Full disclosure- I cleared the original Japanese release of this game multiple times and was fortunate enough to be one of the English beta testers during which I played this game again… a lot. I’m incredibly familiar with it and am about as big of a fan of this game as you can get. As for if that means my opinion is valuable here or if I’m too biased to give a fair assessment, I leave up to you.
This is one of my favorite SRPGs that I’ve ever played, which honestly surprised me. Sure, it’s a game from the creator of Fire Emblem with his distinct style which I’ve grown to love, but limitations with SRPG Studio typically hold games made with it back from being great, and there are a few maps with objective types I find uninteresting. The main draw that I’ve found is instead from the units you control. Everyone is just so fun to use, and they all feel distinct from each other (with the exception of 3 duos). There’s a character who debuffs nearby allies but earns gold if he levels up. There’s an archer with strong 7 range sniping. There’s a guy with a cliff-climbing horse. There’s a girl with a 1-5 range refresh staff?! There’s a playable dragon who only sticks around since you pay for her meals. Not that wyvern rider or manakete nonsense, just a straight up fire-breathing dragon! The list goes on. There isn’t a single dud in the playable roster.
This is a design choice I really enjoyed. Having so many fun and useful characters available at any point makes good sections great and prevents otherwise boring sections from actually getting tedious. Although the reason the game was made like this might turn some away- the unique unit availability situation.
Units in this game are not usable in every chapter. The party will often split up, with characters only able to be in one of the groups. Early, which characters go where is already predetermined by the story. Later, the player is able to choose the majority of the groups themselves. The main character himself, Zade, is only usable in 16 of the 26 maps in the game. So, to avoid throwing you to the wolves with a bunch of untrained scrubs, there just aren’t many scrubs to begin with. While I find this to be an elegant solution in its simplicity which also encourages you to constantly utilize strong equipment rather than hoard it, I recognize that players looking to “Build their army” and turn a legion of villagers into battle-hardened warriors won’t get that here. There’s some of it, but the limited availability works against the payoff. Only being able to deploy Ezrel in half of the late game maps didn’t stop me from turning him into a beast though.
One of the many reasons why units are so good is because of the changes this game received when it was updated from being a side story to a sequel. Basically, it was made easier with more useful items and higher experience gain. The current version also allows you to save whenever you want, unlike in Vestaria Saga I, which limited saves to every 5 turns. Having played both versions, I can say with confidence that making the game easier was for the better. The save system will probably be controversial, and while it’s not my favorite save system ever, it works in context. It lets you be much more experimental with your play, and I don’t miss the frustration from resets that lose a ton of progress. While I did get a kick out of the butt-clenching situations that arise in Berwick Saga when you’re clawing your way to that next 5 turn save, there really just aren’t enough tightly time-constrained scenarios in Vestaria to make that system worthwhile here. And yeah, you are expected to use the saves a fair amount, so I don’t think this is a good game to play without resetting. But then again, Ironman players are gluttons for punishment so maybe that’s actually appealing.
There are a few chapters that an Ironman player is likely to struggle with, namely Ch. 15 and Ch. 23, which also happen to be my least favorite maps in the game (yes this is the map design segue). Chapter 15 is the only chapter that got harder in the new version of the game, as mounted enemies universally got the canto ability ala Fire Emblem 4 or Path of Radiance. It usually doesn’t matter, but Ch. 15 was clearly designed with the powerful lance enemies not being able to move away after attacking you in mind. Ch. 23 is really long and has a ton of reinforcements. It’s a poor execution of an interesting premise Kaga originally used in FE5. But when this game remixes other map ideas, they usually turn out pretty well! For instance, Ch. 17 is an actually good take on the siege concept from VS1’s Ch. 11, and I absolutely adore Ch. 24 despite its clear similarities to VS1’s Ch.20, a map I can’t stand. There are a variety of unique objectives, situations, and events throughout the game which I was impressed with. Even after going through this game 6+ times, they still managed to tickle my brain.
And now, the presentation! Well, it’s an SRPG Studio game alright. You can look at the pictures; graphically it’s nothing special. They did make the most with what they had, so at times the maps as a whole really come together. Also, the music is enjoyable, even if most of it is reused from VS1. Of the new tracks, my favorite is Karajan’s battle theme. SRPG Studio does have the benefit of making the gameplay snappy though. Saving, loading, skipping, and moving is all done like that. Menuing could be improved a bit though, as I find VS1’s menus to be overall more useful. While VS2 streamlined the Conversation Guide, the Stockpile no longer lets you filter by item type. It’s organized by Item ID which is ordered by item type, so axes for instance will all be next to each other, but there’s no individual tab to view only axes which is annoying when you have over 100 items in there. But the game isn’t any less playable for it. The weirdest menu is the one for choosing the language when starting the game. It’s cool that the JP release is easily accessible now, but the selection implementation is super jank and adds unnecessary loading time. I recommend going into the file directory to get around it, but it's absurd that the game startup made me consider that in the first place.
Speaking of the language, it’s finally time for the translation! The translation itself is mostly what you’re paying for, as the original JP release was free, although I’m not sure what the status of the JP distribution is currently beyond being bundled together with the English version here. And the translation is great! I dig the prose and enjoyed (proof)reading it. There are some cool lines that stuck with me even though the larger-scale fantasy politic worldbuilding stuff in the story is not my cup of tea. Fortunately, you can skip cutscenes if you want, just make sure the setting is enabled. Oddly enough, I liked how the military strategy laid out in the dialogue tied into the gameplay; it's done particularly well in this title. The cast itself is a good mix of likable and unlikable, although I could do without some of the “Kagaisms” that always seem to pop up in his games. If the cast is lacking something imo, it’s a new standout lovable character. Karajan almost fits this for me, but a lot of his appeal is from gameplay rather than his personality imo; most of my favorite characters are returning ones from VS1 even if I like a lot of the new faces. In other words, Cezar is still the best one. I enjoyed seeing Zade again, and it’s nice to see where he is now compared to the first title, and how he adapts to having a new set of companions. The odd mix of new and old characters make this a worthwhile sequel that you could jump into even without having played VS1.
Overall, highly recommend this title. There’s a lot of interesting concepts here and it plays very smoothly. Hope this helps anyone looking at the game!
