More Information on RPG '7th Dragon' for DS Arises

This week's Famitsu magazine has revealed more information on SEGA's new joint-venture with Image Epoch '7th Dragon' on DS. The game is set for release in Spring 2009 in Japan and is from the team behind Luminous Arc on DS. Its official website has been launched, complete with teaser flash video and two tunes to aurally please - one being of an 8-bit, retro style.

The producer of this new title is Reiko Kodama of Phantasy Star and Skies of Arcadia fame, the Director is none other than Kazuya Niinou, formerly of Atlus where he created both Trauma Centre and Etrian Odyssey, the main composer is another SEGA fan favourite Yuzo Koshiro, who scored Shenmue and Shinobi, plus the character designer is a doujin moe artist called Jun'ya Ota. Considering this was Image Epoch's 'Project DF', the last of the remaining 'unknown' games it was working on, many believe its theme will be similar to SEGA's old classic Dragon Force.

Below is the information from this week's Famitsu (thanks to NeoGAF):

• New game from Niinou, the director of Etrian Odyssey
• Command-based battle encounters
• Four characters in a party at one time
• Simple game concept: kill all the dragons
• There are seven classes in the game (Rogue, Mage, Fighter, Princess, Knight, Samurai, Healer)
• For each class there are four different appearances
• There are skill trees for each of the classes
• The stats include LIFE, MANA, ATK, POW, DEF, INT, SPD
• While moving around, the top screen is a top-down map view, while the bottom screen is a conquest map