Arc Rise Fantasia

is a fantasy role-playing game developed by imageepoch and published by Marvelous Entertainment for the Wii, it will be imageepoch's first game not developed for a handheld game console. Arc Rise Fantasia has been announced for release in Japan and North America in 2009. No European release has been confirmed at this time.

Development

The game was previously known as Project Ray, and was known to exist as early as September 4, 2007. Hiroyuki Kanemaru, the director of Fantasia, previously worked at Telenet Japan and then moved to Namco Tales Studio, where he worked as scenario script director and level concept designer on Tales of Symphonia. Kanemaru stated that Project Ray would be influenced by old-school RPGs from systems such as the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16.

Project Ray was also shown to exist with Project Salamander/Project S (now officially know as World Destruction) for the Nintendo DS.

The game was unveiled on June 25, 2008 in the popular Japanese magazine Famitsu. The scans of the entire article surfaced the following day on the Internet.

Development staff

Producer (Marvelous Entertainment Inc.): Hideyuki Mizutani
Development Producer (imageepoch): Ryoei Mikage
Director (imageepoch): Hiroyuki Kanemaru (Various Tales games including Tales of Symphonia)
Scenario: Takumi Miyajima (Tales of the Abyss)
Composition/Music Director: Yasunori Mitsuda (Luminous Arc series, Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Shadow Hearts, and Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht)
Main Character Original Design: Kenichi Yoshida (Eureka Seven)
Roguresu Design: Shin Nagasawa (Bahamut Lagoon)

Plot

Arc Rise Fantasia is set in the empire of Meridian. Creatures called "Contaminant Dragons" are causing a lot of trouble as they pass the Meridian in flocks. If one is killed, the resulting explosion poisons the local area. When the empire receives word that a massive horde has its sights on the capital of Diamant, it immediately sends out an army to fight them, including Bright, a cool and collected novice mercenary, and his friend Alse, the beloved prince and second in line for the throne. Bright is severely injured during the battle, but is saved by a girl named Ryphia, who has secrets in her past and possesses the power to control "ley squalls," naturally-occurring storms of magic that usually take the form of luminous rain.

Gameplay

The game is a turn-based RPG. There will be three-character parties, with a single AP gauge being shared by the team, which empties as various actions are performed. Multiple attacks are possible, as well as massive attacks that will drain a lot of AP. If team members use the same skills, those skills will be increased. There are also summon beasts in the game called "Roguresu.