Thanks to a leak that's already being reported by the usual sources, we have some advance warning of what Falcom has planned for next year even before the shareholder's meeting. There's going to be a Kai rerelease of Nayuta no Kiseki for the PS4 and the title of the newest game has been confirmed as Kuro no Kiseki (黎の軌跡). That is a doozy of a title for layers of meaning, since it can mean 'Black' on its own and the official reading encourages that but it also means 'Many' and is a part of several formulations of 'commoners/the masses' (黎民/黎元) as well as 'dawn of a new era' (黎明). No other news yet but we did get an image to go with it.
EDIT: Oh, more info has come out already.
- The setting is Calvard in 1208, just like we'd expect from Hajimari
- There's a lot of content in the article and five pages worth of an interview.
- There will be some morally grey characters involved in the story, examples given are 'Investigator', 'Negotiator' and 'Bounty Hunter'. By contrast Hajimari can be thought of as 'white'.
- Modeling has been enhanced and the feeling of motion has been improved.
- Calvard can be thought of as 'Eastern Europe' in the sense that it represents a merging of European and Asian influences and it's smaller geographically than Erebonia.
- Maps will be roughly similar in scope to Cold Steel.
- The events of the 'Beyond the Beginning' Episode of Hajimari function as a prologue to Kuro.
- 90% of the cast will consist of new characters. Three in particular are shown, one being (presumably from the description) the character seen in the calendar art from the Hajimari LE.
- The playable cast will be smaller than in Cold Steel 'because of the protagonist's vocation'.
- Transition from exploration to combat will be seamless, input is in realtime but there is an option to switch to command-based input. No specifics on how this will work. There's a comparison made to FF7R which makes it sound like it won't be as complicated?
- Arts and Crafts are still in place but the Orbment system will not be the RAMDA, instead it will be something called the Xipha. It's possible this is the slimmed-down version Tita and Renne talk about in Hajimari. There will not be Links or Brave Orders in the new system but there will be new mechanics.
- There will be a 'Topic System' in conversations, no details are provided.
- There will also be an 'Alignment Frame' whereby your play determines where characters fall on a scale of Law/Grey/Chaos. That sounds very D&D, or possibly Ogre Battle which borrowed the idea and used the term 'Chaos Frame' to refer to your overall reputation. Where characters fall on the scale will affect the scenario but events will not be gated behind it, from the looks of it.
- Bonding will be different, or possibly 'there will be something different from bonding events'.
Okay, I can just picture Chinese fans holding their sides when looking at the title. And Falcom is sure in on the joke, too. Aside from all the meanings already mentioned, 黎 is also part of Rean's name in Chinese. Basically '黎恩' which in Hanyupinyin is romanized as Lí ēn (There's no 'R' consonant in Chinese). Considering that 'Schwarzer' in Germany means 'Black One' and well, the translators sure had fun here.
And a Kai rerelease of Nayuta? So another indication that this might be tied to the overall Kiseki continuity...
Oh, and before I forget, I'm utterly hyped right now.
Welp, like Hajimari time to get invested in prerelease stuff and then once released in Japan wait to see if and when it will come out here. Perfect that after finishing CS IV I see this thread.
CS IV happened in 1206 I believe? If I remember right then this means we're looking at around 2 years later, which after a certain scene in CS IV makes things a little interesting. Glad most of the cast is new characters, and I assume returning characters at least for this one will be ones we know from Calvard. So Zin, Kilika, Rocksmith, and I forget her name that was introduced in CS IV. Then perhaps a few other faces that could guessed from those that played Hajimari.
Well, unless the game takes place over a long period of time, I guess Kondo's comments about this game taking place at the same time as Hajimari weren't exactly true.
It certainly seems like totally-not-Rean is the new protag, and another sword weilder. A pity, since I was hoping for a Taito user, but given how Kilika was too - and she uses a weapon - maybe there's still a chance.
