Rhayader Goes to Town (Day 323)

 I finished Vandal Hearts right in at around 14 hours, making it one of the shortest strategy RPGs I've ever played. The only other game in the genre that I can think of that's shorter is Arc the Lad, which serves as sort of a prologue to Arc the Lad II, which is reportedly about a 60 hour long game, so I'm not sure how much it counts. Anyway, Vandal Hearts is a short and fun SRPG that is nonetheless riddled with flaws.

Unlike most SRPGs, Vandal Hearts is very easy. Most missions require very little planning beforehand and can be conquered in just a few minutes. Many enemies can be one-shotted, especially if their weaknesses are exploited. Archers deal heavy damage to flying enemies, whereas melee combatants are strong against archers. Magic users also deal heavy damage to heavily armored enemies--as well as just about everything else, it must be noted. The Sorcerer class in Vandal Hearts is undoubtedly the strongest unit available with powerful spells like Phase Shift and Salamander that hit very close to the entire map.

Pretty cool spell

 By contrast, the defensive Guardsman class is close to useless. In close combat they are competent, but their low range of movement makes it unlikely they'll actually ever get to an enemy to attack them. I'll admit that because I was rushing through this game I frequently used these units as little more than fodder. The game does penalize you for losing allied units, but never at any point did I not have enough money to buy all the equipment and items that I needed, so it barely affected me.

Archbishops promote from Bishops which promote from Healers. I had only one on my team and it was pretty much all the healing I needed--especially once I'd acquird the powerful Perfect Healing spell. At the hefty price of 40 MP, it was capable of healing every ally on the entire map for their entire health bar. Although these flashy spells trivialized the game's difficulty, I have to admit they were pretty fun to use.

Evidently what the game is named for

Although Vandal Hearts posed no real difficulty, it was still reasonably fun to play through and had a few interesting mechanics. I enjoyed casting the Sorcerer's massive AoE spells even if they were overtuned--and I also liked the class-branching system even though I would have really preferred the classes to branch a second time for the sake of variety. I have to wonder if Vandal Hearts: Flame of Judgment, the recent revival to the series, features many of these elements.

Always the adventurer

 I recall playing Vandal Hearts II briefly, but I don't remember it very well. What I do remember is that I thought it was pretty bad and possibly even broken in some pretty important ways. I don't imagine I'll be tracking it down to play it anytime soon, but I most likely will do some research on it. Instead, I'll be moving on to another PlayStation game in my backlog, which will be Vagrant Story, Tales of Destiny, or Front Mission 3. I'm hesitant to play Front Mission 3 because I've recently learned there's a fan translation available for Front Mission 2 and I'd like to play that first--but at the same time it's not really part of my backlog. The idea of clearing out my backlog entirely is pretty appealing to me so I'm conflicted. We'll see what happens.

Ring Out, Solstice Bells (Day 320)

Vandal Hearts is a little known strategy RPG from early in the PlayStation's life cycle. I've never been a fan of developers' early attempts at 3D graphics on consoles, and the garish blocky backgrounds in this game can certainly attest to that. However, most of the game's graphics are 2D sprite-based and not particularly pretty to look at either. Despite some reasonably slick animations and fountains of gratuitous blood, the artwork and character designs in this game are mostly awful. Fortunately, the gameplay itself is very solid.

Vandal Hearts could best be described as a hybrid between strategy RPGs like Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics with a class system more reminiscent of Fire Emblem or Seiken Densetsu 3. Each character recruited to your party in Vandal Hearts corresponds to a certain class such as Soldier, Healer, or Archer. At level 10, you are given the option to promote to a new class. Like Seiken Densetsu 3 or Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, you'll be afforded the opportunity to choose between two possible classes to which you can upgrade. For instance, a Soldier can become the more offensive Swordsman or the defensive Guardsman, who wields a large shield and an axe.

Although I haven't made it that far yet, I've read that you can promote again at level 20. I can only assume each class again has two options to choose from. If Vandal Hearts follows in the foosteps of Seiken Densetsu 3, this will be the case. In the case of that game, each class had a light and dark upgrade, so each character ended up with a wide variety of different choices for class advancement.

Another similarity that Vandal Hearts shares with Fire Emblem is the fact that each unit in your party is a unique character. There is no such thing as a generic unit as in Final Fantasy Tactics. However, I can't speak for any depth these characters might have. The plot so far seems mostly forgettable, but that could easily change later. The only thing really keeping me interested at this point is the desire to see all of the different classes and spells I can unlock. It's a solid game, but I can't call it essential by any means--at least not so far.