I don't want to say I've been dreading this post...but I've been dreading this post. Because now, I'm going to have to attempt to explain how Vagrant Story works.
Before we get started, I am going to make it clear that I'm going to explain the game's mechanics on a fairly basic level. Some of the systems run very deep here and I would be lying if I said I had much more than a surface level of understading of how they work. I will say, it's actually not too bad once you figure it out, but Vagrant Story has the reputation it does for a reason. There is a lot going on here, especially for a console RPG and it's going to take some time to really lay out how it all works. But we also have to address the elephant in the room here: is the complexity on offer good or bad? Do all these detailed stats and equipment combinations improve the game or make it worse? Well, that depends who you ask. But with so much to unpack here, we best get started.
While it has a reputation for complex equipment and stat management, Vagrant Story's actual minute to minute gameplay is fairly easy to explain. Ashley explores Lea Monde from a third person perspective, with the ability to jump, climb, push objects and draw his weapons. You start with an empty map, which gradually fills out as you explore, almost like a Metroidvania. You will occasionally have to do some platform jumping or solve a block puzzle, but these sections usually aren't difficult, at least not until the end of the game.
The combat system feels like a cross between turn based and action RPGs, which almost sounds paradoxical. Once his weapon is drawn, another press of the attack button will bring up a spherical grid, which indicates Ashley's attack range. This range is determined by the type of weapon he has equipped (more on that later), and will allow him to hit any part of an enemy within it. Most enemies in Vagrant Story have multiple points to attack, with damage to specific parts eventually leading to various effects. Do enough damage to the left arm of a human enemy, for example, and their attack will be lowered by 50%. Of course, these same rules apply to Ashley. This was a good idea on paper, though most enemies don't really have enough HP for this to become relevant. But perhaps the most important part of combat here are the chain attacks. After each swing of your weapon, an exclamation point will appear next to Ashley. This is your opportunity to add an additional attack by pressing the corresponding button. You can also use defense abilities in the same manner, though they are basically one and done. You can equip up to three chain abilities and, in theory, attack infinitely by successfully hitting these skill checks. I say in theory, because now we have to start digging deeper. Because once you bring up the grid sphere, you will probably notice a whole slew of numbers and words that made absolutely no sense. And here's where things get odd.
Let's start with the most simple one of these values, the RISK meter. As you attack and successfully complete chains, your risk meter is going to go up. The higher your risk goes, the lower chance you have of hitting an enemy and the more damage you take. And your hit percentage goes down quick, letting your RISK go above 25 or 30 is going to substantially lower it and hitting max risk will ensure you won't hit anything at all. There are some positives to having high risk, items and magic will be more effective, but generally you want to keep this low. You can do this in battle by using an item or outside of battle by exiting combat mode. I understand why they included this mechanic, it's basically a way to prevent players from getting so good at the chain attacks that they break the game. However, managing it can feel cumbersome and the best way to do so is to simply just defeat your enemy and wait in an empty room before proceeding. It does go down failry quickly, but it still breaks up the pace.
And now, we dig deeper still. When targeting an enemy , you might be surprised to find that your attacks are doing almost no damage. Your equipment is brand new and your stats are good, but you just can't seem to deal damage to anything but humans or zombies. It's not a scaling thing, enemies have HP values in the high 10s and hundeds, so dealing one or two damage at a time is not going to cut it. This is where we have to look at the three values at the bottom of the attack screen. These denote the enemies type, the elemental properties of your weapon and the classification of your weapon. Understanding all of these, at least on some level, is essential to defeating foes.
