The Vagueness of a Story: Vagrant Story’s Plot Explained

Vagrant Story is set in Ivalice, the world of Final Fantasy Tactics, but many years into the future, and the two games have virtually no connection. It’s set in the Middle Ages, with dukes, knights, swords, and the like. Of course there’s magic, and even the intro has some very strange happenings that make you wonder what world this game will drop you into.

You take on the role of a single protagonist named Ashley Riot, and that’s what distinguishes Vagrant Story from most other RPGs. You’ll need to keep a close eye on your character, as death instantly ends the game. There are no party members to revive them. However, once you get the hang of it, you can really dive into the extensive gameplay and explore the best ways to use each mechanic to your advantage. What’s interesting is that Vagrant Story features a number of fascinating dice puzzles that pop up every now and then and need to be solved to progress in the game. More on that later.

AN INTERNAL CONFLICT PLAGUES A COUNTRY

Early in the game, we see the flames of battle as Duke Bardorba’s mansion is taken over by Muhlenkamp Fanatics and his family is taken hostage. The Cardinal’s organization, the Crimson Blades, launch a counterattack with the goal of eliminating the invaders, freeing the hostages, and reclaiming the territory. The Valendia Peace Knights (VKP) send their agents Riskbreaker Ashley Riot and Inquisitor Caro Melrose to investigate the situation. The Duke is an incredibly powerful man with control over the parliament, the Muhlenkamp Fanatics are known for their ruthlessness and dark rituals, and the Cardinal sent in the Crimson Blades without consulting or informing the VKP. Naturally, the situation is extremely complicated as many interests clash and hostages are also involved. When Ashley comes face to face with Sydney Lostarot, leader of the Malenkamp cult, he quickly realizes that this is no mean task… When Sydney flees, Ashley must track him down to the ghost town of Lee Mondo, home of the cult.

The story, like Final Fantasy Tactics, focuses on political intrigue. The Ivalice team (Tactics, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII) really enjoys tackling these topics. Several different political parties are vying for power, and the protagonist tries to do the right thing in the process. Mysticism also plays a big role, but it wouldn’t be a Square game without magic. Some cutscenes, especially at the beginning, hint at great potential. Ultimately, the game struggles to keep the “awe” factor as high as the bar set at the beginning, but it’s still an ambitious effort.

A lot is left unknown until the end, and some even remain unknown after that. The way the story unfolds is truly satisfying. Like many great games, things aren’t as they first appear. The story was really fun, even if the gaps between cutscenes were too long and I had to rewatch some scenes to remember what happened before (of course, keep in mind, it was a Game Over, which took place over a period of 2-3 months). It’s a local conflict. This time you’re not saving the world, but maybe that’s what gives Vagrant Story its unique charm.

DIVERSE AND MEMORABLE CAST

Vagrant Story’s unique structure (dungeon-cutscene-dungeon) means that there are virtually no random NPCs wandering the city. Despite this, the game manages to maintain a strong cast despite only having a very limited number of characters involved. The protagonist, Ashley Riot, is a skilled warrior determined to succeed in his mission. He is aided by Caro Melrose, a slim girl who holds the rank of Inquisitor within the VKP but has no combat experience. Ashley worries about her safety above all else and leaves her behind to go looking for Sydney alone. Ashley is a very interesting character and we get to know him better as the story progresses. He’s a hardened fighter and isn’t afraid to face seemingly supernatural forces. He’s a very simple character, at least for the majority of the game. But it’s hard not to root for him because of his courage, compassion for his friends and the underdog, and cool one-liners (“I’m the backup”? Cheesy maybe, but it works in context). That said, he’s not a top-tier game character or anything. I wouldn’t put him on the same level as Ramza, the protagonist from the previous Ivalice team.

Practically speaking, Ashley’s only real ally is Marrose, and the two spend most of the game apart. It’s a one-man mission, in every sense of the word. I liked Marrose overall. She certainly has a great design, but she wasn’t particularly outstanding as a supporting character. The real stars, besides Ashley, are the three strongmen in the power struggle – Sydney – leader of the Malenkamps and a master of the dark arts, Rosencrantz – a former Riskbreaker who intervenes alone in the situation for his own gain, and Guildenstern – leader of the Crimson Blades who wants to destroy the Malenkamp cult.

