Blood Will Tell: Hands-On & Media

Our latest playtest with the sizable Sega adventure results in these new impressions and media.

With so many demon-slaying samurai action games out on the market - and more on the way - it'll take a special game to stand out from the pack and not fall under the me-too category. Sega's Blood Will Tell seems to fit the bill quite nicely based on our latest hands-on, revealing a game in much better shape compared to our last playtest with the game at TGS last year.

Known as Dororo in Japan, Blood Will Tell is an action-adventure game based on the classic manga from legendary manga artist/writer Osamu Tezuka of Astro Boy fame. Tezuka's classic manga has been well adapted into video game format and closely follows the horrific story of a samurai who was robbed of every limb and organ as a baby.

Stripped of his humanity including his ability to cry, Hyakkimaru isn't just sitting around feeling sorry for himself just because his own father put his body parts up for auction and sold all 48 of them to an equal amount of demons in order to acquire the power to rule Japan. (I hear he never received a father's day card while Hyakkimaru was growing up.)

Determined for revenge, Hyakkimaru replaced some of his body parts with weapons such as blades embedded in his arms and a bazooka hidden in his leg and embarked on a journey to find and extract revenge on the demonic fiends who robbed him of a normal life in order to regain his body and his future.

However, Hyakkimaru's quest for his missing body parts won't be a lonely one as he's accompanied by his friend, Dororo, a very young but crafty thief who helps him by fighting alongside him and guiding him on his quest for revenge.

Dororo, while pretty young and weak isn't along just for the ride and cheap laughs, his usefulness will come into play when faced with various puzzles and scenarios that require him to make use of his abilities as a clever and sneaky thief to access areas that Hyakkimaru can't.

We came away quite pleased with Sega's latest action offering. The game's expansive 3D environments were a joy to traverse through and featured solid controls and a great deal of action to keep players blasting and slashing their way through 100+ demons and monsters originating from the manga that they'll encounter throughout their journey.

The playable demom while limited, allowed us to battle through one of the game's many levels, ending with a pretty cool boss encounter against a fiendish creature that was highly animated and moved at amazing speeds for a monster of its vast size.

When released, Blood Will Tell will feature five game worlds divided into a multitude of levels that players can fully explore, battle a wide variety of monsters and obtain new weapons in. Both Hyakkimaru and Dororo will be controllable, allowing players to use each of their unique abilities to solve puzzles and battle ferocious monsters.

Blood Will Tell hits Japan and the U.S. this Fall with a European version set to follow in the Winter. We're keeping a close eye on this one, so whichever version is released first, you can rest assured we'll be all over it.

Joseph Jackson
US Editor, Kikizo Games