Vandal Hearts 2

by Sony

Product Features

• sony playstation
• black label
• vandal hearts
• rpg
• konami

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00001X50N
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 30, 1999
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,508 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

GameSpot Review

Although the RPG has gained popularity in the US, its tactical offshoot, the strategy-RPG, has had a harder time gaining similar popularity. However, among fans of the genre, no game has toppled Final Fantasy Tactics. As hard as Vandal Hearts II tries to emulate and even improve on FFT, VH2 falls short, but it still delivers an enjoyable strategy game. The first Vandal Hearts' story was digestible enough, but Vandal Hearts II unfortunately opts to fashion its story after Final Fantasy Tactics' incomprehensible saga. Joshua was but a poor peasant boy until he was manipulated into killing a revered political figure. Sure to be executed for this heinous act, Joshua fled his village and later founded a notorious band of mercenary thieves. These seemingly simple events set off a confusing political whirlwind of intrigue and betrayal that most people won't care to follow. For the most part, Vandal Hearts II's gameplay is standard strategy-RPG fare - you move your characters around a large world map and engage in turn-based battles on a variety of grid-based battlefields. However, unlike most games, this one doesn't follow a traditional turn-based model. As every game seems to feel the need to do these days, Vandal Hearts II employs an all-new system to differentiate itself from other games in the genre. The Dual Battle System lets the computer move characters and monsters during your turn, adding an interesting new strategic requirement. As interesting as the concept is, its execution is a little off - without any way of knowing in what order the enemy will attack, opponents will often move out of the way of your attacks. While you can work around this by wasting a move at the start of each turn to force the enemy to waste one of his turns, this really should be unnecessary. Vandal Hearts II's character-development system is limited when compared with that of the original, keeping things nicely framed and manageable. Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics' sprawling and unfocused job system, you can customize your characters with the game's wide assortment of weapons. Each weapon has one or more spells or abilities locked inside it. While initially inactive, a spell opens up after you've carried it in battle for several turns. Once a spell has been unlocked, it can be transferred to another weapon of the same type, making it beneficial to you to have characters that specialize in one type of weapon. While it is a little frustrating that you must stomp around the battlefield for a while to activate a weapon's abilities, you can enter any battlefield from the overworld map at any time to quickly enable whatever new spells your party may have before it fights any story-critical battles. Vandal Hearts II's visuals are just above average. The battlefield graphics are a few notches below Final Fantasy Tactics', but the battlefields themselves are much larger, making this an acceptable sacrifice. However, the squatty sprite-based characters that frolic on the maps are poorly animated and drawn. Worse still are the character portraits, all of which have awkward facial expressions and eight-bit-quality color depth. The orchestral soundtrack, however, is grandiose and epic, helping greatly to enhance the mood where the graphics don't. While Vandal Hearts II lacks the grand feel of Final Fantasy Tactics, it is a solid and rewarding strategy-RPG. It has flaws of its own, but it doesn't fall into the pitfalls that frustrated many of Final Fantasy Tactics' players, making it well suited for both veterans and newcomers to the genre.--Peter Bartholow--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Product Description

This is the game Vandal Hearts II for the Playstation 1. This game may not come with the original case and instructions. We stand by our products and offer a 60 day guarantee. If a game does not work within 60 days from the time you receive it we will gladly exchange it for you.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars With only a few flaws Vandal Hearts 2 delivers a solid title, December 20, 1999

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Vandal Hearts 2 (Video Game)

I've decided to change the format of my review for games, please read on if to get an idea of the game, and whether or not it'll fit your idea of a good RPG or not.

STORYLINE/PRESENTATION: (92) The plot to this game isn't very original, your basic warfare with a handful of good guys who wish to make an impact and bring peace to the world. But what stands out is the unfolding of the plot, Konami did a good job weaving a very detailed and involving story. Personally I enjoy a good read, therefore I found this game very appealing; but for those of you who like to hack the enemies and move on, this might not be the game for you, because after each battle there are always scenes that reveals the plot and develops the story further, and there is no way to skip it. There are 2 annoy things to this game, first of all you will notice the extremely long loading time, its about 10 seconds. Now imaging having to wait for it to load for every battle (which is about 50+ according to Konami) and for every story scenes (another 50+,) then you'll get a picture of how long you'll be staring at a "NOW LOADING" screen. The other thing happens when you reads the conversation the characters are having, very often the sentence will break in the middle, and then picks up after 2-3 seconds when the character finishes shaking his/her head or shrugging their shoulders, talk about discontinuity, more often than not I would forget what the conversation was about.

GRAPHICS: (85)

Vandal Hearts II definitely improved on the graphics, better spell effects, backgrounds look a lot nicer than before. Unfortunately, when compared with the RPG/Strategy games out in the market, its just not as visual eye candy as FFVIII. There is also an absence of FMV sequences, an essential element in many current and most upcoming RPG games. The cool thing is that you can actullay see the weapon and armor change, but remember that the strength of this game lies in the plot and the strategy, not in the visual department.

