Vagrant Story: Too Many Numbers In The Margins

[Fyonn]

Vagrant Story is one of my favorite PS1 games, and I think about it at least once a month, probably. I love the aesthetics, the localization, the music, the atmosphere, Sydney Losstarot's extreme low cut greaves, Ashley Riots poofy combat shorts with individual butt cheek windows, the whole thing.

Vagrant Story is also super inscrutable because it has so many mechanics. I have a preferred way I used to play the game, which is by picking an element (Wind is the fastest one, I think) and pumping that number as high as it can go to overwhelm enemy defenses. This time, I've been trying something different, and I'm basically wrecking every fight I come across effortlessly and it's wild. Here's some stuff I've learned / have been doing this run.

• Hey! Did you know every single mechanic is explained in detail in the game manual you can access at any time in the menu? I didn't! I taught myself most of the quirks of Vagrant Story's myriad systems, but this entire time I could have just read what they all do!
• Speaking of, did you know that if a weapon has maxed out Phantom Points (PP), it's twice as strong? I also didn't know that! You get Phantom Points from attacking, so just keep using the same weapon, and it will eventually become much stronger. If you run around with the weapon out, PP starts to drain, so sheathe your weapon when not in use.
• Your weapon is half as effective when it's broken. You can restore Durability Points (DP) for "free" at any workshop, but it reduces the weapon's PP an equal amount. If you're dealing 0 damage to enemies, your weapon is probably broken.
• You start with the Chain Ability "Temper" that restores a very small amount of DP. I've taken to always using Temper against regular enemies. This way, I can keep my weapon repaired while keeping its Phantom Points full. How big of an effective does this have? Typically, when I get to the Golem fight, I would deal 0 damage with melee attacks. This run, I dealt 48.
• Similarly, wow attack spells are expensive! But it turns out MP is free. You can very quickly get the Chain Ability "Gain MP," which can easily refill all of your MP in one combo.
• Taking all of this stuff into account, my standard operating priorities have been this: Top off HP with Heal > top off MP with Gain MP > use Temper when HP and MP are full to maintain my weapon. Against bosses, when my MP is full, I blast them with magic, because having a full MP bar is a waste when you can just generate more MP.
• Other than that, I'm just making sure that I my weapon has a hilt with a gem slot so I can have Braveheart slotted in for the 20% accuracy boost at all times, and making sure my hilt's best damage type (edged/pierce/blunt) matches the damage type the blade deals.
• Buffs and debuffs are important, too. Degenerate is one of the first and most important spells you get. It reduces the target's Strength. Since Vagrant Story only has three stats, Strength pulls double duty for both attack power and physical defense. If you can apply Degenerate, you should.
• Also? Numbers are fake. You know how weapons have the whole element page and the whole affinity page? Ignore them. They don't matter nearly as much as you'd think they do. The numbers in Vagrant Story have such minor effects that they really only count when you're pushing one into the stratosphere with gems.
• This last bit won't help you play Vagrant Story at all, but be aware that the in-game manual has fifteen pages dedicated to the mechanics of block puzzles.

Bonus Advice: Analyze adds the enemy's status read out to your status page in the menu, and that makes so little intuitive sense no one will ever figure it out on their own.

 

[jpfriction]

I’ve only played through it the one time but I remember making one weapon to use against every enemy type, which I gather is not the right way.

I beat the game but I do remember a lot of zeros.

 

[Peklo]

The order of decreasing importance in the various damage parameters goes blade type (edged/piercing/blunt) --> elemental affinity --> enemy type affinity at dead last. The drop in practice after just picking the right blade for the task is really severe, as stated, and the affinities can always be tuned on the go with gems anyway. It's deceptively simple to play once you get your head around it all, carrying around only three weapons when at first it seems you might need a veritable arsenal.

The other easy-breezy approach to go along with that would be to stick with one-handed weapons with the same attack animations so there's only one set of combo timings to learn, and also the ability to use a shield at all times. Eventually you just negate all damage thrown Ashley's way with the proper defenses. It's a great way to learn the game in simplifying the action, and then you can branch out with successive playthroughs with more adventurous two-handed set-ups.

 

[YangusKhan]

Bonus Advice: Analyze adds the enemy's status read out to your status page in the menu, and that makes so little intuitive sense no one will ever figure it out on their own.

