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Ambitious Indie JRPG Project Phoenix Blasts Past Its Kickstarter Goal
Billed as Japan's first game project on Kickstarter, Project Phoenix features an all-star team of Eastern and Western developers, including acclaimed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu.
The Kickstarter page for Project Phoenix describes the game as a mix between squad-based RTS and JRPG, and despite just being posted today, it's already funded; the project took less than nine hours to meet its modest $100,000 goal. Much of the excitement for the game is undoubtedly based on the talent behind it. The team consists of designers and artists from around the world, who have worked on everything from Diablo III and L.A. Noire to Valkyria Chronicles and Final Fantasy. The most famous name on the talent list is Nobuo Uematsu, who has signed on as Project Phoenix's lead composer.
Project Phoenix centers on a growing conflict between humans and orcs in a land called Azuregard. Four heroes are tasked with saving the day: paladin Marcus Stern, elven princess Sylrianah, a battlemage named Zarum the Lost, and an amnesiac angel named Ruffles. The game features seemingly everything an RPG fan could want: exploration, tactical combat, character leveling, and class customization. The team also has plans for multiplayer which would be added to the project via a future stretch goal.
Right now the team is shooting for a mid-2015 release on PC, Mac, and Linux, along with a separate version of the game for iOS and Android. The team says it also wants to bring the game to PlayStation 4 – given Sony's willingness to work with indies and the buzz the project is already getting, we're guessing that won't be a problem.
Learn more about Project Phoenix at its official Kickstarter Page.
[Source: Kickstarter]
Our Take
Judging from the
Kickstarter Page, the Project Phoenix team certainly has lofty ambitions. In
addition to the impressive features of the game itself, the team says it hopes its
project will "forge a new direction for the Japanese games industry." That
could very well be true; Kickstarter has already proven revolutionary for indie
game development in the US, and while the Western audience for Japanese games
is smaller than it used to be, it's still extremely devoted. I wouldn't be
surprised if other Japanese indie teams are able to find success on
Kickstarter, and I'm sure plenty will try after seeing the fan support for Project
Phoenix.
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