Vagrant Story

[NovumVeritas]

I've been playing through Vagrant Story on Duckstation for the last few days. It ran without any problems, and save states are always a blessing, especially with a game like this. When I played it when it first came out, I didn't understand the combat system and mechanics at all, and many battles ended with 0 or 1 damage. But this time, it clicked, and I successfully completed it. The music was really cool; it sounded like a mix of Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, and the fact that the game was a dungeon crawler didn't bother me at all. It's a shame that it ended after that installment, because Squaresoft had apparently planned to turn it into a game series. I would have found it interesting to see Ashley roaming the world of Ivalice as a “vagrant” with the Blood-Sin. Once you understood it, the combat system was also very intuitive for its time, and there were so many spells to learn from the grimoires. The final boss took quite a while to defeat, and you always had to be careful to maintain Herakles, Luft Fusion, and Magic Ward. When I saw that the game was from 2000 and also from Squaresoft, I felt old, lol.

What was your experience with Vagrant Story?

 

[Felipe]

A bad experience i had. The timing of the combos sometimes isnt syncronized like it should. Exactly the same problem that Legend of Dragoon (PS1) has. Also, the lack of healing right in the beginning where your only salvation is the healing trap (which doesnt last forever) make it hard to like the game.

 

[bjork]

A game I bought at release, poked at for about an hour and then promised I'd come back but still never have. Not for lack of desire, I just always forget. It looks great I have a couple of friends who have it as a top-10 all timer, so I do need to get to it and see for myself.

 

[What's His Face]

I've been playing through Vagrant Story on Duckstation for the last few days. It ran without any problems, and save states are always a blessing, especially with a game like this. When I played it when it first came out, I didn't understand the combat system and mechanics at all, and many battles ended with 0 or 1 damage. But this time, it clicked, and I successfully completed it. The music was really cool; it sounded like a mix of Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, and the fact that the game was a dungeon crawler didn't bother me at all. It's a shame that it ended after that installment, because Squaresoft had apparently planned to turn it into a game series. I would have found it interesting to see Ashley roaming the world of Ivalice as a “vagrant” with the Blood-Sin. Once you understood it, the combat system was also very intuitive for its time, and there were so many spells to learn from the grimoires. The final boss took quite a while to defeat, and you always had to be careful to maintain Herakles, Luft Fusion, and Magic Ward. When I saw that the game was from 2000 and also from Squaresoft, I felt old, lol.

What was your experience with Vagrant Story?

#357 on my backlog.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

Vagrant Story is a tough game to evaluate. I bought it when it was released back when I would buy anything with the Squaresoft label on it. I love everything about it, style, presentation, story and even the gameplay to a certain extent. But my first playthrough I softlocked myself because I didn't understand the mechanics of the game. It took me another 10 years to give this game another chance and finally beat it. I think it is a classic of videogame storytelling, but the gameplay is a little too obtuse to be understood without walkthroughs. I do appreciate the game not spelling out everything and this game reminds a bit of the souls series in a good way. But the Souls game is a little less complicated in having to keep track of elements and affinities.

 

[garbodorman]

great game. farming the minotaur lord huge mace, use 3 weapon method to max it's stats and use it against the final boss is funny. too bad it's only hagane. imagine a damascus one.

 

[Silvergun_Raven]

One of my absolute favorite games from not only Squaresoft, but on the PlayStation. Last time I played it was in the Summer of 2007, but it's one of those games I think about to this day and I still listen to the masterpiece of a soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto; it definitely has that Resident Evil creepy vibe to it on certain tracks! I still think to this day, the opening credits in Vagrant Story is the best I've ever seen in a videogame; the fade to black when Ashley cuts the rope and it slams to black and the sun shining through the broken window at the end of the "tutorial" section that cuts to the Vagrant Story logo.

Matsuno-san and Yoshi-P have expressed huge interest in remastering or remaking Vagrant Story, based on some things they said online when Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles was about to release. I think we may see it in 2026 or 2027, maybe 2028. All it really needs is a QoL feature with quick weapon swapping, easier menus to navigate or shorten it and make the weapon crafting a bit easier for new players.

 

[Xenvik]

A game I bought at release, poked at for about an hour and then promised I'd come back but still never have. Not for lack of desire, I just always forget. It looks great I have a couple of friends who have it as a top-10 all timer, so I do need to get to it and see for myself.

Exactly my case too, but I bought it 2-3 years ago on PS3. Played for an hour on new years eve, decided to come back, never did.

 

[TinRattler]

Own it is in my backlog for 2026

 

[hazys]

It's an awesome game with fantastic replayability, and it looks great for the system, with very unique art direction. Definitely bite the bullet and consult a guide for the combat/upgrade system, though. Other than that my only complaint is the amount of box puzzles.

 

[Bootyfan]

Amazing looking game but it never hooked me, in fact it puts me to sleep. I wish it had a more upbeat ost like a lot of other gen5 rpgs

 

[ColonelKurtz]

Vagrant Story seems like such a cool game. It's something I would surely love if I just sat down with it and learned the mechanics but I keep putting it off. I love Yasumi Matsuno's other stuff so I don't know why it's been on my backlog for so long.

