Shouzou Kaga has a pretty hefty resume under his belt. This is the man who created the Fire Emblem series, after all! Kaga worked with Intelligent Systems from the very first game's inception — Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light — right up until 1999's Fire Emblem: Thracia 776. That's six Fire Emblem games he's worked on.

Now the series is huge worldwide, but Kaga has little to do with the franchise, but he hasn't packed in game development forever. In fact, Kaga has been busy creating a brand new strategy RPG — and a sequel, no doubt. (Thanks Rock Paper Shotgun for bringing this to our attention!)

Vestaria Saga II: The Sacred Sword of Silvanister is a follow-up to the first game in the series, which got its first official English release on Steam back in 2019. This second game, known as Vestaria Saga Gaiden in Japan, was actually released in the country back in 2019, but DANGEN Entertainment has been working on bringing the title over here.

The first game was a tough-as-nails old-school strategy RPG, similar to the older Fire Emblem games, so we expect the sequel to bring a bit of rough and tumble to the genre once again. The series is made by Vestaria Project, with Kaga working as a key member there alongside a group of volunteers, and the games are created in free video game-making software SRPG Studio.

Here's a story summary along with some of the game's key features and new additions, pulled straight from its Steam page:

Vestaria Saga is a strategy RPG series where positioning, movement, and weaponry are paramount to success. Move your heavily armed units around a classically styled grid-based map and engage pirates, rebels, monsters, imperial soldiers, and anyone else that stands in your way.

While Vestaria Saga I chronicled the battles that ensued in the Solvian-Meledian War, Vestaria Saga II focuses on the further adventures of Zade, the hero from VS1, bringing the tales of him and his companions to a thrilling, satisfying end. Across his epic quest, Zade will encounter allies both new and old while also uncovering more of the mysteries behind the vile Margulites and their plan to plunge Vestaria into a new age of darkness.

Features

- New classes, gear, and skills to utilize across a wider variety of maps compared to its predecessor
- Ally conversations now confer stat boosts and other advantages
- A slew of other quality of life improvements have been made to the classic VS system
- An enthralling campaign of espionage, international intrigue, and war written by veterans of the genre
- Varying story paths and endings based on your choices and who survives to the end
- Over 30 unique characters to recruit with a wide variety of classes, weapons, and skills
- Intricate maps filled with a variety of enemies and strategic puzzles to overcome
- A rebalanced, single difficulty mode
- The ability to save every turn so that you can quickly undo any mistakes you've made during a battle
- A full English script translated from the original Japanese by a veteran translator
- Another chapter in a strategy RPG series that builds upon Japanese SRPG traditions

Story

After a ship carrying a Solvian imperial diplomat was mistakenly set ablaze in Meledian waters, the Solvian Emperor Manneus declared war on the island kingdom. Led by the famed general Ajax, Solvia's imperial forces soon invaded Meledian shores. Once Meleda suffered a critical defeat in the Battle of Frist, the Empire quickly swooped in to seize the royal capital of Regina. Crushed beyond any hope of recovery, Meleda was forced to watch its invaders brutally wipe 500 years of history right off the face of the map. And so, one year passed... Once thought to have gone missing, the young princess Athol miraculously returned to the royal capital and freed its people through a furious battle.

The one who fought valiantly by her side and helped lead her to victory was none other than Zadrian, the young heir to Redessa. Meleda praised Zadrian as a national hero, showering him with fame and glory that far exceeded what they had once shown his elder brother Zecharias, the kingdom's finest knight. Zech was not only engaged to the princess, he was also the acting commander of the Meledian army... And most importantly, he was Zade's big brother– the man who Zade loved and respected more than anyone else. Feeling like his very presence had become a stain on his dear brother's reputation, Zade decided to leave the capital and set off on a new journey to the Temenos of Vesta. He took with him on his quest only a single traveling companion: Accorte Roland, a student of Sphire's magic academy and the daughter of a man who once saved Zade's life...

The game is free to download in Japan, but you'll have to use your gold coins to grab a copy of this on Steam. And, at the moment, that's the only place you can get it. We've never seen the first entry on Switch either. So while we'd love to see this on a Nintendo console, it will likely never happen. So we'll have to give the game a spin on our PCs then!

You can check out the Vestaria Saga II right here, or perhaps you want to pick up the first game — Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions — which you can also grab from Steam.

Have you played Vestaria Saga before? Are you interested in the sequel? Let us know!

[source rockpapershotgun.com]