Kickstartercampaigns have seen countless continuations and homages to beloved franchises throughout the crowdfunding website’s history. Gaming-related campaigns have produced some of the platform’s most popular projects, including board games and tabletop games based on franchises likeAvatar: The Last AirbenderandThe Witcher. Kickstarter has regularly seen major names in gaming participate incrowdfunding campaigns withShenmue 3andMega Mancreator Keiji Inafune’sMighty No. 9funded. Now, a new campaign is looking to fund spiritual successors to two beloved RPGs at the same time.
A new project from creator Double Kickstarter sees JRPG icons Matsuzo Machida and Akifumi Kaneko teaming up to seek funding for two games,Armed FantasiaandPennyBlood.Armed Fantasialooks to serve as a spiritual successor to the beloved fantasy western RPG seriesWild ArmswhilePennyBloodacts as a follow-up to developer Sacnoth’sShadow Hearts. Kaneko served as producer and designer for the entirety of theWild Armsfranchise, while Machida served as director for the originalShadow Heartsand its sequel,Shadow Hearts: Covenant.
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While theKickstartercampaign has not fully launched yet, Double Kickstarter’s page does give some information about the game revivals to come. Backers will apparently have the choice to back either one or both games through the campaign, with fans able to choose which game they receive for their funding. The creator description also includes links to the webpages for each game’s studio, though neither appears to be finished. Wild Bunch Productions' website currently lacks a homepage andPennyBlood’s only features a homepage with a splash image.
A spiritual successor to either franchise would come following a long period of dormancy for the two classic RPGs.Wild Arms' last entry came in the Japan-only mobile gameWild Arms: Million Memories, which ran for two years from 2018 to 2020. The franchise has not seen a global release since 2008 whenWild Arms XF wasreleased for the PSP.Shadow Heartshas seen a similarly long hiatus, with the franchise’s original trilogy ending withShadow Hearts: From the New Worldon the PS2, having a staggered global release from 2005 to 2007.
TheWild ArmsandShadow Heartsspiritual successors serve as the most recent in a long line of spiritual successors funded through Kickstarter. 2018 saw the release ofBloodstained: Curse of the Moonled by formerCastlevaniaproducer Koji Igarashi, withBloodstained’s success later seeing asequel inRitual of the Night.Yooka-Layleewas also one of the platform’s most popular games, with ex-Rare developers working on the 3D platformer.Armed FantasiaandPennyBloodwill look to see similar success to these iconic projects following the launch of Double Kickstarter’s campaign.
