Konami working on Mystical Ninja DS title

Konami will release a Ganbare Goemon (Legend of the Mystical Ninja) title for the Nintendo DS in Japan next April, according to an update on Nintendo's Japanese DS software website this week.

The DS title is being developed internally at KCE Studios and will feature isometric gameplay on the lower, touch screen and things like character portraits, dialogue boxes, lists of shopkeepers' wares and other series conventions on the top screen. The game will be drawn in a Japanese brush painting art style.

The game world will be strewn with various items that can be activated using the stylus, and apparently Goemon will continue to fight people using his tobacco pipe, switching weapons with the shoulder buttons, and controlling a giant Goemon robot in special event battles, using the touch screen as a remote control.

Konami has yet to say anything about the possibility of the game appearing in the West, but the series has a history of making the transition to it's entirely possible we'll see it in the USA at the very least. We'll let you know if we hear anything else.