RPGamers Network > Reviews > Game Reviews > Vagrant Story
Perhaps the greatest unusual feature about it is that its creators did not set out to make a game that would have as broad an appeal as possible, something becoming rare in an era dominated by "profit margins" and "market share". Vagrant Story was designed to appeal to hard-core gamers. Casual gamers really should pass this one by; you are much more likely to become frustrated by its depths than converted.
Note: The character you control is "Ashley Riot". I will go into further detail in the section on plot, but I mention this now so I don't have to keep using the phrase "your character".
GAMEPLAY: 9
Vagrant Story offers a fully 3D environment with extremely good camera work. The camera is usually centered on Ashley, and follows him from a perspective halfway between directly overhead and from a side view. Pressing select toggles a view from further out than normal. Pressing start will halt gameplay and allow a player to look around from Ashley's eyes with *total* freedom, often a wonderful way to have a good close look at your environment or your enemies (especially since everyone stays put but remains animated). L1 and R1 will rotate the camera around Ashley in 45 degree increments. It is very similar to Xenogears, but the "feel" of the camera movement seems better to me. Holding R2 will make Ashley walk, which is useful for not running off ledges, avoiding traps in narrow corridors, and strutting about like you own the place.
The game is broken up into "rooms" which range from the size of a hallway to massive caverns bearing irate dragons. None are so big that you can become lost in a single room. Within each "room" you are free you walk wherever you wish, climb over crates, leap fallen pillars, hang from ledges ... you are limited only by how skillfully you make Ashley move. Thankfully, moving is also quite easy. When I began playing, I dreaded that Ashley would move with the extremely unnatural style favored by Resident Evil/Biohazard and Parasite Eve. Thankfully, this game was made by a team of people who know what they're doing: pressing any direction on a d-pad or dual shock stick will move Ashley relative to the camera. Up will always make Ashley walk toward the top of the screen, down will always move him toward the bottom, while left and right follow suit. The square [] button causes Ashley to jump (and unfortunately, you will need to make some fancy jumps ... fortunately they are few and a good ways into the game, so you've had plenty of time to get used to the controls, plus there are spells and items to help). X is the "action" button, causing Ashley to open doors, examine chests, pull levers, and even check the moss on trees.
Triangle ^ opens the game menu. I must say that I do love the deeply resonant menu sounds and wish I had a Vagrant Story sound scheme for my computer! Everything important is a top-level option, and only the more involved features, such as weapon smithing, are more than a couple of selections away. For things you will be using the most often (healing spells, or combat skills) there is actually no need to go to the menu at all! Holding down L2 will activate a shortcut menu where the directions on the d-pad plus the X, [], O, and ^ buttons each directly open a menu for spells, items, combat skills, etc. It's honestly the most intuative and time-saving interface I've ever used in a video game!
There are no separate combat screens, a press of the O button will draw your weapon (or put up your fists if you are unarmed) and pressing X will put them away again. While in normal mode you regenerate 1Hp/2sec & 1Mp/1sec. You also move faster and can only grab on to ledges in normal mode. You can still cast spells outside of combat mode, but later in game, your weapons usually provide a significant boost to your magical abilities, so it is better to have them out. Enemies are "stationed" in rooms and will pursue you within the confines of their "room", but no enemy can follow you through an exit (though Vagrant Story does boast a number of "locking door traps", so escape is not always an option.)
BATTLE SYSTEM: 8
While in combat mode, your weapon (or fists) and a shield if you have one, are readied for war. Your shield reduces the chance enemies have to hit you and the amount of damage you stand to take but *only* in combat mode. Hp and Mp regenerate even in combat mode, but the rate is *severely* slowed. Pressing circle O will open a targeting sphere representing the range of your weapon. Spells and other skills also use targeting spheres but have their own ranges unrelated to your weapon. With a Matrix-style freeze of the action, you can calmly pick from any target within the sphere and are even free to rotate and zoom the camera while you're at it! Most enemies have multiple body parts. While they still have a single HP total, the different parts of your enemies have varying vulnerability. Their weakest spots are often the most difficult to hit, but if you do they will take greater damage. Also, some spells have a "blast radius", and if multiple parts are caught in the blast, they can be hit for extra damage. Adding to the challenge of the game, enemies can (but do not always) use this targeting system to their advantage, most notably with spells and skills that can engulf Ashley's whole body. Words if advice: Do NOT give any dragons the space they need to use their breath attacks, get up close and personal as quickly as possible!
Aside from attacks and spells, there are three types of combat skills: Chain Abilities, Defense Abilities, and Break Arts. Anyone remember "timed attacks" and "timed defense" from Super Mario RPG? How about Squall's gunblade from FF8? Chain abilities are similar. You can assign one Chain Abilities to each of the [], ^, and O buttons. Each chain has a different effect (e.g. Heavy Shot is an additional strike doing 70% of the first hit's damage, while Crimson Pain does an extra 100% damage, but Ashley is hit with 30% of it as backlash) When Ashley begins an attack, at the moment of impact a big red "!" flashes above his head for an instant. Timed correctly, hitting one of the buttons will cause Ashley to make another strike using that Chain. Each Chain Ability has its own hitting animation and "!" "hot spot". You could chain an enemy indefinitely so long as your timing is perfect and you do not use the same Chain twice in a row. However, the game has a built-in balance mechanism so you can't simply Chain combo everything to death: RISK.
