It’s been a scorching minute since I final crossed paths with JRPG sequence Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts, however at present the important thing creators behind each of those late 90s and early 00s RPGs have introduced they’re making two brand-new JRPGs which can be impressed by their earlier works – they usually’re launching a ‘double Kickstarter‘ marketing campaign to assist fund them. The video games are referred to as Penny Blood and Armed Fantasia (no factors for guessing who’s making what), and based mostly on what I’ve seen to this point, I’m intrigued.

Armed Fantasia is, as you may need surmised, being made by former Wild Arms devs beneath the banner of their new studio Wild Bunch Productions. The creator of the sequence, Akifumi Kaneko, is on board dealing with lead sport design and situation writing, and composer Michiko Naruke is again together with fellow musicians Noriyasa Agematsu and his group Elements Garden. Like Wild Arms, Armed Fantasia has a ‘westernpunk’ theme, and follows a bunch of adventurers referred to as Pathfinders on their journey by means of the wilderness. They every have their very own ARM (or aether response maximiser) weapon handy, they usually’ll be dispatching unusual ‘anomalies’ which can be ravaging the land.

Wild Bunch promise a “gigantic” world map filled with issues to do (though this is hoping it is not one which follows the Ubisoft college of open world design), but it surely feels like there’ll nonetheless be good old school dungeons to discover as properly. It actually appears pretty based mostly on the screenshots, and its turn-based battle system appears significantly flashy. It’s not but clear how every character’s ARM weapons will differ from each other, however fights will utilise what the devs are referring to as a ‘cross order techniques’ system, permitting characters to disrupt enemy flip orders to their benefit.

Penny Blood, in the meantime, is a gothic horror RPG set within the Nineteen Twenties that is being headed up by the creator of the Shadow Hearts sequence’ new studio Yukikaze. Shadow Hearts director Matsuzo Machida is on lead sport design and situation writing duties for this one, and artist Miyako Kato has additionally returned to design the characters. Original composer Yoshitaka Hirota is again, too.

Here, you will play as personal investigator Matthew Farrell as he travels the world searching unusual monsters. He himself has some supernatural skills, and you will be placing them to good use in Penny Blood’s ‘psycho sigil’ battle system, which the builders say “combines conventional turn-based JRPG technique with twitch-trigger response occasions”. Probably one thing akin to the Mario & Luigi sequence of RPGs, then (or Yakuza: Like A Dragon), I’d think about, with some timed button presses within the combine.

More attention-grabbing to me is its Sanity Points system, which apparently makes celebration members unpredictable in the event that they lose too lots of them by spending time within the firm in demons, but in addition offers them a lift in energy. Again, it is not solely clear how you will achieve extra of those factors over time, or how a lot technique shall be concerned in deploying them, however I’m positively up for a sanity system that is not simply ‘all the things will get exponentially worse as a result of everybody’s gone mad’ kind of factor (I’m taking a look at you, Amnesia / Eternal Darkness).

You can discover out extra about each video games over on their Double Kickstarter web page, which matches reside on August twenty ninth at 9am PT / 5pm BST. Collectively, the studios are asking for a mixed objective of $750,000 to fund each sport tasks, however in a enjoyable twist, backing one sport may also assist to contribute towards the shared ‘combo meter’ of the opposite, which means you will be serving to to unlock objectives and different content material throughout each video games to get them over the end line.

Based on what I’ve seen (which is solely based mostly on a handful of screenshots to this point) I’m cautiously optimistic about these and will definitely be keeping track of them. I’ve been burned earlier than by different huge title JRPG creators of yore taking to Kickstarter to fund huge ardour tasks that publishers presumably will not deign to take a threat on as of late (with former Suikoden devs’ tedious Eiyuden Chronicle Rising being the prime instance right here), however like I mentioned, cautious optimism is the place I’m at with these ones for the time being.