Vagrant Story

[Neogearzx]

I just finished Demons Souls over the weekend and have a taste for more RPG dungeon style gaming , so I pulled out Vagrant Story and then I realized that I have never beaten this game, hell I never even got very far at all... I also notice that it really reminds me of Final Fantasy 12 ( which I just might go through again after this )

Anyways anyone else playing this game? Know any more good games similar to Demons Souls or Vagrant Story?

[BlackMoomba]

They look similar because they had same artistic directors for both games. It's an excellent game and very challenging at that.

[Pirian]

I honestly didn't find it all that challenging; tedious, yes, but not challenging. Not really sure how far in I got, but I had about 10 hours of playtime before I just said "fuck it".

[SephYuyX]

Couldnt stand VS, and no surprise later down the road didnt like 12 or Demon Souls.
To each his own.

[Hank]

I loved this game. Say what you will about the gameplay, but the story itself was wonderful. One of the few SE games I have played that managed to make it to the end without japanning the fuck out 3/4 of the way through. Not to say the game didn't have twists, but they sure didn't come from left field as per the usual; contrived for the sake of "depth" etc.

[Nevex]

Didn't like it.
I found it very frustrating because of all the non-stop dungeon crawling with only one character, unbalanced combat/magic system, excessively dark/gothic envirorment design and absolutely horrible final boss fight.

[jinkazama]

I really enjoyed VS..

another RPG that most people dont know about that I found very entertaining was Enchanted Arms on the PS3. If you have a chance to check it out I would recommend it

[Kainos]

if u have an iphone/mac mighty want to check out Chaos rings. Its made by the same director as vagrant story or artist?

http://www.chaosrings.com/omega/en/index.html

theyre also working on a sequel

already thread on first page
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/105832-Chaos-Rings

[Kerberoz]

VS was Square's best PS1 game, by a mile. It really says something when the protagonist, despite wearing assless pants, was more dignified that, well.... every other male character they've ever made.

[Xno Kappa]

Vagrant Story will push your patience to the freaking limit.

A lot of the areas, while beautiful for the time, are just copy/paste from previous areas you worked your way through against countless box puzzles. If you don't pay attention you can easily get lost. The battle-system can get tedious as hell at times with you literally doing only 1~2 points of damage for no logical reason. The chain system can randomly crap out on you, even if you use a freaking metronome for timing. The risk point system can sky-rocket randomly from a measly attack. The boss fights can take forever while not being all that fun due to said imbalance, you'll one-shot enemies in one room and get owned by another in the next while you pathetically tickle it.

The game has it's positives, epic story and stellar soundtrack, but I honestly couldn't play it today without casual breaks weeks at a time. Playing it recently I'm surprised I finished it as a kid, was probably because it was the only game I had and/or could afford at the time.

I'd suggest you just emulate it and find yourself a save file and start a New Game+, possibly one where you already have Excailbur, to save yourself the headache sometimes with the battle-system.

[Niiro]

Other than the navigation (rooms are too small generally, can be annoying finding your way around) it's only as tedious as you make it for the most part.

Long as you get a decent understanding of what attacks work on what enemies early on it's not very hard. Also that you don't drive yourself insane trying to get the very best weapons/gear.

[Kerberoz]

The entire point of the risk system was so you don't just spam combos. Also, you never needed to grind anything, and never really needed to use multiple weapons or anything. Not sure why some people have so much trouble with this game. I guess because it's not just limit break spamming? Use buffs and items. They make a huge difference.

[xopher]

The micromanagement weapon system was fantastically deep.

[Niiro]

The micromanagement weapon system was infuriatingly deep.
.

[Enedin]

I played it for about 10 hours, then was at a point where none of my weapons would do more than 2 dmg at a time and I said to myself: "better start over."

Which I did, and I quit again after 10 hours. Am I supposed to switch weapons everytime a new monster type appears or what? I never got it working.

[Kerberoz]

Stop chaining your attacks to maximum risk and/or use buff spells.

[Enedin]

Stop chaining your attacks to maximum risk and/or use buff spells.

I'll give that a try on my next time around. Almost started this up again today until I found out that they sell Angry Birds on the PSN.

[Colenzo]

Game is so fucking awesome. I've actually been playing this for the past couple of weeks.

[Caiyuo]

for one, what the hell when you bump this thread you give everyone the glimmer of hope that something's fucking happening with vagrant story but for two, don't do that and then say you're opting for angry birds because that shit is all flavors of fucked up

[Colenzo]

HOW DARE YOU

[Enedin]

I restarted VS (3rd time) and I intend on finishing it this time. I won't fuck up my weapons again; last two times I played I ended up having to chain 1>2>3dmg etc everything to death because all my weapons were useless after careless use. By the time I reached Snowly Forest all I could do was either run away or not mess up chains.

Introduction to the story still awesome after 10 years.

[Colenzo]

well you know once you reach a certain point in the game you could just beat up on the training dummies they have placed in different places

[Kerberoz]

I'm pretty sure that, even with a horribly-spec'd weapon, you can still do fine just by using buffs/debuffs and keeping your RISK low. Been a while, though.

[Enedin]

I'm pretty sure that, even with a horribly-spec'd weapon, you can still do fine just by using buffs/debuffs and keeping your RISK low. Been a while, though.

If a weapon's DP and PP are full and the monster is weak to a certain type of grip (edge/blunt/piercing), then you should be able to do some damage. But w/o any affinity towards the target, it takes enormous amounts of time to kill the harder monsters, at which point training your weapon is the only viable option.

[Caiyuo]

From what I remember that was the basic idea, gear individual weapons towards different affinities and hope any holes you run into into don't screw you that horribly.

[Enedin]

Fought 2 more bosses today. I have 4 weapons covering all monsters, but some bosses are only weak to one particular type (egded, piercing, blunt), and even my strong affinity weapons won't do shit vs that boss unless they have the right type.

There's always break arts and magic. I really need a workshop soon.

[Niiro]

I haven't played VS in quite a while but iirc don't the enchant weapon spells pretty much make weapon training largely unnecessary? Also weren't there accessories that could change your offensive affinities as well?

I remember using the same 1h axe for like 90% of the game (well not the same one, upgraded it at various points obv).

[Enedin]

There are gems that you can attack to your weapon, they can increase both offensive and defensive affinities. Also, the en-spells are very powerful, letting you exploit an elemental weakness to the max.

So while the en-spells are very useful, they don't increase affinity towards monster types, just elements. You still need different weapons for that, or a shitload of the best gems.

[Enedin]

Just killed a very annoying Dark Elemental boss. Kept casting Meteor every turn (and fast turns, too) so I ran out of MP too fast and had to use a shitton of curing items. I renamed Magnolia Frau staff to Kraken Club, 'cause I chain mobs to death with it.

I had to kill this boss with MISS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 etc. damage chains with my Kraken Club. Luckily chaining is something you get better at quite rapidly, and it was pretty tense trying to get as high as possible. Nasty boss though.