Despite the fact that I like the development team, and that it's actually pretty cheap now, I still haven't played Ore no Shikabane wo Koeteyuke (Over My Dead Body). That didn't stop me from trying out the sequel, Over My Dead Body 2, when I found it in the PlayStation Vita area. Now I really feel the urge to play the first one, because the second was a rock-solid RPG experience.

Story was not a big part of the demo, so I'm not sure how the plot continues into this title, but I'm betting that the basics are the same. A demon cursed a samurai clan to live and die in the span of a few years, with each member aging at an accelerated rate. My party leader was a strapping warrior of fourteen months of age, for example. The kami of Japan have come together to help the clan be fruitful, multiply, and eventually take down the demon that cursed them.

Being set in twelfth-century Japan, there's only one way this game's aesthetic could go, and it does so beautifully. Enemy designs are based on classical ukiyoe prints, menus and load screens mimic Japanese theatrical motifs, and the music... "oriental pseudo-classical fusion rock" doesn't quite cover it, but that's the closest I can think of.

Another interesting feature is that the game can take the player's picture with the Vita's camera, and then convert that picture into an avatar character for the game. My avatar bore a passing resemblance to me, but would have been better if all the customization tools were fully implemented.

I only had about a month of in-game time to mess with, but that's a significant portion of my heroes' lifespans. I took down monsters with my party of four, using any and all imaginable weapons, taking out enemy leaders to end things fast because there's never enough time for the chronologically challenged. At the end, I rewarded my lead hero by marrying him to a cute bat-girl. And thus the next generation was born.

While I know the odds of this one leaving Japan are debatable (despite Shu Yoshida's tweet), I'm tempted to ask for an interview with the developers. They're from my city of Kumamoto, and I even know where their offices are. It might prove most enlightening.