First, you have the enemy type. All enemies in Vagrant Story fit into one of six categories: Human, Beast, Dragon, Phantom, Evil, and Undead. These are all arranged in a list on your status screen, which seems like a trivial detail. But the order of that list is very important. You see, as you attack an enemy, the affinity of your equipped weapon against that enemy type goes up. The more you attack it, the higher it goes. The catch here is that your weapon's affinity against the two enemy types immediately below it on the list will go down, so you need to make sure you are using specific weapons against specific enemy types. Elemental affinities also factor in to your weapon's damage. There are three pairs, air and earth, fire and water and light and dark, as well as physical. Enemies also have affinities, and attacking an enemy will increase the opposite affinity. Oh yeah, this also applies to your armor, and taking damage from said element will increase your affinity to it. And yet, there's more still, because weapons are also classified as blunt, slashing and piercing. Enemies can be weak to or resist these, but they are difficult to increase or change without combining.
Ah yes, combining. Vagrant Story has crafting and it's an essential part of creating the best possible weapons and armor. I'm going to be honest, I am barely going to scratch the surface of what's going on here, as I understand it there are a lot of variables that go into the mixing of equipment here. I don't understand it at a deep level, but I understood enough to get through the game. Equipment can be one of five materials, with weapons available in bronze, iron, silver, hagane and damascus, and armor available in the same materials as well as leather and wood. You can combine equipment at workshops, each of which allows for the combining of specific materials. Combining the armor is relatively simple, you choose two pieces to mix, see if the result is beneficial and accept the combination if it is. In general, you want to stick to combining the same types of armor, helmets with helmets, gloves with gloves, etc., but that's not a hard and fast rule.
The weapons are a little bit more involved. Sometimes you will hit the right combination and get yourself a stronger weapon, but typically your final result will actually end up somewhere in the middle of the two blades you combine. The rub here is that combining weapons will allow you to transfer the gains you've had with category and elemental affinity, so you need to keep combining to power up your equipment while also keeping your hard earned affinity and class points. Like armor, you generally want to keep the combinations to weapons of the same type. There is a huge variety here, with swords, daggers, one handed axes and maces, two handed axes and maces, broadswords, polearms, crossbows and staves all offering unique properties. Of note, it's also a best practice to try and upscale your weapons, as certain materials are considered higher quality than others. For example, combining bronze and iron effectively will typically produce hagane equipment, which will be stronger overall.
While combining is the flashier way to improve your weapons, it's not the only one. Every weapon you pick up in Vagrant Story can be disassembled, each one is made up of both a grip and a blade and you can mix and match between weapons of the same type, the smaller bladed weapons all share a grip type but the polearms and crossbows have their own unique grips. This is the best way to alter the weapon properties, as different grips can add or remove points from weapon types. Perhaps more importantly, it allows you to equip more gems to your weapons. Gems are accessories that can add buffs and increase your affinities, so they are essential to building the strongest weapons. Sometimes it's better to forgo combining a great blade you have been building up all game if you can simply find a better grip. It's also essential to manage your damage points and phantom points to keep your weapons sharp. What, did you think we were done talking about weapon customizations yet? Most weapons will start with full DP and zero PP. Defeating enemies will cause the former to decrease and the latter to increase. More PP means more damage, which will be noticable at the start. But after a while, your DP will drop so low that fighting will start to lead to diminishing returns. So your best bet is to keep the two as balanced as possible. The best way to do this, in fact the only way to really do it, is with chain attacks, so plan accordingly.
Okay, that was a lot, Vagrant Story has the reputation it does for a reason. It's great that the item creation and stat management is so deep, but how does that actually impact the gameplay? Well, quite a lot. Honestly, I think the best thing to do at this point is to kind of talk about how I was able to get through the game, focusing on what was really important and why. Long story short, if you want to succed in VS, you need to at the very least understand these three concepts. First, the order of importance for weapon properties goes type, elemental affinity and enemy type affinity. Since it can be difficult to alter values for weapon type, you should focus on your weapon's elemental affinities first and foremost, using gems to custom tailor them to each boss fight. In general, you want to carry one of each weapon type, piercing, slashing and blunt, and attach your gems as needed on a battle to battle basis. Getting a good piercing weapon is a priority, far more enemies are weak to it than other types. You definitely want to focus on building up light affinity where you can, as there are a lot of undead around Lea Monde and most of them are weak to the element. In some cases, you are even better off raising a weapon's element as high as you can in a category your foe doesn't resist than raising it a little bit in one they are weak to.