One thing I'm trying to figure out is whether the girl(?) in the background on the cover (or key art) is some kind of pixie/fairy, or it's a perspective thing, and she just appears small because of how far back she is.
Oh, also, the sudden Nayuta port is miiiighty suspicious!
I’m pretty sure the symbolism in the white circle is supposed to be Kether in the Tree of Sephiroth.
I wonder if there's going to be a multi-ending system? Given the black coloring which is associated with Time, the name 'kuro no kiseki', and the fact Falcom said it's going to be one and done, it seems like you could have a system related to that. This would give the alignment system something to hang onto since the report says that it doesn't gate off scenes. I wonder if there's going to be options like the supernatural powers in Ys IX or if they're leaving that for the Ys series?
I could see it affecting your interaction with NPCs, if they handle them more like Ys IX where you don't talk to most of them directly, just overhear them as you pass by.
Alternately it could affect your stat growth or skill builds... Like maxing out Law gives you the ultimate Space orbment.
The main character's weapon looks like it has a blunt edge so I'm assuming it has some sort of gimmick, like electrification or it's actually a chainsaw.
Kondo saying the timing of Nayuta Kai's release does not prove the Creha theory is not really strong evidence either way, haha. Although the fact they're adding new scenes is a first for a Kai release as far as I know.
The comment that in retrospect they could have called Hajimari Shiro does seem like an acknowledgement that they overbilled the game's importance just a bit.
Edit: ah right, forgot I wanted to mention the floating figure looks like a fairy like Noi. The larger figure looks like my mental image of the villain from the Shunran novel.
Going through Gu4n's twitter, he also mentions how Rean's name in Chinese can only be spelled with 黎. And the jokes that the alleged protagonist looks suspiciously similar to him from the back. Seriously, I'm so going to laugh myself silly if it's revealed that the guy in the screenshot is indeed Rean and that the whole way everything is framed to make him seem like the protag is just an eleborate trolling move by Falcom.
I also find the character examples of 'Negotiator', 'Investigator' and 'Bounty Hunter' notable and that this game is Kuro to Hajimari's 'Shiro'. Perhaps we'll get another game with Cross-Story feature? At least this way, we'd have a female protagonist, too.
Having looked at the full interview, Kondo actually says "we have prepared a proper ending for this game." So I'm assuming it's like Zero (Part 1 with an ending that isn't a cliffhanger), not Nayuta (a complete story in itself).
He also says the name means the series' mysteries will become clear as the dawn, which I'm not sure I believe, but we'll see.
From the interview, it seems you gain points in Chaos/Law/Grey (I guess they chose this instead of Neutral to avoid being too similar to Megaten) which give you access to subquests and you may need to do two runs to max everything out.
The bond system will have another name because the main character is now an adult. Er... Please not 恋愛 I really dislike Falcon's approach to fanservice.
The symbol in the logo looks like the clock orbment in one of the image illustrations.
For Nayuta, I can't tell whether 新しく作ったイベントの出演 means new presentation of existing scenes or new scenes entirely, but it's probably the first.
Edit: by the way, a question for wuolong: I ran a few searches for what could be the origin of Xipha and found 戏法/戲法, meaning 'magic trick.' Is this correct or am I misunderstanding the dictionary?
CS IV happened in 1206 I believe? If I remember right then this means we're looking at around 2 years later, which after a certain scene in CS IV makes things a little interesting.
Well, unless the game takes place over a long period of time, I guess Kondo's comments about this game taking place at the same time as Hajimari weren't exactly true.
Yeah, but it tracks with Hajimari which takes place in 1207 and the Beyond the Beginning sequence that's stated to be a prologue of sorts to Kuro jumps between late 1207 and early 1208.
One thing I'm trying to figure out is whether the girl(?) in the background on the cover (or key art) is some kind of pixie/fairy, or it's a perspective thing, and she just appears small because of how far back she is.