Although a clear villain as the opening sequence suggests, Sydney is perhaps the most interesting character in the game, with his mystical powers being a major plot point. After their first confrontation he realises what a powerful opponent Ashley is and feels he needs to take her into account in his future plans. Watching their relationship develop is fascinating. Like the other good-guy villains in the game, Sydney is not one-dimensional and many players will sympathise with him later on – I certainly did. I also really liked Sydney’s best friend Hardin. He stood out as a sidekick who didn’t just blindly follow his partner (as is common in games and other media, especially when it comes to villains and their minions), but thought independently about the situation at hand and followed his own suggestions. Hardin and Sidney also made a striking contrast – as a master of the dark arts, Sidney seemed almost inhuman, while Hardin showed care and concern for Duke Bardorba’s son, but would not jeopardize his mission even if he was a hostage.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern also add a lot to the play, apart from the fact that their names allude to Hamlet. Rosencrantz, a former risk taker, is very powerful and is on par with Ashley. Disillusioned after many battles, he decides to cut all ties with military organizations and pursue his own goals. I really liked him and his attitude, and he seemed like a very realistic character with his thoughts and motivations. Guildenstern, leader of the Cardinal Crimson Blades, is another influential figure who has a lot of influence over his troops and is intent on destroying Sidney’s cult. He shows no mercy to anyone who gets in his way. Unlike Rosencrantz, who only believes in himself, Guildenstern is the type of person who sees the world in black and white and is convinced that his way is the right one. As such a character, it’s hard to like him unless you’ve been developed a taste for it. However, I value his role in the game and he certainly made a great contribution.

Duke Bardorba and Cardinal Batistum play influential politicians in the world of Vagrant Story, but they don’t play particularly active roles in the game. Still, both are important to the plot as their actions affect events that unfold throughout the game. And with the Duke’s only son Joshua being held hostage during this crisis, the stakes are high for both the Duke and the country.

UNIQUE, ADDICTIVE GAMEPLAY

While the story is very good, I would dare say that Vagrant Story’s gameplay is an even bigger draw. Once you get the hang of it, it moves smoothly and is a lot of fun. There are platforming elements, allowing Ashley to jump to higher levels of the room. During combat, you can attack enemies with your equipped weapon or open a general menu (pausing combat) where you can use spells, items, break arts (powerful moves associated with your weapon type), and more. Pressing circle, which corresponds to an attack decision, will cause Ashley to draw his weapon and a sphere will appear around him showing what he can attack based on his distance from the enemy and the range of his weapon. You can also target different parts of the body, sometimes dealing different damage depending on your opponent. Plus, attacking the same part of the body often makes you more susceptible to damage.

Best feature: As soon as you hit, an exclamation mark appears, and if you press the button (square, triangle, or circle) again before the exclamation mark disappears, you can attack again. Of course, this time frame is very short, but once you get the hang of it (for example, the exclamation mark usually appears at the exact moment the hit lands, so you can rely on the audible rather than the visible exclamation mark and the corresponding sound occurs), it’s not that hard to chain together 10 or more attacks. My personal record was 21. With each successive hit, your heart rate rises with the joy of the thrill of scoring so many goals in a row, making it harder and harder to maintain the streak. This is really shocking. Don’t rely on my explanation here, just experience it for yourself.

The first attack is a “normal” attack, but the consecutive attacks depend on what you assign to the three buttons. It is possible to deal a portion of the damage of the first attack (even 100% instead of losing your own health), give the enemy a status effect, or deal HP or MP damage depending on how much HP/MP you yourself are losing. “Chaining” is also possible when the enemy attacks, but only one counterattack, not a consecutive attack. Again, assign three different skills to the three buttons. These skills can reduce or reflect a percentage of damage of a certain type or element, or recover from some status effects. Mastering the “chaining” technique is absolutely crucial to your success with Vagrant Story.

Besides HP and MP, another important stat to look at is Risk. It increases when you attack or are attacked (larger increases if you chain) and decreases when you leave combat (faster if you holster your weapon). There is also a risk recovery component; the higher the risk, the more damage enemies will do when they hit you and the more powerful your spells will be. High Risk can be useful because recovery spells will restore more HP, but it is generally very bad, especially against enemy spells that attack multiple times. So, as a risk breaker, Ashley should try to keep the risk low.

One of the best things about Vagrant Story, which gives the game a wide range of gameplay options, is the choice of weapons. There are many types of weapons: daggers, swords, bows, rapiers, axes, maces, etc. One-handed (keeping the other hand free to carry a shield) and two-handed. You can use any weapon you like and switch at any time. I used my big two-handed battle axe for over 90% of the game. The more you use a weapon, the stronger it gets, but it also wears out. Luckily, there are workshops all over the game world where you can make repairs. In these workshops you can also assemble new weapons after getting parts for old ones, or add gems that improve certain affinities of weapons and shields (you must dismantle weapons into parts to add/remove gems in the workshops). Weapons, armor and accessories also have different affinities for different enemy types, attributes, sharp/piercing/blunt, etc.

