Screaming geysers of blood!? Let's Play Vandal Hearts!

Hey there, everyone! I decided to dip my toe into Let's Play-ing, and I couldn't think of a better place to start than a game that's near and dear to my heart, Vandal Hearts for the PS1. It's easily one of my favourite games of all time (unsurprisingly, given my avatar and user title), but prevailing opinion seems to be that it is a cute but forgettable SRPG that's inferior to its more famous cousins like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. Personally, I find those games dry and tedious; fittingly, Vandal Hearts has more heart.

It may have a comparatively simplistic advancement/customization system (which I think is to its credit, frankly), but it's more colourful, it's quicker/punchier, it has almost no grinding to speak of (unless you actively go looking for the couple of exploitive work-arounds, which is kind of silly and completely unnecessary), and almost every mission is unique, with varied challenges or objectives that are informed by the narrative. FFT has that one phoned-in mission where you stand on a couple of floodgate buttons (likely after killing everything else), but almost every battle in Vandal Hearts has some sort of fun new gimmick. Kill the guard dogs before they alert anyone! Get off the disconnecting rail cars! Kill as few possessed villagers as possible! Or, y'know, play FFT and fight the same boring chocobos on flat grasslands 800 times and maybe kill a named guy or two once a chapter.

Now, I mentioned this recently in another thread, and several people were quick to point out that VH actually has a lot more in common with the Shining Force games (which I also love) than it does with FFT and its ilk. And this is true! However, I have a lot of irrational hatred for FFT stemming back from high school when it rose to popularity. I still played it and loved it along with everybody else, of course (and had the maxed-out game clock to show for it), but it drove me crazy that none of my school-yard chums would give VH the time of day but gushed all over FFT, and I felt like they only liked it so much because of its branding. They went so far as to call other SRPGs (including VH itself!) "Final Fantasy Tactics clones", much the same way that FPSs were called "Doom-clones" at the time, and it made me absolutely livid. After all, Final Fantasy Tactics was nothing more than a Vandal Hearts clone! Of course, I now know that neither was exactly the progenitor of the genre, but Vandal Hearts did precede FFT by a year, so I still feel like I had the moral high ground.

In any case, I feel like Vandal Hearts is the far superior game, and one of my primary goals for this LP is to do high school age JBear a solid and marshal that case. I still love playing through this game again, even now, and I hope to make converts out of at least a couple of you!

I should make it clear that, lest the thread title scare everyone away, the blood geysers are indeed present, but they're just sort of this strange little incongruous oddity and not really very representative of the game as a whole. For whatever reason, someone decided that enemies should die in a hilarious over-the-top explosion of blood accompanied by the sound of... tearing metal? I think it's supposed to be a scream? Maybe? It's weird, is what I'm saying, but I love it. It really must be seen to be believed.

Now, some of you may have heard that this game is in fact the first in a series, but this is regrettably not true. Internet rumours have insisted for years that the game spawned a couple of sequels, but those sequels don't actually exist, in the same way that George Lucas stopped making movies after Return of the Jedi. (Honestly, I sort of like VH2, and I finished it, but I would never actually defend it as a good game. It's more of a... interesting but ultimately flawed experiment?)

I've already taken all of the screenshots for my first update, but it'll likely take me a day or two to get it all organized, so in the meantime, here's a link to the intro music (sung by Jadranka Stojakovic) to whet everyone's appetites:



If that doesn't tug at your heart strings, then I don't know how to break this to you, but you may have no soul.

Man, I was always such a fan of this game, it was one of the first PS1 games I ever played. Looking forward to this!

The LIBERATION ARMY

For a while there it seemed like every game had a LIBERATION ARMY

My thunder, you're stealing it.

(Seriously though, I'm polishing up the first update right now, and I just wrote in a bit about that.)

I've got some notes I took (a few years ago I think?) about differences in the Japan-only Sega Saturn version, which I could chime in with when appropriate. I only went through most of the first chapter, though.

Absolutely! I didn't even know that there was a Saturn version, so I for one would love to hear what's different. If there are more than a few token differences, then I may have to track down a copy and see for myself. I'm always looking for an excuse to play more Vandal Hearts.

