Cosmic Star Heroine, a retro role-playing game for the PlayStation 4 and Vita, was revealed at PAX Prime yesterday. It’s a sci-fi adventure from Zeboyd Games, creators of Cthulu Saves the World, which aims to re-capture the magic of 16-bit classics of the 1990s.
In a PlayStation Blog post, lead designer Robert Boyd talks about the genre classics and how they’ve influenced Cosmic Star Heroine:
“Cosmic Star Heroine is our latest attempt to recapture the feel of some of the classic RPGs of the 90s, while putting our own unique spin on the whole experience. Inspired by games like Chrono Trigger (visual style, on-map battles, combo techniques), the Phantasy Star series (overall feel of the worlds and characters), and the Suikoden series (political intrigue, expandable player headquarters), we can’t wait to share Cosmic Star Heroine with you!”
The game will have you playing as Alyssa L’Salle, an agent for the galactic government who discovers an internal conspiracy. Knowing more than she should, she’s outed by her employers as a spy – an act that simultaneously makes her a hero to the masses and puts her in grave danger from the variety of wrong-doers she’s been spying on. It’s up to Alyssa and several like-minded adventure-ready companions to survive and save the world.
However, an evil government conspiracy and murderous criminals aren’t the only obstacles facing Alyssa, nor the most immediate. Cosmic Star Heroine still needs funding. A crowd-funding campaign through Kickstarter will be starting soon, as Boyd explains:
“We’ll be running a Kickstarter to raise needed development funds to make Cosmic Star Heroine the best “Shoulda been released in the 90s” RPG ever! And thanks to the good people at Sony, we’ll be able to offer cross-buy (buy once, get both versions!) PS4/Vita PSN codes for Cosmic Star Heroine at the low reward tier of $10! And of course, there’ll be plenty of other cool rewards if you choose to donate more!”
We’ll have more on Cosmic Star Heroine as it’s available. For now, here’s the trailer: