Product description
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"VAGRANT STORY" video game for the Sony Playstation video game
system. This game was originally released for the Sony
Playstation one. It also plays on the PS2 and on certain PS3
video game systems.
.com
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Vagrant Story is one of those games that wows you at the
start--a big "WOW!" in this case--but maintains only a tenuous
hook in the long haul. In this mix of action/adventure and
fantasy role-playing, players are cast as a Riskbreaker (think
one-man army) named Ashley Riot, whose pursuit of a villainous
cult leader takes him to the mysterious city of Lea Monde.
The highly stylized graphics in Vagrant Story are easily some of
the best ever seen on the PlayStation, and give the game a
gorgeous, distinctive look to match its somber tone. Cinematic
story sequences blend in almost seamlessly with gameplay, which
takes place in 3-D environments (viewed from a third-person
perspective) that can be rotated to provide the best angle.
Vagrant Story features a rich battle system that's built on both
strategy and quick reflexes. In addition to character statistics,
weapons and armor have detailed numbers of their own and can be
disassembled, assembled, or even combined to create new items.
Hand/eye coordination factors heavily into combat, as Ashley
develops offensive and defensive battle abilities that require
perfectly timed button pushing in order to be used.
Unfortunately, it's all too easy to get bored with Vagrant
Story. The painfully linear gameplay here doesn't rise above
killing enemy after enemy in room after room, and (oh boy!)
solving puzzles by manipulating boxes. If not for the wholly
intriguing (but sparsely littered) plot, one would be strongly
tempted just to leave Ashley to rot in the catacombs beneath Lea
Monde. --Joe Hon
Pros:
* Highly stylized graphics
* Rich battle system
* Intriguing plot Cons:* Shallow, linear gameplay
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Review
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Let's just get it out of the way - Vagrant Story is a
groundbreaking game. With this melange of action, adventure, and
RPG genres, Square has truly beaten all odds and produced a
seamless epic unlike any other. A brutal battle wages between the
Knights of the Crimson Blade and the Mullenkamp Cult in the city
of Lea Monde. Caught in the middle is Ashley Riot, an agent for
the Valendia Knights of Peace's elite "Riskbreaker" unit. After a
chance encounter with Sydney Losstarot, the heartless leader of
the Mullenkamp Cult, Ashley finds himself in a life-or-death game
of cat and mouse amidst a plot larger than the two of them. Many
have described Vagrant Story as "Medieval Gear Solid," a
comparison that is both correct and not correct. While the MGS
feel is there thanks to Vagrant Story's perspective, attention to
detail, and emphasis on cinematics, you never actually skulk
through shadows, avoid guards' cones of , and the like. The
game is an odd blend of action, adventure, and RPG gameplay, and
a lot of Vagrant Story's charm lies in the sheer a of
control you have in playing through what is mostly a linear game.
