Vagrant Story Review

 And so began the story of the wanderer, the vagrant

A late entry on the PSX, releasing just over half a year before the PS2 would first drop. Vagrant Story is a dungeon crawler brought to us by the same team as Final Fantasy Tactics. Behind the scenes, I know little about this one. It's one of squares internal studios so it's down to individual employees and design intentions. So I'll mainly be focusing on the game only as it stands being "late PSX."

Before the gameplay, or even the story really kicks into gear, what Vagrant Story hits you with is it's presentation. From a start as simple as having a smooth transition from FMV to title menu, to no visible loading screens or transitions between scenes (something surely strengthened when lacking a disc to have whirr to life) what you immediately glean is that Vagrant Story isn't just trying to be cinematic. It wants to push the original playstation to it's absolute breaking point in ways I've only ever seen matched by the original Metal Gear Solid, and perhaps Silent Hill.

Characters emote, move and interact fluidly, all in-engine with a level of polish and detail you only start to see nowadays, thanks to the resurgence of PSX style graphics in games like Signalis, or even Bloodborne Kart. It's not just that they were motion captured, their faces and bodies emote and change freely. Something as simple as blood dripping from the characters mouth which in another game would simply be a cut away and swapping the facial texture, is instead animated so fluidly I genuinely don't know how they pulled it off. 

Tricks using duplicate models and clever angles create natural seeming lighting, while I even found myself shocked when a character would be wounded, and the wound would match the striking point perfectly. Again, avoiding the cutting away or discretion shots other games would use to, quite reasonably, allow the devs time to actually, y'know, make the video game.

As a whole, the presentation is next level, and I hope to god this game is used as an example for anyone interested in making such nostalgic animations in modern day. They even have the hair flowing naturally, and not like a Lara Croft ponytail actual bangs and strands in the cutscenes get brushed aside or sway around.

In the end, what we have is a game clearly made by a team who not only completed and thoroughly understood the hardware, but wanted to give it one final swan song before the PS2 would change the landscape forever. It's stunning, even outside the cutscenes. While relatively small in scale and size, the game world is beautiful and every animation is smooth and wonderful to watch play out during gameplay. 

Oh, yeah, the gameplay. You probably think after all that praising of the cinematics and visual effort, it's a bit of a token dungeon crawler with not much to comment on. Same old same old fun as ever but not breaking any ground.... And you're only half right.

The gameplay of Vagrant story really isn't anything new. It's a real time dungeon crawler that's actively using the 3d space and freedom of movement to determine range for things like spells, weapon reach, and even just moving and jumping around. It's even decidedly retro in design, with things like having no set level ups. Only small stat boosting items, a random roulette of stat buff after a boss, and gear which you can augment with gems, or combine and break apart to try and make better or even much stronger pieces. Aside from a basic strength intelligence agility trio. All stat buffs are made using a system that increases power in some aspects, while decreasing it in opposing or 'weak' aspects in turn. Basically, you have some knives for stabbing goblins, but you save the mace for whacking undead.

But the trick is, the game knows it's not anything new. In fact, it outright has a manual accessible in game from the instant you get past the prologue. Listing every single detail, from what stats will be lowered while others increase, what buffs do and don't overwrite each other, the basics of weapon and armor crafting... But as you scroll through, thinking "oh god I have to do homework before I can play- Hang on, what's 'READ ME'?"

Yeah, they actually put a section at the end summarizing several must know things, all but stating outright "if you want to get in and start slashing, this is all you need to know barebones. You can figure the rest out as you go."

That's the trick, the actual fun of the game is figuring it out as you go. Not just things like boss weaknesses, game mechanics, tricks and how valuable buffing spells are vs raw damage, what a mage build even looks like let alone what stats you should prioritize. Even something like the first 10 bosses are more tutorials teaching you to read the manual and figure out what mechanic you need to implement next.

It's not a game for people playing for the story, following along with a guide as you play on through. Actually, if anything it feels like a game specifically made to cater to me. This is a game that echoes the old feeling of booting up that cool new CRPG you picked up for a massive discount. Only to open it and find the manual is as thick as a small novel, so instead you just boot up the game and yolo character creation before going through the epic prologue and tutorial. But man this games a little wierd, should I be using "aimed shots?" These scorpions are murdering me. So you go in the manual, see how aimed shots work, and now you know to use it on armoured enemies for the most part. But you're like an hour in and still haven't found magic, oh, the manual says magic is found by learning words from sages. Oh I guess I just haven't found a sage yet. It says I'll find one in... bingletown. Wait, that was west of here! And so on.

That's probably rambling, but at the same time I literally cannot describe Vagrant Story better than that without spoiling the fun. So for the gameplay, take my recommendation as this. If you can tell what the hell I was going on about last paragraph, you should play Vagrant Story you will absolutely love it. If you have no idea? Maybe hold off, similarly true if you're new to that style of rather aggressively difficult and crunchy RPG. As cool as the cutscenes are, this game is best enjoyed as a treat for those who've spent many hours already on games similar to it. Though, maybe watch the opening on youtube to see what I mean about the quality, it really is insane.