My Opinion Surrounding The Charms Of Golden Age JRPGs

A few weeks back Ilauded Vagrant Story for itsambiance and storytelling. This week, I’m here to deconstruct that praise by presenting you, the reader, with what I hope is a mostly intelligible rant aimed at some of the major gripes that I have with the game.

Admittedly, the complaints I have with Vagrant Story are largely rooted in how comparatively old the game is. Released back in 2000 for the PS1, Vagrant Story is a product of its time in many ways, and reflects a period when the video game industry was enveloped in a social movement of sorts which encouraged experimental game design, especially in RPGs and their ilk.

They Say The Classics Never Go Out Of Style, But They Do, They Do

Recently I’ve become engulfed by what I would classify as a desire to consume all manner of “golden age JRPGs”. This era, which I consider to have begun during the SNES’ heyday and to have reached full swing during the PS1’s lifecycle, was notable for the enormous amount of diverse, excellent RPGs developed by Japanese development studios.

Many of these exceptional titles presented varied combat mechanics, aesthetics, and/or subject matter. Vagrant Story is no different. Unfortunately, it also shares many issues which plagued games of this golden age, such as convoluted gameplay mechanics and cumbersome UI. In particular, I’d like to address how the game handles its combat.

Pump The Breaks

Combat in Vagrant Story is largely handled in real-time. This is to say that you engage enemies, position yourself actively in the game’s environments and attack as regularly as you like, without restriction. Once you do, you are given the option of chaining your initial attack to additional attack types. Each attack type offers additional bonuses, such as casting silence on the enemy, gaining HP or MP, etc. The intention is for the player to chain an optimal combo against an enemy, providing the player with additional resources while dealing direct damage to said enemy.

When fighting an enemy in Vagrant Story, I’m often reminded of tug-of-war, where the goal is to consistently gain ground on your enemy through the manipulation of momentum. “Momentum” is itself acquired by equipping the right weapon, with the right element, and the right affinity against the particular enemy you are fighting.

In managing to properly prepare for each and every fight (of which there are literally thousands over the course of the game), the player is rewarded with a relatively brief enemy encounter. Oftentimes, a single combo can kill even bosses, assuming that you’ve done enough planning to ensure that your weapon is optimally built to manage this foe. Oftentimes, it is not. Failure to plan effectively usually leads to swift defeat or a long-winded encounter in which the player deals almost literally no damage to the enemy they are fighting.

Usual encounters for me break down to analyzing a foe, equipping the right weapon and accessory, enhancing my weapon’s elemental affinity, and then equipping the right attack chain. Once all of these steps are completed (which takes roughly 30 seconds or so), I begin the actual fight, which occasionally doesn’t last more than 10 seconds.

I’m all for planning, but the ratio of preparation to actual combat is slightly discouraging. Moreover, the game often pairs the player up against several different types of enemies, each of radically different weaknesses. It’s enough to make me want to stop playing at times, though I’ve managed to persist to about 15 or so hours into the game so far (having played through about 60% of the game’s map).

Final Thoughts

Vagrant Story is trying in all the right ways thankfully: its art direction, storytelling and design is mostly beautiful, and manages to sell the otherwise sluggish combat. Interestingly and to its credit, every fight manages to give off the impression of an actual fight in many ways, and I often feel as though there is a very strong correlation between the effort I put in to pre-fight planning and the outcome of that skirmish. With all that in mind, I actively find myself wishing that the heaps of innovation didn’t have to come with such a large amount of convoluted mechanics.

What do you think about RPGs from 10-15 years ago?