Esperia ~ Uprising of the Scarlet Witch ~

(Review from start to chapter 10) If you're looking for a FE inspired game with a bit more story and less means, go for it ! I'm honestly surprised by the quality of this game. Though keep in mind it's still a very small indie game and it has some issues inherent to lack of funds ! I'm a huge Fire Emblem gamer since my childhood and for games in this category, I'm looking for 2 things : - [b] A big tactical challenge [/b] - [b] Heavy focus on characters interactions [/b] in order to get invested in my favorites units. Esperia manages to get both of those crucial elements right. And I mean REALLY right + a story that's compelling (but not groundbreaking) for now. If you want a more detailed review, check below. [b][u] Writing : 4/5 [/u][/b] (so far) The main story so far is pretty classic (on par with FE games such as FE 6 and 7), but it has potential to evolve. The intro is a bit too complicated to follow, but after that the pace is just about right. The main story is not where the writing shines though. The main accomplishment is in the characters interactions. They feel organic and not forced. Details like the orphan trios, Lysanna and Melvis, or the teacher with Sara and Elphin are REALLY well made. Supports are far better than what you would expect from any small indie games, let alone main Fire Emblem games ! One of the issues is that a lot of ennemies do not have 2D sprites for dialogues so it's a bit hard to grasp them and they lack presence. [b][u] Gameplay : (4/5) [/u][/b] Gameplay is really similar to old FE games. Weapon triangle, bonds, durability, stats, everything is there. They are a few twists to the formula though. Buffs and Debuffs, special abilities (like FE9 10), possibility to add stats manually sometimes. I don't have a lot to say about maps, they are like any FE game out there, and a lot of them have small gimmick which keep them engaging. I feel like there could have been a little mechanic added to the mix (like dragon veins) but I might be picky. I'm playing in hard difficulty, which, to be fair, is REALLY tough. I feel like the first few maps would gain from having a bit more option or a bit less difficulty overall. Especially those with time limited objectives, they tend to be REALLY close. It may be a biiiit too close for my taste though. Thankfully, you can save mid map (I tend not to abuse it), so this difficulty is not that frustrating. If the dev removes this option in the future, maybe you should lower the hard difficulty a bit [b][u] Balance : (2.5/5) [/u][/b] Overall, I feel like there should be a bit more balance testing to the game so far. Elphin is too useful and broken. Some early bosses are way too tough (Chapter 4 and 5). There should be a bit more money added (I'm always broke even though I optimize and buy the cheapest things) and a lot of things need fine tuning in my opinion. It's not making the game unplayable but few easy changes can be made ! [b][u] Graphics: (2.5/5) [/u][/b] Big Illustrations look REALLY good. Portraits look good but a bit below FE standard, they feel a bit off sometime. The main issue is with battle animations and UI ! Battle animations are great for a lot of them, but movements are stiff and they lack clarity sometimes (like dodges). This is especially true for walking animations for slow classes. They lack in betweens I guess. Second big issue is UI. The text is really bland, especially for decision making and menues. UX should be improved. Switching from characters in the menu is a nightmare and with a little fix it should be resolved. I'm sad there is a lack of portraits sometimes but that's due to lack of funds I guess. [b][u] Music : (??/5) [/u][/b] Overall, I'm not a music guy. I admit there are some tracks that are defintely good (The one when Lysanna cries or the one on chapter 8x) but overall I don't really pay attention to them to be honest. One thing though ! The main battle music has a loop too short + it restarts every time a battle goes on. It gets obnoxious really fast ! Overall the game is really enjoyable so far, and I compare it to the best FE Fangame (GBA) out there. The writing is overall good with characters interactions being above the rest ! The gameplay is classic but challenging in a good way. Main issues are due to the scale of the team I'm guessing. I can see the game being way better with a few extra things here and there such as UI, more portraits and more testing. They are a lot of minor issues (which I'll detail in a steam post later) but they can be fixed pretty easily for the main part ! I hope that will be done. Thanks again for the game. Congrats on the team. I'll get that updated when finished ! P.S : Sylvie is the best archer i've ever dreamed of. Elphin is broken as hell. My Alex is cursed and I freaking love Sara/Elphin supports !

非常好玩的策略游戏，强烈推荐。 游戏包含大段精彩的情节描写、生动的人物和动作刻画，作者文笔精湛，有很多令人印象深刻的场景：比如女主成为起义军领袖的演说，龙骑士boss异常的勇猛，龙骑士姐妹双龙对决，王后撩拨王子的动作描写和性暗示，看得内心小鹿乱撞，顿时来了精神。 游戏中可以发展人物间的关系，亲密度由低到高为C、B、A，关系发展到到B有相应的属性点奖励，并且可以互相学习技能。可以在游戏界面EXTRAS-Relations中查看所有人物关系。 但是请注意，人物间可发展关系的次数是有限制的。看了作者的描述是每个人和其他人的关系最多发展5次C、3次B以及1次A，即每个人可以和最多5个人发展关系C，可以和C级关系中的3人发展成B，和B级关系中的1人发展成A。 目前C级只有三个任务：Elphin和Marie，Alex和Sally，Sylvie和Marius、Lysanna，完成后解锁新职业，后两个任务奖励无损耗的传奇武器，可以优先发展这几人的关系。后续作者还会添加三个新任务，填补三个成就。 游戏中每个人物最多可以携带六个技能，人物达到10级和15级、转职、三个C级任务都可以学习到人物专属的新技能，还可以通过关系发展到B学习到对方技能。可以通过管理-技能来选择当前需要激活的技能。 比较有特色的职业是盗贼，可以偷窃。之前版本盗贼的速度要高于敌人速度才有偷窃选项，但能够偷取所有非武器的道具。现在的版本取消了速度判定，虽然增加了偷钱的技能，但每张地图只能偷两次，而且只能偷回血道具和转职道具了。 游戏中魔法道具很多，其中只能由两个隐藏人物Nina和Helen使用的禁物理攻击和禁魔法攻击道具非常有用，各种强力敌人都能被拿捏的死死的，成为人畜无害的乖宝宝。 在有10回合限制的两个gold rush任务中，想要开启所有宝箱的话，需要法师装备远程开宝箱道具，第二个任务需要使用改变地形的道具使木桶路障消失。 最后强烈希望能出中文版本。

6.5/10 Good pick if you exhausted all Fire Emblem games and want more. Caution is advised otherwise. It is made using the same game engine as Vestaria Saga, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good includes a generally robust game system, with AI that exploits correctly terrain and counterattack ranges, and a variety of item mechanics to play with. Bad includes visual, audio bugs, as well as generally subpar presentation and production values: - Music no longer playing after a while with error dialog popping up (restart game to fix) - Badly looping music for some music tracks - Combat character sprites disappearing after a while (restart game to fix) - Some oversights regarding text/typos - Generic text font instead of a dedicated stylized game font - Transition to combat screen is not very clean - Lack of UI flair with everything appearing instantly (no cool animations) - Subpar map graphics and sprites especially on full screen - Somewhat cheap combat character graphics with ackward movement glitches, some of which are stock assets from SRPG studios (I noticed because I remember them from Vestaria Saga) No bug was critical enough to cause the game to crash, thankfully. My run clocked in at roughtly 20 hours, I missed some optional chapters and characters. While I steamrolled the game in normal difficulty by mercilessly milking EXP and building broken characters (lol Nina), I think the game has nasty difficulty spikes in some chapters that will catch offguard more laid back players. It is very easy to get yourself in a situation that requires save scumming (thankfully the RNG seed is changed when loading a save). Plot and characters are OK, but developpers really should get an editor. Some dialogs should be cleaned up. Some sexual allusions should IHMO be toned down (even if the point was to portray that character as a dirty pig). "By all the dragons!" repeated ad nauseum and showing excitement in VN scenes with "!!!!!!!!!" lines look amateurish. Anyway it's a fun game overall, FE fans should consider playing it !

Definitely one of the better SRPG Studio games I've played, yet it's not without its flaws. The long and short of it is that Esperia is a good game with significant narrative flaws. This is perhaps not too surprising, given how blatantly derivative it is of its two biggest influences, namely Fire Emblem 7 and the Utawarerumono trilogy. Need some examples? Oh boy, this should be fun: * Like Utawarerumono, it's narrated from a first-person perspective. Certain characters have the ability to transform, similarly to the Akuruturuka in Utawarerumono. * There's a cliffside duel for honor, reminiscent of a certain scene in Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception's epilogue. * The main antagonist is insecure, jealous, and manipulative, just like the main antagonist in Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth. * There's a bulky axe boss who stages a battle similar to the Port of Badon gaiden chapter in FE7. * Esperia's final battle uses a nearly identical format to FE7's final battle. * There are playable characters named Ursula and Linus; Linus' steed is named Lloyd. It's a not-so-subtle nod to three of FE7's Four Fangs. * The join time of several characters in Esperia echoes those of FE7 characters: for example, you get a prepromoted armor knight, a prepromoted axe infantry, and nomad around the same time that Hawkeye, Rath, and Wallace would join in FE7. * Similarly to FE7 Marcus, Ursula ranks among the most overpowered Jagen units I've ever seen. I seriously question the game sense of whoever playtested this and thought "[i]yeah, Ursula is fair and balanced.[/i] I think it's safe to say that if you enjoy either FE7 or Utawarerumono, then you'll enjoy Esperia. That said, I didn't find that Esperia ever eclipses its influences, nor does it ever find a way to really distinguish itself from them. Not only do you have the obvious problems like how most of the music tracks don't loop, how a few music tracks are reused for almost [i]every single battle[/i], or how there's a great deal of default SRPG Studio assets (e.g. tilesets, sprites, SFX), but there are several fundamental problems with the game's story which leave a lot to be desired. This is particularly disappointing because of how Esperia bills itself as "partly visual novel" (a la Utawarerumono). [h3]Story problems: where do I even begin? [/h3] I guess we should start with the most obvious problem: [i]the grammatical errors.[/i] Esperia is positively [i]riddled[/i] with grammatical errors like "He had barely walked past the main door that a small spear pierced his body." Or "This wasn't cause by ordinary poison." Or "Please, stay focus you two." Or "I spared with my father" instead of "I sparred with my father." You have typos like "shacking" instead of "shaking." You have dangling participles, sentences that don't end with periods, "i"s that aren't capitalized, words such as "literally" being repeatedly misused, the recurring usage of "I" as a direct object (instead of "me"), and characters' names being misspelled (e.g. "Llyod" instead of "Lloyd"). The vernacular and style of speech often doesn't fit with how medieval fantasy characters would speak. You have obvious errors, such as "Uther" being referred to as "Arthur." Esperia's worldbuilding has [i]significant[/i] issues. Whereas Esperia's chief influences -- namely Utawarerumono and FE7 -- use world maps to gradually introduce factions and locations, Esperia sort of just... name drops a bunch of different places and expects you to keep track of who's who. I STILL remember locations like Shyahoro, Yamato, and Tuskur from Utawarerumono even though it's been years since I've played those games. But here, I can't really recall any major house or why they're important... despite me finishing this game just an hour ago. As one example, Elliana is a country that's mentioned very early in the game, and is repeatedly mentioned throughout the game. Several characters are from Elliana, including a major antagonist. Several characters are from Phoenixia, and we're even told of an entire war being waged there. But we never even go to either places throughout the entire story. Character development is another major area where Esperia drops the ball. All of the characters are hollow and frankly, not very compelling. They rarely partake in engaging conversations. They don't have much, if any, personality. Maybe it's because 90% of the dialogue is spent on discussing the [i]plot[/i], rather than the characters. Or maybe it's because most characters stop saying anything significant after their join chapter. I don't know. Utawarerumono averted this by having a smaller cast of characters, which allowed their individual personalities to shine through. Even if they similarly lacked [i]development[/i] like Esperia characters, they at least had memorable personalities. Most of the game's focus on character development -- what little it has, anyway -- is dedicated to the two main characters and the main antagonist. And even so, I didn't find any of these characters to be particularly well-written or developed. They begin and end the story as the same character, albeit in different positions or locations. It's a far cry from the likes of Haku from the Utawarerumono mask duology: the sacrifices he had to make, or his gradual transformation from cowardly weasel to reluctant hero. Probably my biggest problem with a large chunk the story is that it spends too much time on details that don't matter, and glosses over the big picture that actually [i]does[/i] matter. As an example: if a character finds a secret passage, then you will be treated to five or six panels of dialogue describing every detail about that secret passage -- how it looks, what color it is, what color the surroundings are, and how mysterious it feels to be venturing through a secret passage. As if that weren't already enough, the game describes every gory detail of every boss fight [i]after[/i] you've defeated those bosses. Oftentimes, this obviously contradicts the gameplay. My main character acts as if she's amid some super challenging struggle, even though I just saw her deal 25 x 2 damage to a pathetic boss who only deals 13 damage to her in return. She ORKOd the final boss, yet I was still treated to a mountain of dialogue describing this epic conflict between herself and the final boss. [i](And on that note: why does the final boss only have 40 something HP? I beat the final chapter in 1 turn. That's pathetic.)[/i] To be blunt, [b]I don't need to know these details[/b]. I don't need to read these superfluous, repetitive, and generic descriptions of what a battle looks like. What I would MUCH rather know are things like the main characters' pasts, their personalities, and their relationships with the other characters. Put simply: I would much rather learn more about the game's setting and its inhabitants. The biggest problem with Esperia's story is that it too often misses the forest for the trees. Couple this with the amateurish style of writing which marred by a myriad of grammatical mistakes, and you get an overall story which doesn't hit its mark. There do exist traces of greatness here and there, but they're too often overshadowed by the narrative's glaring flaws. [Review is "too long for Steam;" I posted my full review on GameFAQs at https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/276206-esperia-uprising-of-the-scarlet-witch-/reviews/177179]