RISK is supposed to represent Ashley's mental state. The less RISK, the more calm and focused Ashley is, and the better his fighting ability. The higher Ashley's RISK, the more frightened or hyped up on adrenaline Ashley is, and the worse he will perform. Ashley begins the game at RISK 0 but attacking anything generates RISK. Each weapon has an innate RISK cost that is added on the first swing, and each Chain has a RISK cost as well. Going over 8 Chains in one attack begins to add exponential RISK penalties, quickly filling your RISK meter to 100. High RISK causes your accuracy and evasion to drop, and also causes you to take more damage from *all* kinds of attacks. The *only* benefits of high RISK are that you heal more HP with healing spells, and *if* you do manage to hit, your likelihood of scoring a critical hit is greater. RISK drops on its own in a way similar to HP and MP regeneration: RISK drop at about 2RISK/1sec in normal mode and is greatly slowed in battle mode.
Defense Abilities work similarly to Chains, except you cannot string together multiple Defense Abilities. Each physical hit and spell has a "hot spot", but the timing is usually much trickier on spells. Defense Abilities don't have as wide a variety as Chains, most of them are like: "Impact Guard - Regenerate 50% of damage from physical hits", but there is "Siphon Soul - Adds 50% of MP used in foe's magical attack to Ashley's MP" and the ever-useful "Ward - Prevent Paralysis and Numbness". Perhaps the coolest Defense abilities are "Reflect Damage" and "Reflect Magic". While they don't reduce the damage taken, these skills allow Ashley to instantly hit enemies back for half the damage they dealt to him! In theory, you could could defeat all enemies in the game using these and the "Heal" spell! Defense Abilities also carry a RISK value, on average higher than most Chain Abilities.
Break Arts are perhaps Ashley's most deadly techniques. In fact, they dish out so much hurtin' they they cost Hp to use! As a veteran of many RPG's in the past, I instinctively avoided using Break Arts at first, always thinking to keep my Hp as high as possible. Later, after I actually paid attention and learned something about doing well in Vagrant Story, I discovered there was extreme value in gleefully expending your Hp to use Break Arts: It doesn't matter how low your Hp is if all your enemies are DEAD! Break Arts do not generate RISK, but accuracy and damage is affected by whatever RISK you have.
The final factor in combat is your equipment. Ashley does *not* gain experience through combat and the are *no* experience levels in the game. After every boss battle, there is a roulette of stat-ups, and you can find or win stat-raising elixirs in various places, but otherwise, Ashley does not improve *himself* by fighting. Instead, your equipment adapts to become better at whatever you use it for. Weapons, shields, and armor have two lists of "affinities". One is by enemy "race" (Human, Beast, Undead, Phantom, Dragon, or Evil), and the other by element (Physical, Air, Fire, Earth, Water, Light, and Darkness). Every time you strike an enemy, your weapon has a chance to gain affinity toward that race of creature and also affinity for whatever element that creature may be weak against. However, there's something of a rock-paper-scissors relationship between affinities. Raising one racial affinity will lower the others following it in the list (the list wraps-around so that human follows dragon). Also, when an elemental affinity goes up, its opposite affinity will go down (Fire opposes Water, Air versus Earth, and Dark abohrs Light. Physical opposes all elements and vice-versa). This also goes for your armor and shield, taking hits from Undead will make your armor stronger versus Undead, and eating a few fireballs can make your armor better at deflecting Fire.
Finally, equipment can be remade at workshops. Weapons are made of a blade, a grip, and optionally as many affinity-raising gems as will fit in the grip. Shields may have space for gems as well. Disassembling weapons and switching around gems can be done at any time, but assembling weapons from components and and combining items can only be done at workshops. Workshops can be used to combine blades, shields, and armor in a staggering array possibilities. If you love to "tinker" with things in a game, this feature is an utter delight as well as providing the opportunity to make more powerful equipment. Many people have been misled to believe hours of forging new items is necessary for success, but I know from personal experience that spending some extra time raising your equipment's affinities can be just as or more effective than spending time in a workshop. It's simply up to your preference. Good equipment is also easily won or found with some *patience*, item smithing is only a shortcut and something to do with all the extra items you pick up and would normally have no use for. Of course, using *both* techniques is the only way you'll ever be able to eat dragons for breakfast, but that isn't necessary, just plain fun!
Overall, I really enjoy fighting in Vagrant Story. No other recent RPG has held as much challenge or interaction with the battle system; in fact, for most RPGs the "challenge" and "interaction" of any battle consists of repeatedly pressing the "confirm" button to attack, unless you feel like using some magic to watch the eye candy.
Here are my complaints about the combat system: While the targeting system does make for combat that isn't all frantic button-mashing, sometimes the way it breaks up the action sticks out quite a bit. If you don't use Chain Abilities, the action can be somewhat lacklustre due to all the pausing. This can really spoil the effect of the dramatic boss battles, where Chain Abilities are less preferable to use than Break Arts and spells. Also, while the affinities is a neat thing to play with, I would constantly switch equipment to take on different foes. As it is, equipment can only be changed from the main menu, and while it doesn't really take too long, I found myself wishing there were an extra button on that shorcut menu to re-equip so that doing so would be less of an interruption in the flow of the game.
