Vagrant Story:
The Darkness of Lea Monde

Review by Chi Phan

STORY

The story starts off with a religious cult named Mullenkamp taking over the Manor of Duke Bardorba. There the cult led by their leader Sydney, has taken hostages and demanding that the government free their fellow followers in exchange for the freedom of hostages. A special force within the government called Valendia Knights of the Peace has sent our hero Ashley Riot, a Riskbreaker, to capture Sydney and free the hostages. Think of a Riskbreaker as a James Bond kind of type hero. If you don't know who James Bond is then you need help with getting in touch with reality. Anyways, before Ashley can do anything, another special force unit decided to intervene. The special force that intervene is known as the Crimson Blades. The Crimson Blades work under the rule of the Cardinal. To make things short, the hostages were freed but Sydney escaped to the deserted dark city of Lea Monde. This is where your story quest and game begin, in the city of Lea Monde. In fact the entire story takes place in the deserted city of Lea Monde.
Now the entire story is base on tracking down and finding Sydney in Lea Monde. Ashley (the player) and the Crimson Blades searching for Sydney. The story is a pretty complex story to tell you the honest truth. And one that can be confusing too. I really didn't understand it as much as I wanted too. Maybe it's because I spent most of the time trying to figure out how to play the game. From what I did understand, I found it kinda boring. How much interesting can it be when your entire storyline and plotline is base on a manhunt through different dungeon levels. The only interesting plot twist is Ashley Riot past. I find it amazing as to why so many website thought the story was so great. The story also lacks a strong villian from beginning to finish. Sydney?? Yeah, right. There's also a real lack of characters in this game other than Ashley. I'll get to that in the character section. The story tells us that certain people have certain abilities or powers such as reading minds but they don't really give us details as to why they have those powers. They also mention that Lea Monde was destroyed by an earthquake but they didn't really tell us what's so important about this city that it has all this dark powers with monsters roaming about. They gave us a few hints and so but that's it. The bottomline is that there's no sense of urgency in the game or quest cause there's no bad guy trying to destroy the world. Just tracking down and capturing a radical religious leader in an abandon city. Kinda boring if you ask me.

Score: 6/10

CHARACTERS

The characters feature in this game is kind of lackluster. Since this is an action rpg, most of the character developement is center on the main hero. Which is fine. The problem is that the secondary characters or supporting cast is less than up to standard. The game mainly focusses on three characters. Ashley (hero), Sydney (cult leader), and Romeo Guildenstern (Crimson Blades leader). There are other characters in this game too but those characters really have nothing to do with the story at all. The female character in this game name Callo really has no purpose in the game at all either than to be a female character. It's as if the game require at least a female character in it. There is a boy in the game name Joshua. Again, he really doesn't have a purpose in the game at all. This can also be said of Duke Bardorba, who's manor has been taken over. The Duke appear in a cameo role at the beginning and at the end of the game. You really don't know anything about the Duke at all and why he's so important. Sydney the key figure in the manhunt is a mystery throughout the game. Yes, the game will reveal a little more about who Sydney is but it really doesn't say why he's a bad person or what's so bad about the cult itself. Romeo is nothing more than a head knight for the Cardinal. You don't know anything about Romeo or what his goal is. In the end, you still don't know anything about him. This game clearly lack a strong villian and a strong cast of characters. I found all the characters uninteresting and quite boring.

Score: 5/10

GRAPHICS

The game graphics are base in a 3-D world with somewhat detail polygon drawn characters. The game itself is very dark since most of the time you are spending it in dungeons. The game colors are dark and dull. Mostly brown, mind you. It seems like brown is the favorite color for the gamemakers. I've never seen so many different kind of variations of different brown colors before. I'll give it to the gamemakers that when it comes to using the color brown in different form, they sure know what they are doing. But in the end I just didn't like the graphics at all. The characters are somewhat deformed in their polygons look and the dark colors just turn me off.

