Vandal Hearts

"Not bad, but it's just your standard everyday Strategy RPG"

When Konami released Vandal Hearts early in the life of the Playstation, most people paid it little attention. A few picked it up and thought it was the greatest Strategy RPG game ever. Were they right? Well, no. But it's not bad, it's just in the middle.

Gameplay

Vandal Hearts is in a sub-genre known as Strategy RPGs. These involve an RPG like story, but involve a battle system based upon more strategic influences. Usually, as in the case of Vandal Hearts, this involves movement based on a system of squares. Anyway, the gameplay of Vandal Hearts pretty much follows this formula, well, basically.

Vandal Hearts is a very story driven game. Where you can go and what you can do while you're there is all based upon the story. This gives a very focused feel to the game, and it's kind of nice. It also makes more sense then some games. However, this also eliminates almost any sense of freedom you had. The only places that you can revisit are towns, and you can only revisit them during the chapter they were in.

Adding to the feel of the story driven gameplay are the chapters. Once you go on to the next chapter, the map changes and there's no going back. Again, this helps reinforce the story aspect of it, but I wish that there would have been a little more freedom.

In Vandal Hearts, there are three main screens. The first is the battle screen, we'll cover that later. The second is the map screen. On the map screen, you can choose where you want to move your party to. Where you can move will depend on what part of the story you are in, as we've already covered. Movement on the map is accomplished simply by highlighting a location and selecting it. You can only travel to places that are in white. Others are off-limits.

The third screen is the menu screen, where you can re-equip your characters, check their status, or look at the item wagon.

Now, back to the battle screen. This is the screen that you'll be seeing the most of in Vandal Hearts. The battle screen is divided into squares that your characters can move on. There're will be enemies, too (otherwise, it wouldn't be much of a battle, now would it?), as well as obstacles. On the battle screen, you'll be given an objective, and then you'll try to complete it. While they try to vary the goals, the answer is usually just to kill everything in sight. If, however, the main character Ash dies, its game over.

But Ash won't have to face the horrors of the world alone! No, my friends, he has many allies in his quest. At different parts of the game (more towards the beginning), characters will join you in your mission. You start with two allies, but you'll end with eleven (for a total of twelve characters). Each character will be divided up into one of four base classes. Soldier, Archer, Mage, or Healer. Each class can move onto two branches. Soldier can move to Knight or Armor, Archer to Archer(it's a different class, but it does the same) or Hawknight, Mage to Wizard or Monk, and Healer to Healer (same situation as the archer) or Monk. Class changes are permanent, so if you choose a class that you really don't want, I hope you have a save file from beforehand. Also, once they've moved from their base class to the new class, they can't go to the other type. On the whole, class changes are rather rare, happening only twice in the entire game (possibly three for Ash). Most of the strategy in battle deals with how you use what you've got.

There's not much else to the gameplay in Vandal Hearts. Story scene, battle scene, rinse and repeat. Just throw in the ability to go to town and other basic RPG stuff to get the sum of the gameplay.

Story

This is where the game was able to develop a fanbase. Vandal Hearts is a very story driven game. You won't do anything in Vandal Hearts that isn't to progress the story (well, besides one exception and standard stuff like shopping and equipping).To play Vandal Hearts is like reading an interactive book. Albeit a very interactive book, but still. This isn't to say that the game isn't fun. Also, it doesn't seem like they took away from the game in order to add to the story, the gameplay decisions seem to be independent from the story ones, though I could be way off on this one.

Personally, I thought that the story was very well done, but it didn’t grip me like it did others. Of course, that's more of a personal taste issue than a fault of the game's. Personally, I didn't find there to be much character development on the part of most of the characters. Instead, you just learn more about them. The character's personality itself doesn't change, you just learn more about them.

Graphics

The graphics are disappointing. While it is true that it's an old game, these mostly seem to be design issues. Arms look flimsy, and some of the characters look pieced together part of the time. That being said, some of the combat effects are quite nice, and some are quite unique. Each character has a unique attack animation, and part of the fun of getting a new class is to see what the character will look like, and what their attack animation will be. Unfortunately, about half of the classes look sad. It's always disappointing to get a new class and then find out it looks like a dork. Meh, maybe you'll enjoy them more than me, but I doubt it.

Sound

I really did appreciate the sound effects. They were nice and they fit well. They were full and rich in almost all instances. It really makes me wish they had spent as much time on the background music. The BGMs are all easily are readily forgettable. Its not that they don't do they're job, they set the mood fine. They just don't do anything else.

Replay
With only one (very well hidden) sidequest and extremely story driven gameplay, Vandal Hearts really lacks replay value, even more so than other games of its genre. It's not very long (story wise, the battles take forever) so you may be able to play through it again. You could also try to go though it with different classes. But, with battles and a story that is so straightforward, you'll probably get tired of the game after one time.

Summary

Vandal Hearts is not a bad game, as long as you are a fan of the genre. Gamers who have already played through some of the newer SRPGs such as Final Fantasy Tactics or Vanguard Bandits and enjoyed them will almost assuredly enjoy Vandal Hearts, at least to some extent. Not my favorite game, but it's not too bad. Take a look at it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/24/03