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The Silent Hill team has quickly made a name for themselves with the moody, horrific survival horror series, and now they're further enhancing their reputation with the offbeat "time adventure" known as Shadow of Destiny. Looking like a cross between Silent Hill and old Infocom interactive fiction, it may be one of the most intriguing games announced so far for the PlayStation 2.
Previously known as Day of Walpurgisnacht, Day of Walpurgis, Time Adventure, Shadows of Fate, and Shadow of Memories (which makes it the hardest working title in gaming) Shadow of Destiny has the unique premise of beginning with the main character's death. Eike Kusch wakes in dark void where he voices a wish to change his fate; miraculously, that wish is granted. Eike finds himself in possession of a device allowing him to go back in time and prevent his own death, while trying to find out who wants him dead. Unfolding as a kind of combination adventure and puzzle game centered around time paradoxes, there are also a host of NPCs to interact with, across multiple time periods. These include Homunculus, a humanlike figure of questionable loyalties; the mysterious Fortuneteller; little girl Sibylla; Eckart Brum, a stocky, balding man; Alfred, a mustached man in gray; Margarete Wagner, a cheerful young woman; and Dana, a blond woman who may help Eike.
In his quest to prevent his death, Eike will travel to four distinct time periods, each serving as crucial turning points in the events leading up to his demise. Players will start in the present of 2000, and can jump to 1980, the year when Dana was born and Eckart's wife murdered. Going further back, Eike will be able to travel to 1902, when construction first began on the town's museum, and finally all the way back to 1580, when the city was still steeped in Medieval mysticism and alchemy.
In each of these time periods Eike can attempt to change both the past and his uncertain future by altering the events around him. Unfortunately, he doesn't have all the time in the world. An on-screen clock is always present, showing the time in the present, and when Eike jaunts off to the past a second clock will join it to show the time in the past. Presumably this will be necessary to solve some puzzles, as well as to give the player an indication of how much time there is left to stop past events--or to set them in motion.
The game has been playable at recent trade shows, and while the graphics weren't as outstanding as some of Konami's other PS2 efforts, Shadow of Destiny certainly makes up for it with its unconventional premise and strong atmosphere. One demo began in a burning building, where players must use the time travel device to go back a few hours to escape. There, they see a girl drop a burning paper and run. Stamping out the paper eliminates the future blaze, giving just a small sample of the kind of history-altering gameplay Shadow of Destiny may offer.
If Shadow of Destiny can live up to its premise and pedigree, it may just turn out to be one of the PlayStation 2's most unique titles. The game is currently on track for a February 2001 release in Japan, with the U.S arrival to follow March 6.
Copyright © 2000 - 2001, Final Fantasy Enterprise
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