![]() ![]() Unfortunately, that part of the game is also severely flawed. But Matt puts too much emphasis and praise on the story when its really the dungeon crawling that makes up a majority of the gameplay. Plus, the gray personalities of characters make for some interesting relationships. ![]() I agree with Matt in that the translation of the original Japanese text is superb and I liked the many plot-twist. Still that's not to say the story isn't a good one. It's a failure of narrative progression on the part of the developers. You feel more like a guy who is just clueless as to what's actually happening around him. Unlike Final Fantasy III (U.S.) or Hybrid Heaven, you don't feel as though you're meant to rediscover your former life. Admittedly, his past is intentionally mysterious and is meant to be unraveled, but the game doesn't set itself up that way. Players immediately take on the role of Ashley Riot without any sense of understanding about his character or his motivations. The problem is that amidst all the flash band special effects and technical wizardry, it forgets that we as players need to identify with our controlled character in some way. The movie-like wipes and sweeping camera movements during the cut-scene will undoubted turn heads and does make the story seem more artful. This problem is well illustrated in the opening introductory story-sequence (executed in real-time). The results are decidedly mixed or rather poorly mixed because the whole package never comes together convincingly due to the kind of epic game it wants to be and the conflicting simplified elements that usually make the genre successful. ![]() Vagrant Story on the other hand, wants to fuse a complex medieval tale filled with deceitful murder and religious/political intrigue with the genre. It's a simple yet rewarding living.ĭreamcasts first role-playing game, Evolution: World Of Sacred Device, understood that basic premise and fashioned its high-powered graphics and like-minded whimsical tale around the notion. If you make it out alive, fortune and glory soon follow. The general idea is that you enter a dungeon and fight monsters. What makes the genre so popular and persistent over the years is that we are drawn to its basic concepts that are so fundamental to our nature. As Matt's review confirms, Vagrant Story is a dungeon hack or crawl (whichever term you prefer). Sort of like Quentin Tarentino stretching as an actor or Sylvester Stallone attempting to do comedy. What I consider to be the main weakness of Vagrant Story is that it wants to be something that its not. Such a statement is usually beyond cliché in this industry, but consistent readers know that I almost never make such proclamations, but in the case of Vagrant Story, I think it actually holds true. The developers have managed to squeeze a little more life out of the PlayStation and its efforts could be considered the best-looking game on the system to date. I was particularly impressed by its precise attention to camera angles during story cut-scenes, which was worthy of Hollywood's most esteemed action directors like John McTiernan or Tony Scott. Vagrant Story looks and sounds great with plenty of style and substance to spare. The same did not hold true for Vagrant Story. All the visual glitches and general ugliness in the earlier title had me proclaiming that even Squaresoft's best efforts could not hide the fact that the PlayStation's outdated hardware was horribly inadequate for today's cutting-edge games. This was a revelation for me when you consider I railed on the graphic quality of Squaresoft's previous release, Front Mission 3. My overall reaction to Vagrant Story was nowhere near as favorable as Matt's, but the one thing that we will agree upon is the superiority of the graphics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |