Emotion Is at the Core of Soul Sacrifice, According to Keiji Inafune

Video games linked to the PlayStation Vita have not contained too much emotion so far, but one Japanese developer plans to change this situation with the upcoming Soul Sacrifice, by using feelings to allow players to choose between saving and killing enemies.

In an interview with the official PlayStation blog, Keiji Inafune, the main developer working on Soul Sacrifice at Marvelous AQL, says, “One of the things I want to illustrate is a feeling of guilt, a feeling of complexity. So there is sacrificing, but there is also saving. Those are the two extreme choices, the dilemma that you’ll face every time. I want you to make sacrifices, but I also want you to think about saving.”

He then mentions, “Perhaps you’re fighting a powerful enemy but you learn that he has a sick daughter that he has to save back home by earning money in battle. When you hear this during the battle, the nice part of you might think about losing so he can save his daughter. But you want to win your battle, too.”

Soul Sacrifice will allow the player to select a wizard character and then customize him between launching a third-person adventure that relies on core role-playing mechanics but also on MMO tropes.

The game can be played cooperatively by up to four gamers and each of them will get a role, ranging from tank to healer and DPS.

In order to destroy the toughest bosses in Soul Sacrifice, gamers will have the option of sacrificing one of the members of their own group, which enhances their own abilities and adds a competitive aspect to the cooperative mechanics.

Soul Sacrifice is set to arrive exclusively on the PlayStation Vita handheld from Sony and will be delivered during spring 2013, initially in Japan and then in the West.