Enter Ashley Riot, Riskbreaker
Basic premise/Story
From developer studio Square, and directed by Yasumi Matsuno. You play as Ashley Riot, a Riskbreaker who travels to Leá Monde to investigate the connection between a cult leader and duke Bardorba. A simple investigation right? Oh, I wish. There is more at work here in the dark and a story worth uncovering.
Battle Mode Please
Unique Gameplay
Vagrant Story's gameplay is one of the most innovative or convoluted systems of systems I have ever had the pleasure of playing. But, I feel the game has some of the weirdest design decisions regarding those systems in place. So I sympathize with the sentiments of those, who feel the combat/crafting is clunky and cumbersome. I certainly felt them. However, I feel these two systems along with the progression of how to increase stats and gain affinities to be more effective against enemies is a neat twist against the traditional level-up by grinding enemies endlessly.
Here, you have to be smart since enemies feel deadlier. Encounter an undead enemy and you may find yourself having a tough time without a silver weapon or a certain type of weapon like blunt, edged, or pierce. Each monster is weak to a certain type or more. So you have to figure out their weaknesses by analyzing enemies or through trial and error. You cannot simply bash every enemy you see with your strongest weapon. The game simply doesn’t work that way.
Nonetheless, not only do you have to figure out what weapon the enemies are weak to, but their base characteristics give a hint or sign of what else they could be weak to. Such as phantoms. Weak to weapons with a high affinity to phantoms or any other element. Humans and other creatures you face become increasingly more susceptible to their nature. As long as you use the same weapon continuously to create a high affinity with the weapon. You can become more effective in dishing out more damage to the creature/humanoid/or other abominable nightmares you face.
And this is where the game truly starts to shine. As you use the same weapon since the beginning. You become more in tune and more effective at using it. Making it deadlier against say 'dragons' if you continue to kill more dragons or combat them. You gain affinity incrementally as you fight each type of enemy. And thus your weapon can become stronger. If you’re worried that the main weapon you have been using will fall behind in damage you can combine that equipment with another blade to create a more powerful blade. The catch is you need to be in a workshop with the right type as well as make sure the resulting weapon is stronger and not an inferior weapon.
As long as players pay attention to stat values in the bottom right corner and make sure your affinities are intact. Because combined weapons combined each blade's affinities. So using a piece of old equipment with a piece of new equipment and the resulting equipment will maintain the gained values and negative values the item has. So in theory and practice, you can use an old weapon you have been using since the beginning and use that weapon by endgame. Well… It’s going to be combined with other weapons, so the merged weapon would contain all the affinities you built up since the beginning. Weapons don’t degrade after continuous use either.
So then what’s the main appeal to the battle system beyond fighting and defeating enemies to make our current weapons stronger? The answer is the battle system or more aptly named ‘Battle Mode.’ With one button press Ashley can unsheathe his weapon and or shield he has equipped and a sphere starts to spread from his character. Any enemy caught within the sphere can then be attacked by Ashley on any limbs the target has. The body and head are included. This simple mode is enjoyable throughout the game to choose which area of the enemy you’re facing is weakest. Kinda like the V.A.T.S. system in Fallout, the mechanic is very similar here. With each limb/part detailing the chance to hit and how much damage Ashley can inflict. The game has buffs and debuffs as well which can increase your strengths and accuracy among other values to your benefit. Although, the enemy is pretty smart in their own right and can dish out debuffs to make you weaker. You won’t see this in every fight, but it is something to watch out for.
You don’t gain stats traditionally like other Jrpgs. Instead, every time you defeat a boss you have a slot machine with various stat increases scrolling by. And when you hit a button on the controller the scrolling will stop and whatever stat is displayed will increase your base stats. So if the last section that the scrolling stopped on was MP +2 then your mana pool will increase by 2. HP, str, agi, and int, are also possible results with the number varying. You can also find stat-boosting items whenever you delve deeper into the Leá Monde. By endgame, I had a good spread of my stats and didn’t find too much trouble in the end.
