Celestian Tales (Old North, Howl of the Ravager, and Realms Beyond)

[Koby]

 

Celestian Tales is a JRPG-inspired turn-based battle series developed by Ekuator Games, who is a small 7 member indie team of developers.

 

The Old North is a world of fantasies and realities. Of swords and sorcery, yet of humans and mortals. A world where the utmost evil is not a dimension-defying sorcerer or an awakened godlike creature of ancient myths, but the darkness lurking in every man's heart. A world where peace, love, and compassion stand side by side with hatred, pride, and jealousy. A world where the virtues and vices of humanity are two sides of the same coin. Grey morals, questionable justice, and blind faith are among the main themes of Celestian Tales.

 

Spanning three decades in total, Celestian Tales is a game series where its characters grow and its lands evolve with time. Stated to be in made in three continuous parts. The first part was Old North, then an extra side-story happened with Howl of the Ravager, then the second part was Realms Beyond, with another side story intended before the possible third part. Celestian Tales is created using Unity engine for PC, Mac, and Linux, and will be available DRM-Free.

 

Story

From the cold northern seas, where no sailing ship has ever returned, came barbaric marauders aboard terrifying longboats. Every town they passed through was pillaged, its men killed, its women taken, its children forced to bear witness. In this time of turmoil, six young nobles from different families were sent to serve House Levant, one of the three major bloodlines in the Old North, to join the battlefield under its banner as they learn their footing in knighthood.

 

Able men were drafted from villages to join the ranks of militia in the name of glory and patriotism. They went with weapons in hands, leaving farms and families to wither and die as winter approaches. Food, scarce in every town's granary, was forcefully bargained for many pieces of gold. But wealth is meaningless when there is no food to be bought, no grain to ease the hunger. There is always more than one side of a story, and not all of it is pretty.

 

As the flames of war against the marauders blaze on, the real foes lying within begin to slither. Intrigues of betrayal brewed amongst sworn allies. Faith and loyalty used as tools of propaganda. Truth distorted by layers of deceit. Justice bent by bribery. War is merely a board where these games of shadows are played.

 

Begin your journey as a youth learning your steps into knighthood. Serve great and powerful heroes as their squires. Take part in campaigns of glory by their sides. Be there as time withers even the mightiest of mortals. When heroes of today replace the yesterday, will you stand to defend your ideals? Will you be steadfast as realities confront your naivete? Will your dark secrets be kept hidden from even dearest ones?

 

As decades change and tragedies strike, people come out a different person. The face you see in the mirror might not be a face you recognize. Flames once shining in your eyes might have turned to cold ashes. Sincere laughters might have vanished into fake smiles put in place to please your peers. Or perhaps you will stay the same, as unrelenting as ever in your beliefs. The path of life has many branches; it is up to you to pick which to tread.

 

Gameplay

Celestian Tales: Old North is a three decades-long story-driven RPG with six playable cast, multiple personal arcs, and turn-based tactical combat.

 

 

The story is told in a manner similar to Odin Sphere, where each of the six playable characters follows a personal point of view. At times it will overlap with other characters' personal storyline or converge with the 'main arc', in which they experience events together.

 

The combat system is influenced by games such as Final Fantasy VI and Dungeons & Dragons, combining turn-based combat and broad options of character customization and team composition so that you can develop your personal combat style.

 

All six characters share a single experience pool and therefore will level up together. There will be no need to grind just so you can effectively use characters seldom taken into battle.

 

Art

Celestian Tales does not attempt to remake or imitate the vintage style. It strives to re-imagine the classic and blend it with modern technology. Combining pixel sprites animation, painstakingly hand-drawn environment, a range of particle effects, and a hybrid of eastern and western illustration style, the game boasts a distinct visual identity that displays its unique personality.

 

Inspired by pixel-sprited games such as the older Suikoden titles and Ragnarok Online, Celestian Tales makes moving sprites in 2D, several times larger and far more detailed than the classics, retaining the nostalgic feel while still enhancing visual quality.

It takes eight frames for a character to run to one direction and seventeen frames for a common enemy to attack in combat, each hand-drawn one pixel at a time.

 

Celestian Tales' exploration scenes are made in top-down perspective in its reiteration of the classic RPG style. All environment assets are digitally painted, pieced together in complex layers, and then further beautified by particle effects and dynamic lighting.

 

While combat closely adheres to the familiar turn-based interface, its backgrounds are each a single large artwork firstly made with pencil on paper, and then water-colored before digitally retouched. The synthesis of pixel animations and painted background creates a hybrid style unique to the game.

 

 

[Koby]

Beat Reynard's playthrough of Old North in about 8 hours. I doubt I'm going to play through the other 5 character options any time soon. It'll largely be the same thing each time, only with a handful of different scenes at times with some character choice options to pick that gives more background on the character selected and whatnot. But as for the story as a whole, I already got that.

 

Started Howl of the Ravager last night. It's a prequel to Old North. It focuses on Severin Leroux and how he became known as the hero of the realm it seems. Not sure how long it is or how quickly I'll get through it, but since it's a DLC to Old North, I figure it's not going to be that long overall.

 

I may or may not move on to Realms Beyond right after finishing How of the Ravager. Realms Beyond just released a few weeks ago and they're still patching bugs and fixing features that should've been working from the get-go.... it's been kind of a rocky release tbh. So hopefully all of that is sorted sooner rather than later. I still want to get to Resident Evil 3 Remake but I keep finding myself distracted with other games, lol. Light Fairytale: Episode 2 should hopefully be released sometime in the next month or two as well, which I just finished up Episode 1 of before I started Old North here.