Score: 6/10

MUSIC

This music is somewhat average here. Let's face it, with a game design entirely on dungeon exploring, you really can't expect alot of different tunes or memorable tunes to come out of it. It's not like there's alot of story cut scene involve in this game here as oppose to a regular Square game. And honestly, I don't really remember any tunes that stands out in my head at all. I'll give it a 5 since I don't want to piss off a bunch of Square fans.

Score: 5/10

GAMEPLAY

This is what it's all about. Depending on which way you look at it, the gameplay can be the strongest point of the game or it's weakest point. Before I get down to the meat of the gameplay, I'll point out some stuff that those of you who never played the game before should be aware of.
This game is probably one of the hardest game to ever learn how to play. For that reason alone, the game pretty much require you to play it a second time as some of the dungeon areas are off limit until you play it a second time with a game clear save. It's almost as if the first time around is nothing more than a learning experience. There are no INN for you to sleep in. No weapons/items shop. No towns or towns people to interact with. All the gameplay is is simply dungeon exploring and fighting the many monster feature in the dungeons with a few story cut scene appearing here and there. The game is somewhat of a rpg Metal Gear Solid version where you have a small over head map and you have to go about exploring certain areas of the map to find keys or items to allow you access to the next dungeon area. There are no random battle since this is an action rpg. This is good as you can avoid unnecessary battles. Since there are no INN to sleep in, your hp and mp slowly replenishes as you walk or run. The game is not straightforward as you think. Expect to get lost alot in the many mazes and dungeons in this game. Expect to scratch your head wondering what to do next and where to go next. With that in mind, let's move on to the meat of the gameplay.

There are few things that you should note here. One, you can create your own weapons since there are no weapon shops about. Second, the combo attack known as linking chain combo, and third, the battle system.

I'll start with the battle system since it's the easiest to explain. This is an action rpg whereas you run around trying to hit the enemy. It's somewhat of a little bit turn base as you have to try and access your battle menu first before the enemy does. Once you are able to access the battle menu, you get a sphere like ball. The sphere like ball tells you the area you can hit the enemy in. Where you can hit the enemy is divided into body parts. The body parts are head, left and right arms, body, left and right legs, tail, and neck. Of course not all enemies will have these body parts. For example a human won't have a tail for you to hit. Anyways the idea here is to aim and hit which of the body parts that is the weakest spot of the enemy. An example, if you are fighting a dragon and the dragon has a total hp of 200. Then just aim and attack either it's neck or head until it dies as that is where the dragon weak points are. Simple enough.

Moving on to the combo attacks. During the game, as you gain up in level the game will give you combo attacks. The combo attacks are divided into offense and defense. You get to pick which combo you want once a combo attack is available to you. You then assign your combo attacks to one of the three buttons, square, triangle, or circle. You can use a combo attack after pressing the attack button. After pressing the attack button, press the button with the combo attack right before the weapon strike the enemy. If your timing is right, you will get off a combo attack. You can link combo attacks too. After successfully pressing a combo attack you can then press another combo attack that is assign to another button right after. This is known as linking combos. You can link combos for infinity if you are really good at it. My highest was a 13 link combo. If you are really good at linking combos you can kill an enemy right off without having the enemy attack you. Now everytime you use a combo attack or attack period, your risk bar goes up. The risk bar is a guage that does up whenever you attack. The higher the risk bar, the greater the chance of landing a critical attack. The downside is that the higher the risk bar, the less chance of landing a blow and the greater damage you will take as oppose to a low risk bar.