Leá Monde's Secrets
Final thoughts/Ruminations
I’ve heard of Vagrant Story over the years. Usually regarded as tough and complex for the gameplay mechanics to understand and sometimes having one of the most compelling stories out there for a JRPG. And now when the end credits are rolling, I cannot help but agree with those statements.
Despite some of the combat systems being a bit of a learning curve to understand, for the most part. The game is largely self-contained to give you the information and help you understand it. Additionally, there is a quick manual within the game, you can pull up whenever you need to. I found this helpful whenever I needed a refresher on a mechanic I needed a bit more information on.
In my case, I found the combat challenging and rewarding since they give the players so many options to dispatch enemies as I see fit. I could chain attack, my enemies, to death without giving them any moment of reprieve as long as I time my attacks to the big red exclamation point. Could switch to a mage-type build and blast my enemies with devastating spells. Or switch to any of my weapons and blast them with break arts. Using only my HP as the cost if I didn’t want to chain attack them. Defend Ashley with Defensive abilities, so the damage my enemies deal to me isn’t as severe. Switch weapons during combat anytime and rebuff/debuff my enemies before they can get a single hit and more. Heck, I can even position myself so the enemy will hit his/her comrade. And the game will let it occur! So friendly fire does exist! Sucks to be them honestly. Luckily Ashley is a solo man. So you don’t need to worry about hitting party members.
I love the freedom the devs give to the players and it shows so much. If you have the options, abuse it to your heart's content. And Vagrant Story does so magnificently in its own right. While making the enemies challenging and fair to fight. You are never in an insurmountable fight, only unprepared with the wrong equipment being used. As long as you know which type of weapon and shield to use against your enemies you should be able to breeze through the game.
Since the game doesn’t have wide open fields like the team’s previous game with Final Fantasy Tactics. The game largely takes place in box-sized levels. So you don’t have lots of room to explore. I feel the devs used this to their advantage by creating lots of rooms with purpose. Some even go so far as to include no enemies with only boxes where you will have to place them in certain ways to get to the other areas of the room or activate mechanisms to unlock the door. There are even timed events where you need to run across a series of rooms to get to the other side, making combat, not the end all be all for the game. I love this type of breather room so to speak to give players a rest and just run to another room. Granted there aren't a lot of these rooms, but their inclusion of them is still appreciated throughout the game. And while I would’ve liked more interesting rooms to use a different art palette. And a bit more differentiation from some similar corridors. I think the game still has enough surprises in store to alleviate those concerns. One aspect I didn’t see was a decent spread of platforming involved to get to the other side of the room which I took as a personal challenge to do in some rooms. It’s awesome how there is a dedicated jump button so you can evade enemies at your leisure. And the game makes full use of that.
The sound is impeccably well-tuned to the cinematic graphics for the game. Where the story would transition into a cutscene moment between antagonists or with Ashley in the picture. The music is fitting here providing the right amount of tension, anxiety, momentum, and vigor to shift the player’s mood. In my case to great success. I felt intrigued by some scenes. Worried in others, anxious in other cases, and pumped in ensuing fight scenes about to occur. All in all the music and sound effects were intricately linked with the game and I found it enjoyable to listen.
Graphics also share the teamwork load by providing excellent use of cinematic direction to push the PlayStation hardware to its absolute limits of rendering everything in 3D. And while this did limit the game in some areas. I was impressed throughout my playthrough by how the devs were able to circumvent these issues with clever lighting, camera angles, and comic book-styled visual design to accentuate the narrative and keep it intriguing. I felt rooted in my seat in anticipation for the next scene to occur and wondering what will happen next. I also liked the gritter atmosphere the game conveyed of Leá Monde and the surrounding levels and enemies reflected that greatly enhancing the immersion of something more at work here.
I wish the game had some quality-of-life improvements to make the combat a bit more fresh and more modern for newcomers. Having the menu not be slow, removing hard limits on inventory, and connecting it to the storage. Crafting/combining using your whole inventory including the storage chest to eliminate backtracking and going back and forth to the chest. A detailed map of combinations to combine weapons, armor, and shields without consulting a chart online. To help newcomers on what equipment to keep based on stat values. Saving anytime instead of within save circles. And a tiny bit more differentiation between corridors
If there is one last thing to touch on for Vagrant Story. It is how the story is detailed. Through expositional dialog. So you won’t find any factual information to peruse like lorebooks or conversing with NPCs. Pretty much everything you need is through the scenes occurring in the game. And perhaps some item descriptions you find here and there for worldbuilding.