I was enjoying the game but I accidentally pressed space bar which skipped some dialogue. I do not want to replay a chapter to see what I missed.

Esperia is game of the year for me so far. I thought Vestaria took the crown when it came to Fire Emblem spinoffs, but Esperia has it beat. 25 hours long? Try 45-50 for me. (Admittedly I am notoriously slow and suffer from analysis-paralysis. Oh, and my son also wanted me to read part of the story aloud, and that slowed me down a bit as well I suppose. He was away for some parts of it, thankfully.) The plot carries this game. I loved it and all of the characters. There's depth to the character interactions. Deciding which characters get to interact felt important and plot relevant. I came away wishing I could unlock a lot more of them easily. I could've done without a lot of those annoying grammatical errors, but I'm probably one of the few people that even notices them. Choices, hidden chapters and bond-specific quests keep me guessing at what content I've missed out on. Oh, and the hidden classes as well. Combat was occasionally challenging on Normal. I lucked out in getting DEF early with Diana, and she was able to carry the team for a while. DEF - It's what's for dinner. Mmm, DEF. Love DEF. I enjoyed the combat, but I do have some minor criticisms. - There were many different weapons, but the stats for them don't deviate much. The initial short spear really wasn't outclassed by the silver spear. I think the difference in damage was 3 or 4 points per swing, and the difference in weight maybe 2 or 3? There are the 2x weapons, of course, which are quite devastating. Beyond those, though, and the weapons which targeted different classes, the weapons were a bit too similar for me. - I wish I had more information regarding when two characters were improving their relationship. I was likely messing around on certain maps for absolutely no reason, trying to max out relationships. - You get a character near the end who doesn't get much time to develop the aforementioned relationships. - One battle in particular was quite irritating and poorly designed. Not wanting to give too much away. In order to open up the way for the non-flyer units, three siege towers had to get into specific positions. Unfortunately, they're guests, and the AI is very poor at controlling them. (The player should be able to control them!) Some poor sod decided to come get my crew using a bridge/ladder, unfortunately for him, and we ended up being victorious solely due to that. A couple of positive notes: + Level ups could be RNG nightmares, as expected with any Fire Emblem. What Esperia did right, though, was provide each character a bank of points that increases by 2 upon level up which can then be used to help negate stupid RNG. (Thank you.) + The string of RNG isn't saved (THANK YOU!). If a player gets a bad run out of numbers, reloading will produce a different set of numbers, so keep saving and you're very rarely screwed. Also, some characters start out with some very low HP/DEF/RES and without getting a bit more help they're not likely to survive long. The enemy AI happily tries to kill off weak characters, and it doesn't take long for the enemy to get huge movement ranges. I'll likely be back once I decide if I want to take on the Hard difficulty or just shoot for completely different choices and relationships under the Normal difficulty. This is well worth your time if you appreciate Fire Emblem combat and you're willing to do some reading.

