I Am Setsunaa is a Japanese role-playing video game developed by Tokyo RPG Factory and published by Square Enix. It was released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Japan in February 2016, and worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows in July 2016. It was released for Nintendo Switch as a launch title worldwide on March 3, 2017.
The story, set in a land gripped by perpetual winter, follows a mercenary and his charge, a maiden named Setsuna who must offer herself as a sacrifice at a sacred shrine to appease hostile demons. The story's central theme is sadness. The gameplay, which is deliberately designed to evoke role-playing games of the 1990s, uses an Active Time Battle system based on those used in early Final Fantasy games and Chrono Trigger.
The game was moderately well-received critically and commercially, and a spiritual successor, Lost Sphear, was released across 2017 and 2018 in different regions.
Gameplay
I Am Setsuna is a role-playing video game in which players take control of a party of characters, navigating environments from an angled top-down perspective. Locations such as towns and dungeons are reached by navigating the game's overworld. In towns, the party can talk with villagers to reveal plot elements, and find treasure chests containing useful items. Various items such as healing potions or "Fogstone" items for escaping from battle are sold in shops in towns and across the world.
Enemies are represented by icons: contact with the icons initiates a battle. Battles take place in the environments where the enemy is encountered rather than shifting to a specific battle arena. Characters' health and magic meter are respectively represented by HP and MP. Characters fight using a version of the Active Time Battle System featured in games such as entries in the Final Fantasy series: after each action is taken by a character in battle, an ATB gauge must fill again before another action is taken. Available actions include attacking with weapons; using special combat abilities or magic, which are lumped together as "Techs"; or using an item. If more than one character's ATB gauges are full, they will perform actions in the order in which instructions are issued to them.
Each character may equip "Spritnite" crystals on their gear. These crystals grant both passive bonuses and the abilities on the "Techs" menu. Some of these Techs can synergize together into a new attack; for instance, the spinning "Cyclone" and rushing "Charge" techs can become "X-Strike," a two-person attack directed at one enemy. If one of these "Double Techs" are available, the "Techs" menu will change to "Combo".
Each time an action is taken, or a character's ATB gauge is allowed to remain full, a separate "Setsuna" gauge begins to fill. When full, it grants a "Momentum" charge which may be expended at the player's discretion to grant power boosts to the character's actions. These boosts can include dealing multiple versions of the attack, recovering health, or dealing critical damage to an enemy.
Story
The game begins on a snow-bound island, which is regularly beset by angry demons. According to an ancient custom, a maiden is sacrificed to appease the demons. The demons grow restless once again, and the girl Setsuna is chosen as the sacrifice. The story begins with Endir accepting a mission to assassinate Setsuna, when he finds her, she convinces him to accompany her in her pilgrimage alongside Aeterna. While on their journey, they meet Nidr, the previous sacrifice guard and Setsuna's real father, who after regaining his confidence, is convinced to help Setsuna on her journey. Then, they meet Kir, a rare blood whose village is under attack by monsters. The party defeats the monsters and Kir joins them. On their way to the Last Lands they are attacked by the Reaper several times. Later on they come across Julienne, a female knight who wishes to see her kingdom restored. She travels with them, and when they finally arrive to the Last Lands, they find it unreachable due to a Vanished Land. Aeterna disappears, and Julienne leaves the party.
When all of them reunite again, Julienne opens a path to ruins belonging to her kingdom to attain an airship; they use it to travel to the Last Lands, where they find the Time Judge, creator of Aeterna, she explains to them that the Sacrifices pass their magical energy to her so that she can rewind time and keep the Dark Samsara, a mass of evil magical energy, from destroying the world. However, she believes that Setsuna and her guards might be able to destroy him completely because she did not foretell Endir's coming. The Time Judge resurrects the Reaper, now called Fides, and send him with the party to destroy the Dark Samsara.
When they arrive to his realm, Setsuna and the others defeat him. It is revealed that The Dark Samsara is an innocent youth who possessed an immense amount of magical energy who meant to help with the experiments to preserve magical energy in the world. As a result, the youth was destroyed, and he became a mass of ever growing energy known as The Dark Samsara. The newly created monster destroyed the royal kingdom and was sealed away by the Time Judge before he could commit further destruction to the world. His consciousness flees to the past in an attempt to change it by killing the Sacrifice. When all hope is lost, Endir and Setsuna are revealed to have the ability to travel to the past as well. They go after the Dark Samsara in the same place Endir and Setsuna first met. There, they fight the Youth, and Setsuna fuses him with herself, showing her kind, selfless nature, and asks Endir to destroy her body.
