Trivia / Rakenzarn Tales

• Accidental Downer Ending: Version 2 ended with the heroes having just barely fended off an attack by the Saint Lords, Noel on the verge of death by Deathstroke's hand and Kyuu having passed out. Then the game underwent one of several continuity reboots which pretty much changed the entire plot, ensuring that it will never been seen again. The game's creator did later release information on his DeviantArt page explaining how it would've concluded had the current version continued.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Midway through Chapter 6 back in Version 2, the party comments on how Kanon and Setsuna sound oddly alike, referencing their having the same Japanese voice actor.
  • When meeting Autolycus, Kyuu immediately thinks he's Bruce Campbell. His Soul Break is also named "Hail to the King".
  • The character bio of the The Knights Who Say Ni notes that their leader may be a man standing on a ladder... which is how Michael Palin portrayed him.
• Author Phobia: An accidental version. The quest to recruit Cain Argol requires fighting a giant snake. Geminidrake, Cain's creator, is terrified of snakes. This didn't come up until after the sidequest had been developed.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: While unfinished, Version 2 still had a decent length and featured numerous sidequests - clocking in at around 20-30 hours of gameplay. However, after the reboots and the release of Version 4, Version 2 can't be downloaded anymore on the official wiki.
• Schedule Slip: Due to at first being made by one guy in-between college and other projects, updates tend to get a little infrequent. Up to Version 2, it wasn't too bad and a new version popped up once every few months. But as life got in the way and production began on Rakenzarn Frontier Story and later, Mitsu Story The Forgotten Odyssey, things began to get few and far between. This was further compounded by the game getting rebooted thrice due to extensive plot rewrites.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Some battle features were excluded due to coding or space difficulties, most notably being individual character themes during battles or a "Team Assault" system to allow whole party attacks on a single foe.
  • Several party member ideas, including Scooby-Doo and Donkey Kong, were removed due to story changes.
  • Chizuko Mikamo was originally supposed to be a possible love interest for Kyuu. The idea was scrapped due to story changes.
  • Boron, leader of the Boron Bandits in early drafts of Chapter 3, was supposed to appear in the game. He became The Ghost and The Unfought because Dark Kyu couldn't find a good sprite for him.
  • One idea briefly seen in Version 3 was the Master Seal, an item to be used with the revised movesets in order to maker certain attacks more powerful. This was dropped in Version 4.
  • A prequel called "Rakenzarn: The Azure Knights" was announced back in 2013. It would have focused on Kite, Noel and Kanon's time before they joined the guild with the main villain being Darkseid. It was eventually cancelled in 2018 due to lack of progress and major plot changes in Tales due to its reboots.
  • Due to plot rewrites, a lot of the plot points for Chapters 10 through 12 were scrapped. Most of them are detailed here.