New release: Celestian Tales: Old North

Word has reached me that Ekuator Games has just released Celestian Tales: Old North. Previously covered here, Celestian Tales: Old North is a jRPG with a watercolor visual aesthetic and fraught moral quandaries against a backdrop of impending war.

The premise:

Embark on an expansive journey of discovery wrought with conflict and moral choices where players take on the role of one of the six playable characters and follow their personal point of view of the events as they unfold. At times character stories will overlap with other characters’ or converge with the main story arc, in which they experience events together.

One’s truth may not be another’s. Good deeds done by someone may be perceived by another as evil. Often we see only what we want to see and believe only in what we want to believe. Whose steps will you follow as you journey in the Old North? Through whose eyes will you experience the events that unfold?

Here’s the launch trailer, so you can get a load of the game’s lovely visual style:

As mentioned in our prior coverage, Celestian Tales is going to be released episodically–this is effectively the first episode of three. Developer Cipto Adiguno tells me that this one may conclude with a few loose ends left dangling for those latter episodes to wrap up.

Here’s the feature list:

• Moral Confrontations – Situations are presented to the player throughout the game that tug at moral standings and beliefs.
• Unique Story – Ditches tired rehashed RPG clichés for a story where players feel the weight of their character’s actions.
• Multiple Story Arcs – 6 Selectable Characters allow you to play the game from 6 different perspectives. Play through the game as all 6 characters to get the entire experience.
• Traditional RPG Gameplay – Inspired by classic JRPGs with a turn-based RPG battle system that allows players to develop a personal combat style.
• Beautiful Art – Lush hand-painted background visuals and environments with detailed emotive hand drawn character portraits and animated pixel-art characters running around the game.
• Epic Music – A sweeping score that truly captures the pace and emotion of the story as it unfolds.

You can pick up Celestian Tales: Old North for $12.99 on Steam, on GOG, and via the Humble Store (though there are currently launch discounts at some of those). Windows, Mac, and Linux.

(Note: Celestian Tales was funded on Kickstarter back in spring 2014; at the end of development, publisher Digital Tribes swooped in to handle marketing and distribution. I am assured that they did not fund development and had no power over the creative process, though they did offer the developers some feedback on game UI and such. I am choosing to count this as an indie edge case; you can read more about our standard for “indie” here.)