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Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood Kickstarter is Live Now!

 Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Aug 292022
 

On Friday we discussed the exciting announcement of Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood, and now the Kickstarter campaign is live!

Once again, this is a double Kickstarter to fund both a Wild Arms spiritual successor and a Shadow Hearts spiritual successor.

I love both series, so I had to jump on this.

The platforms are now clear: the initial funding goal is for PC, there is a console stretch goal for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and a Nintendo option will be included in case a Switch successor comes out in the meantime; if one doesn’t, they’ll work something out with people who chose it.

(So no Armed Fantasia or Penny Blood on Switch.)

When I first heard about this Kickstarter, I thought it might be confusing for someone who is only interested in backing one of the games, not both. It turns out I was wrong. This Kickstarter is much more confusing if you want both.

Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood each have a nice selection of tiers with various rewards, but only a handful of tiers include both games. Some rewards are available as add-ons, although they’re somewhat expensive and are missing some notable options, like the soundtrack CDs.

I would have liked to get physical copies of both games and both soundtracks, but that seems to be impossible at the moment outside of the super high tier that includes everything. They’ve said in replies to comments that additional add-ons might be possible through backerkit later on.

So the tiers are a bit confusing right now, and there’s also a lot of stuff about community goals and how supporting them for one game or the other will work that seems a little complicated, but if you’re interested in one or both of these JRPGs, check out the Kickstarter!

(I was going to review Dark Road today, but we’ll have to save that for next time.)

Spiritual Successors to Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts Announced for Double Kickstarter

 Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
Aug 262022
 

I keep hoping for a new Wild Arms announcement. I keep hoping for a Shadow Hearts revival, too.

But in the absence of those two things, spiritual successors have been announced.

Yes, one for each.

WILD BUNCH Productions, founded by Wild Arms creators, has announced Armed Fantasia: To the Ends of the Wilderness, a large-scale JRPG inspired by Wild Arms.

At the same time, YUKIKAZE, founded by Shadow Hearts creators, has announced gothic horror JRPG Penny Blood, inspired by Shadow Hearts.

The two will hold a joint Kickstarter for these games, with a combined funding goal of $750,000 for PC releases. The campaign will begin on August 29.

Overviews of the two games, along with information about how the joint Kickstarter will work, are detailed here by Gematsu. An interview with the two development teams also sheds further light on them.

What stands out to me the most is that these two games are fully embracing their inspirations. Armed Fantasia looks like Wild Arms, and Penny Blood looks like Shadow Hearts.

(According to the interview, the Armed Fantasia characters being called Pathfinders is even just a different translation of the same Japanese word that was translated as Drifters in Wild Arms.)

Armed Fantasia is aiming to have a “gigantic” world map, with the aim being a world map “so big that there isn’t a word to express how big it is.” That makes me a little nervous, both because this is a crowdfunded project and because having your goal just be to have the biggest map possible doesn’t feel to me like the best priority. However, it also sounds like there’s a chance that it’ll be a traditional JRPG world map, which would make me very happy.

Moving on to Penny Blood, while it looks like a Shadow Hearts successor through and through (it’s not visible in any of the screenshots, but the interview describes a “Psycho Sigil” that sounds like the new version of the Judgement Ring), it stands out from its predecessors by involving murder investigations. According to the interview, sub-quests will feature “fingerprinting, voiceprint profiling, mental profiling such as Rorschach tests, and other pioneering methods of criminal profiling.”

One concern I had initially is that the funding goal seems low for this sort of project, but it sounds like the Kickstarter is intended to be used to demonstrate interest and get a publisher on board. With as ambitious as these games look, I hope they succeed.

So a Wild Arms spiritual successor and a Shadow Hearts spiritual successor that’s also a detective game; I haven’t been this excited for a Kickstarter in quite a while! Check out the articles I linked above to learn more about the games, and then join me in waiting for the Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood Kickstarter campaign to go live!

What are your thoughts on Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood?