AURORA REQUIEM: The Lullaby of Calvaris

Year 41 without the sun.
Calvaris is a city built inside the bones of a sea creature so large its ribs are districts and its skull is a neighborhood for the rich. There is no sun here, only lighthouses — and the lighthouses don't burn oil. They burn memories. Every family pays its tribute to the Lighthouse Intendancy, one memory at a time, so the lamps stay lit and the dark stays out.

Down in Spina, in the shadow of the iron Plate, a mechanic named Zero Solace takes a job he says is "just for the money": help a rebel crew called Undertow slip a bomb into the heart of a lighthouse before the countdown hits zero.

He's cocky. He's warm. He's stubborn. He never breaks a promise — "Mechanic's honor."
And he remembers a trip into the sealed Nadir Lighthouse that nobody else in Calvaris seems to remember at all.

A new adventure with an old soul
AURORA REQUIEM is an original JRPG built to feel like the ones you played on a CRT at the end of the 90s: fixed cameras over pre-rendered backgrounds, chunky polygon heroes with big heads on the field, blue menu windows, a 3D world map, grainy "pre-rendered" cutscenes and a MIDI-orchestra soundtrack. Every character, story beat, graphic, song and sound effect is original.

It's also a game that knows what it is. It comes on three discs. It has a seahorse you can ride and breed. It has an amusement park inside a pearl. And at some point you will do push-ups against a gym champion to earn part of a costume.

The party
Zero Solace — Lighthouse Mechanic. Cocky, big-hearted, carries an impact wrench taller than he is. "Nothing's broken for good."

Seren — runs the Lantern bar and has kept Zero in line since they were kids. Fights with fists and kicks, and doesn't let him get away with anything.

Talen — a courier who forgets everything and sews notes into his clothes so he won't.

Omi — a former Archive clerk: dry, protective, and very good at forging memories.

Kaia — a seahorse rider who is never late for a wave.

Vesper — an old lightkeeper who has tended the same lighthouse for forty years.

Selk — a four-hundred-year-old sea being kept in a tank as a specimen. Speaks rarely. Every word counts.

…and two secret party members you'll only find if you go looking.

Standing against them: Intendant Aurel, who never lets a hair fall out of place; the Umbra Brigade — Rhys, Vex and Pix, a trio of Intendancy agents who are as funny as they are dangerous; and Caelum, the First Keeper, the legendary hero who lit Calvaris's lighthouses forty years ago, went down into the Nadir Lighthouse… and never came back.

Battles with a gauge, a plan and a lot of personality
Time-gauge combat with Active and Wait modes and adjustable battle speed. Three party members in battle, nine playable characters in total.

Resolve: take hits, fill the bar, unleash each character's special moves — four levels per character, the last one locked behind a secret manual.

Orbs in five types (technique, support, attribute, command and summon) that slot into weapons with linked slots. Level them up; master one and a brand-new copy is born.

Stolen Echo: learn techniques from the enemies that hit you, and track them in a bestiary. Plus Double Strike, Steal, Mimic, Counterattack and more.

Ambushes, preemptive strikes, and status effects with their own look — yes, one of them turns your hero into a tiny crab.

Gigantic summons, including Mother of Calvaris, a full-song summon that cannot be skipped, and The Thirteen Lighthouses, where thirteen lighthouse spirits strike one after another (there's a setting to shorten long summons, if you must).

Features
A story across three discs — with a playable prologue, a chapter where the party must carry on without its leader, and a finale where you split the party into three teams.

A final boss with its own opera: organ, percussion and a synthesized choir. The main theme returns throughout the adventure in sad, heroic and world-map arrangements — more than 40 tracks in all.

A 3D world map of a creature's skeleton lying in a night sea: ride Opal the seahorse, dive in the bathyscaphe "Bubble" and take to the skies in the airship "Winged Rib".

Breed seahorses in green, blue, black and gold to reach mountains, currents and islands no one else can.

Three colossal Custodians roam the world map. One can only be reached by air.

Mirabel, a never-closing fair inside a pearl the size of a neighborhood: seahorse races with betting, the Jellyfish Basket, Arm Wrestling against the Strongman, Spine Surfing, the "Spine" roller-coaster shooting gallery, a Ferris wheel date that depends on who you've grown closest to, the Colosseum with its handicap roulette, and prize tokens called Aster.

Calvaris Cards, a three-lane card game with rivals all over the world — and a champion, Madame Scales, waiting at the top.

Story minigames: a high-speed chase on seahorse-back against steam bikes, a downhill run on a lantern lid, a submarine battle against the Gray Leviathan, a rail-shooter escape by funicular, and a push-up duel at the Bone Gym.

A catwalk in Aurea: shop at Ottoline's Furniture & Fashion, walk in the High Tide parade and, with the perfect outfit, get crowned High Tide Queen. Zero wears it with pride.

The Nadir Lighthouse: an optional 50-floor dungeon with guardians every ten floors — and at the very bottom, Tenebra, a superboss with 1,000,000 HP.

Ultimate weapons for every character, each tied to its own challenge.

Loose memories hidden around the world, side quests, and an extended ending for those who find them all.

A main story of around 5 hours, plus all the optional content on top.

Fully playable in English, Spanish and Japanese.

That 32-bit look — on purpose
Rendered at 320×240 with pixel-snapped "wobbly" vertices, per-vertex lighting and dithered 15-bit color.

Real pre-rendered backgrounds: every shot is baked when you enter an area and scrolls with the player, with animated layers on top.

Three model scales, just like back then: big-headed on the field, proportioned in battle, detailed in cutscenes.

Fake "FMV" recorded with the engine itself and played back with macroblocks, subsampled chroma and slightly out-of-sync sound. Sepia flashbacks come with film scratches.

Please insert Disc 2
Somewhere under Calvaris, something is listening to the lullaby. Grab the wrench.
Nothing's broken for good.