I feel the story closes all important plot points and loose ends pretty well within Leá Monde; the place where all the events take place. It can be slow in the beginning to understand the early scenes being shown, but stick around and you'll probably be engrossed as I did with intrigue and curiosity to learn more. With clever twists and turns I didn't expect and moments I was genuinely shocked to learn as the plot moved forward. There is no cliffhanger ending either and I was quite satisfied with the ending scenes. I will admit the game can make the early scenes confusing if you skip an important cutscene by lingering at the start menu screen and don’t skip any of the following scenes after starting the game. So I recommend not skipping anything.
Be that as it may, there is something quite special here I haven't quite seen, since the time I played Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears. To show players something entirely new and bold to the audience without any wasted dialogue. Demonstrating a clever balance of wit in writing. Striving and succeeding in holding my interest throughout by shifting the pendulum in favor of the antagonists or the hero of the story. A fun combat system reminiscent of my time playing games from the Mother series/Witcher 1. With timing my chain attacks. An intriguing story from the beginning, middle, and end. Well-rounded antagonists to boot. Impressive cinematic direction. And takes regular tropes we associate with JRPGs and flips them on its head. To great effect.
All of this is a remarkable achievement for a Playstation 1 title. And despite some criticisms, I have with the game. I think I can safely say it's one of those PlayStation 1 gems that is a must-play for anyone looking for a nuanced story outside the scope of Final Fantasy then look no further than Vagrant Story.
Here is a quote from the director Yasumi Matsuno. I feel this sums up what Vagrant Story is.
"If FF is the game industry version of a major Hollywood movie, then VAGRANT STORY is an independent movie to be watched quietly in a small movie theatre. The scale is different, but the burning enthusiasm and the dreams behind the scenes are the same as in the majors."
Score: 9/10
Basic premise/Story
From developer studio Square, and directed by Yasumi Matsuno. You play as Ashley Riot, a Riskbreaker who travels to Leá Monde to investigate the connection between a cult leader and duke Bardorba. A simple investigation right? Oh, I wish. There is more at work here in the dark and a story worth uncovering.
Battle Mode Please
Unique Gameplay
Vagrant Story's gameplay is one of the most innovative or convoluted systems of systems I have ever had the pleasure of playing. But, I feel the game has some of the weirdest design decisions regarding those systems in place. So I sympathize with the sentiments of those, who feel the combat/crafting is clunky and cumbersome. I certainly felt them. However, I feel these two systems along with the progression of how to increase stats and gain affinities to be more effective against enemies is a neat twist against the traditional level-up by grinding enemies endlessly.
Here, you have to be smart since enemies feel deadlier. Encounter an undead enemy and you may find yourself having a tough time without a silver weapon or a certain type of weapon like blunt, edged, or pierce. Each monster is weak to a certain type or more. So you have to figure out their weaknesses by analyzing enemies or through trial and error. You cannot simply bash every enemy you see with your strongest weapon. The game simply doesn’t work that way.
Nonetheless, not only do you have to figure out what weapon the enemies are weak to, but their base characteristics give a hint or sign of what else they could be weak to. Such as phantoms. Weak to weapons with a high affinity to phantoms or any other element. Humans and other creatures you face become increasingly more susceptible to their nature. As long as you use the same weapon continuously to create a high affinity with the weapon. You can become more effective in dishing out more damage to the creature/humanoid/or other abominable nightmares you face.
And this is where the game truly starts to shine. As you use the same weapon since the beginning. You become more in tune and more effective at using it. Making it deadlier against say 'dragons' if you continue to kill more dragons or combat them. You gain affinity incrementally as you fight each type of enemy. And thus your weapon can become stronger. If you’re worried that the main weapon you have been using will fall behind in damage you can combine that equipment with another blade to create a more powerful blade. The catch is you need to be in a workshop with the right type as well as make sure the resulting weapon is stronger and not an inferior weapon.
