A new month means we get another update for Armed Fantasia To The End Of The Wilderness. As you may know, it was a part of the double Kickstarter that also featured Penny Blood. Armed Fantasia, like Penny Blood, is a spiritual successor to a previous series. This game is being made out to be the spiritual successor to the hit JRPG Wild Arms. In this update, we get to hear about designs, see some concept art, as well as a few other aspects of design. So let’s get into this update provided by Director Sekiya.
The team started the update by saying this to fans in celebration of their first anniversary:
Hello JRPG Fans! We have entered fall in Japan and it’s finally starting to get cool at night. Halloween products are starting to pop up in stores. That probably means we can expect another chaotic night near the Shibuya scramble (That massive intersection in Shibuya where people commonly take videos of the thousands that cross during a single day). More importantly, it’s time for celebration! We have reached our first anniversary of the Kickstarter. It’s hard to believe that was one year ago. Take a look at the amazing developer update below!
Project News
In regards to the project news for Armed Fantasia To The End Of The Wilderness Director Sekiya had this to say:
Hello everyone. I’m Sekiya, the scenario director for ARMED FANTASIA. A series called the “Toei Kaiju Collection” is currently being released in a partwork where the special extras that come along with it are the main draw, and I finally received the last part in a series of parts – the tail, thus completing my King Ghidora (1964 version). King Ghidora is supposed to be 100 meters tall, making it twice the size of Godzilla (second generation). But when you put it side-by-side with Godzilla, the difference in height is much greater than how it appears in the films, to a bewildering extent.
(The truth is that the second generation Godzilla hasn’t been released yet, so I’m comparing it with Mechagodzilla, who is the same height). Differences in mass are the source of all superiorities/inferiorities when it comes to physical power. Technically, no one would ever be able to defeat something this huge. Its long tail alone is about as big as Godzilla. Now, that’s enough of my desktop kaiju talk. Time sure flies… As of September 30th, our project will be one year old. Thanks to all your support and encouragement, all of our staff members are still working hard every day. Thank you so much!
Concept Art
Director Sekiya talked about the work being put into the art style for Armed Fantasia To The End Of The Wilderness and talked about towns and dungeons. This is what Director Sekiya said:
We’re proceeding with the work related to creating setting art for dungeons. Towns will be especially unique in their outward appearances, so we’re sure you’ll get excited when you arrive at a new location. Londenium is supposed to be a world where alchemy prospered long ago, and technology has regressed in the time period in which Ingram and his companions live. However, devices that utilize alchemy are still being discovered here and there, which helps to color the world. Incidentally, the vehicles that appear will also be running on Alchemy engines.
We’ve posted this one before, but here is our setting art for alchemy engines. Mysterious power growing in a green light…that’s alchemy!
Art-Style
Director Sekiya talked more about the decorations and models in Armed Fantasia and wanted to say this:
We’ve implemented decorations and modeled walls in the town and dungeon white models, and every day, they’re looking better and better. The skill of our art team is greatly responsible for organizing the design of our unique “Western-Punk” world in a persuasive way. We can’t wait to show you the actual game. The setting art pieces we revealed a year ago during the campaign have also been turned into models, and it’s currently possible to walk around them.
We’re also adding fun little touches such as things that will make you say: “Oh… You can actually climb up here?”, etc. We have a feeling that town exploration is going to be very fun. We’ve also gotten to a point where some gadgets and dungeon gimmicks actually function properly, all thanks to the hard work of our programming team. When you push a box with a character onto a floor switch and a door opens, you’ll think “Ahhh… This really is a spiritual successor.” It’s very moving.
In this town, you’ll be able to walk on top of the train. The town’s name has been decided, but it’s still a secret.
Scenario and Writing
While talking about the scenario and plot design for Armed Fantasia the Director wanted to share this with the fans:
“Still writing. Suffering at a good place.” This was Kaneko-san’s update from last month. He’s making progress on the scenario but has no other updates to make through text at this current juncture. If we were to say any more, it would spoil some of the story. So similar updates like this may follow in the future, but we hope you’ll understand. As a side note, whenever Kaneko-san finishes part of a scenario, the action scenes end up going way off course and including things that we didn’t talk about in our initial meetings. A third party reading this may just find that funny. But it actually causes a lot of problems for the workflow. For example, in Wild Arms XF, we had a plot that started out simply as “Chartreuse (enemy officer) receives a report from a subordinate about the main characters’ army marching forward.”
