Rainbow Nightmare: Libra announced

Karl Crawford has written in to announce a new jRPG project called Rainbow Nightmare: Libra. In development by Crawford under the name Ghost in a Bottle Games, RNL features the following premise:

Take on the role of Lady Libra as she goes above and beyond to help her friend find a cure for his disease. Along with her trusted friends they must sneak into the robotic Neon Empire. Unfortunately for them, it’s not that simple.

There’s also something about thwarting an attempt by the Neon Empire to take over a human kingdom, but it’s all a little vague at this point. The Neon Empire setting, in my view, is the most interesting part of the whole thing. It’s a nation run by robots, for robots. Humans approved for entry into the empire are second-class citizens; all others are subject to extermination.

Here is a trailer:

Although the trailer doesn’t show any proper battles, Crawford was good enough to provide a description of the battle system:

The battle system will be class based. Each character has 3 sub classes to switch between during combat to maximize buffs, heals, and attack or defense. Additionally a card system with 3 slots will be available to boost specific attacks or skills.

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The combat system is designed to be close like FFX2. You build points during combat to “class” switch on the fly to meet various enemy strategies and formations.

Enemies will be visible on the map a la Chrono Trigger, so battles will be avoidable. With regard to bosses, the developer states:

You will encounter bosses in two flavors. Traditional RPG battle format where you utilize your skills, classes, weapons, and strategy to defeat a powerful foe that requires you to think and plan your next move. The second are timer bosses, that are simply too large to be directly damaged. You will need to outlast a timer and avoid it’s brutal attacks and incoming obstacles.

Crawford has said that you will have the choice of one of two parties of characters to play through the game with, each with different abilities and different “rewards to unlock.”

If you want to help the developer get enough funding to finish up the soundtrack and hire a second pixel artist, he’s running a Kickstarter for that express purpose right now. RNL will be released for Windows at some point; I haven’t seen any estimated release date posted yet.