Customer Reviews

Vandal Hearts

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ok, I'm 33 years old, and a girl, and I like battle games! Sometimes.

This is one of those games that works. The characters are interesting because you can choose the direction in which they develop. There are enough classes, that if you play wisely, you will have a real solid fighting force with many attack strategy possibilities.

Amazingly enough, there's even a story line to follow. :)

There are plenty of places to go and lots of secrets to find. The more secrets you uncover, the more battles you may fight, some of which are on interesting terrain with interesting problems to overcome if you intend to win.

The graphics are ok. Nothing fabulous here, except I really loved how all the places you go float in space. Why do they do that? I have no idea. It just looks neat.

This game is not overly difficult to play. You just have to do some planning. It's not rocket science, just a few hours of honest, game playing fun.

Though not one of the longer strategy -RPG's out there (that honor would have to go to Disgaea, or the epitome of all strategy RPG's Final Fantasy Tactics), Vandal Hearts is one of the most overlooked games on the Sony Playstation. Starting out the game you are put in the role of Ash who along with his friends Diego and Clint fight off a group of bandits who are attacking them. This sets the games gameplay in place, with blood flying and a soundtrack that only the fine folks at konami could produce, one that still echoes in my head to this day. Although the graphics are quite dated by todays standards the gameplay elements of this game are where it truly shines. After leveling up at level 10 or level 20 you are given the option to upgrade your character, thus allowing you access to new moves and enhanced abilities. For example archers can continue along the bowman path, or can get rid of their bows in exchange for the ability to fly which becomes irreplaceable later on in the game. Someone elses review said that this game had little replay value, but I would have to disagree, having beaten this game on at least 4 different occasions. Clocking in at somewhere around 16-22 hours it is not a long game, but there are somewhere around 6 or 7 seven secret levels, which are really tough and require precise skills, but if accomplished correctly open up not only a slightly secret ending, but also the class of Vandalier for Ash, opening up every skill in the game for the main character, and making him basically a God among the other soldiers. The realtionship between Ash and Elena develops throughout the game very well and the ties of friendship are established between other members of your party, just like any great RPG. Konami was on one hell of a roll back in the day, releasing this game, Suikoden, Metal Gear Solid, and Castlevania: SOTN within a year or two of each other, signifying them as one of the premiere publishers during the original Playstations golden Age, and producing all of these A class titles. Definitely do not miss out on the chance to own this game, especially if you grew up with games like Shining Force. Not to be passed up.

Is that a joke? This game is fantastic and still fun today.

Basically it is like Shining Force 2 where you get people and can upgrade them. You get a choice for most of your characters and each game you can try different jobs to see what you like. This game has alot of memorable characters and pretty nice graphics. The story is also impressive and stays interesting. I've played it numerous times and still love it. Do I reccomend this game? Of course I do. Will you get your moneys worth when you buy it? Yea, you will...
5 stars!

This game is plain awesome! I was amazed by how much fun I was getting. It is (as you know by my title) the best game ever! What it lacked in graphics it sure made up in the game. Turn-based fighting just means you attack, they attack, you attack, they attack...You are challenged at many places and have to think at every level.

This is an awesome game, like reviewers before me I have played it numerous times and have never gotten tired of it. Ir is easy to play with a great storyline and many different ways to play it by the choice of characters you take along any part of your journey through the game. I rented it to start off with, and after 2 days I decided that I had to have my own copy. What more is left to say that hasn't already been said by others.

Vandal Hearts 1 was and still is a truly remarkable game. The graphics don't do a game this beautiful any justice, but this one's soooooo good, i wouldn't care if I was controlling stick figures!

Ok, let's run through the thing. The first RPG I've ever seen that DOESN'T REQUIRE EXPLORING! All you do is follow the dialogue (VERY intriguing story) and fight, fight, fight!! The battles reek of awesomeness, and require a huge amount of strategy, which rounds out to a game that will not be enjoyed by everyone. Some might not appreciate the smarts that go into this thing, and the game is very user friendly; should you lose a battle, you learn from your mistakes and eventually will move on. It builds thinking skills!! How's that, parents? You are Ash, a soldier who can kick some serious booty. Your initial friends: Diego, an Archer, and Clint, another soldier. As the story progresses, you meet other characters, (rounding your final party to twelve, whom you can use in the same fight at the SAME TIME) and enhance your abilities; archers can become either Hawknight or bowmen and then advance from there to higher levels, and so on and so forth for each character. You'll like the ending, I assure ya.

*Graphics*: 3 out of 5--could be better. *Sound* 5-- oooo, you can hear the blood gush! neat! *Control* 5-- I like it! hey mikey! *fun-ocity* 5-- The NES-ish graphics can't pull this one down. A keeper, for sure!