Most of the game takes place underneath Lea Monde, where Ashley
runs into room after room, slays several monsters without a
second thought, and recovers information and keys to aid in his
pursuit of Sydney. You navigate around the world as you would in
Metal Gear Solid, guiding the character with the analog pad and
rotating the viewpoint with the L and R buttons. Ashley can
switch in and out of battle mode, freeing his hands for tasks
such as lifting boxes or grabbing edges. While the latter isn't
emphasized too heavily, Vagrant Story does have a surprising
compunction for box puzzles. Though they start off easy, they
eventually become fairly fiendish with the addition of a variety
of new and different box types. While navigating the labyrinthine
corridors under Lea Monde is all done in real time, battling is a
decidedly different affair. Once in battle mode, tapping the
attack button pauses the game and causes a large wireframe sphere
to erupt from Ashley's body. This sphere represents the range of
the weapon Ashley is currently using, thus any targetable item
within the sphere can be attacked. While smaller enemies may only
have one attackable segment, most of time monsters' individual
limbs can be targeted. Detailed percentage-to-hit and damage
stats help you plan your attacks more effectively, but attacking
certain areas can have other effects. For example, if you attack
a monster's legs there's a good chance you'll reduce its movement
rate by 50 percent. After you have selected a target, game time
resumes and Ashley attacks. After defeating the first boss,
Ashley will gain the use of chain abilities. These let Ashley
perform consecutive hits when he's attacking enemies, with every
additional attack benefiting Ashley in ways other than sheer
damage. Ashley can ready up to three of these attacks at a time,
and with the proper timing, chain them until the target keels
over. For example, you can restore magic points or life with a
carefully timed chain attack. Learned at the same time as chain
abilities, defense abilities allow you to key different kinds of
defense. When you're attacked, tapping the right button could
restore half of the damage you just took or reflect it back at
the enemy. After gaining enough experience, you'll be presented
with a choice as to which new ability you'd like to learn. Using
chain and defense abilities is useful but they build Ashley's
risk level. When the risk level is too high, Ashley's ability to
connect with both weapons and spells drops steeply - while you
could theoretically chain attacks together forever, this would
cause Ashley's risk level to skyrocket, and any other enemies in
the area would surely wax you. Thus, the real advantage of
chaining is that it prevents enemies from attacking while you
deal lots of damage. In addition to chain and defense abilities,
Ashley has a few more elite tricks up his sleeve. Break arts,
learned after gaining considerable experience, allow Ashley to
sacrifice some of his own life meter to inflict massive damage on
an enemy. As Ashley progresses to and through the dark city of
Lea Monde, many enemies will drop pages from the legendary spell
book Grimon. Each page contains a single spell that is memorized
once read. Magic spells fall into four categories, such as
attack, healing, and status magic. Some spells, such as the
explosion and thunder-burst spells, let you position a sphere of
attack to target multiple enemies or multiple body parts on the
same enemy. Despite all of these options, Vagrant Story's
gameplay interface is relatively clutterless and intuitive - hold
down the L2 button, and you have fast access to just about
everything. Outside of battle, Vagrant Story continues its
control fixation with a maze of menus that lets you customize
your experience even more. In addition to the standard RPG equip
and inventory screens, Vagrant Story lets you forge your own
weapons and armor from weapons and armor you find in the game.
Ashley can only perform these feats in factories scattered
throughout the game, and each factory can only forge items made
from certain materials. As Ashley's weapons become more
accustomed to killing certain types of monsters as he progresses,
this lets you carry your old weapon stats to onto new weapons. In
addition to forging new weapons, Ashley can disassemble any
weapon and reassemble a new one from the parts, allowing for
greater customization. Finally, gems can be inlaid at any time to
alter a weapon's stats and allow for more on-the-go changes, such
as changes to a weapon's elemental attribute. Vagrant Story is
one of the most beautifully cinematic games to date, easily
toppling Metal Gear Solid. With character designs by Akihiko
Yoshida, the venerable artist behind Final Fantasy Tactics'
noseless wonders, Vagrant Story looks and feels like a living 3D
comic brought to life. Each model is fluidly animated and
textured with a sketch-like quality that gives the game a visual
feel all its own. Topped off with impressive lighting and spell
effects, Vagrant Story is a visual feast. Adding to the game's
cinematic charm is yet another impressive score by Hitoshi
Sakimoto, one of Final Fantasy Tactics' composers. The sound
effects are well done and impressive, straying from Square's
standard of synthed noise. From an audio standpoint, the only
thing conceivably missing is voice - while the jagged comic
dialog boxes are charming, one can't help but think this game
could be more impressive with voice. However, avoiding Metal Gear
Solid's glut of dialogue is definitely a plus. All together,
Vagrant Story's disparate parts come together in a beautiful,
cinematic experience. The game's story is compelling and
constantly urges you to press forward, giving the game the
addictive quality of the finest RPGs. While a fairly short game,
the depth and density of the story and gameplay give Vagrant
Story an intensity missing from most longer games, as well as a
higher replay value. Due to thick Japanese dialogue and some
complicated Japanese menus, English-speaking gamers are advised
to wait for the US version, due this May. --Peter Bartholow
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
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