PLOT: 9
Vagrant Story is such a great mystery! You, as Ashley Riot, uncover the truth as you run headlong into its dark reality. The main character and our window to the world of Vagrant Story, Ashley is an agent in a medieval national security force known as the "VKP", and a special type of agent known as a "Riskbreaker". Riskbreakers are sent alone on only the most dangerous assignments, and the average Riskbreaker survival rate is said to be a grisly 30%. Ashley, however is the best at what he does and has returned from more than a handful of missions. His latest mission is to investigate an incident involving the cultists of "Mullenkamp" invading the manor of the well-known civil war hero, Duke Bardorba. The leaders of this cult are one enigmatic Sydney Losstarot, a mysterious prophet whose words and power ring true, and the grim yet noble John Hardin. Adding to the all ready complicated political situation is the fact that the Cardinal's personal militia, the Knights of the Cross, have invaded the manor to challenge the Mullenkamp cult without orders. Led by Romeo Guildenstern, the army seems less interested in rescuing the hostages than pursuing Sydney. Ashley meets VKP Inquisitor (an information specialist) Callo Merlose in a glade outside the manor walls and she fills him in on details as he arrives. Suddenly, the dark night is lit by a fire that has started in the manor, and Ashley uses the distraction to slip inside, spouting a very memorable line: "Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements." After confronting Sydney and a summond Wyvern(!), Ashley pursues as Sydney flees to an ancient city within the duke's lands: Lea Monde. Lea Monde had thousands of years of history, a poulation of over 5,000, and the famed Iocus priesthood, once led by the mysterious dancer/priestess Mullenkamp. Twenty-five years ago, Lea Monde was mysteriously hit by an earthquake and half sunken into the sea as tidal waves assailed the broken city. The magic power once possessed by these people was untethered, and in mingling with the thousands of agonized souls cut from the mortal coil by the calamity became a dangerous and insidious force with a dark will of its own. Sydney appears to hold some sway with this powerful magic, and challenges Ashley to a "game" of pursuit, baiting Ashley both with hints from his clouded past and by taking Agent Merlose hostage. I quote Sydney: "This is my game. I run, you give chase. I am the hart, and you the hunter. But this hart has laid a few snares of his own...I am waiting for you, Riskbreaker!" Ashley is not alone in this game, however he received the only invitation: Guildenstern and the Knights of the Cross are also in Lea Monde pursuing Sydney and his cult, as well as *another* Riskbreaker, all uninvited guests in the haunted city of Mullenkamp. Can you unravel the mysteries of Lea Monde? What is the deal with Ashley's past memories? Why is Guildenstern acting without orders, and what is a second Riskbreaker doing involved with Ashley's case? I suggest you find out, by playing Vagrant Story!
I love the deeply dark plot of Vagrant Story. Its presentation is superbly done totally in-engine! Every scene is perfectly integrated with the flow of the game, and the lavish amount of detail makes one ask how this was done using the aging PlayStation hardware! My only complaints about the story is that though scenes are not few, they are somewhat far between. Toward the middle of the story, scenes become more spaced out as the adventuring takes center stage for a time, but the endgame is quite rewarding to reach! I really felt satisfied as I learned the subjective truth of things, the fates and feelings of characters, and rightening myself after every plot twist left me awed. Even after all is said and done, not everything is explained ... but the *right* things are left unexplained so that players still have some cause to wonder ... and hope for a sequel!
MUSIC: 9
Vagrant Story's music is the work of Hatashi Sakimoto, one of the two composers who worked on the Final Fantasy Tactics soundtrack. While some tracks do definitely bear semblance to the style of FFT, especially music from the introductory scenes, the music really does set the proper mood for each scene, each area, each encounter. The music is all non-synthesized and was composed as orchestrated pieces. Some of it is quite powerful, in fact the theme of the "Catacombs" is probably the most frightening music I own a copy of, while the theme of the "Sanctum" and "Remembrance" are both hauntingly beautiful. The Vagrant Story CD soundtrack also sports two bonus tracks, remixes of two themes from the game. My favorite tracks include the theme of workshops and the theme of the Great Cathedral. If I can complain about the music at all, I would have to nitpick that some of the music is not as sensational as the rest, the only reason the music does not get a ten.
ORIGINALITY: 11!
Vagrant Story game seems to have come completely out of nowhere to become the most wonderful experiences I've had. The city and its history, the cast and their individual drives, the engine behind all the gameplay -- all were unique and highly original. Even familiar elements such as puzzles in dungeons have been given at least one new twist. Complete a puzzle once to progress with the game. Come back to it later and try it again--as a timed mini game to reach a solution as fast as you can! If you don't feel like dealing with that, you can simply turn an option off in your menu and puzzles remain solved! There are things such as "practice dummies" to be found and exploited, and the creativity with which most of the enemies were designed still leaves me awed. One of the best examples of this is the "Harpy". Harpies have appeared in many games as enemies, and according to legend are supposed to be a creature with the head of a woman and the body of a vulture. The details vary from game to game, but their presentation has always been a near cookie-cutter interpretation of the legends. I won't totally spoil it for you, but Square's disturbingly abstract take upon this, and other, mythical beasts only impressed me all the more after I was done reeling from the shock of seeing such intricately twisted designs! There was no talent spared in making the game's atmosphere one of dark mystery and terrible beauty. The game has a high learning curve due to all the new concepts and new takes on older ones, but for me, learning to play well was an important and welcome part of the challenge. Perhaps the best credit to any game's originality is the feeling that you have never before played any game like it, and that is exactly what I felt playing Vagrant Story.
REPLAY VALUE: 8
The replay value of Vagrant Story should be very high for most people. After beating the game, you're allowed to save "clear data". Loading this save file allows you to begin from the game's starting point, but you retain all your stats, skills, spells, and possessions except for "Misc." type items. Fans of Chrono Trigger will remember this fun option as "New Game+". Some people may not want to undergo the trials again, and I can understand this. However, nearly 20% of the rooms cannot be explored until you begin a clear game, and there are many "titles" that can be won for feats highly improbable on your first time through. There's more than enough incentive to play again and again, but repeating a game of this intensity is not always so desirable, hence the score of 8.
