The Kickstarter for the dual spiritual successors to the Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts series has just begun and has already reached over 21 million yen with over 1,000 individual backers in just the first 30 minutes! Amazing!!
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!
Emilia normally has gray/colorless eyes. She attains unique abilities when she places a special contact lens in her left eye.
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!
The much anticipated Revised Edition of the 2010 Grimoire NieR complete guide as well as the first of the two-part NieR Replicant Recollections novels are scheduled to be released officially in English in 2023 by Square Enix’s very own Manga & Books brand!
THANK GOD!!! It’s so hard to get good translations done when the work is outsourced to companies simply translate what’s written on the page without any deeper understanding of the context…
Here are the official announcements by the Square Enix Manga & Books Twitter account:
And here are the quick links to the item pages on the Square Enix Manga & Books site:
I’ve previously written in detail about these novels, but I’ve removed my personal translations of various passages to respect the official release later next year. Please note that there are two novels in this series, Project Gestalt Recollections File 1 and File 2, which means the release of File 2 will likely come a few months after the first… maybe summer or fall 2023!
The Revised Edition of Grimoire NieR is largely the same as the 2010 version that’s been updated with assets and information from Replicant Ver.1.22… If you’ve seen a great big fan translation of the original book floating around, please delete it and purchase the official English translation when it’s released! Since it’s being released by SQEX themselves, I have no doubt that it will be of the utmost quality! I’m super excited to see it!
Back in 2012, a quint event of only 200 Square Enix Members was held for free on March 20, 2012 for the release in commemoration of the Piano Collections NieR Gestalt & Replicant, which was released the following day. Yoko Taro, Saito Yosuke, Okabe Keiichi, Hoashi Keigo, and Tanioka Kumi, who participated on the piano arrangements on the CD, appeared along with Kadowaki Mai (voice of Emil) as the MC. Live piano segments were performed by both Hoashi Keigo and Tanioka Kumi.
If memory serves, this was the first time Yoko used his Black Mannequin avatar in a live event. He has otherwise used his typical Yoko icon in other media prior to this.
Tickets to this event were based on a lottery system to anyone who was a Square Enix Member. Entries were just shy of 2,000, but it gave SQEX a massive wake-up call that there were many more NieR fans out there than they had originally estimated.
Kadowaki Mai appearing as the MC was actually a surprise!
Okabe Keiichi had asked Tanioka Kumi to participate on this album and event, so this was her first time to get involved in the NieR franchise. She was also involved on Final Fantasy XI, Chrystal Chronicles, and many more. She became a fan of the music in NieR when she purchased the soundtrack, so she was quite delighted to be able to participate on the piano arrngements.
Yoko appeared on stage as his Black Mannequin persona. Since the black doll was placed up-right on stage, creating a surreal atmosphere that made the audience laugh periodically during the talk segments.
Question Corner
(From IRUJIA)
Q: Were there any songs that were decided quickly?
A: Nothing was really decided on very quickly, but many went smoothly. Blu-bird was actually one that took multiple retakes along with additional requests from Yoko to make it have more impact.
(From *samaru)
Q: (To Tanioka) Did you feel any pressure to participate on the Piano Collections?
A: She felt quite a lot of pressure. She also mentioned she’s a fan of NieR music.
(From z*r_cradle)
Q: (To Hoashi) What do you keep in mind when you compose?
A: Okabe rejected many of his songs, so he was pretty desperate most of the time. But because of this, he believes he was able to come up with themes that were received really well.
(From mocrain)
Q: (To Tanioka) Were there any themes that were difficult to arrange for the piano? Or were there any that seemed more beautiful as a piano theme?
A: None of the themes were originally intended for a piano arrangement, so it was difficult to incorporate the same freshness without destroying the world view.
(From Famitsu.com ?)
Q: Were there any piano arrangements that changed your impression of the original theme?
A: For Tanioka, since this was her first time to compose NieR music, everything felt very fresh and new. She was also quite impressed with Hoashi, who tends to improvise with his own unique musical score or something.
(From Saito Yosuke)
Q: Who the heck is Yoko Taro?
A: Closing out the Question Corner was a funny question by Saito Yosuke in which Yoko once again introduced himself. He also told a story about how much trouble they had with the production of the game, especially when development began.
At the end, Saito Yosuke appeared on stage to give a comment. He said that he wanted to keep this particular event relatively small, but personally he wanted to aim for a “new NieR” in the future. Little did we know, this was likely the first few burning embers that eventually lead way to Automata.
At the end of the event, they had a autograph session with Hoashi Keigo, Tanioka Kumi, and Okabe Keiichi.
There was also a raffle drawing for attendees at the event. They gave away signed voice recording scripts from the game, a card set of Kaine and Emil from Lord of Vermillion 2. There was also a keyword giveaway on the official website for those who watched the event on uStream.
There was also a sales and exhibition corner where they conducted pre-sales of the new Piano Collections soundtrack and other NieR related merch. They had NieR Gestalt & Replicant posters, specially signed merch and panels especially for Ultimate SQEX Members on display. The displayed the posters with the scenic view of West Shinjuku and a bunch of skyscrapers as the backdrop, so the layout was pretty slick.
Event: Piano Collections NieR Gestalt & Replicant Release Commemorative Event
“Distant, Small, Ephemeral Piano”
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Venue: Shinjuku I-land Hall
Set List
Here are a couple other photos that I took from home as I watched the livestream on uStream:
Used Sources:
Several days ago, Inside Games released a questionnaire for users to pick their most favorite game they’d like to see remade in the modern age, on modern systems. Not surprisingly enough, Terranigma ranked #2 above Xenogears and even the classic Chrono Trigger!
See More: Inside Games – Games You’d Most Like to See Remastered in Reiwa
Considering the fact that Chrono Trigger has already received multiple re-releases and remakes, I tend to think that it shouldn’t even been considered for this list, but since it was an open-source questionnaire by users, it makes sense that it made it to the top five. Here’s the complete list of finalists:
Inside Games also included several comments from users about each game. Here’s a translation of what fans of Terranigma said:
Additionally, this is what Inside Gamer said in their brief comment about the game related to the above questionnaire:
The Action RPG Terranigma, developed by the now-defunct game developer Quintet, won second place by a small margin.
This game is often referred to as part of the “Quintet Trilogy” along with Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia (both sold by Enix, now Square Enix).
As the [original] title suggests, it tells a magnificent story about the creation of the world with the theme of “Genesis” as seen in the Bible. As expressed in the voices of our readers, behind the acclaim of the game, it’s unfortunately hidden between other famous masterpieces of the time such as Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest VI, and Secret of Mana 3, all released the same year [in 1995]. There were other voices who lamented that there is currently no other way to play the game than on the original hardware.
This questionnaire comes on the heels of the petition to get Terranigma digitally released on modern systems not to mention other activities like the solo Terranigma art exhibition by character designer Fujiwara Kamui.
See More: Terranigma – Resurrection of the Hero – Details on the campaign and more in English
The questionnaire received a total of 1310 votes, with Terranigma winning 67 of them. The #1 ranked game received only 4 more votes than Terranigma.