City of the Shroud Promises Final Fantasy Tactics Meets Streetfighter

That City of the Shroud is attempting to recreate the magic of Final Fantasy Tactics and similar games should come as no surprise. Quite a few indie games have set out to do something along those lines recently. I’ve written about several here on Cliqist myself. What might come as a surprise is the news that developers Abyssal Arts are looking at arcade brawler Streetfighter for inspiration.

Whereas most games looking to evoke memories of classic strategy RPGs are doing so by sticking rigidly to the turn-based battles of the genre, City of the Shroud is taking a much more action-packed approach. As well as using your tactical awareness, you’ll be required to master special moves and build up combos in order to maximize your attacks.

Another new approach from Abyssal Arts is their take on narrative in video games. Instead of just cobbling together a story for their campaign maps, they’re going to allow players to influence the flow of each episode based on the cumulative effect of everyone’s actions. They’ve also acquired the talents of Amazon Fantasy Download #1 author Moira Katson to ensure that the script is up to scratch.

So far, it all sounds very interesting. I’m not entirely sold on the art style though. Cel-shaded visuals can look absolutely spectacular, as with Level 5’s Ni No Kuni, for instance. For me, though, the cel-shaded style is very hard to do well. City of the Shroud looks like a game where cel-shading is being used to mask low fidelity assets. The screenshots all look washed out and there’s too much reliance on primary colours. Still, if the gameplay is solid, the graphics are certainly not going to detract from the experience.

City of the Shroud has already raised $6,000 of its $45,000 goal, so with 28 days to go, things are looking encouraging. Check out the campaign and see if you’d like to back them.

Track the progress of the City of the Shroud Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.