Blue Moon Presents Magical Ninja Mafia Assassins In Tsukiyo Ni Saraba

SPOnG has just received information detailing a new Taito action game in development with Blue Moon Studio (founded by Yoshitaka Murayama, responsible for the Suikoden series). Currently titled Sukiyo Ni Saraba (roughly translated as Farewell in Moonlight) it bears all the hallmarks of a game that could easily be overlooked: third person perspective, bullet-time, cinematic action, so on and so forth.

However, there are two interesting chunks of information that make Sukiyo Ni Saraba a more intriguing prospect. First, is that the developers have amongst them a variety of well-established and talented individuals. Apart from Murayama-san himself, soundtrack composer Yasunori Mitsuda and comic artist Ryoji Minagawa, who conceived Spriggan, are also involved in the project. This clearly has the potential to be an impressively stylish piece of work.

Best of all is the premise of the game itself. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a developer hit the nail on the head so squarely as to get us excited with the merest whisper of a storyline, but here is one such instance. Check this out: the main character is, in essence, a standard gun-toting loon. Standard, that is, except for the fact that he is an Italian-Irish, supernatural, time-travelling, ninja Mafioso gymnastic assassin.

So the game starts off with the player in control of a magical Irish hitman, raised by Sicilian gangsters, who has teamed up with a militant nineteen year old Anglo-German girl as his buxom sidekick. The gameplay that follows involves an array of stunts and tricks, slow motion melees and the stylish dispatch of multiple enemies. Given this description, Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry immediately spring to mind. Take that idea: throw in Italian gangsters, time-travel and young Eastern European ladies, and surely it has to be a winner.

Sukiyo Ni Saraba will be on show at the Tokyo Game Show this week, if there are any relevant revelations there, read them here.