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The Story

Quote:June 21, 2006 - On October 17, 1849, Frederic Chopin, one of the most influential composers for the piano, succumbed to sickness and died at the young age of 39.

Three hours prior to that, in the world according to Bandai Namco, Chopin, crouched on the floor of his hospital, saw a dream. The dream had anime characters that looked like they were out of a Tales game and a world that looked like it was pulled from a fairy tale. In the dream, people carried about their lives like in the real world. But in the dream world, people with incurable sicknesses had magical powers.
Bandai Namco's new Xbox 360 RPG, Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream ("Chopin no Yume" for the Japanese version) takes place in this dream world. Chopin (yes, the composer) comes into contact with Polka, a young girl who resides with her mother in the village of Tenuto (the names, you'll find, are all musical terms). Polka is near her death, meaning she's got some crazy powers. Unfortunately, people believe that by touching her, they'll be infected with her koodies, so Polka's not particularly popular.
Trusty Bell is the story of Chopin (yes, the composer), Polka, and a Allegretto, a 16-year-old who steals to eat and lives for only one thing: to help Polka.
If Trusty Bell were called Tales of Something-or-other, no one would complain. The game has the absurd premise, peculiar names and colorful artwork of Namco's biggest RPG series. Plus, musical composition is being handled by Motoi Sakuraba, of Tales of fame.
Trusty Bell will also feature a battle system that's heavy on the action. Details are scarce, but based on the screenshots currently circling exclusively in Japan's Famitsu magazine, the battle system supports three characters (including an unknown male character called Beat) and features some sort of combo system. Allegretto makes use of a sword as his primary weapon while Polka, being a cheery girl character and all, resorts to an umbrella.
Music and story look like they will play a big part in Trusty Bell. Bandai Namco has drafted famous Japanese actor Leo Morimoto to perform narration for the game's Japanese version. Performing the piano numbers that Chopin left to the world (before having his RPG dream) will be Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin.
Trusty Bell is in development at tri-Crescendo, a studio that worked on the sound components of tri-Ace titles like Radiata Stories, Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile and also worked on programming, sound and the battle system for Baten Kaitos, along side Monolith Soft . The game is currently without a final release date in Japan.

Official Site here

I love the art style. It's beautiful. Supposed to be out before the end of the year.

The full title is Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream...

... yes, a Japanese RPG starring a classical music composer... unique, to say the least... :)

We'll see how well it does given that it's for the X360, though.

I'm going to buy this game.