Second, buffs and debuffs matter. I feel like it's always an all or nothing thing with the usefulness of these kinds of skills in RPGs, and Vagrant Story is definitely on the "all" side. Throughout his journey, Ashley will find grimoires which will allow him to learn magic. There are a huge variety of spells, but I found most of the attack magic to be lacking. I know there are builds that make this not the case, but I've always felt like I just never had enough MP to really make attack spells work. But the healing spells are essential to survival and the buffs, debuffs and elemntal fusion spells might as well be required. If buffing yourself doesn't help, debuff your enemy. If one debuff doesn't work, try another. Most enemies are vulnerable to something, whether it's reducing their speed, intelligence, attack or defense. It is worth noting that your can pretty much only ever have two debuffs on an enemey (or yourself) at once, one targeting the target itself and the other its equipment.
The last key here is getting good at the chains or finding ways around them. I was able to brute force my way through the game when I was younger almost entirely on being good at the chanin attacks. VS is considered a very tough game, I certainly went into it expecting a high degree of difficulty, but once I had my equipment set up I had little trouble dispatching most enemies or even bosses. Of note, there are a few enemies who resist chain attacks and the game doesn't really tell you this. You will connect with your first attack only to have most of your subsequent hits miss, even if you are at low RISK. If you notice this happen, stop chaining immediately and just go for one-off hits or use break arts. Personally, I never found break arts all that useful, these can be learned by using the various weapon types a set number of times and provide a one-time, single target attack at the cost of some HP. This is a good way to deal damage if you can't get the timing of the chain attacks down, but I never used them much.
So, that brings us back to our initial question: does all that complexity actually make the game better? Well, yes and no. On the positive side, it really makes every battle feel like it matters. Even weaker enemies will feel like an insurmountable challenge if you don't have the right equipment, especially later in the game when you start encountering magic users that can drain your HP in one or two shots. At the same time, you can get good enough at chain attacks and manage your resources well enough that you can brute force your way through the game. It will frustrate you to no end and probably triple your play time, but you can do it. I have gone on record as really disliking crafting, but that wasn't the case here. The crafting is easy to learn and understand on a base level, but incredibly difficult to master with a lot of potential outcomes. That's how it should be. It also feels like an essential part of the game rather than a waste of time or brainless distraction, so I didn't really mind spending substanital amounts of play sessions in workshops trying different combinations. It's not super relevant to gameplay, but I also think it's awesome you can name your weapons whatever you want.
While we are on the subject of things I frequently complain about that VS actually does well, I think the post game content and second playthrough here are excellent. Clearing the game will give you the option to start a new game plus, which will remove all of your map progress but allow you to keep your weapons. It will also give Ashley access to the Rood Inverse, a key that will unlock doors throughout Lea Monde that you couldn't access before. These lead to new sections of the city and post game dungeons that ramp up the challenge and make an additional playthrough feel like its truly worth it. The lower levels of the Iron Maiden are excellent examples of how to do a post game dungeon right. You can also further customize your weapons, making them stronger and stronger as you try and build blades that weren't accessible on your first playthrough. You can play the game as many times as you want, but I do believe two trips through are all that are required to get 100%. Still, this is the right way to do a new game plus mode.
But now we have to cover the bad, because all this complexity leads to the two biggest issues I had with Vagrant Story, both of which I believe to be huge flaws that prevent me from enjoying it as it's most staunch defenders do. The first is pacing. I kind of alluded to this before when I discussed RISK, but you do a lot of waiting around in Vagrant Story, like, way more than you should. You have to wait a minute every time you move to a new room to let your RISK go down or let your MP go up. It's great in theory that you need to debuff everything you fight, but it also means you can't afford to go into any room without a full or mostly full MP bar. Then, you have to open your quick menu, select a spell, select a target, cast the spell and do it four or five times every time you enter a new location. This was fairly intuitive for the time, but it would have been better if you could set up auto chains or something like that, like set up quick commands to cast three or four spells in succession. Again, this would have been nice to have in many games of the era but would have made a major difference here, where you are constantly applying buffs and debuffs.
