winds-seed

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Riding on a refreshing wind, a brother-sister duo sets out on a new journey!

A somewhat comical feel-good RPG by Compile

Two average siblings embark on a yearly adventure. Supporting them in this adventure is a cast of curious personalities. It’s Compile’s take on the classic, everyday (?) RPG.

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Let Compile blow away your disheartening reality with a heart-warming RPG.

We live in an age of natural disasters and vicious crime. The hearts of the people living in such an age are surely growing jaded. This game is Compile’s effort to disturb (?) such a reality.

The game’s two protagonists show off a variety of poses!

They show lots of expression during the cutscenes, too!

The relaxed atmosphere that permeates the whole work, combined with the beautiful nature backgrounds, are sure to heal the spirits of exhausted players. With high-speed scrolling action that rivals any home console title, and battle scenes featuring large moving characters, it’s a work that can call itself an authentic RPG.

An action-packed, smoothly scrolling scenario. This is a serious Compile RPG!

Large characters that move!

Basic controls

The basic controls are listed below. Sadly, this game does not support the mouse. However, you can play using a joystick. If you have a joystick you can connect to a dedicated external soundboard, you’ll be able to use it without problems.

The protagonists: an unusual sibling duo

A reliable older sister (Mina Strahl)

Meet Mina, the spirited and reliable 14-year-old sister. Occasionally putting some pep in her carefree younger brother Otto, she leads their search for praygrass. Powered by the ability to call upon the power of the wind, she can attack multiple opponents during battles to kick some serious butt.

No matter what situation she’s in, Mina’s vigorous older-sister character is clearly visible.

A gentle younger brother (Otto Strahl)

Otto is a 12-year-old with a quiet disposition. He can talk to the earth and plants, and participates in battle by borrowing nature’s power.

He can get teary-eyed over the smallest thing. He often gets mistaken for a girl.

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Introducing an RPG system with somewhat unusual battle scenes!

First of all, let’s explain the game systems.

It’s basically a so-called standard RPG, so people who are familiar with those should have no problem getting into the game. In the village, you can talk to people to collect information and buy items. Outside, you fight enemies to gain experience points and level up your character. The enemies are on the strong side, so you’ll have a rough time if you don’t level up enough! Try to use the Call system to your advantage to beat them.

The commands are pretty self-explanatory. Anyone can jump right into the game!

Overworld commands

When you’re walking around, you can open the command window at any time. All in all, there are three different commands. Their contents are explained below.

Items

Shows the items you’re holding right now, and lets you choose an item to use. Items are mostly used for recovering health, and you can carry up to 16 at a time. Recovery items are cheap, so stock up on them.

Heal up using items bought from stores or Dori leaves plucked in the wild.

Stats

Displays Mina and Otto’s status on the screen. You can view their level, experience points, hit points, attack, defense, and speed stats. You might enjoy keeping an eye on this information to fight foes in a strategic manner.

And it’s nice to just soak up the feeling of how amazingly strong your characters have gotten.

System

In the system menu, you can select the following four options.

Battle commands

When you’re walking on the overworld, and the screen flickers, that means a battle has started.

This game has several unique battle systems. If you use them to your advantage, you’ll have no trouble defeating your enemies. As you defeat foes, you gain experience points and money (the unit of currency is “polygons”).

Fight

For the “Call” system, please refer to the following page.

Here, we’ll explain the “emergency system”. This is a game mechanic where, as your health gets lower, and your life gets more at risk, your attacks become stronger. This applies to all characters participating in a battle, so if you don’t quite dispose of an enemy, the emergency system might have you facing extra strong attacks from them. It’s safer to beat them with a single strong hit.

Defend

If you select this, then in exchange for not getting to act for this turn, your defense stat is heightened, and you’ll take less damage from enemies. You can use this to lower your health just a little, for the sake of the “emergency system.”

Mina getting down on the floor and Otto ducking and covering his head. How cute!

Item

Use one of the recovery items your party is carrying. As with the Defend option, you won’t be able to do anything else this turn. But the sight of your character taking out an item and chomping it down is so charming.

By taking an item out of your pack and noshing on it, you recover some HP.

Flee

Leave the enemy behind and flee the battle. If either one of you succeeds at running away, the fleeing is successful. However, if the enemy’s speed stat is too high, you might fail to run away, and you’ll face their next attack.

Try as you might: if your enemy has a high speed stat, you won’t be able to run so easily.

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A complete overview of the Call system

Calling is the ability to summon nature’s power in battle.

Mina can call upon nature in two ways, targeting either individual enemies or all of them at once. Otto can only attack single enemies, but can call upon nature’s restorative powers.

By using Call repeatedly, you can power up to three different levels. If you max it out even further, you unlock a special finishing move. Try to figure out which Call level is best to defeat each of your enemies. If you combine this with the “emergency system” described earlier, you’ll have the offensive upper hand.