As long as players pay attention to stat values in the bottom right corner and make sure your affinities are intact. Because combined weapons combined each blade's affinities. So using a piece of old equipment with a piece of new equipment and the resulting equipment will maintain the gained values and negative values the item has. So in theory and practice, you can use an old weapon you have been using since the beginning and use that weapon by endgame. Well… It’s going to be combined with other weapons, so the merged weapon would contain all the affinities you built up since the beginning. Weapons don’t degrade after continuous use either.
So then what’s the main appeal to the battle system beyond fighting and defeating enemies to make our current weapons stronger? The answer is the battle system or more aptly named ‘Battle Mode.’ With one button press Ashley can unsheathe his weapon and or shield he has equipped and a sphere starts to spread from his character. Any enemy caught within the sphere can then be attacked by Ashley on any limbs the target has. The body and head are included. This simple mode is enjoyable throughout the game to choose which area of the enemy you’re facing is weakest. Kinda like the V.A.T.S. system in Fallout, the mechanic is very similar here. With each limb/part detailing the chance to hit and how much damage Ashley can inflict. The game has buffs and debuffs as well which can increase your strengths and accuracy among other values to your benefit. Although, the enemy is pretty smart in their own right and can dish out debuffs to make you weaker. You won’t see this in every fight, but it is something to watch out for.
You don’t gain stats traditionally like other Jrpgs. Instead, every time you defeat a boss you have a slot machine with various stat increases scrolling by. And when you hit a button on the controller the scrolling will stop and whatever stat is displayed will increase your base stats. So if the last section that the scrolling stopped on was MP +2 then your mana pool will increase by 2. HP, str, agi, and int, are also possible results with the number varying. You can also find stat-boosting items whenever you delve deeper into the Leá Monde. By endgame, I had a good spread of my stats and didn’t find too much trouble in the end.
Leá Monde's Secrets
Final thoughts/Ruminations
I’ve heard of Vagrant Story over the years. Usually regarded as tough and complex for the gameplay mechanics to understand and sometimes having one of the most compelling stories out there for a JRPG. And now when the end credits are rolling, I cannot help but agree with those statements.
Despite some of the combat systems being a bit of a learning curve to understand, for the most part. The game is largely self-contained to give you the information and help you understand it. Additionally, there is a quick manual within the game, you can pull up whenever you need to. I found this helpful whenever I needed a refresher on a mechanic I needed a bit more information on.
In my case, I found the combat challenging and rewarding since they give the players so many options to dispatch enemies as I see fit. I could chain attack, my enemies, to death without giving them any moment of reprieve as long as I time my attacks to the big red exclamation point. Could switch to a mage-type build and blast my enemies with devastating spells. Or switch to any of my weapons and blast them with break arts. Using only my HP as the cost if I didn’t want to chain attack them. Defend Ashley with Defensive abilities, so the damage my enemies deal to me isn’t as severe. Switch weapons during combat anytime and rebuff/debuff my enemies before they can get a single hit and more. Heck, I can even position myself so the enemy will hit his/her comrade. And the game will let it occur! So friendly fire does exist! Sucks to be them honestly. Luckily Ashley is a solo man. So you don’t need to worry about hitting party members.
I love the freedom the devs give to the players and it shows so much. If you have the options, abuse it to your heart's content. And Vagrant Story does so magnificently in its own right. While making the enemies challenging and fair to fight. You are never in an insurmountable fight, only unprepared with the wrong equipment being used. As long as you know which type of weapon and shield to use against your enemies you should be able to breeze through the game.
Since the game doesn’t have wide open fields like the team’s previous game with Final Fantasy Tactics. The game largely takes place in box-sized levels. So you don’t have lots of room to explore. I feel the devs used this to their advantage by creating lots of rooms with purpose. Some even go so far as to include no enemies with only boxes where you will have to place them in certain ways to get to the other areas of the room or activate mechanisms to unlock the door. There are even timed events where you need to run across a series of rooms to get to the other side, making combat, not the end all be all for the game. I love this type of breather room so to speak to give players a rest and just run to another room. Granted there aren't a lot of these rooms, but their inclusion of them is still appreciated throughout the game. And while I would’ve liked more interesting rooms to use a different art palette. And a bit more differentiation from some similar corridors. I think the game still has enough surprises in store to alleviate those concerns. One aspect I didn’t see was a decent spread of platforming involved to get to the other side of the room which I took as a personal challenge to do in some rooms. It’s awesome how there is a dedicated jump button so you can evade enemies at your leisure. And the game makes full use of that.
