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Fragrant Story Could Be the Last 3DS Tactics Game

Fragrant Story screenshot of a team of teenagers engaging a bat and rat on an isometric grid-based battlefield.

Perhaps the year’s most unexpected announcement is the impending launch of Fragrant Story, the new strategy RPG from solo developer William Kage. It draws heavily from Yasumi Matsuno opuses Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics, and the very title references his dungeon crawler classic Vagrant Story in… flagrant fashion [Editor’s Note: flagrant or fragrant?], I must say. If you think this is all an April Fool’s prank, you would be wrong. The trailer below plays it pretty straight, but I do detect a faint whiff of tongue in cheek.

If all this information isn’t unusual enough, the game will be coming out both physically and digitally exclusively on the 3DS, whose online store is on its way out. Fragrant Story could effectively be the last RPG on a system that has hosted some of the best.

Fragrant Story boasts an all-star lineup of collaborators, including actors Gideon Emery and Nicole Fantl (a pair you might recognize as Final Fantasy XII‘s Balthier and Fran) and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, who brings with him the full force of Basiscape (the music company responsible for 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim‘s soundtrack, among several other masterpieces). But Kage still handled the lion’s share of the game’s score, which you can purchase on his Bandcamp page. It’s solid work that totally nails the SNES sound from what I’ve sampled.

Fragrant Story Wants to Do It All

The press release details the following features, and they all sound promising. Otosan is another interesting project of Kage’s that’s still in development, FYI.

VR Cafe: Your team is made up of kids from Otosan playing an arcade game.

Arcade tokens: You get tokens based on the difficulty setting, which allow you to build a bigger team

Strategize: Enjoy fresh new tactical gameplay inspired by the classics

Customize: Build a different team of Fierce Fleuristas each time you play

Timed hits: Stop the wheel with precision and score a critical hit

Level up: Defeat enemies to grow stronger, or use extra tokens to level up a character

Sense of humor: Dialog that would make your dad proud

Challenge mode: Try your hand at some truly epic challenges

Collect tickets: Save up tickets to unlock new gear and options

Legendary music: Sick strategy tunes will get your heart pumping

Kage is aiming for the sky with Fragrant Story, and I’m mighty impressed with what I’ve seen. My 3DS still sees regular use, so I’m probably gonna check this one out. The game will launch on April 21st and cost $4 USD digitally on the eShop. There are limited quantities of the game in physical form on Kage’s online store; the standard edition will run you $35 USD while there are two special variants that cost $70 USD and $120 USD, depending on if you want the team’s signatures. You can trust that RPGFan will report on 3DS RPG news until its last embers fade away, so keep posted with us!

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Gio Castillo

Gio is a writer and editor with a deep fondness for role-playing and management games. He lives in the Philippines with two cats he loves dearly.

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