Maximo Preview

Get hit enough, and your armor will start to fall apart, Arthur-style.

Capcom was gracious enough to send us a playable version of Maximo, the long-awaited 3D tribute to Ghosts 'N Goblins. The demo build contains a fully playable version of the game's first area, a gruesome graveyard world, replete with armed skeletons, soul-sucking ghosts, and plague-ridden zombies. If you've played any of the classic Ghosts 'N Goblins games, you'll definitely find parallels between Maximo's first area and those of the classic games. The deforming levels found in the later games are present in Maximo's first area, and they play a pretty huge role--they'll create jumpable platforms that are unavailable in previous games, making your casual stroll through the landsof the dead a bit more tense than you'd like. A host of other small touches further cement the game's heritage. It all adds up to something that seems very special, albeit classically unforgiving.

Upon returning home from a righteous crusade, as the story goes, the valiant knight Maximo finds his homeland in shambles. The evil wizard Achille is responsible; he has made himself king, forced Maximo's lady Sophia into matrimony, and is using huge drills to do something unthinkable to the land. While you're not immediately privy as to what exactly the drills are for, the fact that undead creatures are now roaming the land and that Death himself is pretty unhappy with Achille does reveal some clues. In any event, your job is to travel through these newly razed lands, clear out the infernal menace, and rescue your beloved.

The world will deform in real-time, creating vistas as pleasant as this one.

From what we've been able see, Maximo is an awesome hybrid of a 3D platformer and a combat-based action game. Your character is very mobile, as the situations he's in will warrant, and he has a nice set of combat abilities that are highly expandable by the power-ups you'll find. You have a double jump at your disposal, which you're sure to make much use of. Combine a double jump with a vertical sword attack (the triangle button by default), and you'll land on the ground with a vicious downward thrust, which sends forth a shockwave that damages all surrounding enemies. On the ground, you'll have access to both vertical and horizontal slashes, both of which can be modified heavily by power-ups. One of the first ones you find, in fact, adds a second slash to your horizontal sword attack, resulting in a nice one-two combo. Meanwhile, pressing forward along with the vertical slash causes you to execute a thrust attack. Using the R1 button allows you to block enemy attacks with your shield, but it also becomes an offensive weapon, in its own right, after you pick up an early power-up. You'll be able to hurl it from a distance and take out remote enemies.