This should be a fun LP. I don't remember why I stopped playing this years ago, just that I did. I was enjoying it a lot too!

It is like Shining Force, except you have a lot more options. Shining Force is fun but pretty much a standard RPG with SRPG style battles - its maps are built more around simple choke points with the occasional hazard.

I remember VH having tons of map variety, and even without the map variety, they let you do things like push/move objects, climb up/down height and generally reshape parts of the battlefield.

I stopped FFT at the first battle where you have an AI-controlled guy that I had to protect. It looked like he wanted to die immediately. I stopped Tactics Ogre because it looked like there was some sort of grinding involved at the beginning.
Vandal Hearts was from the beginning way more fun to me than these two games. I liked the simplicity and, like everyone else, the great maps and missions.
I can�t wait for this the next update.

Well...from what I've seen, it's mostly a fairly large amount of token differences. And some of them appear to be pretty clearly related to the change in hardware (transparency effects, for example), while others are just...kind of baffling (like a redrawn tree sprite).

The biggest thing, probably, is this weird/terrible new intro.

That is... magical. It just kept going. It was like a train wreck that I couldn't look away from. I could watch that derpy dragon walking animation all day. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. And I had no idea that swords were ranged weapons. So many years of gaming wasted stabbing and slashing when I could be throwing.

I almost feel like I should hold off on the LP at this point; that video that breakman linked is an impossible act to follow. But I'm too excited to get started, so I'll dive in anyway.



Gotta love that PS1-era Konami logo bursting out of the ground. This was the best I could get after about 4 tries, because I am great at screenshots.



Awww yeah, time to kill some dudes. But wait! I almost forgot. Before our first battle comes BACKSTORY. Are you excited? I'm excited.


"For over a millennium the fertile lands in the heart of this vast continent were ruled by the Holy Ashah Dynasty, ..."


I don't know how you can over-act a voice-over, but this guy found a way. Mr. Deep-voice here lux-ur-i-ates in e-ver-y syll-a-ble.


"Admidst all the wealth and exotic pleasures, the nobility lost their way and sank into corruption and depravity..."


Corrupt nobility, you say? Finally, an original story for a fantasy game.


"...struggling under an oppressive regime, rose up and, under the leadership of Arris the Sage, took up arms against the Kingdom. That was the first outbreak of violence in what would later by known simply as..."


As you're going to see, these guys aren't all that imaginative when it comes to the whole "names" thing.


"...swift and fierce, but time and time again they were put to flight by the cunning strategies of Arris and the indomitable will of the advancing..."


Case in point. If memory serves, I played this game for the first time right after playing Suikoden for the first time (there's even an ad for it on the back of this game's instruction booklet AND printed inside the jewel case), so I thought it was in poor taste that they "stole" the name of their revolutionary army.


"...Council and worked to establish the continent's first democracy."


Democracy fixes everything, you guys. It'll be smooth sailing from here. Game over.


"...would lead the country, mysteriously vanished..."


This won't be the last we hear about him, but after all of this build-up, this guy is probably less important than you're thinking he will be.

It was a dark and stormy night on purple fog island...



The gate makes a really satisfying rumble as it opens. This game is all about the little touches.



Hrm. One of these guys has unique artwork and a more ornate shield. That's probably not good news for "Soldier" here.



Oh wait, never mind, this guy out-fancies all three of you; you're all screwed.



Something perfectly safe, no doubt.



*poke*




I'm sure they're all fine.

The game periodically has these little act break fanfares. In my head, the guy from the intro reads out the act headings. "A PRE-MON-ITION... OF WAR".



Chrono...



Oh, they're all just standing outside. The fade-in from black is an odd choice here.





Yup, that's pretty surrounded alright. It's a bad day to be a merchant.



"...valley belongs to the "Fangs of Umbaba"?

Other Thief: "They're just some dumb wandering peddlers. Ignorance is the root of misfortune, as they say."

Thief: "If ya wanna live, hand over everything ya got! Although, we'll probably kill you anyway! ....Right boss?"



"Man Called Ash" is not impressed.



I'm going to say that's a "No".





There's a really great sound effect here as he removes his cloak with a flourish. I tried to catch it mid-animation, but it's only a few frames. So many beautiful little touches.



