Final Fantasy Composer Nobuo Uematsu Joins Shadow Hearts Spiritual Successor, Penny Blood

The legendary composer responsible for scoring some of the Final Fantasy series' most iconic music, Nobuo Uematsu, has signed on to that fascinating Double Kickstarter project we brought you word of at the start of the month, which has amassed almost $2 million USD.

Well, specifically, Uematsu has signed up to work on Penny Blood, the spiritual successor to the cult-classic JRPG series Shadow Hearts, along with Kenji Ito, composer for the SaGa franchise. Uematsu will apparently “assist with research and insight into authentic Irish music” for the parts of the game set in America, which is an unexpected and intriguing twist. Meanwhile, Ito will “help create the authentic sounds of Japanese locales”.

The original Shadow Hearts trilogy had a strong gothic aesthetic, with a narrative inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft dealing with powerful magicians and otherworldly demons. Its unique Judgement Ring mechanic spiced up the usual turn-based combat, and we can't wait to see how Penny Blood turns out. In the meantime, we got a couple of short combat test videos, which you can check out below.

We know that both Penny Blood and Armed Fantasia will be coming to PS5 in a couple of years, as the project has blown that particularly Kickstarter stretch goal out of the water. It's nice to have things to look forward to, isn't it?