Pros: NEW UPDATE 10/23/00! Deep, interesting battle system, nice graphics, interesting storyline.
Cons: A tad on the complicated side, graphics a little chunky, no pause.... it's REALLY complicated...

Kifwebe did something quite interesting with his Seattle review, making it what he called a "living review", one that would change over time as more ideas and experiences were added to the review.

I'd like to give that a shot as well.

I received Vagrant Story as a gift, recently and have only started playing it. I thought it might be fun to try reviewing the game in stages, updating the review bit by bit as I worked my way through the game. This section will be called "First Impressions" as I highlight my first thoughts on the game. As I continue to uncover aspects of the game, I'll enter my continuing thoughts into the review with a conclusive, final review to cap it all off.

I don't know how well it'll work, but hopefully kifwebe can give me some pointers along the way.


FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Vagrant Story, one of the latest in Square's knock-out line-up for the Playstation in 2000, follows Riskbreaker Ashley Riot, a skilled special agent for the Valendia Peacekeeping force through his adventures in Lea Monde as he attempts to solve a murder mystery, find the culprit and clear his name. Set in a sort of pseudo-feudal era, the dark story seems to harken back to Final Fantasy Tactic's convoluted mood and origins. The game is described as an RPG but focuses much more on action than the Final Fantasy series. In fact, the game should probably be compared more to Parasite Eve in terms of game-play, employing the same targeting bubble and a not-quite-turn-based movement/attack system.

I've heard quite a bit of praise about the graphic quality of the game, hailing it as the most beautiful game ever created on the Playstation. Well. It's not bad. In game graphics are sharp, with nicely animated polygon characters and quite the atmospheric color palette, but the cut scenes leave a bit to be desired. The cut scenes themselves definitely help achieve a nice cinematic look for the game, but the graphics are a bit chunky and tend to wobble a little. There's heavy pixelation on the characters since the cut scenes employ the in-game graphics and zooming in wreaks havoc on how clean it looks. It's not bad, but just doesn't achieve the clean graphic effect attained by Final Fantasy VIII. The lighting effects add some nice eye-candy for spells and effects. The character designs of both the characters and the bosses, including a HUGE minotaur, have been nicely textured with detail to rival the characters in FFVIII. And they have faces that move. The character's faces are extremely well crafted, nicely proportioned with a high degree of variety and mouths that move. It's a great look, adding to the cinematic feel of it all.

To supplement the mostly lovely graphics, the game contains some sharp sound effects, successfully pulling the player into the dungeons. The hollow clank of sword on armor echoes through the catacombs in stereo, backed by the grunts and yells of the victims. The music, again with similar shades of Final Fantasy Tactics, brings an orchestral vibrance to the game that enhances it nicely.

So far, the battle system has been... interesting, to say the least. It seems to employ aspects of Xenogears, Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy VIII wrapped up in one. Like Parasite Eve, weapons can be taken apart and reassembled with parts from other weapons. Also, Vagrant Story also contains the same type of battle system where every few seconds, you can activate your attack bubble, but in VS, you're additionally able to choose which part of the enemy to hit, adding the first bit of depth. VS also incorporates the use of programmed keys to chain attacks together by hitting certain keys at the appointed times, similar to a mix of both Xenogears and Final Fantasy VIII. This adds the second bit of depth and should provide that "goal" to strive for as you can continue to learn more and more different abilities for use in attack and defense. It'll take a while to figure out the timing at which to mash those buttons. It's an innovative sort of system, and any sort of innovation always gets my heart a-thumping.

I can't say a whole lot about the story, since I've only just started, but so far, it looks convoluted and fresh, again along the same lines as Final Fantasy Tactics. It almost seems like it's to be an old fashioned whodunit mystery, set in a feudal era. Cool. Needless to say, I'm intrigued.

The mix of cool graphics (albeit a little chunky), a nice cinematic feel, the promise of a hard-nosed mystery story and some incredibly deep game-play make for what looks to be a wild ride on Vagrant Story. I can't help but look forward to more. The only real complaint I have so far aside from wiggly graphics is the fact that you can't pause the game.

I hate that.

I want to pause the game.

Going into the menu will pause game-play but the counter continues to add up the time... and as far as I can tell, there's something unlocked if you finish the game within a certain amount of time. If I want to take a break, I'm forced to shut the game off.

Darn. I hate that.

Aside from that small gripe, the game seems a promising one and already has me looking forward to more. With the intriguing story and the very graphic, cinematic quality of the game, it's definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in the action/RPG genre.

Well, okay. So I guess maybe some of you guys won't be too thrilled at being an "Ashley".


Okay... Here comes more of it. Hang on to your hats.

SECOND LOOKS

Okay, I'm just getting around to this because I play SLOW. It's taken me 3 weeks to get through 13 hours on this game. Hey. I'm busy. At any rate, here's my take on the game at the (I think) halfway point.