OH MY GOD, "Man Called Ash" is actually "Ash"!



Roll call!



THE VERY SAME. (This nickname is never brought up again.)



But he wants dollars, not quarters! /rimshot



Apparently Zoot is not as impressed by our reputation as it first seemed. Or he's an idiot. Find out which it is next time!

(I was originally going to include the first battle in this update, but it's turning out to be a gigantic update, so I thought I'd better cut it here and give everyone room to breathe before diving in. Next time: Gameplay!)

Speaking of which...

There were also a bunch of nicknames like this in Suikoden. Most/all of the original Liberation Army members had them (though Flik's, at least, was mentioned more than once I think), as did some of the Imperial Generals.

And we're back! To recap the previous backstory dump: 15 years ago, a rebel army overthrew the corrupt monarchy and established a new democracy, but the rebel leader disappeared soon after. In the present, a context-less group of soldiers found a strange altar on a mysterious island and triggered some sort of blinding flash of light. Finally, our trio of player characters disguised themselves as merchants to draw out some bandits and are about to kick some bandit behind!



The objectives fire in from the right side of the screen as the map pans around to set things up. This first fight is a pretty straight-forward affair, and more of a tutorial battle than anything. Both sides are aiming to defeat the other side's leader. It's possible to lose this fight, but you'd need to work pretty hard at it.



Here's the overhead tactical view. Blue dots are Team Merchant, while red dots are the bandits. Zoot is the red dot up there next to the 'W'. That's actually a really obnoxious place for him to be, but I'll get back to why that is in a bit. First, let's take a look at our heroes:



Ash is way ahead of us, with "Hero" printed right on his stat screen. That's his class, not his last name. Hero is a special class reserved for Ash, and it's a good one, with a mixture of great physical stats and some limited healing and offensive magic. He starts with a single healing spell that I'll show off a little later. At level 5, his starting level is one higher than his friends, because he's just that awesome.



Clint here, meanwhile, is a Soldier, and that looks to be a pretty raw deal, since he doesn't have any fancy magic, and has notably lower stats than Ash. He doesn't even get to use a long sword.



Diego doesn't look to have fared much better at first blush, with even lower stats than Clint, but as an Archer he's rocking a bow, which allows him to attack at range. And, even more importantly, he looks absolutely dashing in that bandana, and has a disarming grin.



Here's the information that you're given when you put the cursor over a character. You'll notice a 0% on both the top-left and bottom-left corners of the screen. This is a defensive modifier granted by terrain. Ash here is standing out in the open on a Plains space, so he gets no bonus defense.



Clint, however, needs every edge that he can get, so he's chosen to hang out on a Prairie square, granting a whopping 5% bonus. That may not seem like a lot, but I'd say it's pretty generous given that it's just grass. You may notice a third terrain type just to Clint's north here. That's Thicket, which I apparently didn't get a screenshot of. It grants the highest bonus on this map, at 15%, so if you're expecting to get beat on, it's a good place to hang out. You can completely ignore terrain and make out just fine in this battle, but it's something to keep in mind going forward.



Here's the control menu that we get when we select a character to act. Characters can Move and then take an Action, but can't Act and then Move. Examine interacts with the square that you're standing on in various ways, while Push... pushes things. For those of you who have played the GCN Fire Emblem games, this isn't what you're thinking. There's actually nothing in this battle that I can use to show it off, so it'll have to wait until a later update.



But enough explanation: it's time to hit some dudes in the face! Clint here takes the initiative and moves over to the nearest bandit to introduce him to the pointy end of his short sword (notice his sprite: short swords are apparently wielded two-handed and nearly as tall as a person).



Here's the summary screen that we get before Clint attacks. No complicated damage estimates or hit %s to be had here: it just tells us who is involved and how much health they have, along with their terrain modifiers.



Clint hits him for a decent 9 damage. Not bad. Judging by the look on his face, he certainly didn't enjoy it, at any rate (I love the animations in this game).



But wait, what's this? It looks like he really didn't like it. What's he doing with that...?



OW. Hey, what gives, I thought it was my turn?! Attacks in Vandal Hearts are not just one-sided affairs: if the enemy that you attack is capable of returning the blow, then he or she will gladly do so. This makes ranged attacks even more valuable then they'd otherwise be, as they can attack without reprisal (unless the target also has a ranged weapon that can reach back, in which cast ranged exchanges take place).



