Operation Darkness Demo on XBL. Holy fuck, this camera is HORRIBLE. SHIT.
 

This title was already announced about a month ago to be seeing a US release via Atlus in 2008. The demo was just released on the Japanese Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday, and it features English subtitles (as in, menu/NPC/item, etc. translations), so you should be good to go if you're interested in trying it out.

For those wondering, Operation Darkness is a strategy RPG set in some bizarro World War II with zombies, werewolves, and other crazy shit. Gameplay seems to be reminiscent of Intelligent Systems' Advance Wars series.

Source:
Siliconera » Operation Darkness slips onto Xbox Live with English subtitles

So I guess the demo isn't available to US Live Players yet, or at all? SRPG + World War II + Zombies & Werewolves has my interest :)

I'm guessing it'll be put on the US Xbox Live Marketplace when it's closer to release. (You may recall the same happening for Eternal Sonata earlier this year. Was released months in advance in English on the Japanese Marketplace.)

Follow this guide to sign up for a Japanese Xbox Live account, if you don't already have one:
GamersReports

Meh, too much work for just a demo.

Well, the US site finally has content added - some character bios (complete with short video montages) and gameplay info (not yet complete, but what's there is respectably detailed)...
...and a couple of release dates.

• Demo: 5 May
• Retail version: 24 June

I enjoyed Metal Saga, so this one should be good. I may have to get a 360 at some point.

It's about time we got a demo of it. I created a Japanese account just to download this, only to be greeted by the news that it was one of the first games that trick wouldn't work on.

Any game with Hitler commanding legions of the undead is okay by me.

Confirm a European release already, thank you very much.

I would like to think the NA release somewhat heavily implied we'll get an EU release, but honestly I never know what crap we're going to have to put up with these days.

Apparently Atlus decided to be nice and give us the demo early. Has anyone else given it a try yet?

It seems to have quite a few issues, but very promising once you get used to it. The camera was a complete pain in the ass, and the battlefield was so massive that it was difficult to keep track of where the enemies were. Not to mention it took 3-4 turns just to move my squad of 11 people within attack range, which was more than a little tedious.

My major issue with it was the whole instant game over if ____ dies condition. I've always hated that in strategy games, and at least in this battle it applies to half your squad. I ended up losing after around 30 minutes because two tanks showed up out of nowhere right next to where I'd left Gallant, and one blasted him for 4500~ damage before I had a chance to move him.

The demo still managed to be fun despite all of that, so I'm not too disheartened. I can see myself getting very pissed at this game, though.

I tried it last night, and was fairly disappointed. The combat is very reminiscient of Shining Force, but yes, the camera was driving me insane. If every battle starts you as far away from the enemies as this one, the intro to battles (before any real action happens) is going to be needlessly long. Whether it was the cat throwing up while I was playing, or just the general boredom I experienced, I stopped playing after 15 minutes or so. I don't see myself buying this one unless the actual game is way better than the demo.

Only gripe I have is the fucking camera. Otherwise it's decent and nothing that really stands out.

Y'know. Import impressions were that the camera broke the game. I blew that shit off as sensationalist and just plain weird. You'd have to try pretty fucking hard to have a STRATEGY RPG of all things be practically unplayable thanks to it.

But they've done it. They've taken a fat, unholy dump on an otherwise somewhat promising project. Holy CHRIST is it bad. Jesus. Fuck. SHIT. It BURNS.

The only other thing that stuck with me was the horrible trial and error design to the thing. Oh, you shot someone? INSTANT BACKUP YOU HAD NO IDEA WOULD BE THERE. And again it happened after that. And again yet. This isn't unheard of in SRPGs but this really stuck out like a sore thumb. =\

Oh well, saves me 60 bucks down the road, at least.

Did you get past the tanks, at least? I was wondering if there would be yet another wave of reinforcements coming in on the opposite end of the map after that. Those tanks showing up out of nowhere and killing me after all that time spent boxing in the enemy soldiers pissed me off enough that I don't feel like giving the demo a second shot. I'm undecided on whether I'll go for the full game once it's released, but probably not without a nice sale/coupon.

This is disappearing to hear, but makes me feel less bad about there being no European release (yet).

Tanks was want ruined my day, sorry Tritoch. Dunno if one anything else shows beyond that.

I can't imagine they'd be foolish enough to keep going, though. But who knows? That's sort of defining the problem to a T, I think

Not to mention the ambiguity of the mission objective. "Annihilate all enemies except for Needle." Simple. Needle never even moved for the first 5-6 turns, so maybe he's supposed to be a spy we're saving. Then out of nowhere he threw a grenade that killed one of my lesser troops in a single hit. I then fired a bazooka at him out of anger, and the mission didn't end or anything despite me killing Needle, so I was left completely clueless as to why we were there.

Sure, that can also be cracked up to the demo being mission #6 in the game, but that was still pretty out of nowhere. I'd like to hope that the full game isn't quite so full of random surprises.

If you destroy the tanks, the Germans call in an airstrike on you.

You can add me to the people complaining about the camera as well. It is a strategy RPG, and yet due to not being able to get a bird's eye view of the battlefield, my ability to develop an appropriate strategy, based on precise enemy troop location, was severely crippled. This is the kind of game that developers normally don't release a demo for, for obvious reasons.

Did you cheat to accomplish this, russ? No such thing happened when I played, how many Germans were left after you destroyed the tanks? Moreover, how were you getting your units on top of the buildings?

There is a stone wall next to one of the buildings that you can move your unit onto, which then allows you to move your unit to the rooftop. It is a pretty good position for your sniper.