SOUND: 10
Game designers take note, Vagrant Story is how you do sound! Most people don't realize it, but sound is a huge part of any atmosphere! Just try to imagine a busy place such as New York City or Chicago without the sounds of bustling traffic and shuffling people...doesn't seem quite right, does it? Well, what is a shattered, flooded, cursed city without ambiance? From Ashley's battle cries to his grunts of pain, the shuffling, moaning undead to shrieking ghosts and clanking suits of possessed armor, the sounds of Vagrant Story provide *so* much atmosphere! Footsteps change depending upon what is walked over and where they take place, scratching over dirt, and echoing through caves. Only the flying creatures in the game leave no footfalls. Ashley has the most generic sounding gait, while the heavily armored Knights of the Cross clank about with thick-soled boots, and skeletons' bones rattle hollowly through the darkness. Ambient sounds are simply *amazing* in this game. The wind, the cries of animals going about their daily business, the water flowing through flooded streets, it's all done very well and adds greatly to the experience! Battling in Vagrant Story is full of detailed, booming, shattering noises as you expect a good fight to have, as well as the often haunting noises of magic and break arts. If I wee put at gunpoint and forced to complain about the sound in some way, I could only complain about the universal "casting" sound heard before anyone uses a spell or break art. For a sound that is heard so often, it could have been a bit more interesting, but that's really nitpicking; since everything else is so rich, I was never truly bothered by it.
VISUALS: 9.5
I've read that the designers of this game set out with the intention of making every room, every screen interesting to look at. I believe they made every virtual *inch* a sight to behold. Simply put, Vagrant Story is utterly packed with visual detail and it all looks really really nice. All the characters and monsters are to scale and in proportion. Animations are fluid and feel very natural (in fact, Ashley *walking* looks both super-real and quite badass) Character models are extremely detailed and even though there is no voice acting, when someone speaks, their mouth animates, though I imagine the various expressions match the Japanese dialog and not the English translation. You usually don't have the time to notice in th heat of combat, but taking a look at your enemies either from 1st person view, on the "Status" feature of the menu, or in the Encyclopedia under "Score" reveals the extreme pains taken to make the visuals of Vagrant Story absolute top notch. Remember how good Super Nintendo games got in the last generation? If you imported some very last-generation SNES Square games such as Seiken Densetsu 3(Secret of Mana 2), Front Mission: Gun Hazard, or Bahamut Lagoon you'd truly see the SNES pushed to its absolute visual limitations. Well, Square did the same with Vagrant Story and the PlayStation hardware. I'll admit I haven't played a large number of PlayStation games outside the RPG genre, but I feel safe in claiming that there are perhaps only one or two other games on the PSX with a completely 3D game environment that looks *anywhere* close to this good. Every single texture is practically a painting unto itself and these textures are draped over some of the most interesting architecture I've ever seen in 3D. Lea Monde *feels* like it was hit by a quake then half sunk into the ocean. Looking around in nearly every room visually tells a little story of its own. Spells could have a bit more involved; the effects don't look bad by any standard, however they are somewhat simplistic. On the other hand, Break Arts are quite a sight to behold. They are ever-impressive and truly look like they *hurt*. So much work went into this game, that someone took the time to align the speed, scale, and angle of *all* the flowing water in the game so that you cannot see *any* misaligned textures or out-of-sync animations. Walls and things such as houses never get in the way of your view, because someone was kind enough to make sure the right things become transparent at the right angles. Speaking of angles, the camera work during cut scenes is superb! Watching the game's cut scenes is as good or better than watching an excellently filmed movie. I found exactly one graphic hiccup in the entire game and it was so minor it's not worth anyone's time looking for in the first place: In one room I could see a sliver of white beyond a corner and out in null space.
My biggest complaint about the visuals is that they're almost wasted upon the PlayStation: I can only pray that Square will re-release Vagrant Story for the PC with support for anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and perspective-correct texture mapping: the PlayStation hardware supports none of this and without it, Vagrant Story suffers the same as everything else on the aging Sony hardware. My only other complaint is the purposeful blocking of certain camera angles in some rooms of the Abandoned Mines, Iron Maiden B2, and one room Great Cathedral. No, the camera was not locked, but in the Mines and Iron Maiden some wooden beams were allowed to block the view from certain angles and in the Great Cathedral, you are forced to use a certain disadvantageous perspective with a particularly hard jumping puzzle. I don't believe there were any accident, it seems far too deliberate. As for why they would want to, I am not sure, but it's why the visuals do not get a perfect score.
DIFFICULTY: Real Hard
With its learning curve and complexity, Vagrant Story was an extremely welcome *CHALLENGE* to play. Recent RPGs have been entertaining, but seriously lacking in difficulty ... I might come back to see the story again, but since I was never challenged in the first place, there's no such thing as playing again and again to gain skill and become better. Vagrant Story is very much a throwback to older RPG's in this way, where not just anyone can come along and expect to conquer the game on their first try. I myself am a longtime RPG veteran and never actually finished my first 80 hour Vagrant Story save file. The game runs an average of 50-60 hours on someone's first play. Using a clear game and skipping all the cut scenes after the first time can eventually cut that down to ten hours or less, and I've read that the current worldwide record seems to be under two hours, though for the life of me, I can't remember where. Vagrant Story is difficult. You WILL die sometimes. But if you're anything like me, you'll just want to try harder afterward.
OVERALL: 9.5
I have read many other reviews of this game where it is slammed for being "too invovled," yet every reviewer who took that view had utterly no idea that it was specifically MEANT to be that way and simply regarded the game as "trash" for not fitting into their shallow gaming perspective. For a person who loves intricately detailed games, games that have a learning curve and require some finesse, people who love to spend hours absorbed in the subtitles of a game, Vagrant Story is a godsend. For others, simply pass it by and at least pretend to show some respect. Just because it wasn't made to please you doesn't mean it's bad.
