Shadow Strings is a story-driven turn-based RPG inspired by the legend of Orpheus and the mythology of the Greek Underworld.

As Emilia searches for Dion, her violin becomes both weapon and supernatural instrument. Its melodies shape tactical battles, awaken mysterious powers, and transform the world around her.

Explore five distinct realms, uncover lost Memories, form unlikely alliances, and gradually piece together the events that brought Emilia to the Underworld.

What begins as a journey to save someone she loves becomes something far more personal: a struggle over grief, identity, and the courage to choose her own path.

Music is Power

Emilia’s violin connects every part of her journey. Melodies become magic in battle, build Harmony between allies, call upon Divine Beings, and awaken powers capable of reshaping the Underworld itself.

Uncover Emilia’s Story

Recover fragments of Emilia’s past and discover how the people, choices, and relationships in her life shaped the person she has become. Each Memory reveals another piece of a story whose meaning changes as more of the truth returns.

Read the battlefield. Create the opening.

Every battle in Shadow Strings is built around timing, preparation, and opportunity.

A visible timeline shows when characters and enemies will act. Exploit physical and elemental weaknesses to destroy Breakpoints, manipulate turn order, and create windows in which enemies become dramatically more vulnerable.

Emilia fights alongside one active companion at a time. Each companion brings a distinct instrument, combat role, and set of abilities, changing both the strategy and rhythm of battle.

Rhythm inputs enhance attacks, magic, and defense. Precision rewards mastery, but missing an input never cancels the action you chose.

Shape Emilia’s Fighting Style

Emilia is the adaptable core of the party. As she frees Divine Beings throughout her journey, new skill paths become available, allowing her to learn attacks, magic, support abilities, passives, and powerful techniques from different combat disciplines.

Music Sheets further expand her repertoire and strengthen the abilities she chooses to develop, while Treatments shape how her attributes grow as she gains levels.

There is no single intended build. Emilia can be developed toward physical damage, magic, defense, speed, support, Break pressure, or hybrid roles — and her direction can evolve throughout the journey.

Prepare for the Fight Ahead

Progression in Shadow Strings is built around new options rather than endlessly replacing old ones.

Weapons, outfits, skills, and passive abilities emphasize different strengths, weaknesses, and synergies instead of following a simple path from weak to strong. Equipment that is useful in one battle may be a poor choice in another.

Emilia can be rebuilt around the challenge ahead, while her companions follow fixed specialties of their own. They are not customizable copies of Emilia: each is designed around a distinct combat identity that the player must learn to use effectively.

Understanding an enemy’s weaknesses, status effects, attack patterns, and elemental pressure can therefore matter as much as raw power. The right preparation can turn a difficult encounter into an opportunity to exploit the systems in your favor.

Explore the Realms of the Dead

Journey through five distinct realms of the Underworld, each with its own atmosphere, creatures, puzzles, hazards, and hidden history.

Between expeditions, Emilia returns to a mysterious Hospital that serves as a place of recovery and preparation — and raises questions of its own.

Change the World with Music

Freeing Divine Beings grants Emilia new resonances that change how she interacts with the environment. Shift between light and shadow, manipulate magnetic forces, freeze parts of the world, break through obstacles, alter time, and combine powers to uncover new routes.

Explore at Your Own Pace

Enemies are visible in the world, allowing many standard encounters to be avoided when you want to focus on exploration or story.

Defeat does not erase permanent progress: discovered rewards, progression, and activated travel points remain yours when Emilia returns to the Hospital.

Fast-travel connections and interconnected routes keep exploration focused on discovery rather than repetitive backtracking.

Discover What Lies Off the Path

Shadow Strings has no endless checklist of mandatory side quests. Instead, exploration leads to hidden areas, Memories, collectibles, character moments, equipment, and secrets that deepen both Emilia’s abilities and her story.