Tears of the Sword

Tears of the Sword is a oddly named classic fantasy Rpgmaker game by SquishyWizard using RPG Tsukuru 2000. Last demo, the one I played and I am reviewing (the downloads here includes also a 2008 "Lacrimae Ferrii" edition that I guess was the first and shorter demo) was made in 2010, and consists of two parts: a prologue and a first chapter, and we play two different teams of four heroes in each.

The game starts at the end of the Ethran Civil War: we play as a group of veterans lead by Hayatou that are coming back home to the city of Verin after defeating the enemy army and killing the king of the Croixians, a race of humanoid creatures that look like humans but they posses various abilities like the capacity to morph into stronger forms and use weird powers. The first part is a sort of tutorial that teach us how to play the game, and we play as experienced heroes, even if you have to note that in this game skills aren't earned levelling up, but finding them in red chests (that are different from the brown ones that contain loot) or getting them from npcs, of course you can still earn experience killing enemies and get stronger and tougher, but just in term of stats and hitpoints.


A classic: I do something for you, and you do something for me!

As you can guess this mean that during the way home the group meets hostile creatures, and I do not mean just the dangerous creatures in the wilderness: their city has been attacked by some Croixians (that apparently do not know of the defeat and death of their king), so the soldiers have now to fight for their home. In short they will save most of the people even if Hayatou's wife dies (not really a spoiler, we see her for 5 minutes!) and he's nearly killed by the captain of the Croixians (also the son of the dead Croixian king) that escapes.

Years after those events our protagonist, Hayatou has still nightmares of those old days, even if the city was rebuild and he rules as a king in Veritas. Anyway he misses her comrades, that are probably travelling the world and settled somewhere, and he lives with his daughter Fiona. Unfortunately despite the peace treaty with the Croixians, things aren't going well because a mysterious corruption is threatening the lands.

This second part starts with a new protagonist that is found in the middle of a forest by one of the ranger that is investigating on the mysterious corrupting plague. She decides to call him Omen because it's the first word he remembers, and takes him to see the king Hayatou. I won't spoil the rest, but just say that here we won't play as Hayatou but as Omen (that apparently is an elemental mage) and his party that includes the ranger, a cleric, and Hayatou's daughter Fiona (that looks like she learned the warrior's way from her father) in their investigation of the corruption. The game ends with a non-combat section that sees we playing as a new character as he enters in town to speak with king Hayatou.


Shall we help this guy or not? Well that's your choice, since it is one of the totally optional tasks of this game!

Ok, gameplay is classic: some zones have typical random encounters, others have avoidable enemies, there are traps and hidden treasures, a couple of simple puzzles (one sort of trap, another in which for example there are different animals blocking the road and we have to fight the right food to make them move away, etc). Exploration is rewarded of course, since not only you can find items and skills for the party, but also some optional encounter and quests (the bounty hunter camp is for example an extra area that requires at least level 5, but do not worry if you missed it since you can explore everything you missed in the post-demo part, see this later).

Combat is pretty much classic: characters have skills, special attacks, and healing spells, some can also give their MP (magic points) to other characters or use the Scan ability to learn about the opponents. Exploiting the weaknesses is clearly a good way to win, in any case no matter if it's a random encounter or a wandering enemy, escaping is often possible and easy (90% of the time I was able to escape in the first round), except against bosses, of curse! Difficulty is pretty much well balanced, and the game warns you if you enter a zone where you'll be under-levelled, but remember to save often at the save points or on the main map!

Graphically the game is good, uses edits, charsets and chipsets from various games but the final result is a coherent fantasy jrpg game. Mapping is not bad at all, I like how there are different roads in the forest, and not just a single linear path, there are secrets, caves, and many optional areas. Music also is pretty good, I found some themes that aren't the usual Final Fantasy theme (for example one is a song by Nightwish without vocals... and it works well!).
This is still a demo but there is also a post-game section in which you can explore all the parts you did not see, and includes a useful instructor to level up automatically and face some parts that are more difficult


This combat encounter is totally optional, but fun, even if you need some levels more. Oh here Fiona is using her Scan ability to detect weaknesses!

Final Verdict
Ok, even if it will take you 1-2 hours or even more to finish this demo, well it's really a shame this was never complete, so now you understand the reason of my tears in the title! I liked it, the story was captivating and mapping and graphics were on par with sole old classic rpgmaker games I loved, like those by Iishenron and Lysander (even if mapping is, in my opinion, a bit better). Only problems I found is that there are some typos, and some object that you probably cannot use due to the fact that this is a demo, otherwise no issues or bugs of any kind.
In the end this is a good, classic rpg adventure, that even if incomplete presents some interesting ideas and balanced combat encounters. Shame it was never finished but... it's ok!