The Cruel King And The Great Hero Gets New Trailer To Showcase Akito Shikata's Music

Shouldn’t it be “heroine”?

Not even just a composer - Shikata is a singer I often fondly call "the Mike Oldfield of vocal arrangements". All the voices you hear here and pretty much all the ones across the rest of her portfolio (barring duets/trios and rare choir-backed works like "Ra-Ciel Reincarnation" composed by Kenji Kawai) are her alone, in what Wikipedia claims to reach up to 200 vocal tracks per song at times. And Oldfield parallels don't end there - Shikata's music embraces a sheer multitude of genres and inspirations, both separately and in delicious mixtures. She's easily one of THE modern Japanese fiction and pop composers of our times, arguably standing beside the colossi like Yuki Kajiura and Yoko Kanno, even if her actual anime and video game works make a comparatively smaller list to date. But hey, when said works include Ar Tonelico and Nosurge series, some of the most authentic and musical fictionverses in video game history... 😎

It was a treat to see her work on The Liar Princess, one of my favourite Switch games in general (by the way, Akiko later released a whole album inspired by the game), and it's equally awesome to see her return here.

(In other news, though, "boring to play"? Thank goodness I have evidently played a starkly different Liar Princess😏🙄)

I love what I see, but I don't think I'd love playing it. It looks like little more than walking sideways, hitting cute creatures with a stick, and repeat... I actually have artwork of it as my laptop desktop background, and had a tear in my eyes from the first trailer, and really want to love these games, but the earlier seemed way too easy but gorgeous, this one seems even easier and less interesting as a game... Child's book, animated movie, I'd love that, but what I see as a game... No, sadly

So the blind prince became a cruel king now? Sometimes we regret ever doing the good deed we did in the first story.

I'll probably get it but not the Storybook Edition like I did with Liar Princess. The music is beautiful and it looks like they improved the gameplay at least. Still, seeing how often Liar Princess has gone on sale makes me tempted to wait for a price drop

@NinChocolate Either works.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hero

Looks and sounds terrific!

I'm not previously familiar with Akiko's music, since I haven't played any of the games she has scored. It's exceedingly lovely, and it's nice to know I can appreciate a japanese game composer younger than myself, instead of clinging to Mitsuda, Uematsu and Koshiro. ^^

@nhSnork From my side, I found it boring as well. Story was good but gameplay and level design was meh... I had to force myself to finish this game.

@gurtifus perhaps escort platformers aren't your thing or you've played one too many of them for now. Although Liar Princess stands out even among them, the perks and challenges of its escortee interaction (plus the required shapeshifting and it environmental prerequisites) remarkably distinct from the usual Lemmings flavour of many other such games.