Talent-heavy JRPG Project Phoenix soaring on Kickstarter

There's a JRPG causing a commotion on Kickstarter. It's called Project Phoenix and, in days, it's rocketed past its low $100,000 goal to raise more than $300,000 - a pace that should take it past $1 million before all is said and done.

Project Phoenix will be made in Japan but has a number of high profile Japanese and Western names attached. There's Nobuo Uematsu, renowned Final Fantasy composer, who'll break his indie cherry working on this game.

There's Vaughan Smith who helped design LA Noire, there are modellers from Germany, artists from Japan, a community leader from the US and an actress from Australia. There's also apparently a "very famous" art director who can't be announced until the project is released.

The leader of the project is violinist Hiroaki Yura, founder of the Eminence Orchestra, who's credited on games such as Diablo 3. This will be the first game his Creative Intelligence Arts company will produce.

The game itself revolves around an angel with amnesia, piecing together its story in a lavish new world with an "unusual" band of followers. Combat will be squad-based and strategical, but unfold in real-time. Early concepts show an isometric view with cartoony characters that have oversized heads, much like the Secrets of Manas and Final Fantasys of yesterday.

Project Phoenix is being made for PC (Windows, Linux) and Mac, and the team is apparently 90 per cent sure of PS4 and Vita versions as well. There are "no plans" for versions on other consoles such as the Xbox One. Android and iOS platforms will get a different version due to platform limitations.

The estimated date of release is mid-2015.