Well, Clint got a bloody nose for his trouble, but he also got a delicious 30 experience points. Characters gain a level every 100 points, so that's almost a third of a level right there. Since there are no random battles in this game, every point of experience counts. Pretty much every action grants experience points, and no one wants to look at pictures of that little dialog box 1000 times, so just assume that everyone is getting experience for their actions from here forward.

I'm one of those OCD people who needs to level all of his playable characters at the same pace in any game, but Vandals Hearts rewards that kind of behaviour more than most, as there's none of this "you can only have 5 of your 12 characters for this battle" nonsense. If your posse has a dozen characters, then they can all take to the field. You need to work hard to keep your characters all evenly leveled (especially in this first battle where Ash can pretty reasonably solo the whole thing), but you'd need to work even harder to get their levels very imbalanced, as there's a built-in catch up mechanism where characters get bonus XP when interacting with targets that are higher level than them (and are similarly penalized for interacting with lower-level targets). This is component #1 of the silly power-leveling exploits that I won't be making use of.



Alright, enough of that: back to killing! Clint softened that guy up for us, so let's see if Diego can finish the job. Here's Diego's attack range. Looks like he can attack up to four space away in a straight line. Perfect! I'll just sidle on by Ash and plant myself on the grass space that Clint just vacated...



Oh dear. That's not good. If you can't make it out from the screenshot, the bandit's space is not highlighted in red. So what gives? See how Clint and the bandit are up on a little ledge there? Well, it turns out that elevation matters, and that's just a little too high for Diego's arrows to reach. You want to give your Archers the high ground whenever possible, as they can get some ridiculous attack ranges from a sufficiently elevated perch (however, you also open up blind spots in the spaces closest to you if you get up too high), and attacks from higher elevations get bonus damage (this includes melee attacks).



Since he hasn't taken an action yet, you can still cancel Diego's move at this point and bring him back to the square he started from, but I forgot that I could do that, because I was still getting back into the swing of things. So I ended his turn on the square with him staring angrily at the bandit that's just out of reach. But, this presents a good opportunity to demonstrate another key concept: facing! If you end your turn by attacking, then you'll face in the direction you attacked, but otherwise you get to choose the direction that you face to end your turn, and it matters. Attacks from the side do extra damage, and attacks from the rear do even more than that. Here's a delightful diagram from the instruction booklet to illustrate the damage bonuses from facing and height:





Alright, now that I derped and skipped Diego's turn, it's time for our Hero to show us what he's made of.



Okay, yeah, that'll do just fine. Fire Emblem fans can think of Ash as this game's "Jeigan". He can one-shot everything on the map except Zoot. He's not quite as bad as most Jeigans are in those games, since Ash is an amazing character that you want to level up, but you'll still do well to keep him in check a bit and let your other characters get some much-needed XP.

Alright, now it's time for the bandits to act. Only two of them are close enough to attack, so this should be pretty quick.



The enemy archer decides to demonstrate how much better he is at this whole elevation thing than I am by plinking at Diego from the top of nearby hill, putting him just outside the range of Diego's counter-attack. Fortunately, his arrows are evidently made of nerf. He'd better enjoy the free shot; it will be his last.



Next to act is the beefy brigand that Diego foolishly left alive last turn. He's repaid for his stupidity with a stab to the back, and the damage is starting to quickly add up. These bandits must have read the instruction booklet as well, as he positions himself for both maximum damage AND defense by striking Diego from behind while standing on top of a thicket space.



Unfortunately for him, he only had 5 HP left, and some greenery wasn't enough to prevent the point-blank arrow to his face from ending his life. That's right: Archers will happily counter-attack from melee range, and although it might look like the bandit survived the blow in this screenshot, that's just because I was a little quick on the draw with the capture key and caught his HP bar in the process of draining away. The beginning of the blood shower is a dead giveaway. Sorry.

Alright, that was it for the bandits' turn. Now it's time for REVENGE. Diego positions himself on a nearby rise and decides to go after some fresh meat.