But at least you have a quick menu for spellcasting (and using break arts and items, for the record). Changing your equipment is another matter. Every time you want to change your weapon, you have to open the menu, chose equip, navigate a fairly extensive inventory menu, equip your weapon and back out. Again, in most RPGs, that's not a huge deal. But remember, you are changing your weapons extremely frequently, sometimes even two or three times in an individual room. The designers liked to put enemies with different affinities or types in rooms together, which is actually a great idea from a gameplay and challenge perspective. But in this game, where your equipment matters above all else, That means spending an inordinate amount of time in menus just switching weapons over and over again. And that's to say nothing of changing out the gems on your weapons, which is in a whole other part of the menu and takes even more time. This seems like it's a minor inconvenience, but it's a major pace killer here, you will spend all sorts of time in menus and it really bogs the game down. A quick-change or equip set option would have gone a very long way here.
The other issue here is balance. Simply put, once you figure out how all of these systems work a lot of the bosses cease being even remotely difficult. You equip the right weapon, apply the right debuffs and hit a few solid chain attacks and you can take even the stronger ones down in a few swings of your weapon. Most bosses have a handful of powerful attacks, but very few can just erase you with one shot. The final boss can do it if you don't get the timing down on your defense abilities, but that's the final boss, they should have high power. By the end of the game, your biggest threat will come from regular enemies, especially in rooms where enemies of different types mob you. You are almost forced to take hits because you will spend so much time changing weapons, re-adjusting your range and swinging again. And if enemies start throwing out status effects like paralyze and numbness? Good luck. Honestly, there are more enemies that can one or two shot Ashley than there are bosses, with the Liches being the biggest culprit. These guys teleport around the room, appearing to instantly cast high level magic that you will not survive if you are not at full MP or prepares with a spell. Harpies can also use instant death spells, though at least their hit percentage on these is low. Both of those enemies are far more dangerous than any boss you encounter in the last third of the game, which really shouldn't be the case.
After this playthrough of Vagrant Story, I've come to the conclusion that this game would benefit from a remaster or reamke more than just about any other title of its era. There's another I might put ahead of it, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it, maybe later this year. Keep the detailed customization, the fun combat and the excellent atmosphere, but add modern conveniences to elimante the lack of pacing issues and make the bosses even bigger and badder. Maybe add a little more detail to the story as well? Maybe allow for some exploration of Valendia or Ivalice? Honestly, I think the level of complexity is fine, but maybe drop one or two of the things you have to track. Maybe the whole DP/PP thing? I'd like them to find a way to fix the whole RISK system, though I can't really think of an effective solution for doing so. Regardless, I think VS could really benefit from a modern update, far more than many of the titles that have already received such a treatment.
But with what we have now, I will stand by my claim that Vagrant Story manages to pull off the rare feat of being simultaneously over- and underrated. That said, it's far more good than bad and definitely worth checking out for RPG fans who like complex systems and and weapon management. I often see VS touted as something of a spiritual precursor to the Souls games. I can definitely see that, its timing based combat, dark world, tense exploration and difficulty definitely feel akin to the modern Soulsborne games. I will say the difficulty is a bit overstated once you understand the various systems, but that's easier said than done. And for all its warts, Vagrant Story is a unique title that's worth checking out for experienced RPG pros. Don't buy into the hype from those that will tell you it's the best game ever, just because something is obscure and different doesn't mean its good. But you can similarly ignore the slings and arrows of those who couldn't be bothered to learn the game's systems and abandoned it becaus it was too hard. Give it a shot and make the judgement for yourself. As for my thoughts...
8.5/10
Before we get started, I am going to make it clear that I'm going to explain the game's mechanics on a fairly basic level. Some of the systems run very deep here and I would be lying if I said I had much more than a surface level of understading of how they work. I will say, it's actually not too bad once you figure it out, but Vagrant Story has the reputation it does for a reason. There is a lot going on here, especially for a console RPG and it's going to take some time to really lay out how it all works. But we also have to address the elephant in the room here: is the complexity on offer good or bad? Do all these detailed stats and equipment combinations improve the game or make it worse? Well, that depends who you ask. But with so much to unpack here, we best get started.
While it has a reputation for complex equipment and stat management, Vagrant Story's actual minute to minute gameplay is fairly easy to explain. Ashley explores Lea Monde from a third person perspective, with the ability to jump, climb, push objects and draw his weapons. You start with an empty map, which gradually fills out as you explore, almost like a Metroidvania. You will occasionally have to do some platform jumping or solve a block puzzle, but these sections usually aren't difficult, at least not until the end of the game.
The combat system feels like a cross between turn based and action RPGs, which almost sounds paradoxical. Once his weapon is drawn, another press of the attack button will bring up a spherical grid, which indicates Ashley's attack range. This range is determined by the type of weapon he has equipped (more on that later), and will allow him to hit any part of an enemy within it. Most enemies in Vagrant Story have multiple points to attack, with damage to specific parts eventually leading to various effects. Do enough damage to the left arm of a human enemy, for example, and their attack will be lowered by 50%. Of course, these same rules apply to Ashley. This was a good idea on paper, though most enemies don't really have enough HP for this to become relevant. But perhaps the most important part of combat here are the chain attacks. After each swing of your weapon, an exclamation point will appear next to Ashley. This is your opportunity to add an additional attack by pressing the corresponding button. You can also use defense abilities in the same manner, though they are basically one and done. You can equip up to three chain abilities and, in theory, attack infinitely by successfully hitting these skill checks. I say in theory, because now we have to start digging deeper. Because once you bring up the grid sphere, you will probably notice a whole slew of numbers and words that made absolutely no sense. And here's where things get odd.
Let's start with the most simple one of these values, the RISK meter. As you attack and successfully complete chains, your risk meter is going to go up. The higher your risk goes, the lower chance you have of hitting an enemy and the more damage you take. And your hit percentage goes down quick, letting your RISK go above 25 or 30 is going to substantially lower it and hitting max risk will ensure you won't hit anything at all. There are some positives to having high risk, items and magic will be more effective, but generally you want to keep this low. You can do this in battle by using an item or outside of battle by exiting combat mode. I understand why they included this mechanic, it's basically a way to prevent players from getting so good at the chain attacks that they break the game. However, managing it can feel cumbersome and the best way to do so is to simply just defeat your enemy and wait in an empty room before proceeding. It does go down failry quickly, but it still breaks up the pace.
And now, we dig deeper still. When targeting an enemy , you might be surprised to find that your attacks are doing almost no damage. Your equipment is brand new and your stats are good, but you just can't seem to deal damage to anything but humans or zombies. It's not a scaling thing, enemies have HP values in the high 10s and hundeds, so dealing one or two damage at a time is not going to cut it. This is where we have to look at the three values at the bottom of the attack screen. These denote the enemies type, the elemental properties of your weapon and the classification of your weapon. Understanding all of these, at least on some level, is essential to defeating foes.