Its a solid SRPG overall! It does feel clunky and rough around the edges in a lot of places probably cuz of SRPG maker, i think with a big budget this game would've popped off, i do like it for what it is as it is, though. I think the story is really good and probably one of the best among the SRPG genre! For some negatives: Game is Waaaay too hard at some points, even in normal, as someone incredibly familiar with the SRPG genre i still found myself having to reset a lot of times because units would get one tapped, specially Alex since axe users seem a tad overtuned? Like having +10 skill and agility over an axe guy they'd still have 50~70% of landing a hit on him which would do most of his hp in one hit. ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THE CRIT RATE OF ENEMIES. Having a lot of random soldiers have around 5~13% chance of critting me everytime i get attacked is a tad too much, leaves a lot out to chance and frustration when i have to reset over an unlucky crit (It happened quite a few times). More places to get gold would be apreciated too, there is only 4 sidequests for it and 2 of them are just repeat of the previous one, i really didnt want to redo them. Same with the point above, a few more spots with the base menu would have been great, there is a spot in the midgame where you have to go a few maps without it and i just had to make do with what weapons i had not able to buy anything. Oh yeah, also maybe a few more promotion items dropped would've been good too, i ended up with like 3 characters non promoted which kinda sucked. On chapter 17 (iirc) where you have to take the 3 forts having units spawn EVERY SINGLE TURN was really tedious, it should have been every few turns or if you kill the previous ones. On chapter 18 the siege weapons wouldnt work? The ai moved them close to the gates like twice and then they stopped moving. Oh also the BERSERK skill is just broken and my bear guy would just run randomly and it wouldnt turn off after 2 turns. With all that said, i had a great time with it! Specially with the story, the mix between SRPG and visual novel was amazing, i ended up caring about (most) of the cast and understanding where they came from and why they did what they did. GG, i hope it has a sequel! Signed off from the one august player of this game acording to steamcharts lol.

A great indie srpg; good map design, good characters, good plot. The game is quite difficult - Normal is significantly harder than a Fire Emblem game's "Hard", and at times feels harder than Maddening. Presentation is the main weakness since it uses SPRG Maker's basic layout for everything but that's really my only criticism.

This is a pretty good SRPG. I usually look for solid gameplay and good character interactions in these games and this one definitely delivers on both those aspects. The gameplay is very solid with consistently good map design, some really fun mechanics and it offers solid challenge that rarely feels unfair. The characters are very enjoyable having a nice mix of personalities without anyone being overly tropey, the support conversations are nice mix of serious moments and fun banter and they give a good look into the characters, none of them felt like pointless fluff like a lot of them do in some modern Fire Emblems. Where it falters a bit for me is the main plot, it's very hit or miss, the early and midgame are generally strong, but the later parts didn't really do it for me. The non-playable cast also generally felt much weaker than the playable cast writing wise with a couple of important characters that I really didn't care for at all. The support system also feels a bit weak, it's nowhere near GBA FE levels of bad, you'll definitely get a decent amount of them by playing naturally, but they do build pretty slowly resulting in there being a couple of characters I consistently deployed that barely got any and were thus left mostly unexplored which was a shame. As is the case with basically anything made in SRPG Studio the presentation has some issues, the custom made CGs and character art generally look really good, but it does also use a fair amount of base SRPG Studio assets which don't look the greatest. It doesn't bother me personally as I've spent a lot of time both in the engine and playing games made with it, but for those unfamiliar with it, it might be a bit offputting. Overall it's flaws definitely hold it back a bit for me, but it's still a very good time that I would recommend if you're a fan of the genre.

This was a delightfully fun srpg. I'm going to be comparing it to Fire Emblem a lot for obvious reasons. Quite difficult on hard mode and about as complex as the game cube/Wii FE games. The character writing is on point where the main cast all have enough depth that I'm going to go for another run to see more supports. I think the support system is a massive improvement over most FE games. Each character can support 5 characters, which will let you see a lot of their plot though not all of it. I was also able to find a mechanical use for almost every character, which is also a big improvement over many srpgs. The gameplay is very similar to GBA era FE with an expanded magical support system. On hard, you will need to make use of the buffing and debuffing spells to make it through the late game. The main critiques I have right now are: 1 - A few characters are lacking supports and some of them have a fairly short list. This sounds like something that will be fixed in upcoming updates. 2 - While the writing is good, the art and presentation is a bit lacking. Individual stills are very nice, but there are very limited expression changes and cut scene fights are lackluster. High recommendation for those who like Fire Emblem games or complex srpgs.