When he actually sent me the scenario text in an e-mail, it came when a message stating: “Sorry, I just got on a roll…” It turned into a scene where Chartreuse receives the report, then grabs the subordinate’s head and rots it, purging the subordinate. Whaaaaat?!At this point, the detail about Chartreuse’s arm possessing negative vitality was suddenly added. Allowing him to even be able to block a beam from the StrahlGewehr in the end. Of course, there are times when we can’t follow Kaneko-san’s scenarios completely due to issues on the development side. We have to adjust how things are actually presented quite a bit. But I just wanted to leak the fact that Kaneko’s scenarios are usually always much more violent than what eventually gets released to the public.
Storyboards
When it came to the Storyboard and direction of the story for Armed Fantasia we got these words from the Director:
We’re still working on event storyboards. When we receive a scenario from Kaneko-san, first, Ishii-san, the chief director and storyboarder, as well as I check through the content. But today…after receiving the latest scenario text, Ishii-san silently looked up at the ceiling. (See the above) I believe he was most likely crying to a higher power for guidance. I didn’t see or hear anything, though.
After I glanced at Kaneko-san and saw him smile triumphantly and say “I know it’ll be hard. But it’s good, right?” I looked back at Ishii-san. He was still silently staring up at the ceiling. Crazy action event scenes are born from the chains of trials and tribulations that men like him suffer through. Let’s all cheer on the higher power above Ishii-san’s head! (‘Cause it’s not my problem!)
Character Designs
The director talked about the Armed Fantasia To The End Of The Wilderness characters, Kaiju (Anomalies), and the last boss. This is what was said about the characters:
We’re still working on character designs as well as animations for the 3D models. The designs for the main characters are all done, so we’ve begun work on designing the sub-characters and town NPCs. Aside from Ingram’s party and the Iconocluster, there will be a lot of characters with that unique Kaneko-style charm, so we’ve been sending orders out daily while excitedly awaiting each new finished design.
Then when it came to the Kaiju this is what was shared:
We’re still working on designing the kaiju. If you’ll allow me to complain a little. Ishii-san and Bee tribe, our developers, are working on the kaiju designs. bee tribe is always quick to share their design art with us, which is fine, but for some reason, Ishii-san often refrains from sharing the final design art with me. Why? When we have meetings in the office about what the kaiju should do, such as “This part opens up and shoots a beam” or “Let’s change the color of this part,” I have no choice but to use the odds and ends of the words I hear to imagine what it actually looks like.
Kaiju
It didn’t end there more details were discussed on Armed Fantasia’s Kaijus and this is what was said:
I just hope I can get a grasp on what they actually look like after a while, when everything’s eventually shared across the board… But I just want to ask this question again. Why, Ishii-san? We’re also continuing work on the 3D models and animations for the kaiju. Kaneko-san has been giving direct orders to the designers regarding the kaiju animations, and when it’s difficult to explain it using words, he acts them out himself. And all of a sudden, we have a kaiju rolling around our office!
Makes me realize that working in an office full of “adults” can mean a lot of different things… But perhaps since I’m also seeing such fine examples of acting, I also found myself wanting to re-enact Boris Karloff’s “The Mummy” as I was walking home from the office late at night. And so, when a policeman thought it strange and called out to me, I suddenly blurted out “Oh, sorry, I was just practicing my acting for work.”
Last Boss
If you read last month’s Armed Fantasia update you might remember the last boss made an appearance. This is what the Director told us this month:
As you all know, the last boss appeared in last month’s update. Progress is proceeding well on it, and we’ve almost completed its design. However…it’s so overwhelming, we’re starting to wonder if Ingram and his allies can actually defeat this thing. It’s got a long tail! And so, that concludes this month’s update. Please keep cheering ARMED FANTASIA on!
Wrap-Up
We got a decent amount of information about the designs in Armed Fantasia To The End Of The Wilderness. If you know me you know I am a JRPG fan, and I enjoy hearing about this one. From previous images and things that are being revealed fans of Wild Arms will be happy with this spiritual successor. It is actually kind of crazy how many games are becoming the “spiritual successor” of a previous series. I believe it is a good thing that it’s a very good thing and will bring a new generation of fans to respect the games of old. Games like these might even bring new players to play the old games as well. You can get this game when it is released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