| Game Stats | |
|---|---|
| Genre | RPG |
| Platform | PlayStation |
| Format | CD-ROM |
| # of Players | 1 |
| Released Jap | 02.10.2000 |
| Released US | 05.17.2000 |
| Released EU | 06.21.2000 |
| Aprox. Length | 50-60 hrs. |
| Reviewer Rankings | |
| Battle System | 8.0 |
| Gameplay | 9.0 |
| Music | 9.0 |
| Originality | 11.0 |
| Plot | 9.0 |
| Replay Value | 8.0 |
| Sound | 10.0 |
| Visuals | 9.0 |
| Difficulty | Real Hard |
| Overall | |
| 9.1 | |
Vagrant Story
By: SquareSoftReviewed By: Ice Burner
Vagrant Story is an unusual game in many ways. Its gameplay lends itself toward action, yet the underlying mechanics are definitely RPG based. For once in a 3D game, the in-play representations of characters and places are actually on par with the conceptual artwork, every bit as detailed, matching in style, and accurately proportioned. Enemies are forced to play by the *exact* same rules as the player, a refreshing change from the usual and annoying "enemies can do whatever the heck they want and ignore 90% of the things the player is limited by".Perhaps the greatest unusual feature about it is that its creators did not set out to make a game that would have as broad an appeal as possible, something becoming rare in an era dominated by "profit margins" and "market share". Vagrant Story was designed to appeal to hard-core gamers. Casual gamers really should pass this one by; you are much more likely to become frustrated by its depths than converted.
Note: The character you control is "Ashley Riot". I will go into further detail in the section on plot, but I mention this now so I don't have to keep using the phrase "your character".
GAMEPLAY: 9
Vagrant Story offers a fully 3D environment with extremely good camera work. The camera is usually centered on Ashley, and follows him from a perspective halfway between directly overhead and from a side view. Pressing select toggles a view from further out than normal. Pressing start will halt gameplay and allow a player to look around from Ashley's eyes with *total* freedom, often a wonderful way to have a good close look at your environment or your enemies (especially since everyone stays put but remains animated). L1 and R1 will rotate the camera around Ashley in 45 degree increments. It is very similar to Xenogears, but the "feel" of the camera movement seems better to me. Holding R2 will make Ashley walk, which is useful for not running off ledges, avoiding traps in narrow corridors, and strutting about like you own the place.
The game is broken up into "rooms" which range from the size of a hallway to massive caverns bearing irate dragons. None are so big that you can become lost in a single room. Within each "room" you are free you walk wherever you wish, climb over crates, leap fallen pillars, hang from ledges ... you are limited only by how skillfully you make Ashley move. Thankfully, moving is also quite easy. When I began playing, I dreaded that Ashley would move with the extremely unnatural style favored by Resident Evil/Biohazard and Parasite Eve. Thankfully, this game was made by a team of people who know what they're doing: pressing any direction on a d-pad or dual shock stick will move Ashley relative to the camera. Up will always make Ashley walk toward the top of the screen, down will always move him toward the bottom, while left and right follow suit. The square [] button causes Ashley to jump (and unfortunately, you will need to make some fancy jumps ... fortunately they are few and a good ways into the game, so you've had plenty of time to get used to the controls, plus there are spells and items to help). X is the "action" button, causing Ashley to open doors, examine chests, pull levers, and even check the moss on trees.
Triangle ^ opens the game menu. I must say that I do love the deeply resonant menu sounds and wish I had a Vagrant Story sound scheme for my computer! Everything important is a top-level option, and only the more involved features, such as weapon smithing, are more than a couple of selections away. For things you will be using the most often (healing spells, or combat skills) there is actually no need to go to the menu at all! Holding down L2 will activate a shortcut menu where the directions on the d-pad plus the X, [], O, and ^ buttons each directly open a menu for spells, items, combat skills, etc. It's honestly the most intuative and time-saving interface I've ever used in a video game!
There are no separate combat screens, a press of the O button will draw your weapon (or put up your fists if you are unarmed) and pressing X will put them away again. While in normal mode you regenerate 1Hp/2sec & 1Mp/1sec. You also move faster and can only grab on to ledges in normal mode. You can still cast spells outside of combat mode, but later in game, your weapons usually provide a significant boost to your magical abilities, so it is better to have them out. Enemies are "stationed" in rooms and will pursue you within the confines of their "room", but no enemy can follow you through an exit (though Vagrant Story does boast a number of "locking door traps", so escape is not always an option.)
BATTLE SYSTEM: 8
While in combat mode, your weapon (or fists) and a shield if you have one, are readied for war. Your shield reduces the chance enemies have to hit you and the amount of damage you stand to take but *only* in combat mode. Hp and Mp regenerate even in combat mode, but the rate is *severely* slowed. Pressing circle O will open a targeting sphere representing the range of your weapon. Spells and other skills also use targeting spheres but have their own ranges unrelated to your weapon. With a Matrix-style freeze of the action, you can calmly pick from any target within the sphere and are even free to rotate and zoom the camera while you're at it! Most enemies have multiple body parts. While they still have a single HP total, the different parts of your enemies have varying vulnerability. Their weakest spots are often the most difficult to hit, but if you do they will take greater damage. Also, some spells have a "blast radius", and if multiple parts are caught in the blast, they can be hit for extra damage. Adding to the challenge of the game, enemies can (but do not always) use this targeting system to their advantage, most notably with spells and skills that can engulf Ashley's whole body. Words if advice: Do NOT give any dragons the space they need to use their breath attacks, get up close and personal as quickly as possible!
Aside from attacks and spells, there are three types of combat skills: Chain Abilities, Defense Abilities, and Break Arts. Anyone remember "timed attacks" and "timed defense" from Super Mario RPG? How about Squall's gunblade from FF8? Chain abilities are similar. You can assign one Chain Abilities to each of the [], ^, and O buttons. Each chain has a different effect (e.g. Heavy Shot is an additional strike doing 70% of the first hit's damage, while Crimson Pain does an extra 100% damage, but Ashley is hit with 30% of it as backlash) When Ashley begins an attack, at the moment of impact a big red "!" flashes above his head for an instant. Timed correctly, hitting one of the buttons will cause Ashley to make another strike using that Chain. Each Chain Ability has its own hitting animation and "!" "hot spot". You could chain an enemy indefinitely so long as your timing is perfect and you do not use the same Chain twice in a row. However, the game has a built-in balance mechanism so you can't simply Chain combo everything to death: RISK.
