GolgoHypeMachine – Moon Diver

Moon Diver, formerly known briefly as Necromachina, is on its way to PSN and XBLA. It’s a four player co-op side-scrolling platformer with RPG elements that plays like Castlevania meets Strider. Kouichi Yotsui, the lead designer and planner for Strider and Osman, is at the helm for Square-Enix on this project. Excited yet? I am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XeM38j-Zt8

For fans of Strider, Osman (known as Cannon Dancer in Japan) was more of a successor to Strider than Strider II since Osman involved much of the same original team. If you haven’t seen Osman before, check out this video for a taste of greatness. With Moon Diver, it now looks like we might be getting the next entry in the (anything but contiguous) series.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Strider and Castlevania so the concept of blending the two with 4-player co-op and a leveling system is tailor made for my tastes. They even tease a team-up move that sounds like something right out of Power Rangers, so I can’t wait to see that. Moon Diver is missing the Moto Kikaku artwork that gave Strider and Osman their signature style, but I’m sure Square-Enix is up to the task of designing crazy lunar ninjas.

Moon Diver is scheduled for release on March 29, 2011, on PSN and mid-April for XBLA.