Here's the trailer for Tokitowa. And a Vofan gallery

12:00 PM on 01.25.2012   |   Josh Tolentino

The first big JRPG of 2012 has just gotten its first trailer! And no, I'm not talking about Final Fantasy XIII-2 or Ni no Kuni, since those two were technically released last year (in Japan, at any rate). Instead, I'm referring to Imageepoch's Tokitowa (aka Time and Eternity), the so-called "HD Animation RPG".

The saga of a nameless protagonist and his wife is documented in short promotional video form below, whose selling points include the use of 2D sprites animated by Studio Satelight (Macross Frontier, Moretsu Pirates) on its field and battle maps, with copious animated cutscenes to boot, and featuring character designs by Vofan, the original character designer of Bakemonogatari, and so called "Master of Lighting" on Pixiv. For the latter claim, refer to the gallery we've assembled.

Now, I hate being the negative nancy here, especially given the increasing rarity of home-console JRPGs, but I'm a bit skeptical of this whole 2D-on-3D thing. The game looks fantastic in still screens, but the brief snippets of live play footage show a pretty low framerate, which kind of sucks in any number of dimensions. Budgetary concerns aside, I'd much rather have a game that successfully adapts 3D models to truly "look like an anime", ala Valkyria Chronicles.

But enough of my hatin'. Who knows, the game could be effin' awesome. We'll just have to wait and see.