Chronicles of Astraea - Former Dawn (NES Homebrew)
There is an absolutely epic Action RPG that is being developed the the Nintendo NES. The creators of the game really are pushing past the NES’ limit’s as custom cartridge memory and audio components need to be made in order to make this game a reality. The graphics far surpass anything I’ve ever seen on the NES. The sprites are huge and detailed with very well animated frame heavy, action movements. The portraits of NPC’s that you see when you talk to them look very nice, you can tell that the pixel artists they used for this project are really talented. However it wasn’t just talent that is responsible for the amazingly detailed graphics, an innovative custom memory mapper has “8×1 attributes” allowing extra color.
"One of the most useful features of MXM-1 is its "8x1 attributes", which means that every 8 pixel wide, 1 pixel tall region of the screen can subscribe to its own color palette from the 4 available at any given time in the NES's internal palette RAM.
This means, in one sense, 32 times the color density of the base system and 8 times the color density of MMC5 which had already improved it during the NES's original lifespan.
As a consequence, skilled artists can now create artwork for the NES which is more like modern indie game pixel art than it is classical NES graphics."
- KickStarter for Former Dawn [1]
The MXM-1 custom memory mapper is also responsible for the audio expansion that is used. Each copy of former dawn is supplied with an expansion bridge which connects the cartridge to the expansion port on the bottom of the system.
"The sound track and sound effects are greatly enhanced by MXM-1's audio subsystem, which is something like a mix of the SNES's D-DSP chip and the Amiga's PAULA chip. It sports 8 channels of genuine PCM audio, an echo buffer, wavetable support, and smooth sinc function based interpolation."
- KickStarter for Former Dawn [1]
The expansion sounds effectively adds another four PCM channels in addition to the four native ones available. So the extra 4 channels are free to be used for sound effects and ambience giving extra layers of atmosphere and immersion in the game. This has been the biggest advancement is NES cartridge technology since 1989 when Nintendo introduced the MMC5 memory management controller. It’s because of this technology that the Former Dawn looks far more detailed then anything that is on the NES. In fact it looks a lot more an indie developed RPG game for 16-bit machines than it does a NES game. The game has been completely funded on KickStarter and is currently in production. It is due to be released at the end of 2026 so a long wait still remains before it’s completed and sent out to backers.
The KickStarter campaign looks like it’s finished as they don’t seem to be accepting anymore pledges. This is strange because some of the pledge options still haven’t sold out of units. I think it may have something to do with increased production costs due to the tariff increases on imported goods in the USA as there is some mention of this by the creators on the KickStarter page. I have reached out to the developer, Something Nerdy Studios, to enquire as the what the situation is however they have not responded to my message. So given the state of things I have to assume that the KickStarter campaign is over because they aren’t taking any more pledges. This is unfortunate for those of us who only just heard of the game as we don’t get the opportunity to back it. I would have loved to get a pre-order a copy of this by making a pledge. Maybe if enough people contact Something Nerdy Studios they may accept some more late pledges like Straynas is doing with Cronela’s Mansion. Though unless we hear otherwise, the rest of us will be forced to wrestle a copy from an eBay’s scalper’s possession which is a very costly proposition as we are all too aware of. Even the digital versions aren’t available to purchase anymore however I’m sure that the ROM will make it’s way to the public domain so we will have to settle with playing this game on emulators.
The game is actually a hybrid of genres Action-RPG and RPG as it contains both real time and turn based combat. That is also something that I have never seen in any game, it’s always either one or the other but never both. However when playing the demo any enemy’s you encounter on the overworld map you have to kill in real-time action mode but when you get to the first boss you are taken to a traditional RPG battle screen where you get to select a command for each character during their turn in the battle. You start off the game as Jeku in his house in the peaceful coastal country village of Gerosch. He is immediately greeted in the morning by his brother James who is adept with the spear. He accompany’s Jeku on his journey to the mountain get ice so you are able to control him in turn-based battle which makes it possible to defeat the first boss who can take quite a lot of damage. See a play-through of the demo on the RGN YouTube channel, obviously you will see spoilers so if you don’t watch it if you are want to experience it for the first time yourself. You can easily download the demo, it is available to in two versions – the NES Everdrive N8 Pro version and the Mesen version. The easiest one to use is the Mesen version as everything is included, even the emulator. The NES version is a bit more difficult to setup, you need an N8 Pro Everdrive and you have to copy files into specific directories for it to work.
Relevant Links
- Something Nerdy Studios Kickstarter webpage for Former Dawn [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/something-nerdy/former-dawn/] Unfortunately the campaign ended in November 2024 so you are unable to pledge for any kind of reward on the webpage.
- Retro Game News YouTube Channel Video – LongPlay of Former Dawn Demo [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dHsilVCjhM] Watch me play through the entire demo, killing the first boss and making it to the advanced technology area where the game ends.
- Something Nerdy Studios Official Website Download Page [https://somethingnerdy.com/former-dawn-playable-demo-downloads/] You can find links to download both the real hardware Everdrive N8 Pro Version and the emulator Mesen Version for PC.
