'vagrant story is magnificent achievement in sheer mechanical and narrative depth'
VS is a game (and a story) about a lot of things: politics, religion, magic, philosophy, death, revenge, and betrayal.
the mechanics are also considerably deep and complex, even by the standards of an average RPG, which has put a lot of gamers off.
VS was developed by a small team within square and released for the playstation in 1999. You might be familiar with the themes of VS from playing recent games by the same team, such as FFXII, which features a similarly politically-charged plot.
VS also borrows heavily from the FF tactics universe, because it is rumored that they all exist in the fantasy world of ivalice, somewhere.
The story is experienced through a somewhat familiar, but quite different 'RPG structure'. It's a dungeon-crawler at heart, the battles are in semi-real time and it's heavily focused on item management and weapon synthesis.
VS fuses quite a few different play styles such as free-form movement and controllable camera from action adventure games, stat-based development from role-playing games, and twitch-based play from rhythm games.
In VS you dictate the actions of Ashley, a hybrid mercenary/ninja/assassin/samurai. The official term is 'riskbreaker', a kind of cool, calm and collected vessel, a machine of a man that must hide his soul away, leaving only the brain to concentrate on 'the mission'; nothing else but the goal.
The story is very complex in typical square fashion; and thus difficult to fully communicate. The story unravels as if taking place in a matter of days. Events have been going on even before you're sent in to the action, so you're not fully aware of your situation and this seems to be the point even though it can be confusing, because Ashley has to unravel the truth by investigation and exploration.
The plot revolves around a sorcerer named sydney who has been practicing the black arts. Magic in the world of lea monde is an ancient and dangerous thing that is widely thought to be evil and destructive by the holy church.
There are various alliances or groups that thread through the narrative. The crimson blades of the holy church that simply intend to stop Sydney in the name of the church, but their leader, Guildenstern betrays strong ambitions for the capabilities of the power of 'the dark', namely that of immortality.
You never directly meet with Guildenstern, but at times catch a glimpse of him in cut-scenes as he is always further away in time, instead you have to often deal with his crimson blades (strong knights in armor).
The story is like a chase through a derelict city of magic; Ashley's mission was to capture Sydney too, but Sydney toys with Ashley playing mind games and using his connection with the dark to make Ashley see through the eyes of others, guiding him on a quest for the truth. He doesn't necessarily want to fight back at Ashley. Sydney has his own agenda.
It's not a simple black and white mission like in most games. You're cast as a kind of philosopher and harbor a need to find out who you really are and what the motives of the various players in the story are. It's a story about truth and knowledge.
The key plot events are told through sporadic real-time cut-scenes, while Ashley progresses the story by searching for sigils to unlock the doors Sydney has sealed with magic.
Most of the game takes place underground as you crawl through dank and murky dungeons, festering with bizarre creatures and many undead. These cavernous dungeons are strung together by a central town map that links everything together.
The camera is fully three-dimensional, giving the feeling of a seamless map and adding to the thrilling feeling of events happening around you.
This is in stark contrast to most RPGs of the playstation era, such as final fantasy, that tend to use pre-rendered backgrounds and 'full motion video' cut-scenes, and cut away to scenes in different places, taking away from the feeling of one whole solid place.
Indeed, Vagrant story's contemporaries are not other RPGs, but games such as metal gear solid and metroid prime, with their seamless maps and focus on unlocking doors.
'The dark' is a real phenomenon happening to lea monde. It's never fully explained, but the town is drenched with magic, and death. Corpses walk, attacking Ashley, foul beasts roam about and evil from other dimensions are presumably summoned by sydney to attack Ashley, to slow him down.
The dark is also how Ashley is able to accumulate power and abilities, but he also 'recalls' battle skills from the past.
in most computer role-playing games there is a system of experience based on how many enemies you kill. The more you kill, the more you level up.
In vagrant story, ashley doesn't really 'level up', instead he 'levels up' his weapons and shields, like a pokemon squad. In addition to making your arsenal of tools stronger, you acquire battle and defense abilities, and a token stat increase at the end of each boss.
Your weapons get stronger the more you use them against enemies, not necessarily every time you kill them. It takes the basic idea of experience points but makes the system a lot more deep and complex.
For example, if Ashley hits an undead, that weapon might increase to '+1 undead', making that weapon more effective against undead creatures such as skeletons and zombies. Theoretically, you can max that stat (and every other stat) to '100', making it 'super effective'.
Everybody who gets into VS generally recommends that you level up a variety of weapons specializing in each monster class. Among the undead, there are dragons, evils, beasts, phantoms, and humans.
But that's not all, because these monster classes are organized in a hierarchy which means that if you have, say, a '+50 beast dagger' and use it against a human, that dagger might lose some of its 'beastness' and acquire some 'humaness', so that '+50' may drop to '+49', and '+1' to human.