RISK is supposed to represent Ashley's mental state. The less RISK, the more calm and focused Ashley is, and the better his fighting ability. The higher Ashley's RISK, the more frightened or hyped up on adrenaline Ashley is, and the worse he will perform. Ashley begins the game at RISK 0 but attacking anything generates RISK. Each weapon has an innate RISK cost that is added on the first swing, and each Chain has a RISK cost as well. Going over 8 Chains in one attack begins to add exponential RISK penalties, quickly filling your RISK meter to 100. High RISK causes your accuracy and evasion to drop, and also causes you to take more damage from *all* kinds of attacks. The *only* benefits of high RISK are that you heal more HP with healing spells, and *if* you do manage to hit, your likelihood of scoring a critical hit is greater. RISK drops on its own in a way similar to HP and MP regeneration: RISK drop at about 2RISK/1sec in normal mode and is greatly slowed in battle mode.
Defense Abilities work similarly to Chains, except you cannot string together multiple Defense Abilities. Each physical hit and spell has a "hot spot", but the timing is usually much trickier on spells. Defense Abilities don't have as wide a variety as Chains, most of them are like: "Impact Guard - Regenerate 50% of damage from physical hits", but there is "Siphon Soul - Adds 50% of MP used in foe's magical attack to Ashley's MP" and the ever-useful "Ward - Prevent Paralysis and Numbness". Perhaps the coolest Defense abilities are "Reflect Damage" and "Reflect Magic". While they don't reduce the damage taken, these skills allow Ashley to instantly hit enemies back for half the damage they dealt to him! In theory, you could could defeat all enemies in the game using these and the "Heal" spell! Defense Abilities also carry a RISK value, on average higher than most Chain Abilities.
Break Arts are perhaps Ashley's most deadly techniques. In fact, they dish out so much hurtin' they they cost Hp to use! As a veteran of many RPG's in the past, I instinctively avoided using Break Arts at first, always thinking to keep my Hp as high as possible. Later, after I actually paid attention and learned something about doing well in Vagrant Story, I discovered there was extreme value in gleefully expending your Hp to use Break Arts: It doesn't matter how low your Hp is if all your enemies are DEAD! Break Arts do not generate RISK, but accuracy and damage is affected by whatever RISK you have.
The final factor in combat is your equipment. Ashley does *not* gain experience through combat and the are *no* experience levels in the game. After every boss battle, there is a roulette of stat-ups, and you can find or win stat-raising elixirs in various places, but otherwise, Ashley does not improve *himself* by fighting. Instead, your equipment adapts to become better at whatever you use it for. Weapons, shields, and armor have two lists of "affinities". One is by enemy "race" (Human, Beast, Undead, Phantom, Dragon, or Evil), and the other by element (Physical, Air, Fire, Earth, Water, Light, and Darkness). Every time you strike an enemy, your weapon has a chance to gain affinity toward that race of creature and also affinity for whatever element that creature may be weak against. However, there's something of a rock-paper-scissors relationship between affinities. Raising one racial affinity will lower the others following it in the list (the list wraps-around so that human follows dragon). Also, when an elemental affinity goes up, its opposite affinity will go down (Fire opposes Water, Air versus Earth, and Dark abohrs Light. Physical opposes all elements and vice-versa). This also goes for your armor and shield, taking hits from Undead will make your armor stronger versus Undead, and eating a few fireballs can make your armor better at deflecting Fire.
Finally, equipment can be remade at workshops. Weapons are made of a blade, a grip, and optionally as many affinity-raising gems as will fit in the grip. Shields may have space for gems as well. Disassembling weapons and switching around gems can be done at any time, but assembling weapons from components and and combining items can only be done at workshops. Workshops can be used to combine blades, shields, and armor in a staggering array possibilities. If you love to "tinker" with things in a game, this feature is an utter delight as well as providing the opportunity to make more powerful equipment. Many people have been misled to believe hours of forging new items is necessary for success, but I know from personal experience that spending some extra time raising your equipment's affinities can be just as or more effective than spending time in a workshop. It's simply up to your preference. Good equipment is also easily won or found with some *patience*, item smithing is only a shortcut and something to do with all the extra items you pick up and would normally have no use for. Of course, using *both* techniques is the only way you'll ever be able to eat dragons for breakfast, but that isn't necessary, just plain fun!
Overall, I really enjoy fighting in Vagrant Story. No other recent RPG has held as much challenge or interaction with the battle system; in fact, for most RPGs the "challenge" and "interaction" of any battle consists of repeatedly pressing the "confirm" button to attack, unless you feel like using some magic to watch the eye candy.
Here are my complaints about the combat system: While the targeting system does make for combat that isn't all frantic button-mashing, sometimes the way it breaks up the action sticks out quite a bit. If you don't use Chain Abilities, the action can be somewhat lacklustre due to all the pausing. This can really spoil the effect of the dramatic boss battles, where Chain Abilities are less preferable to use than Break Arts and spells. Also, while the affinities is a neat thing to play with, I would constantly switch equipment to take on different foes. As it is, equipment can only be changed from the main menu, and while it doesn't really take too long, I found myself wishing there were an extra button on that shorcut menu to re-equip so that doing so would be less of an interruption in the flow of the game.
