One year ago, we announced I am Setsuna at our E3 press conference. This year, on July 19, it comes to the west on PlayStation Store.
I Am Setsuna’s gameplay is reminiscent of an old school JRPG. The subtle way the characters move, the music, and the battles evoke the games some of us grew up playing, but with a splash of novelty once you pick up the controller.
I am Setsuna tells the tale of a land that has maintained peace with a fiend – once every decade, a sacrifice is offered to a fiend on the island. However, one year, the fiend grows violent before the next sacrifice is due. Those living on the island are afraid and try to calm the fiend by offering a sacrifice — Setsuna — chosen because of her powers of enchantment. Setsuna must leave with her safeguards for the farthest land, where the ceremony of sacrifice will be held.
Below is a list of interesting facts about I Am Setsuna that community manager Dan Seto and I have learned through the year. The creation of the game and the story behind its developer, Tokyo RPG Factory, was a discovery in it of itself!
- I am Setsuna is known as “Ikenie To Yuki No Setsuna” in Japan. In Japanese Ikenie means sacrifice, Yuki means snow and Setsuna means sorrow. The team felt that the word “Setsunai” feeling sorrow was a very heartfelt term in Japan, and it is one of the key themes of the game but obviously that word doesn’t have any meaning outside of Japan so the name of the game in the west was changed to I am Setsuna because of the character Setsuna’s role in the story.
- The word “Setsuna” also means “a moment in time” in Japanese. This ties into the momentum system in the game where you gain SP (Setsuna Points) by letting the momentum gauge fill once the ATB bar is full. SP points can be used to add various bonus effects to a character’s attacks and techs.
- The characters leave trails in the snow as they run which slowly fill up again over time, covering their tracks. You can try to write your name in the snow!
- The game development studio behind I am Setsuna is called Tokyo RPG Factory and their goal is to carefully create RPG’s of yesteryear, merging the nostalgic elements from the 90’s with today’s technology.
- When hiring staff for Tokyo RPG Factory, applicants were not told that the studio was part of Square Enix. Yosuke Matsuda (CEO of Square Enix) wanted to hire people who were passionate about RPGs, rather than people who wanted to work for Square Enix.
- Tokyo RPG Factory is a micro studio of ten dedicated staff. A further 20 freelance staff make up the rest of the studio so it’s a small team like how games were created back in the day!
- Coincidentally, the director of I Am Setsuna (Atsushi Hashimoto) previously worked at Racjin and worked with Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi on a RPG called ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat.
- Atsushi Hashimoto stated in an interview that he wants people to reflect back on the game and remember the game as “An RPG of Snow”. He really wants to create a game that people can reflect back on that is impactful.
- Remembering the PlayStation and Super Nintendo era, the team crafted I am Setsuna by bringing rich story, music, simple turn based controls and gameplay mechanisms that include dungeon crawling, shopping in the cities and carefully upgrading your party, I am Setsuna allows those who grew up loving these elements to enjoy what they loved. This is a game that will strike deep emotion.
- The concept of I am Setsuna was written in September 2014, development began the following month and, by August 2015, an alpha version (in Japanese) was complete.
- In the story, the main character Endir protects Setsuna as she journeys through the environments of snow and ice. There are also other characters that Setsuna will travel with and their names are Keel, Kuon, Yomi and Julion.
- The character design was done by toi8 — the team knew they wanted this character designer from the get go. Not only is he known by the current generation, his art style matches up nicely reflecting a melancholy spirit and heroic defeat that is visually striking. Previously he has worked on popular anime series Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood and Attack on Titan.
- The original soundtrack for the game features 2 discs, packed with over 70 tracks that solely utilizes the piano. The music was created by Tomoki Miyoshi who had his debut project on Soul Calibur V when he was 16 years old (he is now 22)! The melodies are soft and reminiscent of a yearning for calmness except during battle.
- The soundtrack includes the piano performance by Randy Kerber, who has worked as a studio keyboardist on many Hollywood films including Forrest Gump and Titanic.
- Unless you have an item in the game called Mistone, you cannot escape from battles.
We hope that you were able to learn something new about I am Setsuna — the game comes out July 19th!
