Vagrant Story is a JRPG for the PlayStation that was developed by Square, the same developers behind the Final Fantasy series. The game has an intriguing start to the story with an impressive yet mysterious cutscene set at a mansion. It introduces the antagonist to the player as well as showcasing some wicked fights. The game doesn't have any voice acting, thus the story is told via dialogue boxes. The story gets a bit muddled and lost as the game goes on but still absorbs you. Note that the graphics have not aged well because the game tries to pack in a lot of detail in the environments and uses realistic proportions for the character models. Since this is all done on PS1 hardware, it can be a pixilated mess at times but it is still impressive for what it manages to achieve. If you are playign this on a PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita, then turning on bilinear filtering does help smooth out the jagged edges. The art style on the other hand is timeless, and the older styled English used complements the atmosphere wonderfully. The music really sells the eerie feeling of being almost alone in the city with only monsters and enemies for company.
Unlike most JRPGs of the era, Vagrant Story features no random battles and no separate battle screens. The enemies roam the rooms and Ashley, the playable character, can enter into battle mode at the press of a button. The battle system is unique. Ashley must enter battle mode and how often he attacks depends on the speed of the weapon he's currently equipped with. You can target specific body parts, each with an estimation of the damage dealt and the chance of missing. The Risk Gauge is another unique feature of the battle system. Risk rises as you continue to attack and chain. The amount of Risk you currently have affects the amount of damage given and taken, as well as accuracy and evasion. For every attack Ashley does, the player can time a button press at the exact moment he hits the enemy to chain another attack afterwards. Chaining attacks also activates specific battle abilities such as increasing damage or transferring a portion of damage given to heal. However, performing long chains rapidly increases risk. The player has to balance out between dealing massive damage in one turn and knowing when to stop as not to leave themselves open for an enemy's attack that might kill Ashley due to the high risk. Similarly, you can time when enemies strike Ashley to activate defense abilities.
Finally, Break Arts uses HP and Magic uses MP. All of these elements combine into a very deep and complicated system and this isn't even getting into the equipment. The game does not have a tutorial on any of this, or even teach you about it at all. It expects the player to have read the manual beforehand to get a feel for it. Weapons and defensive equipment have affinities against enemy types, elements and attack type. This can easily feel overwhelming at first and back yourself into a corner where you are only doing 1 damage against enemies, so you definitely need to be careful sometimes. However, the combat system is really rewarding. Based on the affinity system, you constantly need to switch weapons against different types of enemies to target their weaknesses. To do this, you need to go through the menu every time, there's no shortcut. This is odd considering that there are shortcuts to all other parts of the menu.
Defeating enemies will net Ashley no experience points. Rather, Ashley gets stronger via gaining more skills by usage and better equipment. A big part of the game is disassembling equipment and combining them to create stronger ones. It is really easy to use up a lot of your time just experimenting with the crafting system. Unfortunately, you can only craft in specific areas, and as you have a small limit on the number of items you can carry on you at any time, you need to drag it out from storage. Sadly, navigating the storage means you have to save and load each time which feels like it takes forever, killing your enthusiasm for experimentation. Boss battles are one of the highlights of the game. Each one feels like the stakes are high although it is all too easy to find yourself facing one with weapons that barely do any damage. One of the great things is that no enemy in the game is a damage sponge and thus, boss battles don't tend to drag out.
Vagrant story is somewhat dark and can feel creepy and lonely at times. This is emphasized when Ashley travels alone for the whole game. You do not get a party at all. You can only save at specific save points and there isn't necessarily one before every boss, thus the stakes can be high. Traversing through the game is via individual rooms separated by a short loading screen. Some rooms may also contain "box puzzles" in which the player must move the boxes around to get to a high ledge. One of the more annoying aspects is when it forces time limits to traverse to the goal (often with the player having no idea where the goal actually is) otherwise you have to start from the first room again. In rooms where it requires platforming, it is horrible. Ashley's jumps are stunted and since this is not a platformer, if a segment requires precise timing and aiming, then be prepared to try more than a few times. At various points, you're expected to jump to ledges which are a tad bit high making it annoying to get there with the default jump height. The other occasional annoyance is enemy placements. Sometimes, you get put in a room where you have to climb, but then there will be multiple flying enemies that can also use ranged music. This can be infuriating when they keep staying out of your range but snipe you with magic. Doubly so when you have just passed an exhausting time limit trip.
The map system is fairly decent. There's a minimap showing the exits of the current room you're in. The bigger map you pull from the menu shows how all the rooms are connected. The game takes around 20 hours to finish with a walkthrough, a few hours more if you go in blind as it is easy to not know where to go and get lost. Once you've completed the game, a New Game Plus allows you to reply the story with the equipment you finished the game with. The best part is that the New Game Plus unlocks new areas and bosses, as well as an easier time combining to get the ultimate equipment. Overall, Vagrant Story is a wonderfully unique and gripping JRPG. There really has not been a game like it before, or since. The clumsy menu system to change equipment is the only part that hasn't aged quite well in terms of gameplay but everything else still holds up to this day. The music, the atmosphere, the combat system which is addictive once you understand it, makes it an amazing game and very rewarding.
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