The development studio Vestaria Project has finally released their tactics JRPG title, Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions, on Steam. Vestaria Project is headed by Shouzo Kaga, the creator of one of the most popular tactics JRPG franchises in the industry, Fire Emblem. This release marks his first game in more than a decade since his hiatus from the gaming industry, lasting from 2005 to 2015.
To be clear, this isn’t the initial release of Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions. This is simply the game’s English adaptation. The original release of the game came in September of 2016 more than three years ago. However, the game was only in its local Japanese, remaining unavailable in any other language – though there were a handful of shoddy fan translations that floated around the internet.
This translation also isn’t complete just yet – the beginning especially contains a handful of rough translations and a few errors. However, it’s more than clear enough to convey the proper language, and the team is continuing to improve on translation in further updates.
Vestaria Saga I is well-known for its sprawling and complex maps that can change the entire battle in the course of a turn or two. Single actions can domino into others, and you’ll end up with reshaping the entire battlefield off of a single small decision.
Because of this, the game also makes use of a feature to save every five turns, so you can quickly undo any mistakes you may have made or turn back some of your more egregious oversights. Vestaria Saga I also features two difficulties to welcome new and veteran players alike, as well as a variety of different story paths based on your choices. Influencing those choices are over 20 unique characters to recruit, each with their own skills, weaponry, and class.
If you’re familiar with Fire Emblem, you’ll likely find some common ground between them with the Vestaria Saga titles. Given that they’re each created by the same mind, it makes sense that there would be some similarities.
Still, fans praise the Vestaria Saga franchise for having more complex maps that require a bit more thought before movement. The plot also is a bit more intense, rather than the relatively-copy/paste titles you get playing as the ninetieth version of a colorfully-haired sword fighter that the Fire Emblem franchise likes to feature.
It’s unknown if there are intentions to release more of the Vestaria Saga titles under an English translation, but fans will definitely be keeping a lookout in hopes of finding them.
