Gaming Vagrant Story

[Dagger]

For most of you, this probably seems like a blast from the past, but I played Vagrant Story for the first time this year. Having finished, I'm having a hard time sorting out my thoughts on it, so I'm going to go with a pro and con rundown.

+ The story is great and provides plenty of food for thought. I just wish it were more intelligible (the first time around, anyway). The ending is also fantastic.

+ The English script is a wonderful example of something that, despite being written with pretty classy diction, doesn't become too clogged with fancy faux-medieval words to convey emotion or urgency. I wish the FFXII script had turned out more like this.

+ The gameplay is fun and totally addictive. The frustrations of the weapon & armor system are balanced out by the sheer possibility it offers (as well as the availability of training dummies for each type of enemy).

+ Most of the puzzles--with two or three exceptions toward the end--are integrated well and make you think a little without being absurdly difficult.

- Very repetitive bosses. The same few boss types (with different coloring or element affiliations) kept popping up over... and over... and over--which was weird, given the otherwise decent variety of monsters.

- It's almost impossible to understand the story unless you do some extra research online. Two special intro sequences, which contain vital information, don't become available until after you start the game. In order to see them, you have to let the Continue (etc.) screen lie fallow for a while, and eventually one or the other will start playing.

- On a similar note, the player is often left in the dark about important expository information. This isn't a function of the plot's complexity--it's already complicated, and getting the feeling that the writers are holding back on you doesn't help matters any. For instance, I didn't realize that the woman in the opening FMV was supposed to be Mullenkamp until I watched the ending credits.

- It's all too easy to play the game completely out of order (bosses included). I spent a good ten hours wandering around where I wasn't supposed to be, wondering what the hell I was doing. Because of this, I completed over 80% of the map, when I could've finished in far less time and with far less exploring. Granted, I don't mind having the freedom to take things topsy-turvy, as long as it's made clear to me that I'm straying from the main path.

- Offensive magic is pretty useless.

I could probably cough up many other complaints. But while the story's clarity issues left a bad taste in my mouth because they could have been fixed so easily, on the whole I really liked Vagrant Story. I might go through it a second time over the summer. Anyone else play this back in the day--or, like me, more recently?

~Dagger~

[only1specialed]

wow you actually beat it... yeah i got lost when i played way back who knows when. i think i still have it somewhere but i bet it in bad condition. That game was freaking awesome i dont remember too much since its been so long but the style of combat in the game was sweet. it was something fresh to play and the story had me addicted. (when i wasn't lost)

so far though i pretty much agree with most of the stuff you got written on there... except i dont remember using magic... man its been a long time.

[GTK]

[QUOTE=Dagger]

- It's almost impossible to understand the story unless you do some extra research online. Two special intro sequences, which contain vital information, don't become available until after you start the game. In order to see them, you have to let the Continue (etc.) screen lie fallow for a while, and eventually one or the other will start playing.

[/QUOTE]

....I actually didn't know this O_O now I'll have to figure out where I've stashed my copy of the game DX

I've always really liked Vagrant Story... if, for nothing else, the fact that some of the male character were more scantily clad than the women ^_~

I also always sort of assumed the woman from the intro was Mullenkamp ^^; not sure why I did this.


I think the first time I played it I ended up wandering off somewhere and getting hopelessly lost... and I even had a guide T_T

But, wow... it's been so long since I've played this game~ I'll totaly have to play it again ♥

[TheResplendent]

[FONT=Tahoma]Yup, big blast from the past hehe. When I saw this as the last thread replied to in Hardwired I thought someone had dug it up from years ago.

Personally I think the game was overrated. The combat system was definitly annoying as hell often enough and I never could bring myself to like the main character too much. On the positive side though the game was definitly challenging, coming out in an era of easy to get through RPGs. Also yeah, the magic is pretty useless half the time...but certain spells had their place against certain bosses (like that dragon type boss early on in the game in the dungeons or whereever that place was), tis been a while.

I wouldn't really put it on my life of top favorites, but it was definitly an interesting game to play through.[/FONT]

[Dagger]

[QUOTE=GTK]
I've always really liked Vagrant Story... if, for nothing else, the fact that some of the male character were more scantily clad than the women ^_~ [/QUOTE]
Haha, no kidding. Sydney always seemed to be on the verge of having a serious wardrobe malfunction, and when you see Ashley from behind all the time, you can't help but notice that he left some odd places uncovered... :animeswea

[QUOTE=BKstyles][FONT=Tahoma]
Personally I think the game was overrated. The combat system was definitly annoying as hell often enough and I never could bring myself to like the main character too much. On the positive side though the game was definitly challenging, coming out in an era of easy to get through RPGs. Also yeah, the magic is pretty useless half the time...but certain spells had their place against certain bosses (like that dragon type boss early on in the game in the dungeons or whereever that place was), tis been a while.[/FONT][/QUOTE]
I thought they worked out a great combat system but didn't encourage you to exploit it to its fullest. More variety in the bosses would have helped. The biggest oversight was the lack of a way to quickly change your weapon on the fly. When using a different type of weapon for almost every different type of enemy is a key part of doing well in the game, it's silly to force the player to delve into the items menu to change his equipment whenever the enemy type varies.

I used support magic more and more as the game went on (Magic Ward is absolutely vital in some places, and stuff like Prostasia and the weapon/armor element affinity spells can make a surprisingly big difference). I rarely used attack spells, though, because they cost ridiculous amounts of MP, and MP restoration items weren't plentiful. I guess they might come in more handy the second or third time around, as you keep acquiring more and more MP.

~Dagger~