The Japanese are known for two things: anime and RPGS. The first one has numerous subgenres that cater to audiences of all ages. Whether it's shonen anime for young boys or the more tentacle-oriented variety for creepy adults, there's always something for everyone.
RPGs on the other hand, are mostly all the same. Ever since Final Fantasy started crapping out titles
like misshapen diarrhea with spiky hair, most games in the genre usually
involve an unlikely party of adolescents who take it upon themselves to save the world.
Lost Sphear, an RPG that was not spell-checked by I Am Setsuna developers Tokyo RPG
Factory, is a little bit different. For one thing, the world that the group inhabits
is already dying, forever tainting their careers as a planet saviors.
After sleeping like a log through the apocalypse, young Kanata finds that his hometown is slowly disappearing from the face of the planet. Instead of stocking up on canned goods and accepting their decent into oblivion, Kanata and his friends figure that the best way to redeem themselves as heroes is by rebuilding the world through the power of memory.
That's right - not bricks or mortar; memory. By using their
underdeveloped teenage minds, this ragtag group of children will use their
flimsy recollection of the past to bring things back to reality.
But an RPG would not be an RPG without exploration and an active time
battle system that lets players whack away at unsuspecting wildlife and guards.
Using an updated system from their previous title, Tokyo RPG Factory and Square
Enix have incorporated combat mechanics that allow you to strategically place
your teenagers mid-fight as well as seamless environments that, if the trailer
is anything to go by, are under constant attack by roving groups of text.
The game will be out sometime in early 2018 on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. Let's just hope that none of these world-builders is an amnesiac.