Crowdfunding has become a viable way for developers, both independent and major, to turn their game prototypes into full-fledged reality. Among the many kinds of video games on display, a return to classics has been on the rise lately -- from pixel platformers to roguelikes. Celestian Tales: Old North jumps on the same boat on Kickstarter with its traditional-styled RPG, reminiscent of the 90s SNES and PlayStation era.
Celestian Tales is a direct fruition of seven years of brewing ideas, concocting intrigues, and sculpting a living, breathing world through D&D 3.5e, D&D 4e, Pathfinder, Iron Kingdoms RPG, and many other tabletop RPGs. The story of Old North is derived from one of the developers' dedicated campaigns which ran weekly sessions for a year long.
Inspired by JRPG titles of the 90s, the era of SNES and PlayStation, the game strives to recreate the retro feel but adds its own modern touches on top. For example, the native resolution is 800 x 600 instead of 640 x 480, it uses high-resolution hand-drawn character illustrations for dialogues instead of pixel art, and user interfaces are made with fluid animation.
Some of the game's features are:
- Six playable characters with differing play experiences. Each character has deep personality, combat style, equipments, private stories, cut scenes, special arts, and decisions to be made in the game.
- Multiple conclusions for each character, totalling more than fifteen possible variations, affected by your own choices throughout the game.
- Over 20 hours of gameplay time per character.
- Well-written fantasy setting and lores raising real-world issues which will connect deeper with your own life stories.
- Compelling storyline spanning three decades, following the characters' journey of life while they grow and mature from their experiences.
- Dynamic encounters which turns combat encounters into a form of entertainment itself. Hide from enemies, learn the nature of their movements, avoid them or just bash them all -- it depends on how you want to play the game.
- Tactically revamped classic combat with turn-based resource-management system. Combat puts emphasis on strategy and team customization, enough to keep you up but not too much that it turns boring and distracts the focus on narrative.
- Rewarding explorations, optional side quests and light mini-games make their return to restore the nostalgic feelings of an old school RPG.
- Wonderful music to enhance your play experience and mood in the game world.
- Various accompaniments to further immerse you in the world's lores, in the form of a graphic novel and an artbook. Celestian Tales encompasses a vast original setting, and stories from all over the continents are abound!
Check out Celestian Tales: Old North on Kickstarter and their official website, and spread the news if you're interested in it!
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