https://store.steampowered.com/app/1442520/Akatori/


Sounds like something grand, but most of you should be aware that there are only two of them in the prologue, including the miniboss (let's not count his second appearance). So, I guess it would be more appropriate to say one and a half?.. Anyway, let's start with the main and most interesting one.


“A cursed warrior, a hero of his time, my eternal warden” - in fact, that's a pretty exhaustive description of him lorewise. If you somehow managed to find and read the caption beneath Ragged Cape (the item that grants Air Dash) in the Character Menu, you should even know a bit of his backstory. I don't think many people read long lore descriptions though, so I'll just quote it here for you (no need to thank me):

Once upon a time, before the Land of the Emerald Peaks even had the Firebird Temple, a legendary warrior stood guard over it: every swing of his sword shook the earth, and beasts of prey fell at the mere sight of him. But one day the warrior vanished without a trace, leaving behind only origami paper and a ragged cape. Traveling monks claim that he was kidnapped by the Gods themselves, and is now doomed to guard something important in Kohakujō forever. Yet this is just one of the monks' tales.

Okay, that’s cool and all, but what’s up with origami? Well, he was originally conceived as an avid origami lover, but sadly nothing in the current version of the game indicates that. In earlier builds, when you had to fight him in the Ancient Prison, he even had a special animation of making a paper crane, and the arena itself was supposed to be covered with small sheets of paper. I could certainly tell you more, but bosses, just like women, should be a bit of a mystery.

Proof that I'm not making things up just to make the update more interesting, okay

As for his visual design, we almost immediately found the right look, only experimenting with the details later on. He is basically a collective image of a ronin who has been completely imbued with Chaos over the years (which is why his skin has a weird color), but has retained his sanity and perfect moves thanks to the curse.

As you can see, Takatsugu would still be Takatsugu, just with a different hat

Takatsugu was designed as the main (and for a long time the only) boss in the demo, so we wanted to make him tough enough for a satisfying challenge, but at the same time easy enough for literally the first proper boss fight in the game. Did we succeed? “That is a good question that I do not have an answer to”.


Honestly, there's not much to tell about this one. I mean, it doesn’t even have a name (nor does it have an explicit gender, which is why I use "it"). All we know about this creature is that it's from the same world as the merchant frog Lulu, that it's affected by Chaos, and that it's lost its mind to the point where it uses its back shell as a shield. It's also small in number, but not unique (think of the second miniboss), and strong enough to help guard important places in Kohakujō.

The visual evolution of our buddy who may well have ended up being a wolf

We added it to the game relatively recently to a) add some action to the arena after moving the main boss to another location and b) demonstrate the difference between staff and fist combat. With fists, you need to dodge more, roll behind its back, etc., while with the staff, you can just face it head-on thanks to the stagger mechanic.


It goes without saying that there’ll be many more distinct and challenging bosses in the full game, so be sure to wishlist Akatori if you haven’t done it yet.

Thanks a ton for your time and support, see you soon! 🧡

Don't forget to wishlist the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1442520/Akatori/

Greetings!

Exciting news! Akatori: Chapter One is finally available! Play now!

if you'll like the demo, please consider leaving a review ❤️