Wild Arms And Shadow Hearts Creators Teaming Up For Unofficial Revival

Though the Playstation 2 generation didn’t produce as many JRPG hits as the Playstation 1 generation did, two series managed to stand out: the Western-flavored Wild Arms (which started on PS1 but continued on PS2) and the gothic Shadow Hearts trilogy (which was entirely contained to PS2). It’s been a long time since then, but once we received word the creators of both series were looking to team up for a set of revival games, they had our immediate attention.

A crowdfunding campaign is about to launch for the project. These games will not be Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts officially — they don’t have the rights. It’s going to be the same deal as Iga creating Bloodstained or Playtonic creating Yooka-Laylee — a copyright safe lookalike that allows the original creators to do what they loved again. But the games — Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness and Penny Blood — will play like Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts respectively. This interview with Gematsu tells more.

When this Kickstarter launches in the near future, WILD BUNCH Productions and YUKIKAZE will be asking for a goal of $750,000. Quite a large chunk of change, but for TWO modern video games with this kind of scope, it’s not that much. It’s likely the Kickstarter is being used to gauge interest and if a publisher notices the games going well over that goal, they’ll step in to fund the rest. As the video below proves, development has already been under way for some time.

The Armed Fantasia: To the End of the Wilderness and Penny Blood Kickstarter launches August 29. We may be back with a second newspost at that time to remind you — early bird pledgers can get both games at a steep discount.