Indie JRPG from Final Fantasy vets is doing well on Kickstarter
When we first learned about Project Phoenix last month, I was starry-eyed. It was famed Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu’s first indie game, the art director worked on my favorite Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XII (in addition to III and XIV), and more. Project Phoenix sounds delightful. And it’s doing well on Kickstarter, currently sitting $714,000 earned on a $100,000 goal, with a week to go.
An update details the $650,00 stretch goal. “This will allow us to create a more detailed and explorable 3D model of each major city/town. Now there will be so many things to explore, including many easter eggs and hidden ‘special’ NPCs besides your usual shops, bars/inns etc. Not only that, we will be providing players with a character customization on non-main characters. Currently, players will be able to customize gender, hair style, hair colour, beard and skin colour.”
Doesn’t seem like it will hit the $1,025,000 stretch goal, barring a late spur. Was a bit excited for a “fully explorable overworld and upgraded combat transitions.” Still, some more of how the game will play has been updated, too. It’s starting to look quite a bit like the recent XCOM: Enemy Unknown. There’s even a “Fog of War” feature that obfuscates unexplored parts of the battlefield.
There’s also more lovely concept art on the Kickstarter page as well as the best explanation for the main character Ruffles’ name. “A lot of people have asked this already, much to our surprise. We just figured she’s really cute, and ‘Ruffles’ seemed to fit.” Yeah, you got us, that name is damn cute.