First, you have the enemy type. All enemies in Vagrant Story fit into one of six categories: Human, Beast, Dragon, Phantom, Evil, and Undead. These are all arranged in a list on your status screen, which seems like a trivial detail. But the order of that list is very important. You see, as you attack an enemy, the affinity of your equipped weapon against that enemy type goes up. The more you attack it, the higher it goes. The catch here is that your weapon's affinity against the two enemy types immediately below it on the list will go down, so you need to make sure you are using specific weapons against specific enemy types. Elemental affinities also factor in to your weapon's damage. There are three pairs, air and earth, fire and water and light and dark, as well as physical. Enemies also have affinities, and attacking an enemy will increase the opposite affinity. Oh yeah, this also applies to your armor, and taking damage from said element will increase your affinity to it. And yet, there's more still, because weapons are also classified as blunt, slashing and piercing. Enemies can be weak to or resist these, but they are difficult to increase or change without combining.
Ah yes, combining. Vagrant Story has crafting and it's an essential part of creating the best possible weapons and armor. I'm going to be honest, I am barely going to scratch the surface of what's going on here, as I understand it there are a lot of variables that go into the mixing of equipment here. I don't understand it at a deep level, but I understood enough to get through the game. Equipment can be one of five materials, with weapons available in bronze, iron, silver, hagane and damascus, and armor available in the same materials as well as leather and wood. You can combine equipment at workshops, each of which allows for the combining of specific materials. Combining the armor is relatively simple, you choose two pieces to mix, see if the result is beneficial and accept the combination if it is. In general, you want to stick to combining the same types of armor, helmets with helmets, gloves with gloves, etc., but that's not a hard and fast rule.
The weapons are a little bit more involved. Sometimes you will hit the right combination and get yourself a stronger weapon, but typically your final result will actually end up somewhere in the middle of the two blades you combine. The rub here is that combining weapons will allow you to transfer the gains you've had with category and elemental affinity, so you need to keep combining to power up your equipment while also keeping your hard earned affinity and class points. Like armor, you generally want to keep the combinations to weapons of the same type. There is a huge variety here, with swords, daggers, one handed axes and maces, two handed axes and maces, broadswords, polearms, crossbows and staves all offering unique properties. Of note, it's also a best practice to try and upscale your weapons, as certain materials are considered higher quality than others. For example, combining bronze and iron effectively will typically produce hagane equipment, which will be stronger overall.
While combining is the flashier way to improve your weapons, it's not the only one. Every weapon you pick up in Vagrant Story can be disassembled, each one is made up of both a grip and a blade and you can mix and match between weapons of the same type, the smaller bladed weapons all share a grip type but the polearms and crossbows have their own unique grips. This is the best way to alter the weapon properties, as different grips can add or remove points from weapon types. Perhaps more importantly, it allows you to equip more gems to your weapons. Gems are accessories that can add buffs and increase your affinities, so they are essential to building the strongest weapons. Sometimes it's better to forgo combining a great blade you have been building up all game if you can simply find a better grip. It's also essential to manage your damage points and phantom points to keep your weapons sharp. What, did you think we were done talking about weapon customizations yet? Most weapons will start with full DP and zero PP. Defeating enemies will cause the former to decrease and the latter to increase. More PP means more damage, which will be noticable at the start. But after a while, your DP will drop so low that fighting will start to lead to diminishing returns. So your best bet is to keep the two as balanced as possible. The best way to do this, in fact the only way to really do it, is with chain attacks, so plan accordingly.
Okay, that was a lot, Vagrant Story has the reputation it does for a reason. It's great that the item creation and stat management is so deep, but how does that actually impact the gameplay? Well, quite a lot. Honestly, I think the best thing to do at this point is to kind of talk about how I was able to get through the game, focusing on what was really important and why. Long story short, if you want to succed in VS, you need to at the very least understand these three concepts. First, the order of importance for weapon properties goes type, elemental affinity and enemy type affinity. Since it can be difficult to alter values for weapon type, you should focus on your weapon's elemental affinities first and foremost, using gems to custom tailor them to each boss fight. In general, you want to carry one of each weapon type, piercing, slashing and blunt, and attach your gems as needed on a battle to battle basis. Getting a good piercing weapon is a priority, far more enemies are weak to it than other types. You definitely want to focus on building up light affinity where you can, as there are a lot of undead around Lea Monde and most of them are weak to the element. In some cases, you are even better off raising a weapon's element as high as you can in a category your foe doesn't resist than raising it a little bit in one they are weak to.