It's possible to have a weapon that contains more than one class in harmony with each other, but some classes are forever opposed.
this kind of subtle system creates a feeling of progression and growth, as if you're changing through your journey, via your actions. you're not just getting more powerful, but you're leaving traces of your whereabouts...defining an identity based on your actions and where you've been.
This kind of weapon system means that preparation is critical to success, and thus progression. VS might be styled like a modern action adventure, but its deep RPG systems force the player to think before acting.
Throughout the catacombs, sewers, and deserted cities Ashley will come across treasure chests that hold new weapons. Similar to resident evil, item management is a part of this preparation. You must decide how many weapons and items to take into each dungeon, and leave some empty slots open for treasure.
But VS doesn't just give you all these weapons for free. You have to craft them. The focus on preparation deepens with the number of workshops littered around lea monde. Here you can forge new weapons for Ashley from the ones you found lying about in dungeons, amassing 'an army of steel' in your penetration through scores of crimson blades and evil creatures.
While similar in idea to other RPG weapon synthesis systems, VS divides a weapon into a 'blade' and a 'hilt'. This seemingly simple division allows for a lot of creative weapon fusing as you progressively find superior handles and grips, or sharper, longer blades forged of more valuable metals. Good hilts can also hold gemstones that offer tactical advantages in battle.
Blades are divided into 'bronze', 'silver', 'iron', 'hagane' and 'damascus' types. A lot of the new weapons arise from 'creative combinations' of these various metals.
Learning how to create new weapons is essential to progress. If you can't do it, the game almost becomes impossible.
making your own weapons is a really satisfying system, making for creative and playful experiences. it's something that is missing from a lot of RPGs. naming your blades also contributes to the unique feeling of rearing an army of steel.
Weapons are divided into 'blunt', 'piercing' and 'edged'. Edged weapons are weapons such as swords and daggers and are used primarily for cutting. Piercing is good for enemies that don't have skin or flesh and include bows and polearms. Blunt weapons like staves and axes are great for smashing frail or brittle enemies.
Through the use of magic ashley can analyze the weaknesses of enemies. This spell is crucial in discovering the defenses of a foe.
Consider a towering dragon. If you run in there blindly, hacking and slashing with any old sword, damage is likely to return a '0'. For a dragon, you generally need to pierce its thick scaly hide, so only a polearm or bow will do.
While regular enemies are small and brief challenges, bosses in VS are more like puzzles. The amount of damage is almost irrelevant as bosses have low HP. The key to boss fights is to figure out their weakness, use your special abilities and above all prepare specific weapons. Attaching specific gems or casting a spell often gives a tactical advantage or a necessary 'way in'.
Battles in VS are semi-real time. You encounter enemies on the map in real-time, but to make your move, you have to freeze time by pressing circle, which brings up a spherical grid allowing you to choose a body part. This element of choice allows more tactical play. Attack enemies' legs enough to reduce their movement, attack their weapon hand to reduce their attack power, and so on.
This battle system retains the thrill and realism of encountering enemies on the map, which is key to maintaining the seamless world, but then it allows more depth of choice by freezing the screen at the leisure of the player.
Spells in VS play a secondary role to weapons. You don't need to use that many spells, but the spells such as 'cure' and elemental spells can be crucial.
It's possible to just hit enemies over and over again until they're dead, but VS goes that extra mile by including a 'chain' system, which allows Ashley to chain attack after attack in a 'string'. Throughout the game, you learn abilities that offer tactical advantages such as 'paralyze', 'poison', or 'extra damage'. Each hit sets off the chain system, allowing you to time the next hit with an ability set to the (triangle/square/circle/x) button. It's possible to gain hundreds of chains, but not necessarily desirable.
Ashley is a 'riskbreaker'. Taking a risk by landing each hit increases ashley's adrenaline. Ashley must stay focused and only deal the necessary amount of damage. The risk system is another restriction placed on Ashley, limiting him from going crazy in battle.
Since sydney awoke something in Ashley, his control over his emotion has been disrupted. You have to help keep him cool-headed and efficient in battle.
You are a riskbreaker, a focused blade that cuts through any obstacles to get the mission done, only ashley's 'mission' turns to a desire to know the truth of what is going on, of the crazed powers of the dark, the walking dead, and the intentions of the strange, cursed sydney.
Vagrant story is magnificent achievement in sheer mechanical and narrative depth, from its dark and intriguing plot and soaring orchestral score to its esoteric weapon synthesis system and puzzle bosses. it perfects everything, and then deepens those experiences like no other game.
You are the vagrant. A homeless wanderer; a traveler without a solid place to stay; always moving, always changing, you define the artist, the philosopher, and the god; always creating new ways to penetrate your world, always seeking the truth beyond good and evil. You are like the Buddha, stripped of the need for wealth and ownership, and following a life devoted to knowledge, traveling and spiritual enrichment…the spirit of the vagrant, penetrator of the dark. what a great analogy for the videogame experience.