Last weekend was the special Penny Blood event in Osaka featuring awesome club remixes by none other than Shadow Hearts series composer, Yoshitaka Hirota! Check out the article below!

→ Read the Recap Here

With the sudden announcement of a dual Kickstarter for the spiritual successor to Shadow Hearts and Wild Arms, I’be been utterly beside myself, trying to compose my thoughts and emotions. Thankfully, we’ve got some interesting interviews to share with fans in the meantime!

Here’s an interview conducted by Dengeki with Machida Matsuzo:

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We’re very pleased to present a special interview with the developer of the new Penny Blood RPG, a new title that’s part of a dual Kickstarter campaign.

Working under Studio Wildrose, production on Penny Blood is led by game designer and scenario writer who developed the Shadow Hearts series, Machida Matsuzo; Kato Miyako, character designer who illustrates unique characters, and Hirota Yoshitaka, a legendary composer.

The dual Kickstarter for Penny Blood and Armed Fantasia is currently in progress (actually, it reached its minimum goal within the first 19 hours of the campaign!).

We were able to conduct a mail-based interview with Machida-san to share with you! We asked about various highlights and features of this game, so definitely keep reading!

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A challenging world view for JRPGs!

ーThank you very much for your time today.

Before we get started, I am very happy to have the opportunity for an interview with Dengeki again. You were very helpful when I was working on the Shadow Hearts series back in the day. Even now, I’m extremely grateful for how you act as a welcoming bridge between developers and fans. I’d like to talk as much as I can about Penny Blood, so I really appreciate this opportunity.

ーWhen did you get the idea for this title?

Actually, the concept of Penny Blood has been around for quite a while. It’s been maybe a year since we actually wrote up the plan and started working on it.　

ーWhat set you on this endeavor?

Well, the biggest trigger was meeting Kaneko from Armed Fantasia, who we’re actually working with on this dual Kickstarter. As one of the best game creators in the whole world, I have massive respect for him. The mere thought of tackling such a huge project with him ignited my adventurous spirit, and that’s how I made that decision.

ーThe other two characters besides the main character that we’ve seen, are they playable?

Yes, they are. Emilia is a brave and strong female character. I wanted to express how difficult it is for women in society today and how hard they work every day. Emilia had half of her body turned into cyborg, so she’s able to use a variety of battle techniques.

On the other hand, Suseri is a girl from an organization that protects the imperial capital in Japan. She’s a pro with magic-based attacks and support skills.

When the girls meet Matthew, they’re influenced by each other, and strive for a better way of life.

ーWho’s the main baddie in Penny Blood? Will we see historical figures appear as enemies?

Yes, you will. I tend to write in famous historical figures. You’ll see both strong allies and enemies to despise.

You can say that they all share historical accurate depictions of people’s determination and hopes from that era. I don’t intentionally drop famous people in for the name recognition alone.

ーWhat are somethings you changed from the previous titles, or maybe somethings that remained the same?

We made this entirely for adults this time. What hasn’t changed is that it’s an RPG that has love, tears, and comedy.

It’s really difficult to tell a story that evolves within a world of dark horror in a JRPG. As far as staging goes, I want to use images of the grotesque, much stronger depictions of bizarre and elements of the occult than before.

ーHow many characters can we have in the party?

You can have up to four characters in battle. Since we have a total of eight playable characters you can control, it’s possible to make two parties. You may need to make two separate parties depending on the area.

ーCould you tell us more about the Psycho Sigil mechanic in battle?

The Psycho Sigil is a system that judges success or failure by accurately timed button presses. The design of the sigil (crest) has a different motif for each character, varying the number of light points that determine the timing for each button press.

Battles in Penny Blood are turn-based. You select a command and then perform that action, but the input is seamless within the action. Depending on the situation, your action might trigger a special move or combo attack. Combos have special effects in which allies won’t act in order but rather in sync.

ーHumorous aspects such as the Han festival, torture events, and strange creatures were quite popular with fans of the Shadow Hearts series. Will we see more of this in Penny Blood as well?

Yes. (grin) Penny Blood is a completely new game that has nothing to do with the Shadow Hearts series, so I think it will have many more powered up sequences.

ーAnd, what about the vampire clan…?

They won’t appear since they’re already included as a special class within the main cast of characters. But I think it would be interesting feature a similar clan. Let me know if you have any cool ideas; we can keep it between just the two of us.

ーDid you talk with art director Kato Miyako and sound director Hirota Yoshitaka about what they wanted to do in this new title?

Kato is both the character designer and art director for Penny Blood. It’s impossible to create a photorealistic model and world like other blockbuster RPGs, so I worried about how to create art that conveys the concept of Penny Blood.

After mulling it over a lot, I decided on a more American comic style. It was difficult to reproduce it with semi-cel shading, but I think Watanabe, the visual director, did a great job. The world of Penny Blood was decided quickly thereafter, so I’m really grateful to both of them.

Conversely, we knew what we wanted for the music and sound effects from the start, so I only asked Hirota to create the atmosphere of the whole story and special sound effects that would be vital to the story.

I especially liked the main theme song that I named “Fhathast beò” in Gaelic. It basically translates to, “and yet I live.” I think it sums up the core theme of Penny Blood precisely.

ーWhen might we be able to listen to these favorite songs of yours?

I would bet pretty soon. They’re all musical masterpieces that illustrate the world of Penny Blood before your eyes, so I hope you give them a listen. I’ve listened to them, like, 100 times already.

ーAnd finally, one last question… Will we be getting two endings, a good and bad one as usual?

Yup. (grin)

―Thanks for your time.

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!

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First of all, let’s start with the official announcement that has been released by multiple outlets:

• Gematsu
• RPGFan
• Nintendo Everything

Here’s Machida’s latest announcement with English translation below:

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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!”

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Machida Matsuzo
Kato Miyako
Hanya Nobutaka
Watanabe Masato
Monaka-chan

Translated by Fire Sanctuary

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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!

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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.

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More news and updates on this project will be posted regularly on this site, so please stay tuned!