When I first played through the game, I used Analyze all the time and was very successful in playing the game, so much so that I was really confused as to why people had so much trouble with the game's mechanics!

If you match blade type to their weakest defense type then you're probably fine. You can go even harder by casting spells that imbue your attacks with an element (that they're weakest to). That's essentially all I did when I first played the game: used Analyze to find a body part that was weakest against my blade types, enchant my weapon with their weakest element, and hit it. All of the bosses have multiple body parts, and some of those have drastically different weaknesses!

 

[Kirin]

The other way to play Vagrant Story is to load up a save file for NG+ where someone has already built up a weapon with insanely good stats, keep its PP and DP up using the method Lance described, and murder everything with it. Granted this doesn't give you the chance to engage with the combat systems much, but if you just want to drink in the story and amazing atmosphere, I can recommend it.

 

[demi]

I love this game too! The atmosphere, cutscene direction and mood and scope are all great. My most recent complete playthrough was a couple years ago and, like OP, it was my first time perusing the in-game manual. Whereas my initial clear was a kind of mess that relied on Raging Ache for later encounters, my more recent foray was much breezier: the in-game manual is pretty darn useful! I also found affinity to be the least influential factor even though I tried to balance out the six types across my three main weapons. I seldom found attack spells themselves to be too useful though, but I've never really tried to build a weapon that was totally focused on Intelligence stat. I think in New Game+ you can , so some day I may try and take that as an opportunity to raid Lea Monde with Ashley's magic. Def the anti-undead/phantom spell was useful early on though... I can't recall what that one is named, but it always packs a punch against the right targets. Still, defensive/reaction damage saves always felt rather difficult to actually learn during boss fights: if I had good enough weapons, it was usually enough to focus on offense, watch my risk, and just hack the boss down first. I watched spines play through a bunch of Valkyrie Profile 2 recently, and I think the games have similar combat flow: a lot of time getting in range and taking my turn leaves me open for immediate reprisal from the enemy's abilities, but the kind of padfooting around in-between actions feels similar.

As far as locales go, I love the Undercity's haunting music and soft blue lighting most, but the entire game is gorgeous really.

There were some pretty bangin' figures of the leads that were up for pre-order recently. According to that article, fulfillment begins this month so idk if they're still available but they sure are sweet!

 

[Poster]

Vagrant Story was great. I say "was" because while I did play it a couple of times through, I basically have not touched it since around the time it came out. I honestly don't remember what strategy I used throughout the game, but I don't remember having a super hard time with the game that some others seemed to have, so I must have lucked into a decent one.

And the individual room names were cool. I wish more games had that.

 

[Peklo]

I'll post the galleries I made of the game four years ago since it's so capable of speaking for itself for the appeal it has.

Cinematics / Creatures / Environments

I want to live in the workshops.

 

[Zef]

Huh, I always paid attention to the enemy type affinity first, then elemental, then damage type. I'd keep a 2h sword for humans and major bosses, a lance for dragons (of course), a holy mace and a 1h sword for undeads, devils, and elementals, and a crossbow for small fliers. They'd perform well, I think, but now that I know There's A Better Way! then I'll definitely try that next time!

I also hardly ever use non-support magic, but I cast Degenerate, Prostasia, Herakles, and Magic Ward whenever they expire, so I might as well have them on hotkeys I know there's AOE spells that can hit multiple body parts and therefore stack the damage, but since MP seems expensive, I never relied on them.

I also did beat the superboss in the Iron Maiden B2 sub-dungeon, but never got a Holy Win--hell, until I saw images of it, I never even KNEW you could wield it yourself.

I have a lot of new things to try out for my next playthrough!

 

[demi]

Ya, support magic is a must, its value immediately apparent for offense and defense alike! I think the one think this game could have used - and I'm sure there were plenty of technical limitations, not to mention lack of buttons - would have been a fast-swap for weapons. Sometimes I found myself weighing out whether it'd be faster to swap to my most effective weapon for the enemy or avoid the menus and take it down with a current, less ideal solution. Oh well!

