One of the most intriguing gaming Kickstarters is coming to a close, but not without the developers’ giving players one final surprise for fans and prospective backers. The “worlds first double Kickstarter” long ago exceeded the hopes of the developers, eclipsing its ¥100,000,000 financing goal almost three times over at the point of publishing bringing together two different games, the Wild Arms inspired Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness, and the Shadow Hearts inspired Penny Blood, but the Kickstarter hasn’t finished delivering for its fans.
Both Armed Fantasia, as well as Penny Blood are spiritual successors to those that inspire them, and are both developed by some of the names responsible for their respective original titles, but now one of the two games is getting an injection from another outside force, responsible in part for some of Japan’s most iconic franchises, Final Fantasy, and SaGa. Iconic Final Fantasy composer, Nobuo Uematsu, and SaGa composer Kenji Ito are both lending their expertise to Penny Blood in the game’s continued development.
Speaking about the addition of Uematsu, the post to the backers explains that Uematsu will “assist with research and insight into authentic Irish music”, meanwhile with relation to Ito joining, the post read, “Known for his amazing work on the Saga Series, he will join the already amazing list of veteran JRPG composers to focus on music in the Asian areas of the game”. Not to be lost amongst this, but admittedly with a lower profile is the fact that Yasunori Shiono will be joining the team as well, “Known for his work on the Lufia series, he will be a part of the Composer’s Dream soundtrack.”
Combining these new additions to other known figures, Yoshitaka Hirota (Shadow Hearts), Akari Kaida (Breath of Fire 3), Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Series), Kenji Ito (SaGa Series), and Yasunori Shiono (Lufia), by team’s own admission, “It’s rare to see this much talent come together for one JRPG.”
While all of the attention is currently on Penny Blood, bolstering the talent involved in working on that title, the more successful, in terms of the distribution of backer dollars is Armed Fantasia, a game that Wild Arms creator Akifumi Kaneko is helming, along with other Wild Arms veterans, and with Sony themselves having started to give Wild Arms itself some more love, with titles launching into PlayStation’s newly revised PlayStation Plus subscription, there are numerous forces that will undoubtedly help drive the success of these new spiritual successors.
As of the time of publishing the joint Kickstarter for Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood will come to an end in about 37 hours, leaving you time to pledge your support if the idea of spiritual successors to some of the PS1/PS2 era’s most adored JRPGs.