I've had more time now to peruse the graphics, and I have to say, despite the slight bouncy choppiness of the cut scenes, the graphics are extremely effective. I'm not sure how they squeezed these textures out of the PSX, but Square has definitely pushed the envelope here. Everything from the environment to the lighting effects looks great. The glowing blue save points seem to switch to higher resolution when you activate first person viewing mode. Water flows convincingly (for the Playstation, anyway) and the motion capture for both creatures and people are fluid and believable, with enough variation to keep things interesting.

The sound effects are still sharp with each weapon ringing out with a distinct tone depending on how you hit someone. Drawing of the weapons provide a distinctly pleasurable sound of metal stroking metal. Nice. I've had a bit more time to listen to the music as well, and in the tradition of the best from Square, the music manages to surpass the system's capabilities, providing enough depth to the compositions to make you forget they're done with midi.

At the start of the game, I determined that the gameplay was complex. Did I say it was INSANELY complex? Because it is. Insane. It's insane. The game mechanics delve deeper than any game I've played. Ever. Including Final Fantasy Tactics which was so complicated that I thought I'd never figure it all out. Everything in Vagrant Story is variable. Each weapon can be taken apart and combined or reattached with other blades and parts. The weapon attributes (about 16 of them) also change as you use them. The more you attack a certain type of creature, the more affinity it has FOR that creature, while the other attributes decrease. This happens for all the armor and shields as well. In essence, you want to keep one weapon for use against each type of creature, meaning in the middle of a battle, you may have to switch out the weapon you're using for something more effective. The pacing of the game play, however, is quite good. The save points and containers appear at just about the right times, giving you a good 30 minute span of play time between each. It's good for me, someone who plays in spurts. At first glance, the bosses and some of the major enemies seem impossible to defeat, but one just needs to find the right equipment. Often times, however, the right equipment gets stored 30 minutes back without the player realizing it. This can get tedious, but takes little away from the game itself. Did I mention it was a little insane?

Ah, now we come to the story. It's rare to find a story as intriguing as this one in a game. It's a mystery, and boy is it convoluted. Every so often, the game throws you into a cut scene (and you're still holding the weapons that you were using during game play! How cool is that? It means each time the cut scene occurs when you play the game over, you may be holding a completely different weapon!) that moves the story forward, revealing bits and clues to your character's past and to the mystery involved. So far it's great and I find myself looking forward to every new cut scene to find out more about this world that Square has created so well. The jagged dialogue boxes and dated dialogue only help to bring out the atmosphere supporting this tale.

My second impression of the game actually raises the quality of the game in my eyes. The game play may be too deep for those who don't have the patience to figure it out. The item system of switching out weapon parts and improving affinities, however, is part of the fun for me. It's an integral part of the game, giving it a character that no other game has achieved.

Those of you who loved Final Fantasy Tactics for its complexity in battle won't have problems getting into the game. The mix of action, RPG and weapon switching/improvement is addictive and fun. If you don't add the weapon improvement aspect into your gaming experience in this game, it can certainly become tedious and boring, but then, if you're not seeing that as an integral part of the game, it's probably best to leave this title on the shelf.

One additional note. It's nearly impossible to understand all the game mechanics, what affects what and so forth without use of a walkthrough or strategy guide. I highly recommend you find one on the net.

FINAL ASSESSMENT
Well, I figure I should probably finish this up. I actually completed the game about a month ago, but have held off on finishing the review because of time constraints and general apathy towards writing more here that very few people would read since it wouldn't appear in the Just-In section. But, I did promise an ending so an ending you'll get.

As I finally finished wailing on the Big Bad at the end of the game, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. I'd done the impossible. I'd survived an exciting, if not agonizing crawl through one of the deepest and most immersive dungeon crawlers I've ever seen on any system. The strategy guide describes the end battle as one where the enemy can kill you with a single strike, only survivable by hitting one of your spell-blocking abilities at just the right time.

Luckily, my character had grown so powerful that I didn't have to do that.

Otherwise, you'd still be waiting for this review.

I would have gotten frustrated and never finished the game. But it all balanced out in the end and was neither too difficult, nor too easy, which pretty much summarizes the game entirely. If you put in the time and effort, the game is balanced just right and in the end delivers an exciting, fresh, original product that you'll be glad you played.

It's a beautiful game on several levels including technical achievement, storytelling and graphics, with some totally breathtaking, engine-pushing visuals there at the end. With a hint of a sequal on the way.

The only drawbacks of Vagrant Story lie in the immense complexity of the item management and battle systems and this only if your attention span can't focus. There's no doubt the game takes a lot of patience and half the game time can be spent creating and forging weaponry and armor, and sometimes it can get tedious.

But you're talking to someone who played through the entire second disk of Xenogears and still thinks it's the best durned RPG around.

So take that as fair warning. If you're bored easily, you might want to give it a rent, first, but the reward you obtain from finishing the game in its entirety really is worth it.

Okay, all done!i>