@Peklo Perusing your screenshots reminded me of how striking the gold/green/blue palette of Lea Monde outdoors areas are, it's really a breath of fresh air any time Ashley emerges from spelunking (hopefully with another key or two in tow)

 

[Zef]

@Peklo Perusing your screenshots reminded me of how striking the gold/green/blue palette of Lea Monde outdoors areas are, it's really a breath of fresh air any time Ashley emerges from spelunking (hopefully with another key or two in tow)

The most amazing part of the environments is how, like the character models, they're all "lit" by painting them by hand! With no lighting engine to speak of!

Peklo wants to live in the workshops but I know I'd spend months just gawking at the Cathedral exteriors and interiors, and I'd be completely mesmerized by the fully functional, detailed down to the street lighting, and potentially hospitable Undercity until a killer doll ran up and shanked me.

 

[Peklo]

Part of my particular affection for the workshops is that while they exemplify the game's ludicrous diversity in environmental detail as well as anything else--all having a distinct interior despite the shared purpose of the spaces--they also stand as the functional analogue of a survival horror save/safe room and how much that informs Vagrant Story overall: Ashley's not exactly incapable but because of the complexity of the game mechanics as detailed throughout all this thread, many excursions into Leá Monde end for good with the player horribly outmatched and outplayed by the dangers therein, as harrowingly and definitively as any nominal example in that genre. Vagrant Story's atmosphere, themes and tone supports the genre flirtation, and so do the mechanics in how most people are forced to parse and reconcile them. To have that customary respite that the codified safe spaces offer also be the setting in which the tools at hand are studied and effort is expended in forging new armaments to better survive the next ordeal is just a really captivating microcosm of the entire relationship the player has with this large-scale environment, and it's as comforting a happy place as any virtual environment has ever managed to be for me. It doesn't hurt that Factory is probably my favourite track in the soundtrack, and whether it's so because of those associations or the other way around is not exactly important.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Vagrant Story was a game that caught my eye when I first heard about it but the more I learned about the systems in the game the less interested I was in it.

In hindsight it sounds like I might have been wrong but I also think my OCD-ish tendencies would have made it hard for me to not fully and completely engage with the in-game systems.

 

[Felicia]

One of my favorite little scenes in the game is early on when two soldiers are shocked to their cores when seeing floating platforms for the first time. I mean, as a video game player, I never give floating platforms a second thought, but if I was a medieval man who believes that he lives in a world where magic doesn't exist, seeing a piece of masonry floating and moving around in a set pattern would probably be pretty shocking.

 

[Zef]

One of my favorite little scenes in the game is early on when two soldiers are shocked to their cores when seeing floating platforms for the first time. I mean, as a video game player, I never give floating platforms a second thought, but if I was a medieval man who believes that he lives in a world where magic doesn't exist, seeing a piece of masonry floating and moving around in a set pattern would probably be pretty shocking.

Well, I mean, Mario has seen the heaviest turtle outfly the swiftest falcon, so nothing fazes him anymore.

 

[Sarge]

I don't have much to say other than I had a blast with Vagrant Story back in the day, and abused chains like crazy to beat a few bosses. The atmosphere and localization is top notch, and it's easily one of the prettiest PSX games out there.

 

[Alixsar]

VS has amazing aesthetics, and I remember making my way through that forest (that everyone on TT said was hard) with relative ease...only to run into random knight guys who I was doing 0 damage to and having no idea why. I mean I love me some inscrutable mechanics, but there's inscrutable and then there's Vagrant Story. I'd be willing to give it a go again someday, but I don't feel like it's worth digging my PS3 out of storage to do it.

But like...hot damn, the aesthetics in that game are so fucking good. The game looks gorgeous, and the story is great...it's super great, whenever you're not doing 0 damage to stuff and have no idea why.

 

[Mommi]

My last play a couple years back was heavily focused on staves, Int, and attack magic, and it went great. It's absolutely something you can do the first time through.

 

[demi]

@Mommi That's awesome, I'm glad you tried and I'm glad it worked! I should give it a go, I never had much of an excuse to use the main elemental spells beyond the early game, but they seemed like they had a lot of potential: I just assumed I was messing something up with my gear and carried on with thwacking my foes lol

 

[Mommi]

It must have been my 6th or 7th time through to finally try it and I was surprised to find it relatively balanced, especially since also discovering it's trivial to recover MP. You still have to play like normal for a good portion of the game, but once you get int gems and a variety of elements you can just waltz through the last few zones since they're full of undead and elementals.