PLOT: 9
Vagrant Story is such a great mystery! You, as Ashley Riot, uncover the truth as you run headlong into its dark reality. The main character and our window to the world of Vagrant Story, Ashley is an agent in a medieval national security force known as the "VKP", and a special type of agent known as a "Riskbreaker". Riskbreakers are sent alone on only the most dangerous assignments, and the average Riskbreaker survival rate is said to be a grisly 30%. Ashley, however is the best at what he does and has returned from more than a handful of missions. His latest mission is to investigate an incident involving the cultists of "Mullenkamp" invading the manor of the well-known civil war hero, Duke Bardorba. The leaders of this cult are one enigmatic Sydney Losstarot, a mysterious prophet whose words and power ring true, and the grim yet noble John Hardin. Adding to the all ready complicated political situation is the fact that the Cardinal's personal militia, the Knights of the Cross, have invaded the manor to challenge the Mullenkamp cult without orders. Led by Romeo Guildenstern, the army seems less interested in rescuing the hostages than pursuing Sydney. Ashley meets VKP Inquisitor (an information specialist) Callo Merlose in a glade outside the manor walls and she fills him in on details as he arrives. Suddenly, the dark night is lit by a fire that has started in the manor, and Ashley uses the distraction to slip inside, spouting a very memorable line: "Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements." After confronting Sydney and a summond Wyvern(!), Ashley pursues as Sydney flees to an ancient city within the duke's lands: Lea Monde. Lea Monde had thousands of years of history, a poulation of over 5,000, and the famed Iocus priesthood, once led by the mysterious dancer/priestess Mullenkamp. Twenty-five years ago, Lea Monde was mysteriously hit by an earthquake and half sunken into the sea as tidal waves assailed the broken city. The magic power once possessed by these people was untethered, and in mingling with the thousands of agonized souls cut from the mortal coil by the calamity became a dangerous and insidious force with a dark will of its own. Sydney appears to hold some sway with this powerful magic, and challenges Ashley to a "game" of pursuit, baiting Ashley both with hints from his clouded past and by taking Agent Merlose hostage. I quote Sydney: "This is my game. I run, you give chase. I am the hart, and you the hunter. But this hart has laid a few snares of his own...I am waiting for you, Riskbreaker!" Ashley is not alone in this game, however he received the only invitation: Guildenstern and the Knights of the Cross are also in Lea Monde pursuing Sydney and his cult, as well as *another* Riskbreaker, all uninvited guests in the haunted city of Mullenkamp. Can you unravel the mysteries of Lea Monde? What is the deal with Ashley's past memories? Why is Guildenstern acting without orders, and what is a second Riskbreaker doing involved with Ashley's case? I suggest you find out, by playing Vagrant Story!
I love the deeply dark plot of Vagrant Story. Its presentation is superbly done totally in-engine! Every scene is perfectly integrated with the flow of the game, and the lavish amount of detail makes one ask how this was done using the aging PlayStation hardware! My only complaints about the story is that though scenes are not few, they are somewhat far between. Toward the middle of the story, scenes become more spaced out as the adventuring takes center stage for a time, but the endgame is quite rewarding to reach! I really felt satisfied as I learned the subjective truth of things, the fates and feelings of characters, and rightening myself after every plot twist left me awed. Even after all is said and done, not everything is explained ... but the *right* things are left unexplained so that players still have some cause to wonder ... and hope for a sequel!
MUSIC: 9
Vagrant Story's music is the work of Hatashi Sakimoto, one of the two composers who worked on the Final Fantasy Tactics soundtrack. While some tracks do definitely bear semblance to the style of FFT, especially music from the introductory scenes, the music really does set the proper mood for each scene, each area, each encounter. The music is all non-synthesized and was composed as orchestrated pieces. Some of it is quite powerful, in fact the theme of the "Catacombs" is probably the most frightening music I own a copy of, while the theme of the "Sanctum" and "Remembrance" are both hauntingly beautiful. The Vagrant Story CD soundtrack also sports two bonus tracks, remixes of two themes from the game. My favorite tracks include the theme of workshops and the theme of the Great Cathedral. If I can complain about the music at all, I would have to nitpick that some of the music is not as sensational as the rest, the only reason the music does not get a ten.
ORIGINALITY: 11!
Vagrant Story game seems to have come completely out of nowhere to become the most wonderful experiences I've had. The city and its history, the cast and their individual drives, the engine behind all the gameplay -- all were unique and highly original. Even familiar elements such as puzzles in dungeons have been given at least one new twist. Complete a puzzle once to progress with the game. Come back to it later and try it again--as a timed mini game to reach a solution as fast as you can! If you don't feel like dealing with that, you can simply turn an option off in your menu and puzzles remain solved! There are things such as "practice dummies" to be found and exploited, and the creativity with which most of the enemies were designed still leaves me awed. One of the best examples of this is the "Harpy". Harpies have appeared in many games as enemies, and according to legend are supposed to be a creature with the head of a woman and the body of a vulture. The details vary from game to game, but their presentation has always been a near cookie-cutter interpretation of the legends. I won't totally spoil it for you, but Square's disturbingly abstract take upon this, and other, mythical beasts only impressed me all the more after I was done reeling from the shock of seeing such intricately twisted designs! There was no talent spared in making the game's atmosphere one of dark mystery and terrible beauty. The game has a high learning curve due to all the new concepts and new takes on older ones, but for me, learning to play well was an important and welcome part of the challenge. Perhaps the best credit to any game's originality is the feeling that you have never before played any game like it, and that is exactly what I felt playing Vagrant Story.
REPLAY VALUE: 8
The replay value of Vagrant Story should be very high for most people. After beating the game, you're allowed to save "clear data". Loading this save file allows you to begin from the game's starting point, but you retain all your stats, skills, spells, and possessions except for "Misc." type items. Fans of Chrono Trigger will remember this fun option as "New Game+". Some people may not want to undergo the trials again, and I can understand this. However, nearly 20% of the rooms cannot be explored until you begin a clear game, and there are many "titles" that can be won for feats highly improbable on your first time through. There's more than enough incentive to play again and again, but repeating a game of this intensity is not always so desirable, hence the score of 8.