Finally the weapon system. This is where the hard part is. I'll try and explain this as easiest as possible and that's not easy to do. Each weapon is divided into class type. Class type as in sword, dagger, axe, ect. Within each class of weapon, the weapon is then divided into three other kind of class known as the weapon grip class. They are blunt, edge, or pierce. Example, an axe can be a blunt axe or an edge axe. The grip of the weapon will determine whether a weapon will be a blunt, edge or pierc type. Sound confusing?? Good you should be as it gets worse. It's very important that you understand the different type of weapon class as each enemy has it's strong point and weak points at a particular weapon. For example, you don't want to attack a dragon with a dagger class. You want to use a spear or sword for that. Even if you have a sword or spear to attack a dragon, you want to make sure that the sword or spear has the right grip. Because if you don't have the right grip you still won't do any damage at all. Now for the really fun stuff. Even if you have the right weapon class with the right grip class, you have to make sure the weapon has the right monster attacking class. For example, nothing is worse when you are fighting a boss to finally realize that even though you are using the right weapon with the right grip, you don't have the right fighting monster class so your weapon then becomes useless. Now each weapon is divided into monster attacking class. They are undead, human, dragon, phantom, ect. It's important that you have at least one good high attacking weapon monster class for each monster class. Now each weapon it then divided into different type of materials. Materials as in wood, bronze, silver, hagane, ect. So even if you have the righ weapon class with the right grip class with the right monster class, you have to make sure that the material is the best out there as you might still not do any damage at all. If you are finding out that you are doing only 1hp damage then there's something wrong with the weapon you are using. You will find different weapons throughout the dungeons. Incase you don't have the weapons you want, you can make one up yourself by disassembling and assembling a new weapons. You can also combine different weapons into a new weapons. This is all done at a workshop found throughout in the game.
Now each weapon can gain experience points. You just have to use the weapon to gain experience points. Each weapon comes with it own special attack known as a breark art attack. Once a weapon gain enough experience, a break art attack will become available. Now everytime you attack a monster, your weapons phantoms points goes up but your damage points goes down. Phantom points is your weapon attack power. Damage points is how much damage your weapons will do against the enemy. The more you use a weapon, the more the damage points goes down. So at some point in the game, you find out the you have the right weapon class, the right grip class, and the right monster class, and you are still not doing any damage then maybe it's because you need to repair your weapon cause the damage points bar gauge is too low. Now do you see why this game is such a freaking headache. It's bad enough that you get lost in all these dungeons and mazes but you have to keep an eye on all your weapons to see if you have the right stuff for boss fights. The good thing is that all the boss fairly have low hps. I mean the last boss only have 700 hp for crying out loud. If you have the right weapon stuff, you can beat any boss in no time flat. But again the real problem is getting the right weapon stuff.

In the end I find the gameplay very frustrating that gave me many headaches. From getting lost in mazes to having to get the right equipment. This game would be probably more fun the second time through as by then you would at least get the hang of things. On paper, the gameplay looks cool. You get to built your own weapons and stuff and hit different body parts of enemies but the gamemaker made it too complicated for the average mainstream fan to enjoy. A very hard rpg game to learn.

Score: 7/10

EXTRA/REPLAY

The extra and replay value are lump together here. There are certain areas of dungeons that you cannot get access to unless you play the game the second time around. At the end of the game you can make a clear game save and use it for your next new game. The good thing is that all the equipment and items you have equip will be carried over to your new game. Making things much easier. Best advice is to equip or keep all your good stuff in your inventory if you are planning to play it the second time around. It's almost as if the first time around is nothing more than a training exercise.

Score: 8/10

In the end, Vagrant Story can be a good rpg game but that depends on what your taste is. If you like to explore dungeons after dungeons than this game might be for you. If you like to go explore from town to town on a world map and interact with townspeople like I do, then this game is not for you. I really didn't enjoy the story or characters as much as all the critics hype it up to be. My best advice is that if you are a mainstream rpg fans who like to play some rpgs now and then, then stay away from this game as this game is clearly meant for the die hard rpgers out there.

Score: 7/10

Second best advice: buy a strategy guide or read a faqs

Best weapon: two handed sword with a powergrip

Highest combo link: 13 link combo

Time to complete: 25 hours with a strategy guide (yes I cheated. It took me nearly 40 hours to beat Metal Gear Solid and I'd be damn if I spent 40 hours crawling through dungeons.

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