With half a year remaining until Vestaria Saga‘s anticipated release date, it’s a good thing that Kaga has been cranking out a lot of blog posts lately.
Note: All images belong to Shouzou Kaga.
Just yesterday, Kaga posted some interesting concept artwork of the Servant (or Savant) class that Talys belongs to.
Today, he treated us to a broad overview of the beginning of Chapter 8.
For those who haven’t caught up with Kaga’s new indie game, be sure to check the Vestaria Saga news archive, in particular the article titled October Updates.
Like previous Fire Emblem and Saga games, each chapter opens with the number and name of the chapter. Here, it’s Chapter 8: The Defence of Malaya.
Amusingly, Malaya is the former name of Malaysia, a real-life country. Added to the fact the game also features a Republic of Venecia, it’s clear Kaga still loves borrowing from real world geography.
As soon as the chapter begins, there’s of course plenty of pre-mission dialogue to set the scene–the above featuring Siltin and Hoelun, who are friendly units on the map.
Despite being a free game made with essentially the Fire Emblem version of RPG Maker, the game looks very polished (especially the character portraits). Well, the grass tiling is a bit ugly, but what can you do?
Afterwards, players can review and select their units.
In the image above, we see Lilia the Priest and her highlighted skill “Herb Picker”, which grants Herbs (likely recovery items) with a 15% chance.
The character selection meanwhile includes Jan, Ash, Troy, Brody, Zayed, Sheila, Banacel, Luvina, Lilia and Hoelun. Most of these are names we’ve heard before, but Troy, Brody and Banacel are knights serving Zeid.
Once players have confirmed their choices, there’s a bit of pre-battle dialogue before the battle starts for real.
Given the limited context, it appears the nasty fella here, Dulkin, is taking advantage of the situation to exterminate Siltin and Giscard–the remaining Solis royalty–in one fell swoop.
Then finally the moment you’ve been waiting for, which is the chance to show off your tactical prowess… and inevitably sweat buckets when the enemy reveals a nasty trick partway through the mission.
Before planning your moves though, Kaga suggests checking the mission objectives, because they can get quite complex like in Berwick Saga.
Unsurprisingly, the Victory Objective is to Defend for 15 Turns or Defeat Dulkin.
In addition, players should note the Defeat Objectives: the deaths of Zeid, Atol, Siltin, Giscard and Hoelun.
Above is another look at Siltin, one of the NPCs that must survive the battle. At the bottom is a brief description: “Successor to the Solis Kingdom’s throne, also known as the Nobleman of the Plains”.
Hardin from Archanea Chronicles.
As a brief aside, I can’t help but think Kaga really loves the idea of heroic men of the plains.
Even way back in Shadow Dragon, we had Hardin the Coyote–or “Wolf of the Plains” in Japanese–who guarded the Lea (plains) of Aurelis against Dolhrian invaders.
Then TearRing Saga introduced Leonhart, the “Hero of the Plains”, who could totally pass for Hardin’s long-lost brother.
You could also argue that Binding Blade and Blazing Sword continued the trend without Kaga, with the nomadic country of Sacae and Dayan the Silver Wolf.
Not just Siltin, but we have Giscard in the same game who looks like another lost relative of Hardin’s.
Anyway…
The last thing to note is that Chapter 8’s map looks strangely small despite Kaga’s promises of 5 hour long maps and previous numbered chapters boasting massive maps.
If you combine the two screenshots above, you can see the entire map in one and a half screens. Of course, it’s possible the map stretches further north and south, but it’s odd we haven’t seen any images to suggest this.
Or maybe the map isn’t finished? Either way, it’s just a random little observation.