GAMEPLAY: (87) I write this section with mixed feelings, there are a few changes made to the battle and weapon/armor system. First change you'll notice is that when you move a character, the enemy will move a character at the same time, a little twist to the turn-base style. Yes, you'll most likely to miss more often, but the AI follows a similiar pattern (a little hint,) weakest character gets attacked fist, the preference is to attack from the back, side and lastly the front, and more often than not, when magic user can attack, they will go first, then archers and lastly the fighters. So most of the time you should know who's going to get attacked, from where and to move to safety or heal or kill the attacker first. The problem is determining who gets to act first, so you see this game lives up to the strategy expectation.

Second difference you'll notice is the whole weapon/magic system, in VHII there are no character classes such as warriors or mages, it all depends on what the characters wear and use as weapons. Therefore stats such as HP and MP are not gained through leveling up but depends on your equipment. Furthermore, magic and skills are not class-specific, rather it is weapon-specific (similar to materia in FFVII,) and transferring techniques can only be done between the same weapon category. There are definitely a lot of strategy involved in deciding what kind of equipment to use, but a little too limiting, especially since each weapon only equip with certain number of magic/skills.

Lastly is the EP meter, which is like MP in the sense that certain skills can only be performed when you have a certain EP points available, but unlike MP you fill you EP meter by killing enemies. Personally I didn't use these skills requiring EP very much, therefore it is a nice addition to the game, but I'm sure it can do without also.

SOUND/REPLAY VALUE: (82) Not much to say on music, pretty average, nothing too memorable, tends to get a little dull though, but since there are so much strategy going on, you probably wouldn't even care.

Konami supposedly have address the problem of the game being too linear, but since I've only played the game through once, I can't really vouch for that. I however did noticed a few places where outcome of the game might be altered by the answer you choose.

OVERALL: (86) A very solid game, Konami should be praised for improving this game in many areas. Strategy games are a scarce commodity in the gaming world, while this game isn't as good as Final Fantasy Tactics (IMHO,) it is still an excellent game nonetheless. I hope this review has been helpful, and enjoy the game!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vandalised game or Vandal heart?, May 31, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Vandal Hearts 2 (Video Game)

I loved the first vandal hearts. It's style was brutal, the gameplay involving and a storyline to boot. Plus an awesome secret if you find the right keys...

The sequel I have anticipated for a long time, having managed to unlock the hidden class for Ash and seeing no extra ending to tie it up I expected this game to continue forthwith.

However upon placing my imported cd into the console and loading it up. I noticed that the title had undergone changes...

The first major change was battle system. In the last title you moved all of your characters and carried out actions, then you waited for ages for the computer to move all theirs. However this time when you move a character the computer moves one. While this paves the way for quicker battles in theory, they can actually take much longer, as it is easy to select to attack an opponent but for them to have moved and you wasting an attack and vice versa.

The game also has a stark absence of fmv, the last one featured many fmv scenes, where this time there are none! Why is a question that still hasn't been answered.

The game itself has also done away with the classes system for each character. Instead of getting to a set level and deciding which path to take, this time you can make any character into any class! Great in theory, but this means that you rely solely on your armour to keep up your Hp, rather than the class you follow. It also does away with class weakness, e.g arrow is weak against sword.

However faults aside there are many things that make the game play well. The decision to do away with in-battle saving means that you have alot more at stake, you can't simply load up your game and play through that turn again, adding a much needed degree of challenge.

You can also equip characters with two weapons should you choose to! Whether you decide to mix an axe with a short sword or any other combination allowed. With careful planning this means you can create many different types of spells.

Spells this time do not get added to a characters abilities through gaining a certain level, but instead must be mastered in battle! Also the spells are dependent on the weapon you have chosen.

Overall though while this game has many faults you can't help but feel drawn to it and wish to play it again.

One for the rpg players, although others may find some pleasure here...

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To anyone who loves strategy RPGS, or fans of the original.., December 1, 1999

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Vandal Hearts 2 (Video Game)

If anyone has played Vandal Hearts 1 then they would have high expectations for the sequel. Fortunatley this is at least, on par with it. I am still near the beginning of the game, but a few things struck me about this game. The dialoge is very witty, and (so far) has very little RPG cliches. This is a good thing, as one can only handle so many "search for parents" "find sacred sword" storylines in a liftime. Not to say this will stray too much from that, but it is certainly a welcome change. The graphics, on a sadder note are not on par with Final Fantasy Tactics, but, are just as good as Vandal Hearts (which isn't a bad thing) This game has a few changes for the battle system and so on. Overall though, if you are craving a good SRPG then wish for this on your christmas list.