For all those of you who may be Shadow Hearts fans, this will utterly tickle that funny gamer bone of yours!
At long last, we finally have official news that a spiritual successor to the Shadow Hearts series is well in development– but please be aware that since this is an endeavour by the original creators and has no connection the the original publisher… this really has nothing to do with the original series.
That being said, Machida is still in charge of the characters and story, with Kato as character designer, and we now have Watanabe as background illustrator! PLUS!! Hirota Yoshitaka is said to be returning to compose the music!
I am BEYOND excited for this project and will be devoting whatever extra time I have to helping it succeed!
First of all, let’s start with the official announcement that has been released by multiple outlets:
Here’s Machida’s latest announcement with English translation below:
Good evening, everyone!
Here is the long-awaited announcement of our new RPG, Penny Blood!
This is actually an announcement of the unusual, first-ever dual Kickstarter production endeavor.
We had many ups and downs to get to this point, but thanks to our amazing staff, this project has finally reached the light of day.
“Thank you so much for your patience!”
“Many thanks to everyone involved!”
At this point, we’d like to introduce the creators at our Wild Rose studio who are involved on Penny Blood.
First of all, I would like to be very clear that this is not a sequel to Shadow Hearts II.
“This is a new game, entirely separated from the Shadow Hearts series.” We kindly appreciate your understanding regarding this.
With that being said, I cannot deny the fact that when I go about creating something, it ends up with a similar atmosphere, so I’m positive those who like dark horror games placed in a modern era will enjoy it.
Next, let’s lightly touch upon the sort of work that we’re doing on Penny Blood.
Personally, I—Matsuzo Machida—will be in charge of the game design, as well as the general director and screenplay. I will be writing the scenario as I had done with Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts 2, so I will do my best to make sure that each and every line of the script contains my very essence. As for the character design, that will be left up to Miyako Kato, whom I’m sure everyone knows at this point. She is also the animation director who supervises all the art that we are producing for us.
Regarding the art for Penny Blood, we set up a sort of policy revolving around adult American comics and a wonderful world of toon shading with Tsuyoshi Watanabe from Shade Co., Ltd., who is in charge of development.
“I am positive he will continue to illustrate alluring characters from here on.”
Nobutaka Hanya will be in charge of monster design. He is a designer who joined Studio Wild Rose in the spring and is an all-round designer who can illustrate not only characters and monsters but also backgrounds as well.
Starting with Atam, who has suddenly become a major talking point following the Penny Blood announcement, we are also creating fusion monsters besides Demna, and we will be releasing more information about them soon.
Finally, I’d like to introduce Masato Watanabe, who is in charge of the background illustrations.
He is an artist who draws divine watercolor paintings, and although it is his first time making a game, he continues to create beautiful illustrations of the New York and Asakusa landscapes. Most of all, his Graveyard illustration stands out the most, so I am very excited to be able to share it with you as soon as possible.
Watanabe-san is also on Twitter, so please feel free to follow him there. If you are a watercolor painter, I’m sure you’ll be able to learn something from his paintings.
Masato Watanabe’s Twitter Account: @water18color
There are several other staff members who are also involved on the project. We are all working hard to make it, so we’d appreciate your continued support.
“So anyway, new information will be released consecutively, so please look forward to it!”
_____
Machida Matsuzo
Kato Miyako
Hanya Nobutaka
Watanabe Masato
Monaka-chan
Translated by Fire Sanctuary
Machida-san has also posted several more illustrations in a new blog post on the Studio Wildrose website. I wanted to translate some of the notes on the image of Emilia, so here we go!
Boss Battle, Cut 003 
Emilia normally has gray/colorless eyes. She attains unique abilities when she places a special contact lens in her left eye.
- Red: infrared
- Green: night vision
- Blue: zoom
He also mentions that it would be nice for a unique sound to play while this ability is in use.
More news and updates on this project will be posted regularly on this site, so please stay tuned!