It’s been a while, but I’ve finally returned (and recuperated) from my vacation back in October. Thankfully Elieson has done an excellent job updating the front page and I’m pleased to say he’ll be continuing his role for the foreseeable future.

Prologue map (Atolfis is highlighted).

Note: All images belong to Shouzou Kaga.

That said, you’ll continue to see me popping in every now and then, as there’s still a lot of things for me to cover. To begin with, let’s recap all the recent happenings relating to Shouzou Kaga’s new indie project, Vestaria Saga.

After formally introducing his project to the world via a gameplay trailer back in August, Kaga started posting frequent updates on his blog during early October, conveniently while I was away.

Of particular interest, on 22nd October 2015, Kaga made a detailed post in response to many comments he had received about his new project.

(Chapter 1 and 1x maps)

First and foremost, Kaga shot down all inquiries about donations or commercialising of his project. As he kindly points out, he and his team are developing a free indie game during their free time and for their own self-satisfaction.

Because it’s not a commercial project, Kaga and his team–a retired man and his band of volunteers–don’t have to stress about adhering to industry standards and other complicated matters that arise when developing a commercial game.

Next, Kaga’s project appears to be progressing well, but not without problems. So far, Kaga estimates that the first half of his game is 50% complete, but admits that problems have being appearing left and right.

The root problem is that RPG Studio, which the game is developed with, is a “borrowed” engine. So whenever the team encounter any bugs or errors, it’s difficult to fix the problem and they can only go around it.

However for the sake of his test players and everyone looking forward to the game, he’s doing his best to keep up the spirit.

(Chapter 2 and 2x maps)

Furthermore, it appears Kaga is axing all components of the game that “require too much effort”. Obviously since this is a free game and nobody is getting paid, Kaga doesn’t want to spend too much time where it’s not needed. This includes cutscene graphics.

However, fans shouldn’t be afraid that Kaga is lowering the scope of his game. Even right now, it takes 30 hours to play through the 10 maps that Kaga and his team have created since June.

In fact, the scope seems so large that Kaga is planning to split his game into two parts.

To my understanding, the first game will feature 20-25 maps. Half of these are story maps, each as large as those in Berwick Saga and requiring around 5 hours to complete, while the other half are shorter sidequest maps.

Besides this, there will be 100 classes (60 will appear in the first part) and over 100 characters (including enemies and NPCs). There’s also a gargantuan amount of text.

Finally, Kaga signs off by informing his followers to patiently look forward to next Summer, which I’m guessing is when his first game will hopefully reach completion.

(Chapter 3 and 3x maps)

A week later, Kaga provided additional clarification about his two games.

Firstly, he assured concerned followers, stating that his initial plans haven’t changed, but he believes splitting his game into two will be more beneficial for development and balancing purposes.

Secondly, although the overarching story won’t reach its conclusion in the first game, players will see Zeidreese (the first game’s hero) achieve his objective and there will be a clear break, effectively rendering the two parts as standalone games.

Lastly, although there is interest from fans to implement a system to transfer stats between the two games, Kaga dismisses this idea due to the aforementioned balancing issues.

Curiously, Kaga has also been teasing new character portraits in his recent posts and they look rather spiffy too, almost like a blend between TearRing Saga and Berwick Saga’s styles. Dare I say, some of them remind me of Hirota Mayumi’s works…

In any case, it’s nice to know Kaga is pulling out all the stops and we can look forward to not one, but two new Kaga games in the near future!