Vanguard Bandits review

When looking at Working Designs, you tend to realize something. These guys are the car company or car lots that sell or specializes in the sale of used cars. Instead of used cars you have used video games in the case of Working Designs. This isn't a bad reputation or anything but that's what they are. We all know how many people buy used cars and the same thing can be said about used video games. Why the comparison? Simple. Like any used car, you can put a new paint job and wax on it and even fix it up a little bit to make it look all nice and everything but if you look under the hood, you'll notice that it's still a run down old car. This is especially true in the case of Working Designs latest game, Vanguard Bandits. You can put a nice enhance cover for the instruction book and even the CD case itself but you can't hide the fact that Vanguard Bandits is a game that's way past it's prime. Vanguard Bandits is a little known rpg from Japan that no one has really heard off until Working Designs announce that it was being brought over here. After playing it 4 times, I can understand why no one has ever heard of this game. This isn't a game that will give you a lasting impression. I'll give you a hint as to why this game isn't so great. You can finish this rpg game in about 10 hours. If you really suck at rpg games then it might take you about 15 hours. Well, enough of that and let's look at the review.

Well, as I mention right above, you can finish this game in about 10 hours so you can take a guess as to what kind of story Vanguard Bandits is going to give you. It's not an in-depth one. This is more of a very light hearted comedy kiddie rpg game than anything else.
The story starts off with Bastion (hero of the game) and his father in training. Soon after, their training was interrupted by Imperial ATACS in the nearby fields. ATACS are giant robots. If you played Front Mission 3 or watch Gundam Wing then you'll probably know what I'm talking about. During this whole sequence of events and battle, you quickly learn that Bastion father is an outlaw and running from the Junaris Empire during the past years. You also learn that there is a war going on. (Seems like there's always a war going on in a strategy rpg game.) Within a very short time, Bastion father passed away and it was revealed that Bastion is the Prince of the Pharastia Kingdom whom everyone had thought died many years ago. The Pharastia Kingdom had long since been conquered by the Junaris Empire. With this new revelation, Bastion then chooses his destiny to defeat the Junaris Empire and liberate his homeland, the Pharastia Kingdom. Inorder to do this, he must first find the Ultragunner, the best and most powerful ATAC in the world. Thus, the summary of Vanguard Bandits storyline.

Now the story of Vanguard Bandits is very short but it also is broken up into three story branches and five different endings. In other words, you're looking at 3 different scenarios with 5 different endings. During the game, depending on the levels you are at and the choices you make, you can decide what story branch you want to play out. All 3 story branches are about 10 hours long. The story branches are Kingdom, Empire, and Ruin. The Kingdom and the Empire are pretty much base on the same storyline while the Ruin story branch is out on the left side of the field. The Kingdom has two endings (good and bad one), Empire has two endings (good and bad one), and the Ruin only has one ending. Each endings are very short. Overrall Vanguard Bandits story isn't that well develope and is more of a comedy relief rpg than anything else. I found the whole story kinda off boring after awhile. The only thing that kept my interest was the different scenarios.

In terms of characters, Vanguard Bandits gives you lots of them. That is to be expected since it's a strategy rpg. Since the game is about only 10 hours long, don't expect any real good character developement here. What you do have is a strong abundance of colorful characters each with his or her own unique personalities and ATACS. Sure you may not know much about the characters themselves or where they came from but you do get to know their unique personality traits pretty quickly. This helps sets one character apart from the other. Some characters will give you a more lasting impression than others due to their personality. Overrall most of the characters are uninteresting with the exception of maybe one (Andrew).

Graphics wise, the game uses a 3-D battlefield map with a 3-D animation battle sequence. The battlefield maps are okay. Nothing that will wow you but adequate enough for the game. Once an attack sequence take place, the game will then cut into an animation scene featuring two ATACS. The animation sequences are kind of dull and boring really. You may watch them for about 3 battle maps out of curiousity until you realize that it's boring and dragging the battlefield map fights longer than you would want it. You'll probably turn off the animation battle sequence after 3 or 4 battle maps fight. The story cut scene consists of drawn sprites in an art rendered 3-D background. If you've played the Vandal Hearts series or FF Tactics then you would know what I'm talking about. Nothing that you haven't seen before. It's about average.

