A modern, retro RPG!
Indie developer Eden Industries has combined the nostalgia, exploration, and charm of classic RPGs with modern aesthetics and user convenience. Take a trip back to the days when story and gameplay mattered, but with high-definition 2D animation and environments, particle effects, and other fancy words like "heat distortion", "bloom effects", and "dynamic lighting"!
Story
As the newly elected Vice President of the World, you return to your rural hometown for some rest and relaxation... only to stumble upon a series of oddities which all lead to one logical yet difficult-to-prove conclusion: Something's definitely up!
You immediately spring to action (after your morning coffee, of course), enlisting the aid of your constituents to help investigate the strange occurrences and save the world! Your quest will take you across deserts, forests, cities, mountains, casinos, and even a retirement community, as you battle mutants, overthrow a puppet government, snorkel for buried treasure, and... if there's time... grab a well-deserved refill on your coffee!
System
There are no NPCs in this world. Every single townsperson is recruitable, each with unique combat abilities and playstyles. And like a true politician, the Veep never needs to get his own hands dirty... not while he's got such a motley crew of constituents!
Every citizen also has a unique day job that levels up with use, whether it's selling goods to the party, altering weather patterns, piloting vehicles, pushing boulders aside, or synthesizing new items from your old junk!
This game is almost literally bursting at the seams with bonus content, hidden secrets, intriguing challenges, and much, much more!
Characters
Say goodbye to the Fighters, Black Mages, and Paladins of old, and say hello to your new allies: the Cop, the Bodybuilder, the Yoga Instructor, theUsed Car Salesman, the Homeless Guy, and more...!
Combat
The combat interface may be inspired by the 16-bit era, but the combat design has received a massive overhaul. To remove repetition and tedium, we annihilated the "FIGHT" command! And that endless list of abilities... where all your older skills are essentially obsolete? That's gone too!
Behold, as you are instead given a set of abilities which are actually useful and which grow stronger as your characters level up! Not only that, but each of your characters (the "citizens") has their own unique play style and individualized skill list! That's no small feature, given that there are over 40 of them to recruit!
Combat focuses not on "mana" but on a different energy, known to us mortals as "Power". Each of your abilities will either cost Power to use or else help you acquire Power... So you must find a strategic balance in your attacks, a constant ebb and flow between nuking, healing, and refueling!
Some screenshots (and yes in scope it looks a lot like Earthbound)
http://www.atlus.com...reenshots/3.jpg
http://www.atlus.com...reenshots/1.jpg
http://www.atlus.com...reenshots/4.jpg
http://www.atlus.com...reenshots/9.jpg
http://www.atlus.com...reenshots/8.jpg
http://www.atlus.com/citizensofearth/
Oh goodness that artstlye is horrendous.