There is also magic in the game, and Ashley can learn spells from items called “grimoires” that he finds. It is possible during his adventure. Healing magic is of course important, but support magic is also very useful (especially the analysis ability that allows you to see which attributes/weapon types enemies are weak to). Unfortunately, in my experience, attack spells are very weak. A proper chain usually does much more damage to enemies than attack spells that consume a lot of MP. Break Arts suffer the same fate. They may look flashy and cool, but they’re not as effective as they should be. The game also displays status effects, the worst of which are paralysis (can’t attack physically), silence (can’t cast spells), and deafness (can’t chain).

Boss battles are another highlight of Vagrant Story. Even the regular ones (like when you enter a room and a door closes and a giant dragon appears) are very satisfying, and the story battles are just epic. While regular enemies may be tough to fight, bosses are almost always harder and require serious thinking, not to mention reflexes, to defeat. Discovering a boss’s weakness is very useful, as long as you can exploit it. But chains are usually your main weapon, whether it’s to accumulate a lot of damage or to reflect some of the damage of a powerful attack back at the enemy. If you win, a special victory screen will appear, appropriate music will play, the roulette will spin and when it stops you will get a status win.

And last but not least, the puzzles… The game contains some pretty extraordinary cube puzzles, where you have to move different kinds of cubes around the room to progress (usually the goal is to reach a higher place). The best part is that the difficulty increases as the game progresses. The last few dice are a real brain teaser and solving them is very satisfying. There are quite a few different cubes: some that can be lifted, some that can only be pushed, some that are magnetic, some that can be destroyed, some that cannot be destroyed… You will have to manipulate them skillfully to achieve your objective. There is also a puzzle mode that is activated when you enter a puzzle room you have already been to. It will record the time it takes you to solve a puzzle and will try to improve it. If you don’t like it, you can disable Puzzle mode from the menu.

If you’ve played Vagrant Story before, there’s also a New Game+ option, which allows you to play the game a second time (as many times as you like) and discover secrets you missed before while keeping your stats. Keep the gear you used to beat the game.

GREAT ATMOSPHERE, VISUALS AND SOUNDTRACK

The first thing you’ll notice when starting the game is that the cutscenes use the character models from the game, even though the game is running on a system that made the FMV cutscenes larger. This is not a new approach for the Ivalice team, as Final Fantasy Tactics only had a few FMV movies at the beginning and end of the game. In Vagrant Story, the only FMV is the intro that plays after booting up the game. This approach works very well, maintaining a consistency between gameplay and cutscenes, which is always a nice touch. The character models are detailed, and it’s also impressive how well the characters’ emotions are expressed on their faces, considering the limitations of the PlayStation hardware. Another notable feature are the cartoon-style speech bubbles in which character dialogue appears.

A good atmosphere is very important for a dungeon crawler, and Vagrant Story achieves this relatively well. The environments are a bit samey, but wandering dark corridors, catacombs, and underground passages is to be expected, and there isn’t a lot of visual variety. On the other hand, the few outdoor locations are pretty neat. After being indoors for so long, it’s refreshing to finally be back outdoors. I would like to highlight the forested areas.

The sound in the game is very well done, you can hear weapons clashing against armor, dragons attacking, magic… The soundtrack is by Hitoshi Sakimoto, known for his work on Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s not a top-notch game soundtrack, but it has some great themes and is very atmospheric. The one I’m introducing this time is “Abandoned Mine 2nd Floor”.

ONE OF THE FINEST PLAYSTATION GEMS

PlayStation has always been known for great JRPGs. Some of Square’s best work comes from there. But even as a Square RPG, Vagrant Story didn’t get as much fame (even Xenogears is much better known). Apart from the fact that it’s not a Final Fantasy, which is probably why it’s so different from traditional games in the genre. But it also has a loyal fanbase eager for a sequel. Vagrant Story is definitely worth a try. It’s really fun once you get the hang of it, the barrages are exciting, the story has interesting twists and turns, it’s very good, and you don’t have to invest a huge amount of time into the game.

Ashley, Sydney and others form a strong cast that you won’t forget. The unique style and level of detail of the character models will also captivate you, and there’s a lot to experiment with when digging into weapon building and development. The New Game+ option allows you to visit areas you’ve missed before and attempt to complete the map 100%. Vagrant Story is a solid package that I highly recommend to anyone looking to play a PlayStation RPG. It’s also available on the PlayStation Network, so you can easily access it.