Black★Rock Shooter ARCANA

Logo design for Black Rock Shooter Arcana.

Black★Rock Shooter Arcana (ブラック★ロックシューター アルカナ, Burakku Rokku Shuutaa Arukana) is an upcoming social game for Android devices based on the Black★Rock Shooter concept, with release date yet to be announced. It is published through the combined efforts of Strategy and Partners, Good Smile Company and Tetsujin Inc. BRS Arcana hosts an all-original story, with characters designed by Taiki.

Plot

The story is set somewhere in the 21st century, where a communications network called RAILS (Realtime Authorize Interactive Line Service) has been established as the largest social network of its time. As the number of users of RAILS increase dramatically, reports of entire groups of people losing consciousness after using RAILS begin to emerge — a phenomenon that was later called "flatline condition" (フラットライン症状, Furatorain Shoujou). One noted application of RAILS is Arcana, a tarot-based service that is known by many for its ability to accurately predict the future of RAILS users. The credibility of Arcana's data, however, was questioned by many, and this sparked several rumors.

One of the many users of RAILS soon installs Arcana, and upon starting up Arcana, a mysterious girl with black hair calls out to him...

Gameplay

BRS Arcana gives players the role of a user of RAILS, who discovers an unusual world that is unlocked by their contact with the mobile application Arcana. The game has elements of a card-based battle game with the added feature of being able to talk to other players.

Features

• Quests Linked to the Unreal World: Seeking - Players can complete tasks in singleplayer or multiplayer modes. These acts as the game's story mode; as the player clears the tasks ahead, secrets about the mysteries in the game is slowly unraveled.
• Cards Linked to a Sealed Power: Tarot - Tarots are mysterious cards that possess a sealed power within. Players have the ability to unlock this seal and use it to defend themselves or to attack threats. A Tarot is composed of combining an Artifact, an Arcana, and a Weapon; this allows players to create a multitude of combinations for different situations.
• Battles Linked to Destiny: Battle of Fortunes - Players are able to fight against other players by using acquired Tarots to outpower those of the opponent.

Character List

• Black★Rock Shooter - A mysterious girl with black hair and a blue flame in her eye. Has the theme of Major Arcana XVII, "The Star".
• Dead Master - Her theme is Major Arcana XIII, "Death".
• Black★Gold Saw - Her theme is Major Arcana III, "The Empress".
• Strength - She has the theme of Major Arcana VIII, "Strength".
• Elder Caster - A new character of the story, her theme is Major Arcana I, "The Magician".
• An unknown new character with appearance of white-haired girl with horn-shaped futuristic glasses. Confirmed in a new artwork in the official site, shown to fighting Black★Rock Shooter. Her theme is yet to be confirmed.

Development

Plans for the release of Black★Rock Shooter Arcana were publicly announced at a press conference held by Strategy and Partners and Good Smile Company. In this conference, various information about the development and features of the game was discussed, including the character design, the original story created for the game and the game's battle system. The press conference revealed that certain details were changed to the original character designs to give them "a delicate elegance" whilst keeping it similar to the original. Taiki, the character designer for the game, would also introduce an original character as well, although any more details were kept undisclosed for the meantime.

External Links

• Black★Rock Shooter Arcana Official Site (in Japanese)
• Official Twitter: @brs_arcana
• BRS Arcana Press Release (in Japanese)

References

General

• Good Smile Company Press Release on Black Rock Shooter Arcana (PDF file). November 16, 2012. Accessed November 18, 2012.