The sound is impeccably well-tuned to the cinematic graphics for the game. Where the story would transition into a cutscene moment between antagonists or with Ashley in the picture. The music is fitting here providing the right amount of tension, anxiety, momentum, and vigor to shift the player’s mood. In my case to great success. I felt intrigued by some scenes. Worried in others, anxious in other cases, and pumped in ensuing fight scenes about to occur. All in all the music and sound effects were intricately linked with the game and I found it enjoyable to listen.
Graphics also share the teamwork load by providing excellent use of cinematic direction to push the PlayStation hardware to its absolute limits of rendering everything in 3D. And while this did limit the game in some areas. I was impressed throughout my playthrough by how the devs were able to circumvent these issues with clever lighting, camera angles, and comic book-styled visual design to accentuate the narrative and keep it intriguing. I felt rooted in my seat in anticipation for the next scene to occur and wondering what will happen next. I also liked the gritter atmosphere the game conveyed of Leá Monde and the surrounding levels and enemies reflected that greatly enhancing the immersion of something more at work here.
I wish the game had some quality-of-life improvements to make the combat a bit more fresh and more modern for newcomers. Having the menu not be slow, removing hard limits on inventory, and connecting it to the storage. Crafting/combining using your whole inventory including the storage chest to eliminate backtracking and going back and forth to the chest. A detailed map of combinations to combine weapons, armor, and shields without consulting a chart online. To help newcomers on what equipment to keep based on stat values. Saving anytime instead of within save circles. And a tiny bit more differentiation between corridors
If there is one last thing to touch on for Vagrant Story. It is how the story is detailed. Through expositional dialog. So you won’t find any factual information to peruse like lorebooks or conversing with NPCs. Pretty much everything you need is through the scenes occurring in the game. And perhaps some item descriptions you find here and there for worldbuilding.
I feel the story closes all important plot points and loose ends pretty well within Leá Monde; the place where all the events take place. It can be slow in the beginning to understand the early scenes being shown, but stick around and you'll probably be engrossed as I did with intrigue and curiosity to learn more. With clever twists and turns I didn't expect and moments I was genuinely shocked to learn as the plot moved forward. There is no cliffhanger ending either and I was quite satisfied with the ending scenes. I will admit the game can make the early scenes confusing if you skip an important cutscene by lingering at the start menu screen and don’t skip any of the following scenes after starting the game. So I recommend not skipping anything.
Be that as it may, there is something quite special here I haven't quite seen, since the time I played Final Fantasy Tactics and Xenogears. To show players something entirely new and bold to the audience without any wasted dialogue. Demonstrating a clever balance of wit in writing. Striving and succeeding in holding my interest throughout by shifting the pendulum in favor of the antagonists or the hero of the story. A fun combat system reminiscent of my time playing games from the Mother series/Witcher 1. With timing my chain attacks. An intriguing story from the beginning, middle, and end. Well-rounded antagonists to boot. Impressive cinematic direction. And takes regular tropes we associate with JRPGs and flips them on its head. To great effect.
All of this is a remarkable achievement for a Playstation 1 title. And despite some criticisms, I have with the game. I think I can safely say it's one of those PlayStation 1 gems that is a must-play for anyone looking for a nuanced story outside the scope of Final Fantasy then look no further than Vagrant Story.
Here is a quote from the director Yasumi Matsuno. I feel this sums up what Vagrant Story is.
"If FF is the game industry version of a major Hollywood movie, then VAGRANT STORY is an independent movie to be watched quietly in a small movie theatre. The scale is different, but the burning enthusiasm and the dreams behind the scenes are the same as in the majors."
Score: 9/10
1 Comment
nicely written.
NOWITSREYNTIME17
2 months ago