Vagrant Story

[Tommy]

I considered getting this game once and decided to go for Grandia instead. Was this a good thing?

I heard there were cults in it and other disturbing themes and there wasn`t a single town and it was all dungeon crawling. One thing i herd was that it has THE best graphics on The PS1.

I also heard the game lacks color and introudeces many shades of brown. Just tell me if the battle system is fun and if its worth a buy. If the storyline is disturbing and the gameplay is amazing i`ll just buy it for the gameplay.

I`ve heard rumors here and there that its a dark version of Grandia xtreme with more of a story

[Nate]

Since I'm sure eventually you will have people who say it's one of the greatest games ever telling you about it, I'll give you the other end of the spectrum, since I was one of the few people that absolutely loathed it. That way, you have two points of view. ^^

In its defense, the graphics of Vagrant Story are indeed amazing. Best graphics on the PS1? I don't know about that, but Vagrant Story is graphically VERY impressive.

I didn't get far enough in the game to know if it was totally dungeon crawling, but I played it for about four hours and I never left a dungeon, so that may be a correct assessment.

One of the "innovative" features of the game was the ability to forge your own weapons out of stuff you find. I didn't care much for that. Mainly because my luck in games is below average, and I almost always fail to get the super-neat rare item drops that some enemies have, and I don't have the patience to get into random battles for hours at a time to get a screw or something. So I hated that part of it. I'd rather buy weapons from a shop.

The combat system...I REALLY didn't like the combat system. Basically, it's similar to Parasite Eve (another game I hated). You press the attack button, and a little green sphere or something surrounds your enemy, and you can target various parts of their body, like their legs, arms, or head. It's basically pointless as far as I can tell...supposedly you can reduce their stats or do more damage if you target certain areas, but that never happened as far as I could tell. Then again, like I said, I only played for four hours.

And finally, as far as the plot...coming from a guy who loves intriguing plots and involved storylines in my games, the plot of Vagrant Story confused me, and bored me right from the beginning.

So there you go. I'm sure the Vagrant Story fans will come along any moment and tear my post to shreds, so I'll be hittin' the ol' dusty trail. ^^

[CDLviking]

Kae's right on many points. It is a lot like a medieval version of Parasite Eve in gameplay. I found the plot pretty intriguing, but alas I have never finished the game. Some parts are pretty difficult, and there are many mazes. I don't think I'd be able to finish it without a guide. Every time I started to play it something else would interrupt me before I could finish it, and I'd wind up starting over.

[Tommy]

So what about the religious themes? good or bad?

How many disks does it contain.

[CDLviking]

It's one disc. I haven't finished the game, so I don't know all the implications, but there is definitely a cult, and another group that appears to be Christian (it may just be based on Christianity as a model, I didn't get far enough in the game to explore their part in the storyline). Up to where I played there was nothing too bad, but it had potential to become bad if it wanted to, and it may have if I had finished it.

[Tommy]

So what`s the difficulty level?

-Any game can go bad if they want to-