Good day, rpgmaker players!
Today I played Sagawind, a fantasy game made by Trance2 that unfortunately was never completed. Is this a demo? No! Two!

The 2013 release!
The more recent release start with a difficulty selection (Easy, Medium, Hard and... Unknown!) and features the adventures of Princess Vera Casteline: she's a rebellious princess (compared to her sister) of Windfield and the game starts a night when she's running from the guards. Clearly they won't lift a finger against her, so she goes to meet her best friend Amiee, the daughter of a farmer whose brother Tristan is apparently obsessed with training to become a hero.

Anyway Vera passes her time outside the castle, and later travels around Windfield (she can also visit an adventurer's training place if you want), then helps her friend Priscilla with a rat infestation inside the local warehouse, but while she walks back to the castle she's mugged by a goblin that steals a family heirloom. That evening she has dinner with her family and two members of the Church that have a disturbing behaviour, so she leaves. She then briefly meets a blonde thief that entered the royal garden but he later flees, even if Vera is envious of his freedom.

The day after she decides to search for the goblin thief, and since she has to enter the forest she's joined by Aimee in her travels through the forest towards the goblins' den.

A funny note is that in this game you can enter the main map and find an airship! Sadly aside for Torsia, a small port town taken from the older 2005 version (where it has a quest linked to the nearby lighthouse), you can roam the whole world map but not access any other place.


Even when you're a princess you cannot escape the classic "rats in the cellar" obligatory first quest!

The older 2005 version!
Then I tried the Release Something event 2005 version.
This time the game starts with no difficulty selection after a brief intro where a grandma is telling a tale about the ancients to some kids. Princess Vera of Castelgard (yes, this time the city has a different name) is bored and napping in the royal garden. She then decides to visit the nearby woods.
Here the city is far smaller (about 1/4 compared to the other demo) and also the woods are different but well mapped anyway. Here Vera encounters Giles, that's a clumsy thief, the very same guy that sneaks in the castle in the more recent version! Well, this time Giles joins her (even if there was the intention in the other version). Vera and Giles go to explore some ruins, then she goes home and is scolded by her parents, anyway she does not care much.

The day after she goes to the Harvest Festival and here she encounters Giles and a new character, Phoebe, an adventurer-in-training that joins invites the other two party members to go home with her. Unfortunately she cannot leave due to a problem with the lighthouse, but when they retrace the man who has the key of the place, they learn that he sold it to the forest thieves' boss. Well this means Giles' boss, of course! But unfortunately the game ends shortly after this...


Err you could have said "investigator" or "good judge of character" rather than thief! But uhm, ok!

Gameplay & Graphics
While the story is different, the gameplay and aestetic are more or less the same (except for the different style of the facesets, but that's really a minor nitpick).
The game is a classic party-based fantasy adventure game with many cutscenes and dialogues, but also battles and exploration. The game uses save-points and battles with classic random encounters limited to some dangerous areas (or dungeons, even if they can be also open-air, like a forest). You can manage your party members opening the Menu with "Esc" in the newer version and "+" in the old 2005 edition. In both games you also have to jump narrow gaps, and that's unfortunately explained only in the old version (or maybe I missed it in the new one!). It's simple done pressing again the directional button when standing on the edge, but there are no indications about where you can do that. The game also includes a couple of puzzles, but nothing worth of note, besides it's just the early game so difficulty is pretty low, in any case these simple additions are always a good thing.

Now, the graphics: the game uses the REFmap asset pack plus some sprites from other sources, such as some monster clearly taken from the Milano-Cat selection, and the final result is good, I also liked the cutscenes and dialogues in both versions. Mapping in this game is really VERY good (a little better in the new version), except for few problems that are present in both games: the bugs!

The more recent version has passability errors (barrels/chair legs), doors that are simple black spots (that leads nowhere), and there are also THREE identical Vera's Room! One on the upper left, one on the lower right and one on the upper right... and it's the same room! Moreover there is also the west path in the forest that leads to a locked space where you cannot move and forces you to reload the game. Sigh! The older version isn't much better: you can get stuck inside the Harvest Festival if you re-visit the place a second time, and other minor issues. Music is pretty good in both versions, it's what I can expect from a classic jrpg fantasy game!


And now another rabbit bites the dust. Poor little thing!

Final Verdict
Well, what a pity that we will never have a complete tale of Princess Vera, even if it's pretty obvious that the story was going to involve the good thief Giles joining Vera against the evil members of the Sophian Church. It's a pity for the bugs since the save-points system may lead to some unnerving moments, when you lose all your progress just for entering a wrong spot and being locked in place. For the rest it was a pretty good pair of demos, with more or less the same good aspects and flaws (pity for the bugs/errors! Otherwise pretty good and promising!).