That, uhhh... that didn't work so well. It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but that's after Diego's attack. I wasn't able to capture an image of it, but the bandit brought up his shield and took the arrow on it with a satisfying thunk noise. Blocks happen rather often in this game, and they are always terrible when the enemy gets them and always amazing when you do. Vandal Hearts has very little mechanical transparency compared to games like Fire Emblem, so your guess is as good as mine as to what impacts block chance. I'm reasonably certain that they're more likely when attacked from the front, but other than that, my strategy for dealing with them generally involves lots of prayer.



Ash is too far in the back to reach any enemies with his next move, so he decides to sidle on over next to the injured Diego and try out this fancy Hero healing spell. But... for some reason he can't target him?



Oh. Well that's a bummer. That's not a typo: a range of 0 means that it's self-targeting. Looks like that selfish jerk Ash will only be healing himself.



With nothing better to do, Ash moves over next to a tree and plants his back to it, so that the enemy can't strike him from behind. Clint decides that he wants in on some this hot tree action and does the same (except that he faces the wrong way, because the man controlling him is an idiot).



Always ready to capitalize on an error, the bandit archer runs over and shoots Clint in the back. Thanks to that sweet thicket defensive bonus, however, Clint largely shrugs it off.



The other bow-wielding bandit, incensed at this brazen disregard for his partner's prowess, decides to rush over and shoot Clint at point-blank range. I... I don't think that's how you Archer, friend. You have made a poor life choice here.



Or should I call that a death choice?



Clint gets over half of a level for his Public Service Announcement on why Archers shouldn't attack from melee range.



Seeing how his friend just fared against Clint, this bandit decides to try Ash on for size in hopes of an easier mark.



Ash ain't nobody's mark.

Guess what time it is? It's BOSS TIME.



The attack animations in this game are so great you guys. Not pictured: Zoot sounding like a possessed robot as he attacks for some reason. Also: OW.



Ash's counter-attack doesn't look all that impressive, but Zoot only has 14 Max HP, so he's already almost half dead.



And now it's time to make his full dead.



I managed to capture the key frames of Ash's attack animation pretty nicely here. He plants his feet, draws his sword back, and then stabs it forward. Characters always turn to meet the blow, but that's just how it's animated. This is still a back attack, and Zoot will return to his original facing once the exchange ends, since he managed to survive the blow with a whopping 1 HP. Jerk.



But not before smashing Ash again with his bizarre dual-wielded hook/cutlass haunted robot attack. That shit hurts.



LEVEL UP GET. This is accompanied by a quick little fanfare and some jumping. I tried so hard to get him mid jump, but just got three shots of him landing. I'm a PRO at this you guys.



Now that Ash has set him up, it's time for Diego to knock him down and collect that phat boss XP.



But what's this? Is Ash yelling? Or do I see yet another tactical system at play? TO THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL!



Oh. That's not cute artwork, that's just a boring diagram. Still, you get the idea; it's pretty simple (and don't worry: there will be more charming instruction manual artwork to come in later updates).



So Diego takes advantage of his elevated terrain, back attack, and supporting unit bonus to deal... 1 damage. There's no overkill in this game, unfortunately. Oh well, dead is dead.



Or is it?



Oh well, who cares? We won! Hooray!



The battle results screen makes a satisfying blooping noise as it counts up the kills one by one and grants you money for each kill. But wait, what's this... I only see one enemy archer there. Guys, by going straight for the boss and ending the battle prematurely, we let one get away!

THIS CANNOT STAND. I'm redoing this battle, and none of you can stop me.

Every game should have an option to reload from the start of a fight. It's incredibly convenient. Some highlights that I wasn't able to capture in my first pass:



Healing faeries!



Level-up jumping action shots!



Hidden items!



Deaths! (Don't worry, they got better.)

...

Wait, hidden items!?

Yes, that's right, Vandal Hearts has hidden items, and almost every map has them. They're actually pretty painless though, all things considered. You can never know that they're there and still complete the game just fine, but there are a few super special items hidden this way that gate some pretty cool bonus content, so you'd better believe that I'll be going out of my way to collect most of them.



The first thing you'll want to do on any new map is pull up the overhead tactical view. Vandal Hearts is pretty generous, in that its hidden items are almost always on a piece of visually distinct terrain (it may be always, but I'm hedging my bets in case there's a stupid one later that I've forgotten, or one that I don't know about). Does anything jump out at you guys about the above map?