The music is pretty good. There's not alot of selection but the ones they do have are very good. The english song version, Together and Believe My Hearts are okay when sung in english. I mean it's not anyway as good as Eyes on Me but good enough for you to enjoy it. The battle tunes are very few but very good. The best music clearly comes from the ending credits scroll tunes. There's like a few different version of ending credits tunes too. All are pretty good.

Now for the gameplay. The gameplay is pretty much basic stuff and very straightforward. You get a story cut-scene, then a menu to save and do whatever you want, then a battlefield map fight. Then repeat again. Now all battlefield maps are turn base with the conditions to kill all enemies. Your basic commands are attack, defend, avoid, and skills. Now the game uses an AP and FP bar. AP for attack points and FP for fatigue points. Everytime you do something, whether to move or attack, you use up a number of attack points. How far you can move or whether you can enter a command depends on the amount of AP you have left during your round of turns. Now fatigue points are pretty simple. Everytime you attack or defend, you acquire a number of fatigue points. If your FP bar is full, you can't do anything thus end up as a sitting duck for the enemies to hit you. Magic and special attacks are under your skills and attack commands. Now what kind of magic you have or special attack skills you have depends on your level and personal stats and the elemental stone you have equip. Magic attacks comes soley from elemental stones that you can only buy in shops. As for special attacks. The special skills you get depends on the weapon you are using but more importantly the level you are at and your personal stats. Now after each level up, you get 3 extra stats points where you can distribute them among your personal stats bars (DEX, DEF, AGIL, ect). Inorder for you to get a certain special attack, you need to have certain stats bars at a certain level. For example, if you want strong slash, you need to raise you DEX to 5, POW to 6, and BAS to 7. Depending on what story branch you are playing, your party member can range from 6 to 10 in a battle map fight. That's pretty much sum up the battle system.
Now the game uses a morale system. This is very important as it will indicate what kind of ending you will get. This of course doesn't work in the Ruin storyline branch as there's only one ending for it. But if you are playing the Kingdom or Empire, you always have to make sure to check your party's morale. During the menu screen, there's a briefing icon where you can check and talk to each of your party members. You can only talk to three of them before the briefing icon closes up. You can raise a party member morale by talking to them in the Briefing screen or by raising their levels. Now party members morale goes down everytime they die during battles. It is very important to make sure you don't have alot of party members die during battles and that they don't die frequently. You can only get the good endings if your morale is high. Other than these points, the gameplay is pretty much average stuff here. The fact that you can finish this strategy rpg game in 10 hours should say enough about the gameplay.

Without a doubt this is the strongest part of the game. With a game lasting only 10 hours, you need something that will give you that extra play value. Vanguard Bandits does that perfectly. With 3 different storyline to choose from during your gameplay and 5 different endings, there's alot to replay the game for. The fact that the game last only 10 hours makes replaying the game not much of a chore unlike replaying a game that last 40 hours long. Second, after finishing a game you can then load up the game stats. This is used to unlock three secrets stuff in the option menu. Ending credits music for the Empire branch, Extra opening anime movie for the Ruin branch, and Together and Believe My Hearts songs for the Kingdom branch. Note that you can only open these secret options if you get the good endings. Despite that fact that I didn't really enjoy the game that much, I did play it 4 times simply to unlock the secret stuff and to see the different endings. The fact that it only takes about one day of hard game playing to finish one game makes replaying this game easier.

Surprisingly, this game isn't too bad but it's not too good either. One kinda feel that Working Designs intention to bring this game over here is more of a light snack for rpgers before the main course which of course is Lunar 2. This game is best played for beginners or for those that are plain bored and what to play a quick and short rpg game.

Vanguard Bandits: The Legendary Ultragunner

Vanguard Bandits:
The Legendary Ultragunner