Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon's story detailed

We recently had the chance to chat to Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon's Producer Keisuke Kikuchi at the Tokyo Game Show about the game and what changes it is bringing to the series, and he gave us some interesting details about the story.

With the original only recently released in Europe, Night of Azure's sequel looks set to bring fresh gameplay and new characters to the series. This time round, though, Western fans may not have to wait as long to get their hands on it.

Bride of the New Moon will follow the same dark-fantasy RPG world as the previous title, but will bring on-board scenario writer Makoto Shibata from the Fatal Frame series to work on the game's story. The distinctive art style will also make a return in the sequel and is being handled by returning illustrator Yoshiku.

"We've enlisted the work of the illustrator Yoshiku to illustrate various different characters for this game so they'll be ones that are more cute characters, others that will be a bit more stronger, have a strong sense of honour, so we've been able to introduce a lot more different characters for this game," said Kikuchi.

Nights of Azure 2 will follow Alushe, who is a knight of the Vatican entrusted with the task of escorting her childhood friend, the shrine maiden Liliana. She is similar to the main protagonist from the first game in that she is a half demon, but their stories will be very different.

The sequel will also add new characters, known as Lilies, who will act as partners in the game alongside the Servans from the first title. The Servans will still play a part in the new game, assisting the player, but the relationship between you and your partner will be more important, although they will see some design changes.

"With the Lilies" said Kikuchi. "They all have different personalities. There'll be ones that are sort of a little bit stubborn and won't show their emotions, there are others that will be very helpful upfront and so they'll have different characteristics so you can decide who you want to fight with and as you fight with them also your relationships with them become stronger so that you get to enjoy those growing relationships with them and also you can kind of chose who you want to pick based on if you have a favourite personality type."

Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon will release December this year in Japan and potentially mid 2017 for Europe. Will you be playing the sequel?