A third-person action game on the Vita, Soul Sacrifice relies on sorcery to fight the hounds of hell. This is where the whole sacrificing thing comes in. You have six attacks -- mapped to three face buttons and toggled with the right shoulder button -- that wear down over time and eventually require another sacrifice. The ones I used created vines to stab and impale enemies from the ground as well as a massive fist attack to wail on bad guys.
All this works -- well. It feels good to switch between attacks and dodge incoming monsters. I think I expected Soul Sacrifice to play like the Monster Hunter PSP games (a crappy camera centered with the d-pad), but it instead feels like a modern third-person adventure. You can even lock-on to enemies.
Still, the highlight of the demo was choosing to save or sacrifice souls. Much like the original BioShock, once you've vanquished an enemy, you'll get to either save or sacrifice the soul. Saving the souls makes you good whereas sacrificing makes you evil -- committing to a path will unlock new, exclusive powers.
I feel like this was thin E3 preview, but the heart of what I'm trying to say is this: I have no idea what exactly is going on in Soul Sacrifice, but I enjoyed playing it -- I want more. There are dozens of games I review each year that I totally understand and want nothing to do with.
Greg is the executive editor of IGN PlayStation, cohost of Podcast Beyond and host of Up at Noon. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Greg's shenanigans on IGN and Twitter. Beyond!