How about now? The bottom-right one is a bit hard to make out at this distance, but those two squares are both visually distinct from any other square on the map, and they're where our two hidden items are hanging out.



Here's a closer look at both. If any of you wanted to call this out as bullshit, I wouldn't put up much of a fight, but I think they're a neat addition, they're visually cued, and they're not required for advancement. Also, there's none of this move-item nonsense from FFT; if a character wants to search a square, they just need to move onto the square and Examine it. This doesn't even consume their action for the turn, although it does commit them to moving to that square.

In any event, the far bigger problem here is actually getting those items without killing Zoot and ending the fight prematurely. Automatic counter-attacks are kind of a pain when you're trying to artificially extend the length of a fight, and one of the spots happens to be quite close to where Zoot starts the fight. The only way that I've found to do it is like so:



I retreat my whole team to the south and then go east around the mountain, picking up the 1st item on the way. Team Bandit follows along but gets bottlenecked in the narrow path, buying me the time that I need to circle around and grab the 2nd item.

Then the quarterback passes to the wide receiver on the left and goes for a touchdown.



Anyway, we get a Long Sword and a Mad Book for our trouble. THIS IS NOW CANON. Now where were we?

Ah, right, this jerk was begging for his life.



Team meeting!



Diego looks pretty stressed here. His facial expressions are more emotive than the rest of the team combined.

Ash: "The same Zoot Gach that we threw in jail just 2 months ago?"

Diego: "Yup. Same bonehead grin. Don't ya recognize him?"



"...loser would be able to break himself out of prison."



"...but it don't bother me cause my friends won't forget about me!"

Diego: "What does that mean?! Answer me!"

Zoot: "Oh nothing... I'm just mumbling."



Do tell.



Ash is really not holding up his end of this conversation. It's too late to become a silent protagonist now Ash!



"...Our job is finished. Let's go back to Shumeria."



And with that, we're dumped onto the world map screen. As you might expect, the map is just a series of nodes.



The item management interface is a tad cumbersome, and it only gets worse with more people, but it gets the job done. Check out that neat claw in the background! Also, I don't know who that "Depot" guy is, but he can carry way more phat loot than everyone else, who get restricted to just 5 item slots, 3 of which are occupied by gear. I take this opportunity to outfit Clint with our new long sword, and then decide to check out the item description for the other piece that we found on the battlefield:



MYSTERIOUS!



Next time: Capital Shumeria

Oh my god, this is hilarious. That has to be the worst walking animation I have ever seen.

@Update: Well done. I have completely forgotten about stuff like the combo-system or the hidden items. I never bothered with the latter, so I�m curious about the hidden content behind some of them. I mean, I know about it, but have never seen it.

Looks interesting! I'm looking forward to the rest of it. It's intriguing how many elements have parallels in FFT or Fire Emblem. Though I am disappointed that you can't calculate attack damage and accuracy yourself; I like that aspect of FFT.

1) I think you mean FE. FFT does it for you.
2) You probably can if you took the time to learn the formulas and crunched numbers. But who's got time for that?

I really enjoyed this game when I played it years ago, but good golly is the portrait art ugly.

I actually kinda like the portrait art. It's the indistinct character sprites that bother me -- it's hard to tell what's going on -- and the font. I thought ALL CAPS MONOSPACE FONT was a relic of the 8-bit days.

No no, I mean FFT. They both do it for you, but I mean how in FFT you can calculate what the accuracy and damage estimates will be before you bring them up. All you need are yours and the enemy's stats.

And I love doing that; hence my MAX DAMAGE Draw Out Wizard in the FFT autobattle tournament.

To be fair, you could probably get accuracy and damage estimates from your stats and your enemy's stats in any game, as long as you know how to get them.

I'd like everyone to take just a moment to look at the armor Diego is wearing and take the time to thank character limits for providing such unintentional humor.

It could be so much worse.


I'll take the low-set ears and giant noses over dead eyed realism and weapons floating over hands at weird angles any day.

It just takes some time to get used to the artstyle. It has its own charm.

It also plays a lot better animated than it does in still screens.