Yesterday Indie developer Magnus Games launched a Kickstarter for Re:Legend, a cooperative monster-raising and farming JRPG. In less than 24 hours it has surpassed its goal of $51,657 with nearly 1,000 backers.
Re:Legend is described as an RPG-sim hybrid. It focuses on farming and raising monsters with co-op gameplay. You (and up to three friends) build up your island village while growing crops and raising the monsters, called Magnus. In addition to farming there’s also cooking, crafting, mining, fishing, and fighting off wild Magnus.
The Kickstarter lists Rune Factory, Digimon World, Fantasy Life, and Monster Rancher as heavy inspirations. Like many farming-sim games socializing with NPCs will play a big role, and can lead to romantic options.
Magnus Games is collaborating with the Video Game Orchestra and veteran composers Shota Nakama, Falk Au Yeong, and Yoshitaka Suzuki. You can listen to some sample tracks via Soundcloud.
The Kickstarter has several goals listed, beginning with a live orchestra recording for the soundtrack at $100,000. Console versions are planned as stretch goals. Nintendo Switch unlocks at $250k, PS4 at $280k, and Xbox One at $310k. The minimum pledge that rewards a copy of the game converts to around $21 USD. Backer rewards include exclusive wallpaper, early beta access, and Magnus plushies.
Re:Legend has been in development since 2016, but suffered a blow when funding fell through. The game found success via the Square Enix Collective, becoming the best supported project in the program’s history. The Square Enix Collective is a program designed to help highlight and support indie developers, possibly leading to publishing support from Square Enix.
The Kickstarter campaign lists June 2018 as the estimated release date, though those are almost always very optimistic.
