Unsung Story, by Little Orbit, is the game I never thought I would see. It was due to be released five and a half years ago, but is only hitting early access on Steam now with a lot of work ahead of it. I had written it off. But, here it is — mostly.
When the Kickstarter campaign for Unsung Story: Tale of the Guardians launched, it pretty much promised to make exactly the game I wanted to play. A tactical adventure crafted by the master Yasumi Matsuno, legendary designer of Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Battle Let Us Cling Together, Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen and Vandal Hearts, among others. This is a genre he created — and now he was back with a game that moved a step beyond his earlier triumphs. Square grids? Unsung Story would use a hexagonal grid. Job tree? Unsung Story would use a job decagon, with ten different qualities coming together to form a unique job.
Then, drama happened. Matsuno-san left the project. Hitoshi Sakamoto, composer of the music for Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII, is still apparently involved in some way. Playdek dropped the project after two years, then a couple years later sold it to indie developer Little Orbit, who got the project rolling once more, documenting their process along the way and turning a written-off game into an actual game that is starting to be playable.
There is very little released of the game at the moment. There is only one race — human — and gender — male — and your best guy there can be either a mercenary — standard fighter or a physician — your healer. Many more races and jobs are planned.
The game opens with an airship shooting a beam at a tower and somehow instantly turning all the friendly robots in the area into non-friendly robots. This probably has something to do with the peace conference going on nearby, which is sent into chaos by the malfunctioning bots. Your character, sent to escort a powerful mage to the peace talks, is caught in the middle of the conflict, and must find safety and try to understand why you’re seeing visions of another place and time and a creature called Opus.
This isn’t a random name — actions taken by your group during battle also represent notes on a musical staff. When six notes on the staff form a measure, powerful effects can be triggered. This unique take on the genre’s “limit break” mechanic makes working as a team and planning out moves strategically even more important.
As hinted in the screenshot above, there is a time travel component to this game. You start at the final battle at the end of the world, and you must travel backward in time to discover the roots of this final conflict — from both sides — and find a way to rewrite fate.
This version of Unsung Story is not the game I backed, but it promises to be a decent addition to the genre. Will it have the deep story and relationships of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, or the wild exuberance of Banner of the Maid, two recent tactical RPGs I’ve played? I don’t know, and it really is too early to tell.
I can’t wait to see a little bit more of the game, though.
