Something is wrong in Sunlight City. One night, after DJ Sebastian’s pirate radio show ends, strange things start happening. When “Boy”, a young man, wakes up in an apartment with no memory of who he is or what’s happening, he sets out on a journey for answers that will cross path with other adventurers and eventually bring a closure to the city’s mysteries.
This “multi-channel” RPG features four different protagonists, each with a unique but overlapping story. Each protagonist’s story is represented in-game as a separate radio channel, and players can swap channels at any time; sometimes swapping channels is the key to unblocking another character in their story. The battle system, inspired by Dragon Quest and Earthbound, is pretty straightforward but players are given extra strategic depth via the ability to change their characters’ stat allocation at any time while outside of battle. Each character features unique special abilities, which are available based on their stat allocation, so players will need to carefully pick their stat allocation to ensure they have the tools they need for the area they’re in. If players have a party of multiple characters, they can also perform an extra-damaging combination attack by having all characters use their turns at once.
The three primary protagonists each have their own goals, plots, and abilities.
- “Boy”: A young man who wakes up in an apartment without any idea who he is. He ends up on the run from police who try to arrest him on suspicion of being Sebastian and uses his time on the lam to try to figure out his real identity. His special abilities focus on high-damage attacks.
- The One: Sebastian’s pet dog who lives in a kennel outside the apartment building where “Boy” woke up. He sets out to try to find Sebastian, but discovers he can’t remember Sebastian’s scent anymore and doesn’t know how to find him without it. Being a dog, he can’t communicate with humans well but he can speak to other animals. He can also dig holes to find items, and in battle his special abilities focus on healing. His name is a pun on the Japanese word for “bark”, which is spelled using the same characters as the English word “one”.
- Bonnie: A young woman who lives in the low-income downtown not far from Sebastian and The One. She wakes up to find out that her shadow is gone; when she tries to report it missing to the police, they tell her they only help elite citizens and she’s on her own. She’s friends with Dr. Hoff, a backstreet researcher who takes an interest in “Boy”. Her special abilities focus on debuffs and status effects.