Second, buffs and debuffs matter. I feel like it's always an all or nothing thing with the usefulness of these kinds of skills in RPGs, and Vagrant Story is definitely on the "all" side. Throughout his journey, Ashley will find grimoires which will allow him to learn magic. There are a huge variety of spells, but I found most of the attack magic to be lacking. I know there are builds that make this not the case, but I've always felt like I just never had enough MP to really make attack spells work. But the healing spells are essential to survival and the buffs, debuffs and elemntal fusion spells might as well be required. If buffing yourself doesn't help, debuff your enemy. If one debuff doesn't work, try another. Most enemies are vulnerable to something, whether it's reducing their speed, intelligence, attack or defense. It is worth noting that your can pretty much only ever have two debuffs on an enemey (or yourself) at once, one targeting the target itself and the other its equipment.
The last key here is getting good at the chains or finding ways around them. I was able to brute force my way through the game when I was younger almost entirely on being good at the chanin attacks. VS is considered a very tough game, I certainly went into it expecting a high degree of difficulty, but once I had my equipment set up I had little trouble dispatching most enemies or even bosses. Of note, there are a few enemies who resist chain attacks and the game doesn't really tell you this. You will connect with your first attack only to have most of your subsequent hits miss, even if you are at low RISK. If you notice this happen, stop chaining immediately and just go for one-off hits or use break arts. Personally, I never found break arts all that useful, these can be learned by using the various weapon types a set number of times and provide a one-time, single target attack at the cost of some HP. This is a good way to deal damage if you can't get the timing of the chain attacks down, but I never used them much.
So, that brings us back to our initial question: does all that complexity actually make the game better? Well, yes and no. On the positive side, it really makes every battle feel like it matters. Even weaker enemies will feel like an insurmountable challenge if you don't have the right equipment, especially later in the game when you start encountering magic users that can drain your HP in one or two shots. At the same time, you can get good enough at chain attacks and manage your resources well enough that you can brute force your way through the game. It will frustrate you to no end and probably triple your play time, but you can do it. I have gone on record as really disliking crafting, but that wasn't the case here. The crafting is easy to learn and understand on a base level, but incredibly difficult to master with a lot of potential outcomes. That's how it should be. It also feels like an essential part of the game rather than a waste of time or brainless distraction, so I didn't really mind spending substanital amounts of play sessions in workshops trying different combinations. It's not super relevant to gameplay, but I also think it's awesome you can name your weapons whatever you want.
While we are on the subject of things I frequently complain about that VS actually does well, I think the post game content and second playthrough here are excellent. Clearing the game will give you the option to start a new game plus, which will remove all of your map progress but allow you to keep your weapons. It will also give Ashley access to the Rood Inverse, a key that will unlock doors throughout Lea Monde that you couldn't access before. These lead to new sections of the city and post game dungeons that ramp up the challenge and make an additional playthrough feel like its truly worth it. The lower levels of the Iron Maiden are excellent examples of how to do a post game dungeon right. You can also further customize your weapons, making them stronger and stronger as you try and build blades that weren't accessible on your first playthrough. You can play the game as many times as you want, but I do believe two trips through are all that are required to get 100%. Still, this is the right way to do a new game plus mode.
But now we have to cover the bad, because all this complexity leads to the two biggest issues I had with Vagrant Story, both of which I believe to be huge flaws that prevent me from enjoying it as it's most staunch defenders do. The first is pacing. I kind of alluded to this before when I discussed RISK, but you do a lot of waiting around in Vagrant Story, like, way more than you should. You have to wait a minute every time you move to a new room to let your RISK go down or let your MP go up. It's great in theory that you need to debuff everything you fight, but it also means you can't afford to go into any room without a full or mostly full MP bar. Then, you have to open your quick menu, select a spell, select a target, cast the spell and do it four or five times every time you enter a new location. This was fairly intuitive for the time, but it would have been better if you could set up auto chains or something like that, like set up quick commands to cast three or four spells in succession. Again, this would have been nice to have in many games of the era but would have made a major difference here, where you are constantly applying buffs and debuffs.