“Countless adventures captivated us when we were kids. Now, it’s time for us to return the favour with adventures of our own.” – Tokyo RPG Factory.
This needs a Vita release and a physical copy at least on the PS4. At what point did Square Enix stop caring about their fans? Many people are disappointed about how this game is handled and how you spit in the face of your Vita fans.
iriihutoR84 the Vita version has load time issues so that might be a factor. SE also said they would consider a Vita localization as well if there were enough demand, so I’d expect they didn’t hear from that many people on Twitter or FB about it.
^Pfft, people fussed up a storm about the lack of Vita as they always do with SE’s games that are already on there but SE don’t bring over for reasons. It’s not fan’s fault for not complaining, it’s SE just giving the finger to them.
Yes bring the Vita version
This seems like a funny and somewhat contradicting statement. You can argue that Square should be commended for bringing the game here at all. Yeah, Vita has been getting the shaft more often than not, but I wouldn’t say that Square doesn’t care about its fans.
Here’s their idea behind not bringing it to Vita here btw:
“I think the focus was leaning more toward that sense of immersion, being able to jump into the world on a larger screen. That’s one of the bigger elements that sort of drove that decision for the no Vita plan.
Of course, there is the technical market aspect as well. Unfortunately the Vita market isn’t as large as the console and the PC-based [market]… that’s the sort of direction the team decided that they wanted to take for the US release, was to rely on the players that are on the Steam platform as well.”
– Game Director Atsushi Hashimoto
Which is funny in comparison Square Enix RPG titles always sell the worst on PC (theoretically, all the numbers I got are from SteamSpy). The Vita has a healthy RPG market.
Really hope this ends up getting released on Vita.
With remote play, all PS4 games are on Vita. ;)
Adding into the Vita push. I barely have time to game at home and if I do have time, I will spend it on games like Uncharted 4. I don’t even know if I can get 1 hours of gaming at home in a week, but I know that my transit to work every days will give me at least 5 hours of gaming a week and thus my Vita has become my most played gaming platform. As much as I am interested in the game, if it isn’t on Vita, I will not purchase it. I got enough incomplete AAA games to worry about at home.
Also, remote play is pointless for me when most of my gaming is done in the subway tunnels.
Well part of the problem is Final Fantasy X/X-2 hasn’t sold even a million copies.
Of that a LOT more people bought X stand-alone digitally than the X/X-2 Bundled.
Army Corps did like 100k.
Those aren’t numbers that scream “Yeah let’s do a physical, we do well enough in the U.S. on Vita to justify the manufacturing costs. I’m sure if they did a kickstarter for it, everyone would attack them for not wanting to take a risk and there would be outrage, but as vocal as Vita fans are if they aren’t hitting 50-300k physical copies sold that’s not a justification to do more of them.
So when Final Fantasy Worlds comes out you people better buy the crap out of it physically or else everything you say to them about the Vita version is just whiny.
I would also buy it if it comes to the Vita. Rainbow Moon was a game I wouldn’t have ever had the time with at home but was perfect on the Vita. I also have too many AAA games that I haven’t completed so this game would just get pushed behind them at home.
I believe you missed the memo. Sony and pretty much everyone else thinks the Vita is a smelly dud, and now hardly anything of quality is made for it. Before you go crazy and strike out at me…I own a Vita and absolutely love it. I wished people had loved it more.
It didn’t even need to be released outside of Japan. You just want things.
How did SE stop caring about their fans when they keep releasing games people want to play? So one platform gets left out sometimes. There seems to be a whole lot of attention being paid on SE’s part to the non greedy/needy fans. Sorry if my hyperbole train is stuck in the mud
@Thermopyle2 I’m demanding right now a PSVita version in the WEST! Do u think SE cares? They don’t see it as a profitable system. Demanding or not, the chances are 0 to see a Vita ver.
In 2016, almost no one needs discs anymore. I haven’t bought a disc since the X1/PS4 launched, and surely no carts on Vita/3DS. Play through remote play – you obviously have both a Vita and a PS4.
I read the post from square if they received enough requests about it on social media they would consider it. When I look on their Twitter feeds about anything they post there are many bring #iamsetsuna #psvita hash tags. I just think they don’t care