The story of Seven Samurai 20XX takes place in the not-to-distant future, at a time when mankind is waging war against legions of anime-inspired demons, monsters and robots. At the start of the game, you'll take on the role of young Ronin Natoe as he defends the last human city from legions of evil. As the story continues, Natoe becomes the protector of mankind's last hope, The Holy Child, while working to put gather a band of heroes to help him save humanity.

So, now that the storyline's out of the way, how's the game look and play? Well, from what we saw at E3, it looks very nice, with brilliant color and sharp detail throughout. The environments are fully 3D, and while none were too heavily textured, they did look quite good on the PS2. The character models look great both in-game and in the CGI cutscenes. Hair flows freely, faces are expressive and motion has an overall fluidity to it that makes the characters seem far more realistic than those seen in other action titles. Small visual touches, like that of the visual "swish" of a sword through the air round out the stylistic nature of Seven Samurai 20XX.

The gameplay in Seven Samurai 20XX is straightforward hack-and-slash with plenty of cool additional touches. Attack combos, while basic at first, become more complex as you play through the game. Natoe can fight with a single sword, or power up for a double bladed attack, which dishes out plenty of damage. Since melee combat wouldn't be the same without the classic jumping and dashing moves, you can rest assured Natoe has these, as well as a variety of other moves at his disposal. Properly chaining together moves will allow you to slip behind those pesky boss characters and deal out some real punishment.

Even though it's only loosely related to the Kurosawa's cinematic masterpiece, Seven Samurai 20XX is a title we'll be looking forward to as it combines a plenty of cinematic moments with high quality graphics and a solid combat system. This is definitely a game that will be a welcome release this winter.