Ever Oasis: Intro trailer, second blog post from Koichi Ishii (characters)

Today, Nintendo of America uploaded the Intro Trailer for Ever Oasis: it’s in fact the very same video that Nintendo uploaded a few weeks ago, following the Nintendo Direct presentation. It introduces the story of the game, and highlights the main gameplay features such as building and managing shops, exploring the dungeons and solving puzzles, defending your oasis from Chaos, and more.

Here’s the Intro Trailer for Ever Oasis:

And last week, Koichi Ishii posted a second blog post about the game over at the Topics website in Japan, and shared some more details about the characters. You can find the official English translation on this page!

Following the Nintendo Direct presentation, he received plenty of comments from fans, who found the main character really cute, while others said they wanted a plushie of the Penguowls (English name TBC). He then showed a picture of the figure he made via 3D printing (it’s not an amiibo… sadly!).

He then reveals that the character designer for Ever Oasis is one Shizuma Yoshinori, who did the illustrations for the Zero Kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho light novels (for those who are curious, the anime adaptation is currently airing in Japan, and can be found subbed on legal streaming websites).

With this game, Koichi Ishii wanted to avoid a protagonist that could do everything by themselves: he wanted them to rely on their friends. That’s why the protagonist may be able to use wind magic, but said magic is pretty weak against some enemies, and there’s various mechanisms in the dungeons that they cannot operate by themselves.

As for the skills you learn for battle (by leveling up), they’re not so much powerful attacks to defeat enemies with, they’re more skills that allows you to unlock the potential of your allies.

Here’s some concept art for the (male) protagonist:

The race of the protagonist is called “Tanebito”, which literally means “Seed People” in Japan. That’s why it was logically translated as “Seedlings” in English. As the name implies, it’s a race inspired by plants… but why plants, exactly? It’s because the game takes place in the desert, where water is pretty scarce… a pretty harsh environment for plants!

He then talks about seeds and plants in general, and the “vitality” they show when growing. Plants start as mere seeds, but then grow up into something that can make people smile. That’s how the Seedlings came to be, and how he thought of having them be anthropomorphised plant seeds.

After that, he clarifies something about the protagonist: he’s quite clearly male in the intro video above, but players are free to go with a female Seedling instead. In fact, when you start the game, you can even choose the colour of the eyes and the skin, besides the gender.

Next, Koichi Ishii shares some details about one of the central characters of Ever Oasis: Isuna, the Water Spirit. She’s your partner, and she helps you grow your oasis. During development, he spent a lot of time making sure that players would be able to empathise with her.

That’s why he spent a lot of time adjusting her lines of dialogues, and so until the very end of development. He hopes that players will feel that she’s also a good partner for them, not just for the protagonist.

Finally, we have some details about the Penguowls: mysterious creatures that do not live in the oasis, but visit it regularly, buy various things, and then go home. They’re basically Ever Oasis’ mascot characters, and the combination of Penguins and Owls.

If you’re wondering why he decided to combine an owl with a penguin, the answer is pretty simple… Koichi Ishii followed his intuition. In fact, that’s how all his other mascot characters were created: thanks to his intuition, and nothing else.

Penguowls cannot speak, but they can communicate with each others. Funnily enough, when they’re on their own, they behave pretty much like regular owls. But when they get together, they cannot help but behave like actual penguins. What’s more, it looks like they’re quite fond of shopping, which is why you’re definitely going to get plenty of Penguowls in your oasis as it grows and more shops are opened.

As mentioned above, Penguowls do not live in the Oasis: the desert is their home. The thing is, nobody can find their nest. The reason for that is because the entrance to their nests only appears during a lunar eclipse.

Sometimes, a (reckless) traveler pass out in the desert, only to wake up all healed up the following morning. They would then thanks God for saving them, unaware that it was Penguowls that brought them to their nest in order to treat them.

Ever Oasis (3DS) comes out on June 23rd in Europe and North America, and July 13th in Japan.

Source: Nintendo