Around Christmas '99, I was told about this game from a dude in a Japanese Animation store in New York. He said: "If you really liked Tactics, you'll like Vandal Hearts. However, if you really loved Tactics, you might not like it as much." Well, I got it and beat it, and I think what he said was on the money.

This game actually has superior gameplay to Final Fantasy Tactics in terms of realism, size, difficulty and strategy requirements. True, you did lack the freedom, and the job system in Final Fantasy Tactics was far superior, but here strategy is required for more than survival and victory: sometimes you need to do something to the terrain itself. I loved that.

However, the graphics department was far less than impressive. The graphics were both ugly and used horribly. The first game to get the fully 3-D strategy deal right was Myth: The Fallen Lords for the PC, where it, just like this game, has 3-D terrain with sprites. However, on that game, when you moved around the sprites, they kept the swords on the same hand. That's right! While the camera spins around on this game, the character will go from being right-handed to left-handed! I wouldn't complain this much if its graphics worked like Final Fantasy Tactics', but this game plays like it has wonderful graphics, while the graphics are really just mediocre.

The sound department is okay, however. The music, while far from great, wasn't too bad. The compositions were several notches behind that of Final Fantasy Tactics (which quite possibly has the most powerful soundtrack ever), and so is the sound quality. However, the music still gets you into the mood right, and it won't put you to sleep. The sound effects are also pretty good, and sound rather real.

The story and character development are obviously pre-FFTactics. The characters are well developed and likable, but not as meaningful or emotional. Also, the plot is really good, but it's much shorter and won't play around with your emotions like Final Fantasy Tactics (that game was BRUTAL with your emotions). It has some original concepts, and some things I still haven't seen elsewhere since. While I would give this game a 3-star rating since I didn't like the story as much, I do have to consider that this game predates Tactics (by like 3 years), and as such, my opinion of this game is risen drastically.

All in all, Vandal Hearts is a very solid game that's clever and fun. It may be very weak in showing off technology, the makers clearly had a lot in mind, and that makes this game worth the money any day!

This game is one of many that i am taking the liberty to review, that i have owned now for atleast five years. Vandal Hearts (VH) is a one of a kind game. Even though there is a second VH out, there is no link whatesoever in the two stories. If you get sucked into this story, don't expect anything after the end, because that's all your getting. That is really the only bad thing about this game, because everything else is great. I am now going to give you a low down on the game.

You are playing the character of a man named Ash. He is the head of a security force for a local governement. The game starts with you pretending to be merchants, taking goods across to another town, when your suddenly ambushed by cutthroat thieves. Little do they know, is that they were the ones ambushed. When you suddenly reveal yourselves and attack them first. From this point on in this game, the strorie becomes very interesting. Eventually your sent across the sea to discover the wherabouts of a missing person, and then to ancient tombs, and just about anywhere else you can imagine. Along the way you pick up allies that help you along the way.
The intersting thing about VH is the battling system, and the way you upgrade your units. First you start with a basic class. Like Archer, Knight, Sorcerer, Priest...etc. Then you can upgrade their classes once they hit a certain level. In this case, levels 10 and 20. The only person with a special job class is your hero Ash. Also he is the only person with the opportunity to upgrade three times, instead of two. The problem with this is that you have to unlock six differnet keys. One for each chapter, and then you have to hope that you can defeat all the enemies behind each of these "locked doors". If you can do that, be can upgrade to the ultimate class, The Vandaler! This class is godlike. You basically become damn near impossible to kill.
This game is wonderful and very intense. I suggest you order this from Amazon as soon as you can. This game is awesome and will make you very happy to have bought it. One of the main reasons for that is the replay value. It is very high. Higher than most games created by Konami. ENJOY!!!

This is a great game, pretty straight forward, no side quest to distract you, and an awesome story line. The game is not particularly tough, but you do have to think through the battles. Likewise, it's not that long of a game and the replay value of it is very high in my opinion. Trust me, you won't get bored with this game :)

Although you may not come back to this game for a while after beating it, anyone who loves the game for the action and the fight will instantly like this game. There is no nonsense, time-wasting, 30-minute Xbutton-clicking dialouge-intro. The first thing you do is fight, the last thing you do is fight, and in between you fight.

Basically you assume control of characters on a square-based map. As your characters fight they become tougher and you choose what class they evolve into. The battles in the last few hours of the game are HUGE. It's exactly what a good game should be 90% action 10% enrichment.

People have been comparing it to FF Tactics which is really unfair to this game as it's very different. I played this game 5 years ago and beat it. Now I'm looking for a copy to buy b/c I miss it.