one of the studios that contracted for The Animatrix has been brought in to render the cut-scenes. This will be a title to keep an eye on.