Vestaria Saga 2: The Sacred Sword of Silvanister

The tactical RPG genre is a pretty popular genre in Japan, but it has expanded as a worldwide popular genre of games. This time Dangen Entertainment has come up with the newest entry in the Vestaria franchise Vestaria Saga II: The Sacred Sword of Sinvanister. The Vestaria Saga series is a story-centric strategy RPG in which positioning, movement and weaponry are critical to success. We will control our characters' units around a classic-style grid map and take on pirates, rebels, monsters, imperial soldiers and anything else that gets in our way. Now, this may sound a bit too familiar to another franchise? Well, there’s actually a pretty good reason for this, so, what is it? Well, let’s talk all about this game now, so let’s get started!

About the game

Vestaria Saga Gaiden: The Sacred Sword of Silvanister follows the adventures of Zade, the hero of VS1, and brings the stories of him and his companions to a thrilling conclusion. Throughout his epic quest, Zade will encounter allies new and old, while uncovering more mysteries behind the vile Margulites and their plan to plunge Vestaria into a new age of darkness.

This is the second title in the franchise, and it comes fully loaded with new character classes, abilities, equipment and obviously plenty more maps as the story is even bigger than in its predecessor. There are conversations with the allies, and these even affect the skills and statistics of the characters, this works as a way of character development and character upgrade system. And speaking of characters, there are more than 30 unique new characters, with different classes and abilities you can recruit and use to join your team. There’s a big variety of weapons and unique abbilities too.

There are plenty of new upgrades to the fighting mechanics of the game, and they’ve added a new type of espionage campaign system. This new mode will feature a lot of action as well as an amazing tension between the characters and during the missions. Keep in mind that strategy is key in this game, as you-ll have to plan ahead, this will determine the outcome of each encounter and which characters make it to the end.

A similar SRPG

The case of 'Vestaria Saga', by the master Shouzou Kaga, to whom we owe the beginnings of the Fire Emblem saga up to and including 'Thracia 776' for the Super Famicom, was on its way to stay in its country of origin (it debuted as freeware in 2016 in Japan), but surprisingly debuted outside Japan in 2019. And now we also get its sequel!

The classes and unit behavior follows a similar pattern to Fire Emblem, so veterans won't practically need to enter the Prologue houses to have the tutorial slowly unraveled for them. If we are attacked with an axe, it will be best to counter with a sword, for example. And if we look for cover where there are trees, the better, to increase evasion. In addition, here the weapons are spent (as it should be), not as in the casualized Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.

Review: 8/10

Overall Vestaria Saga II: The Sacred Sword of Sinvanister is an incredibly solid game. It’s up there with Fire Emblem for this genre, not only in the mechanics, but also in the gameplay, story, and even art.

Pros:

• Excellent gameplay
• Great Story
• Lots of interesting mechanics

Cons:

• Not very original
• Bad visuals