CIMA: The Enemy (GBA) Preview

Developer	Neverland
Publisher	Natsume
Genre	Role-Playing
Release Date	11/03/03

It's been ten years since Rodney King uttered the infamous question, "Can't we all just get along?" In the world of CIMA: The Enemy, the answer is a resounding "no". Strife and conflict abound in Natsume's upcoming action RPG.

While CIMA doesn't take place in Los Angeles, tensions nonetheless remain high. Humans and and a race of "semi-humans" known as the Cima have been at odds with each other since time immemorial. In order to quell the violence, a gate was erected at the point where their two worlds meet. The player will fill the shoes of Arc J, a human assigned to be the gate guardian, as he attempts to protect his people and bring peace to his world.

In CIMA, you will only have direct control over the main character. Your allies, known Active Player Characters (APCs), must be given instructions on where to go and what to do. By using waypoint markers, you'll be able to set a specific path for your allies to follow. The trick will be to pay close attention to the APCs because they will be the key to solving the numerous puzzles that lay before you in this game. This coordination of keeping your allies alive and using them to conquer obstacles and solves puzzles has been dubbed the "active system".

Combat will unfold in realtime, which adds a different layer of complexity to this game. While dispatching enemies, you have to be mindfulof your APCs' lifebar because if one of them dies, it's game over. That’s right, there are no phoenix downs to save your butt in this game. Thankfully, you'll have an advanced array of weapons at your disposal to annihilate the Cima threat.

The game itself will unfold in a non-linear fashion. Rather than following a scripted path, you'll get to set the pace of the game, explore, annihilate enemies and further the narrative at your own leisure. The free-form nature of CIMA will allow for dozens of hours of gameplay, much more than the conventional Gameboy Advance RPG.

Natsume had a playable demo of CIMA on display at E3 this year. But despite the generally positive remarks the game has received, it is still going largely unnoticed. Hopefully the word will spread in the coming weeks about some of this games uniques features. The management and coordination of APCs combined with intense action, challenging puzzles, and a non-linear storyline should make for an excellent RPG.

Preview by Erick Kelsen