With the nice clear shot we've gotten, it's definitely the former. I'm really hoping this means Falcom is bringing back Spirit Magic or something like it from Gagharv, though I don't want to get too hyped up over a key visual just yet, in case I'm completely off-base.
Kondo saying the timing of Nayuta Kai's release does not prove the Creha theory is not really strong evidence either way, haha. Although the fact they're adding new scenes is a first for a Kai release as far as I know.
Azure Kai added Juna's family, Juna herself replaced a generic NPC and Towa got added to Orchis Tower so it'll be the second game to add scenes. Definitely looking forward to more details on this.
From the interview, it seems you gain points in Chaos/Law/Grey (I guess they chose this instead of Neutral to avoid being too similar to Megaten) which give you access to subquests and you may need to do two runs to max everything out.
Or to be too similar to D&D, which is the granddaddy of alignment systems... though that didn't stop them in the original Xanadu so who knows?
Another thing I came across while scrolling Twitter. The blonde girls is practically a one to one match with Sunshine Agnes down to her hair and eye color.
Edit: by the way, a question for wuolong: I ran a few searches for what could be the origin of Xipha and found 戏法/戲法, meaning 'magic trick.' Is this correct or am I misunderstanding the dictionary?
You aren't misunderstanding anything. The meaning of 戏法/戲法 is pretty clear cut. But I have my doubts that this is truly the origin. In hanyupinyin romanization, the proper way to spell this is xìfǎ. While one could argue that the 'ph' is a stand in for the 'f' consonant the fact of the matter is that the 'ph' simply doesn't exist in hanyupinyin. Now, there are several romanization systems for Chinese and I looked up Wade-Gilles and the Yale system (though take this with a grain of salt as I'm not that familiar with them) and I didn't find 'ph' as a consonant compound either. When looking at the way Chinese names are localized into English in Trails, it strictly adheres to the hanyupinyin romanization with the notable exception of Yun Ka-Fai, though I can't say whether this is something inherent in the Japanese script (as I don't know how Chinese phonetics are properly conveyed) or something the translator chooses.
To throw in my own two cents about the origin of Xipha, it might be a reference to a type of Ancient Greek sword.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiphos
Considering that the earlier model was named RAMDA which is kinda close to the Greek letter lambda (especially because phonetically the 'R' consonant is rendered as 'L' in either Chinese or Japanese) this might be a continuation of some kind of pseudo-Greek theme.
Thanks! Good catch on Xiphos too, that makes sense for a combat orbment.
I think it's a fairy, she doesn't look entirely human. Having a fairy and a mech does seem like a fun combination.
Quoting myself shamelessly from twitter:
Honestly looking at the prologue Kuro seems to be a takeoff of the Sam Spade type of mystery novel: a classy dame with an unsolvable problem knocks on the door of a seedy detective agency in a bad part of town...
Bonus points if the localization manages to fit in "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown"
The party belonging to an organization called Spriggan, a type of dark fairy which guards other fairies, is a pretty big hint towards it being a fairy.
Bonus: Sylphs, wind elementals, are associated with fairies.
Interesting theory I'm seeing tossed about that the blonde is Agnes, based on the hair colour and seemingly being a scepter user (been a while since I read it, did she use a scepter?). Not sure how that works age-wise with her potentially being the student that Renne met.
@Hellseye
I just wanted to point this out in connection to your land of lies theory (quote from a Quora answer about the film Chinatown) The main character being a detective and the character 黎 hinting at the masses seems to fit in.
(Importantly, the idea of the “Chinese” is not, to me, racist in this mention — Polanski and Towne aren’t saying that the Chinese are less informed. Just that the public and the crowds witnessing the murder are on the other side of the divide from the powerful elite and from the cops.)
“Forget it, Jake” = Just walk away. “Chinatown” = any place where events play out in which the general public sees the surface, doesn’t really know who is pulling the strings.
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-of-the-line-Forget-it-Jake-Its-Chinatown