I wish the set on RetroAchievements wasn't so intimidating. I probably would've gotten around to it sooner if it wasn't for that.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I've owned a physical copy of this game for literal decades but originally struggled to get through it due to not understanding how anything worked.

Then we played it at the RGT Nostalgia Society and it finally clicked thanks to some peeps on RGT sharing what they knew and making it a fun, collaborative experience.

Excellent music, visuals and general storytelling. Some of the gameplay mechanics where.... Interesting. Feels like a very 'core' JRPG for fans of the genre looking for something new/interesting. In many ways, I've heard that the formula was mostly perfected in FF12 but as I've not played it yet I can't say for sure.

Ending was fucking epic tho.

 

[midnitecarnival]

I'm playing this now, eleven hours in, in the abandoned mines.

Same experience as OPs - Bought it on it's release, back in the 90's, but couldn't grasp the systems so it fell into my backlog and eventually onto eBay in the early 2000's.

Having another go, all these years later, it's still a mess to wrap your head around but it's much easier to digest now.

 

[Mojacko Amano]

Oh man, Vagrant Story.... This is what I have to say about this game.

I'm having a hard time grinding, forging weapons, equipment, learn magic.

Yeah, even my aunt begging me to help grinding everything.

This game made me a challenge even I got interested about it.

 

[Badseed Badseed]

I love the aesthetic and really want to like this game, but...

26 years after the initial release and I still cannot figure out the combat system.

 

[midnitecarnival]

A bad experience i had. The timing of the combos sometimes isnt syncronized like it should. Exactly the same problem that Legend of Dragoon (PS1) has. Also, the lack of healing right in the beginning where your only salvation is the healing trap (which doesnt last forever) make it hard to like the game.

I saw this and it got me thinking.
I'm playing the game in RetroArch in Swanstation Core.

I switched 'CPU Compiler ICache' to 'On'
And set 'Internal Run Ahead' (more or less Rollback) to 2 frames.

Now physical attacks and blocks are bang on the buck; if I time my presses in que with the attacks, visually, connecting and their sound effects.

Magical attacks are still difficult to block but I believe that, even with perfect emulation, they're going to be difficult to successfully block. You never know when the red exclamation mark (if you have it turned on in the game's options) is going to appear since their animations run for a few seconds before hand.

ie; You will find yourself engulfed in flames, for a few seconds, and there are no apparently different audio or visual changes as the context button option presents itself.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 7:18 AM

I love the aesthetic and really want to like this game, but...

View attachment 142271

26 years after the initial release and I still cannot figure out the combat system.

View attachment 142272

There's an in-game manual that helped me remember the basics. There are also a lot of guides including Brady and Piggyback books discoverable in PDF format BUT there is quite a lot of crap to read and, to be honest, it's daunting. Especially if you're an oldie like me and feel like you're burning away your eleventh hour.

The in-game manual is short and sweet though. With that in mind I think it'll come to you if you don't mind the fact that you're probably going to waste about three hours of time playing practice runs before you start again with serious effort.

It pays off however, it's the direct opposite of a lot of recent Idea Factory & Bandai / Namco RPGS that are not deep at all and rely heavily on story, aesthetic and hype. It's got a great balance of micro-management, crafting and interesting combat in extreme contrast to the old 'Fight, Defend, Item, Flee' game systems.

 

[diapered]

Amazing looking game but it never hooked me, in fact it puts me to sleep. I wish it had a more upbeat ost like a lot of other gen5 rpgs

I don't know if I would say "upbeat" is what it needs, but yea, I also had a problem with the ost. I think the only track I really liked was the workshop music. I understand they were going for something more ambient sound, but imo, this game has such a combat focus it is more of an action game so that music direction doesn't really fit... It does work at times, but overall it was kind of dull and I mostly tuned it out. That said, it is still a square game soundtrack, so it is well above average for game music, just didn't really do it for me here :(

I didn't understand the mechanics of the game

Honestly, I don't think the developers even really understood. The way damage is calculated, "class" has very little impact so you are best off just ignoring it, it makes you wonder why they even put it in the game? If you have an extra gem slot (you don't have more elemental ones you could exploit) for a class gem for a boss, then sure, go ahead: it won't hurt, but you are much better off using an elemental gem and focusing on weapon type, regardless if your weapon has a bad class matchup.

Magical attacks are still difficult to block but I believe that, even with perfect emulation, they're going to be difficult to successfully block.

I could never get the timing for any of the defensive chains and they really only triggered by accident By the end, I could reliably fire off a 12+ chain with a sword, club, axe or dagger (I think the staff has a slightly different timing, so I didn't bother with them), but couldn't get the timing for the defensive ones >_< No worries though, this is why shields are so good! Slap on some gems and that lets you tank spells. This is why 2H weapons are pretty useless because shields are so good for this reason. That said though, I did see a speedrun where it looks like a strat is to use the spear, but you need to keep in mind they know how to block, so the shield is probably pointless for experts.