But at least you have a quick menu for spellcasting (and using break arts and items, for the record). Changing your equipment is another matter. Every time you want to change your weapon, you have to open the menu, chose equip, navigate a fairly extensive inventory menu, equip your weapon and back out. Again, in most RPGs, that's not a huge deal. But remember, you are changing your weapons extremely frequently, sometimes even two or three times in an individual room. The designers liked to put enemies with different affinities or types in rooms together, which is actually a great idea from a gameplay and challenge perspective. But in this game, where your equipment matters above all else, That means spending an inordinate amount of time in menus just switching weapons over and over again. And that's to say nothing of changing out the gems on your weapons, which is in a whole other part of the menu and takes even more time. This seems like it's a minor inconvenience, but it's a major pace killer here, you will spend all sorts of time in menus and it really bogs the game down. A quick-change or equip set option would have gone a very long way here.
The other issue here is balance. Simply put, once you figure out how all of these systems work a lot of the bosses cease being even remotely difficult. You equip the right weapon, apply the right debuffs and hit a few solid chain attacks and you can take even the stronger ones down in a few swings of your weapon. Most bosses have a handful of powerful attacks, but very few can just erase you with one shot. The final boss can do it if you don't get the timing down on your defense abilities, but that's the final boss, they should have high power. By the end of the game, your biggest threat will come from regular enemies, especially in rooms where enemies of different types mob you. You are almost forced to take hits because you will spend so much time changing weapons, re-adjusting your range and swinging again. And if enemies start throwing out status effects like paralyze and numbness? Good luck. Honestly, there are more enemies that can one or two shot Ashley than there are bosses, with the Liches being the biggest culprit. These guys teleport around the room, appearing to instantly cast high level magic that you will not survive if you are not at full MP or prepares with a spell. Harpies can also use instant death spells, though at least their hit percentage on these is low. Both of those enemies are far more dangerous than any boss you encounter in the last third of the game, which really shouldn't be the case.
After this playthrough of Vagrant Story, I've come to the conclusion that this game would benefit from a remaster or reamke more than just about any other title of its era. There's another I might put ahead of it, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it, maybe later this year. Keep the detailed customization, the fun combat and the excellent atmosphere, but add modern conveniences to elimante the lack of pacing issues and make the bosses even bigger and badder. Maybe add a little more detail to the story as well? Maybe allow for some exploration of Valendia or Ivalice? Honestly, I think the level of complexity is fine, but maybe drop one or two of the things you have to track. Maybe the whole DP/PP thing? I'd like them to find a way to fix the whole RISK system, though I can't really think of an effective solution for doing so. Regardless, I think VS could really benefit from a modern update, far more than many of the titles that have already received such a treatment.
But with what we have now, I will stand by my claim that Vagrant Story manages to pull off the rare feat of being simultaneously over- and underrated. That said, it's far more good than bad and definitely worth checking out for RPG fans who like complex systems and and weapon management. I often see VS touted as something of a spiritual precursor to the Souls games. I can definitely see that, its timing based combat, dark world, tense exploration and difficulty definitely feel akin to the modern Soulsborne games. I will say the difficulty is a bit overstated once you understand the various systems, but that's easier said than done. And for all its warts, Vagrant Story is a unique title that's worth checking out for experienced RPG pros. Don't buy into the hype from those that will tell you it's the best game ever, just because something is obscure and different doesn't mean its good. But you can similarly ignore the slings and arrows of those who couldn't be bothered to learn the game's systems and abandoned it becaus it was too hard. Give it a shot and make the judgement for yourself. As for my thoughts...
8.5/10
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