SOUND: 10
Game designers take note, Vagrant Story is how you do sound! Most people don't realize it, but sound is a huge part of any atmosphere! Just try to imagine a busy place such as New York City or Chicago without the sounds of bustling traffic and shuffling people...doesn't seem quite right, does it? Well, what is a shattered, flooded, cursed city without ambiance? From Ashley's battle cries to his grunts of pain, the shuffling, moaning undead to shrieking ghosts and clanking suits of possessed armor, the sounds of Vagrant Story provide *so* much atmosphere! Footsteps change depending upon what is walked over and where they take place, scratching over dirt, and echoing through caves. Only the flying creatures in the game leave no footfalls. Ashley has the most generic sounding gait, while the heavily armored Knights of the Cross clank about with thick-soled boots, and skeletons' bones rattle hollowly through the darkness. Ambient sounds are simply *amazing* in this game. The wind, the cries of animals going about their daily business, the water flowing through flooded streets, it's all done very well and adds greatly to the experience! Battling in Vagrant Story is full of detailed, booming, shattering noises as you expect a good fight to have, as well as the often haunting noises of magic and break arts. If I wee put at gunpoint and forced to complain about the sound in some way, I could only complain about the universal "casting" sound heard before anyone uses a spell or break art. For a sound that is heard so often, it could have been a bit more interesting, but that's really nitpicking; since everything else is so rich, I was never truly bothered by it.
VISUALS: 9.5
I've read that the designers of this game set out with the intention of making every room, every screen interesting to look at. I believe they made every virtual *inch* a sight to behold. Simply put, Vagrant Story is utterly packed with visual detail and it all looks really really nice. All the characters and monsters are to scale and in proportion. Animations are fluid and feel very natural (in fact, Ashley *walking* looks both super-real and quite badass) Character models are extremely detailed and even though there is no voice acting, when someone speaks, their mouth animates, though I imagine the various expressions match the Japanese dialog and not the English translation. You usually don't have the time to notice in th heat of combat, but taking a look at your enemies either from 1st person view, on the "Status" feature of the menu, or in the Encyclopedia under "Score" reveals the extreme pains taken to make the visuals of Vagrant Story absolute top notch. Remember how good Super Nintendo games got in the last generation? If you imported some very last-generation SNES Square games such as Seiken Densetsu 3(Secret of Mana 2), Front Mission: Gun Hazard, or Bahamut Lagoon you'd truly see the SNES pushed to its absolute visual limitations. Well, Square did the same with Vagrant Story and the PlayStation hardware. I'll admit I haven't played a large number of PlayStation games outside the RPG genre, but I feel safe in claiming that there are perhaps only one or two other games on the PSX with a completely 3D game environment that looks *anywhere* close to this good. Every single texture is practically a painting unto itself and these textures are draped over some of the most interesting architecture I've ever seen in 3D. Lea Monde *feels* like it was hit by a quake then half sunk into the ocean. Looking around in nearly every room visually tells a little story of its own. Spells could have a bit more involved; the effects don't look bad by any standard, however they are somewhat simplistic. On the other hand, Break Arts are quite a sight to behold. They are ever-impressive and truly look like they *hurt*. So much work went into this game, that someone took the time to align the speed, scale, and angle of *all* the flowing water in the game so that you cannot see *any* misaligned textures or out-of-sync animations. Walls and things such as houses never get in the way of your view, because someone was kind enough to make sure the right things become transparent at the right angles. Speaking of angles, the camera work during cut scenes is superb! Watching the game's cut scenes is as good or better than watching an excellently filmed movie. I found exactly one graphic hiccup in the entire game and it was so minor it's not worth anyone's time looking for in the first place: In one room I could see a sliver of white beyond a corner and out in null space.
My biggest complaint about the visuals is that they're almost wasted upon the PlayStation: I can only pray that Square will re-release Vagrant Story for the PC with support for anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and perspective-correct texture mapping: the PlayStation hardware supports none of this and without it, Vagrant Story suffers the same as everything else on the aging Sony hardware. My only other complaint is the purposeful blocking of certain camera angles in some rooms of the Abandoned Mines, Iron Maiden B2, and one room Great Cathedral. No, the camera was not locked, but in the Mines and Iron Maiden some wooden beams were allowed to block the view from certain angles and in the Great Cathedral, you are forced to use a certain disadvantageous perspective with a particularly hard jumping puzzle. I don't believe there were any accident, it seems far too deliberate. As for why they would want to, I am not sure, but it's why the visuals do not get a perfect score.
DIFFICULTY: Real Hard
With its learning curve and complexity, Vagrant Story was an extremely welcome *CHALLENGE* to play. Recent RPGs have been entertaining, but seriously lacking in difficulty ... I might come back to see the story again, but since I was never challenged in the first place, there's no such thing as playing again and again to gain skill and become better. Vagrant Story is very much a throwback to older RPG's in this way, where not just anyone can come along and expect to conquer the game on their first try. I myself am a longtime RPG veteran and never actually finished my first 80 hour Vagrant Story save file. The game runs an average of 50-60 hours on someone's first play. Using a clear game and skipping all the cut scenes after the first time can eventually cut that down to ten hours or less, and I've read that the current worldwide record seems to be under two hours, though for the life of me, I can't remember where. Vagrant Story is difficult. You WILL die sometimes. But if you're anything like me, you'll just want to try harder afterward.
OVERALL: 9.5
I have read many other reviews of this game where it is slammed for being "too invovled," yet every reviewer who took that view had utterly no idea that it was specifically MEANT to be that way and simply regarded the game as "trash" for not fitting into their shallow gaming perspective. For a person who loves intricately detailed games, games that have a learning curve and require some finesse, people who love to spend hours absorbed in the subtitles of a game, Vagrant Story is a godsend. For others, simply pass it by and at least pretend to show some respect. Just because it wasn't made to please you doesn't mean it's bad.
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