Chronicle of Ruin mashes up Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy VI, FF Tactics

Chronicle of Ruin (best of luck trying to remember the name) is a big, ambitious mash-up of Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Battle, or so says its Kickstarter page anyway. It's being made by one guy, and unlike most of the absurdly grand RPGs made by one guy, this one actually looks pretty good. Here's a trailer:

I'll spare you all the stuff about the world and story—you can find that on the Kickstarter page—and get on with how this real-time/turn-based, JRPG/tactical-RPG plays. Or rather, I'll pass over to developer Dusty Games, because it's confusing and I'll just make a hash of it.

"Like most TRPGs," says Dusty Games, "Chronicle of Ruin puts you in control of an army, starting with a scant few recruits and growing to eventually encompass up to fifty seasoned veterans. In this game, your units are grouped into squads of five, which you command at three basic levels:

The Tactical Map - In which you control all of your squads in real-time across a stage that illustrates a broad region of the world.
Battles - In which one of your squads faces off against an enemy squad in strategic class-focused turn-based combat.
Garrison Points - In which you assume control of a squad's leader to explore and interact with a location in traditional JRPG style."

So it's having its cake, eating it, and then having another delicious slice of cake. At the first point it's a sort of Fire Emblem-y RTS, at the second the game seems to recall Suikoden's battle system, and when you're exploring garrisons/towns/dungeons it should feel like a good old-fashioned JRPG, just like M~~ama~~ a huge Japanese corporation used to make.

As I said before, it's a big mash-up of loads of Japanese RPGs, and if it's half as good as any of its influences, it will be rather special. Chronicle of Ruin (hey, I remembered the name) has currently raised just over $3,000 of its $36,000 goal, and it has 24 days left to gobble up the rest.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.