Story, character, and gameplay details shared for Penny Blood

The fundraising for Penny Blood has been going extremely well, with the Kickstarter’s base funding being hit without issue, and the follow-up console stretch goal getting knocked out 24 hours later. That means we know for sure that Penny Blood is heading our way, so why not take a deeper dive into the game while we wait?

A fresh round of details on Penny Blood have been shared via a new Famitsu feature, and you can read the specifics of the feature in bullet point form below.

• Penny Blood will be a dark and tragic gothic horror JRPG set in the 1920s
• Penny Blood takes place in the 1920s because Shadow Hearts skipped over it
• there will be comedic elements to the story
• the plot follows Matthew Farrell, a private detective
• during an investigation at a New York mental hospital, Matthew encounters monsters
• Matthew uses his hidden powers to defeat the monsters
• Matthew is an Irish-American veteran from World War I that can turn into a monster
• Matthew travels from America to Asia to Europe to solve a case
• locations you’ll visit include North Tarrytown (Sleepy Hollow) and Asakusa
• Emilia human/cyborg member of the British secret intelligence
• Emilia visited Japan as a bodyguard for the American ambassador
• Emilia may be the most powerful party member in terms of battles
• Suseri Otsuki is a Japanese teenager who is also a “miko strategist” for Kamuzumi
• Kamuzumi is a Japanese organization for defeating monsters
• Suseri joins Matthew and Emilia after they save her in Japan
• Suseri uses holy mirrors in battle and is a quiet “yamato nadeshiko” type
• Matthew’s Fusion ability is called Psycho Sigil
• Matthew starts with Demna, the Crownless Knight, a Fusion monster with no element
• Demna is a manifestation of the emptiness and loneliness in Matthew’s heart
• Demna is a balanced Fusion monster, and can fight well in any situation
• Demna will gain more powers as the story advances
• the battle system will be turn-based
• every movement you make will require you to skill check with the Psycho Sigil
• each character’s Psycho Sigil looks different
• Matthew’s looks like a knight’s emblem, while Emilia’s looks like a mechanic heart
• a light will travel from one end of the Sigil to the other, passing blue circles on the route - whenever the light travels through a blue circle, the player has to press a button
• doing so with the right timing can destroy small monsters instantly
• you will encounter the Sigil Spirit to unlock more circles later in the game
• the game will let you line up your characters together and create combo moves
• there will be unique actions only available in a combination attack
• the conditions for a combo attack depends on the characters’ conditions and affinities
• these combo attacks also require player input
• characters will attack simultaneously
• the Motofuji is a monster that used to be a patient from the mental hospital
• the patient transformed into Motofuji when exposed to Malice
• Malice is essentially negative emotions
• Maliferous Patients are also patients infected with Malice
• Atam is a monster living in Matthew’s subconscious