First Look: God Eater

Namco Bandai opened an official site today for God Eater and also provided a first trailer for the game. Word of the new PSP title leaked out through Famitsu earlier in the week.

The God Eater official site. There isn't much content yet, but you should definitely check out the trailer.

God Eater looks like Namco Bandai's answer to Capcom's Monster Hunter series. As detailed in Famitsu, the game puts you in control of a God Eater, a young warrior who's taken up arms against mysterious "Aragami" creatures who have appeared around the world. You customize your character in such areas as hair style, hair color, face, skin, clothing and voice as you head off on over 100 missions with three other players.

There are some major differences from Capcom's Japan-beating franchise, though. The game features the "Deus Ex Machina" system, through which you can switch weapons on the fly between blade form, gun form, and predator form. The weapons themselves are customizable.

Artwork from the God Eater official site.

Namco Bandai is also promising something Monster Hunter is lacking: a large scale story. When playing solo, you'll team up with CPU-controlled NPC characters, all of whom are important enough to have names and voice actors.

The emphasis on story should be clear in game's first trailer:

Outside of the trailer, the official site does not actually offer any information on the game. Sections for outline, story & character, "What's Aragami," battle system, special, blog, and link are currently left inactive.

PSP owners in Japan can look forward to this new take on Monster Hunter this Fall.