Mina’s attack pattern

Level Single attack Description Multiple attack Description
Call 0 Wind Needle Throw a groove of air at an enemy for a Kamaitachi-like attack. Doesn’t deal much damage. Whirlwind A swift whirlwind cuts across the screen, dealing damage to multiple enemies.
Call 1 Needle Cutter Like Wind Needle, but cutting deeper. It looks almost like a laser. Vortex A more powerful version of Whirlwind. A vortex of wind moves across the screen, dealing damage all around.
Call 2 Needle Wave An air wave laser attack. A crescent-moon shaped laser mercilessly cuts at the enemy. Tornado A huge tornado dances across the screen. It’ll dispose of weaker enemies in no time.
Call 3 Spiral Needle A massive Needle Wave appears on the screen, tracing a piercing spiral. Cyclone Two tornados appear on the screen, traversing enemies twice to deal extra damage.
Special Void Mina and Otto jump up, and a huge void laser blasts away everything beneath them.    

Otto’s attack pattern

Level Attack Description Heal Description
Call 0 Thorn Flower Roses appear out of nowhere to assail the enemy. Well, at least it looks pretty. Heal 0 Recover 12.5% of Mina and Otto’s max HP.
Call 1 Grass Arrow Grass flies in out of nowhere to attack the enemy. It’s like a grass-based Gatling gun. Heal 1 Recover 25% of Mina and Otto’s max HP.
Call 2 Brown Stream Tree roots appear on the screen and tear down enemies from below. It’s quite an influential attack. Heal 2 Recover 50% of Mina and Otto’s max HP.
Call 3 Huge Ivy Summons an enormous tapering ivy, which pierces enemies. The damage is tremendous. Heal 3 Recover 75% of Mina and Otto’s max HP.
Spcial Mandragora Burstknuckle Mandragora appears from under the ground, beats the hell out of the enemies, flashes a peace sign, and gets out of there.    

How about a series of screenshots?! Otto’s special attack, Mandragora burstknuckle

(image)

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Off to gather praygrass with the two of us!

Mina and Otto’s first destination are the Western Fields. Their journey begins with a quest to gather the “praygrass” that grows there.

They had intended to stop by their cousin Gray who lives in the village on the way to Star Mountain, and make it their usual relaxed outing. But this year there’s an ominous atmosphere somehow…

Say hi in the village first

Before you set out to pick praygrass, you can rest up in this village. All the villagers who haven’t seen Mina and Otto all year will be happy to welcome them. Right when they arrive, the watchmaker Gray is being approached about something by a wandering vagrant. As he rejects the wanderer’s request to become the village bodyguard, he meets Mina and Otto with the smile they’ve had to miss for a year. After resting up for the night at the inn, they head out for the western fields.

The town harbors all kinds of people, from average folk to weirdos.

The three of them talking merrily while ignoring Mr. Cowboy. His stature is big but he has a small heart.

Gray. Works as a watch repairer in the village. He has a calm demeanor, but he can get really fired up.

Where’s the praygrass?

After resting up for the night, our pair finally sets off to seek the praygrass. On their way, a fierce Rock Lizard ambushes them, but the wanderer they met shows up to save them right in time. His awesome technique may remind you of the Wild Dances seen in a certain fighting game. After a fraught journey, the two arrive at the praygrass.

Our heros, frolicking on through the forest, not knowing what awaits them…

He approaches the two from behind with an afterimage in his wake, rains down a series of punches and kicks, then delivers the final blow with a jumping uppercut!

Enemies spotted!

Golem

Tougher than they look, but a single Call will take care of them. Small fries, really.

Kotodama

Their attack stat is high, so they’re strong opponents early in the game.

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Black Unicorn appears… and where’s Gray?

When they make it back to the village, our heros find the town ransacked by an armed group called Black Unicorn. Fending off soldiers one after the other, Mina and Otto encounter Garriott, their leader. But when her lackeys are defeated, Garriott runs off. Why did Black Unicorn attack the village? Where did they take Gray? Who is Gray’s watchmaking teacher? Are the earth god Gillespie and the wanderer related? If you want to see these turbulent developments, you’ll have to play the rest!

Taking it easy by the lakeside. It looks like a peaceful adventure, but…

They kidnapped Gray! But why?

Garriott: Commander of Black Unicorn. Looks a lot like a character from a certain polygon-based fighting game.

As Garriott is defeated, a new villain sets eye on the village. Can our heros survive the offense of such a huge weapon?

Who’s the old guy with the serious face?

He may look tough on the outside, but this wanderer is innocent and sensitive.

Behind the scenes

When Ocarina was working on the Kikimora (Puyo) game I went to take a look at it and saw that it had this weird ice shooting mechanic, and I asked “why do you shoot ice?” and they were like “I dunno” and I gave advice like “you should attack with the mop, bring the mop back, also the enemies look dumb, do something about it” and went on my merry way to write the scenario for Wind’s Seed until Bangan came by and was like “why is the last boss so stupid?” and I was like “I dunno” and they were like “give the boy some character growth, also the map is too complex, simplify it, also do all that in two weeks”, so not to be outdone went back to Ocarina and told them “and do it all in two weeks!” as well. But anyway Kikimora got finished before Wind’s Seed. Why.