Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions - Review @ TechRaptor

Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions Review

Praise Kaga

Some might be surprised to learn that the mind behind Nintendo's popular Fire Emblem games, Shouzou Kaga, hasn't had a hand in making the series for years. Kaga left the series developer, Intelligent Systems, after the release of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 in 1999, two decades ago as of this writing. He went on to create Tear Ring Saga, a strategy RPG so similar to Fire Emblem, that Nintendo took him to court. After some time away, Kaga is back with Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions, a Japan-exclusive freeware title from 2016. With a new translation by Dangen Entertainment, more people than ever before can experience this adventure by one of the genre's pioneers.

Studio Vestaria Project is the developer behind Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions. Project is an apt name, since this SRPG feels like a passion project by Kaga and the rest of the developers. While Vestaria Saga is incredibly low-budget (it runs on SRPG Studio, which is very similar to RPG Maker) it's evident that there is a lot of love and care put into crafting this game. Artist Mayumi Hirota, know for her work on Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, created the character portraits for an authentic and retro feel. Character art has a weathered and retro look, like they're from an old manga or 1990s anime. Character designs are quite varied too, assuring that every unit you recruit to your party feels like a unique individual.

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Final Thoughts
The story of Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions is conveyed through an excellent translation. I did not find any errors despite the 2016 release being in Japanese only. Dangen Entertainment had a serious undertaking, as this game contains what feels like a novel's length of dialogue. Story-wise though, it is relatively generic. A continent is embroiled in war, and your young hero needs to save it. The plot is very political in nature, with a lot of the key characters prattling back and forth. Character-wise, I can't say any of them were particularly memorable either - not even the main character, Zade, who was just an uninteresting noble.

Vestaria Saga does boil down to being a game held back by its bare bones, clunky engine, and ugly graphics. While the maps are mostly interesting puzzles with a lot of strategy involved, combat isn't as exciting as Fire Emblem or even the recent Wargroove. If you can look past those flaws, though, you have a game passionately made by industry veterans with cleverly-made maps, awesome portrait art, an absolutely awesome retro soundtrack, and a lot of love and care thrown in.

Review Summary
Puzzling maps and plenty of retro throwbacks to Fire Emblem games of yore make for an exicting SRPG. Unfortunately, the archaic, clunky engine and extremely large maps make gameplay a slog sometimes.

Score: 7/10

Pros

• Mayumi Hirota's Character Art
• Great Throwback Soundtrack
• Interesting Map Objectives
• Quality Translation

Cons

• SRPG Studio
• Some Maps Are Too Large
• Relatively Uninteresting Combat Mechanics

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HiddenX said:

You have to play on the orthodox difficulty setting (hard) to enjoy the combat engine and the strategies that are necessary to beat a map.

I'm in the last quarter of the game (after 86 hours) and enjoy every minute of it.
If you want to keep everybody alive you have to replay quite a lot, because the maps have many surprises and difficulties in them.

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1. the character's class (nearly every character has a class of it's own)
2. the equipped weapon

1. the right party mix
2. the right equipment