CIMA: The Enemy is the beginning of a new franchise from Natsume. Designed as a trilogy, CIMA has been designed for innovation in the RPG market while keeping the classic elements that makes old-school RPGs what they always have been. The main way the developers, Neverland, have done this is taking NPCs and making them an integrated part of the gameplay.

In CIMA's twenty minute demo, no part of the story is revealed. The point of the demo is to move six characters through progressively more difficult puzzles without allowing any of the characters in the game to perish. The catch is that the player only controls the main character. All the other members of the party have to be told where to go, but what they do on the way is completely up to them. One member in particular seems to have no attack at all, and very little hit points, making the key to survival being to always protect her from harm.

This is accomplished by exploring with the main character first. In the demo, the main character has a sword, and is assisted by a female with a very handy gun. Once the deduction of what has to be done has been discovered, the player has to select where to move the other party members to complete the task. To do this, the player must press the R button, and then select one of the four other members by pressing a direction, and A to confirm. Once that's done, an arrow appears on the screen showing where the person will move. Move the arrow to the desired location, and press A once again. The player can do this three times to make a path for the character to follow. This is very important since the NPCs make no effort whatsoever to dodge any obstacle in their designated path.

Overall, there were not too many challenges in the demo, but that's because there were a lot of healing items, and definitely a lot of ways to make it harder, like taking damage for falling off cliffs. Whether they change this and other aspects to increase the difficulty remain to be seen, it really wouldn't make that much of a difference in how enjoyable the game is. I highly look forward to this game, and its two successors.