E3 2003 First Look at Billy Hatcher: Screenshots, Video, Impressions and More

[Dreadknux]

Sonic had a big showing at E3 this year, but let's not forget that Sonic Team also introduced a brand new character at the show as well. Finally, we're getting a proper look at Yuji Naka's latest, which was first announced a month ago - Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg!

Judging by the screenshots, the game definitely has that iconic Sonic Team art style. Bright and colourful, with interesting environments to roll around in as you save the world from evil.

Wait, "roll around"? Yep, as the name suggests, you play as a human called Billy who takes control of eggs dotted around the stage and uses them to beat up cartoon cat-like creatures. You can roll around using these eggs to pick up speed and dash around to higher places, which sounds an awful lot like Sonic to us.

According to a preview on Kikizo, eggs are more than just toys. They're your primary source of protection in a world filled with monsters. "Without an egg you're vulnerable to enemy attacks and can't progress very far at all... you can launch [eggs] at enemies to kill them. Each enemy releases a orb-like fruit, so you can quash several enemies and then you'll be able to roll your egg over the orbs, increasing the size of your egg each time."

Once the eggs get big enough, Billy "can hatch it to get an animal. In the spirit of the game's bizarre theme, these animals can be anything from flying chickens, to penguins, cows and seals. The animals you hatch often follow you around afterwards, and some will give you advice or help you when you interact with them, for example advising or helping you to tackle an imminent puzzle or obstacle."

There will be lots of egg-based puzzles to work through as well. Kikizo mentions one example where Billy has to get himself and an egg across a chasm, and to do so he has to use a hatched animal's power to reveal some rails which the egg needs to be set on in order to roll ahead while Billy jumps across using an alternative route - before running round to pick the egg up before it falls into some lava.

All in all, it really sounds like Billy Hatcher is turning out great. Check out the other screenshots that we got from SEGA below, and underneath that some artwork of the main character...

Here's some artwork of Billy...

Kikizo also got a short gameplay video from SEGA, you can watch it below:

 It's certainly looking very cool! We'll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

Source: Kikizo

 

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