A nice tacticool RPG for the PS1. I remember seeing it in ‘90s vidya magazines alongside the great RPGs of the era and always wanting to play it. Now that I have, I can say it’s pretty solid. It’s a turn-based TRPG with visuals that mimic classic pixel art despite using polygonal stages and effects, with only the rotating camera revealing their 3D nature. The game is ultimately better for it, the pixel art is timeless. All the sprites are nicely animated and I love the absolutely massive fountain of blood following each enemy death. Towns are represented by a couple of pre-rendered screens with that SOVLful pioneer 3D look, though you don’t get to explore them as it’s all menu-based, typical for TRPGs.Also typical is the inability to skip enemy turns, which requires patience. But the option to save anytime during battle helps. The battles themselves are solid; there’s always some unique gimmick to them. Although bosses are disappointing - a bunch of regular enemies, and then the boss himself dies like a chump in 3 hits.The game isn’t particularly hard as enemies not near you don’t move, and the only penalty for a character’s death is them missing the battle, unlike games where character deaths are permanent. I only lost a character once and only due to some bullshit screen-clearing spell that the character was weak against. The inability to grind due to no extra missions or replayable stages means keeping everyone leveled is crucial. One thing I disliked is the lack of meta info: spells and their cost are only revealed in battle, and upgrades, items, and lore aren't elaborated on, which many even 16-bit RPGs did better.The story is simple, not bad, but underwhelming compared to the greats of the era, but there are a few good moments. Where the game excels is sound, with great music and audio quality, the sprite-based nature freeing disc space, loading is fast to due to this too.Overall, is a solid game recommended for tacticool enthusiasts.
Nice collageI always assumed this was a Saturn game based on screenshots I saw.
>>11676263There is a Saturn port, but I played the PS1 version because it's the original.
>>11676269It looks like the Saturn version has extra intro FMV, 12 extra bonus battles and some new items
This guy has a list of version differences in the video descriptionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tobemqBfC-0I'm curious about what he means by stretched graphics, I watched video directly comparing both versions and I didn't notice anythinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykGpQTEgC_8Perhaps he only means it's stretched when using the Saturn version's widescreen mode?
>>11676258>tacticool RPGAll the classic TRPG's are very quick to run into the very samey repetative process of cleaning one map after another. Sometimes they throw certain objectives for varietiy but 99% of it is still killing bastards inbetween waiting for the enemy AI to think it's moves first.Not to mention that they love to throw cool characters at you which are never used because you already have a stable high-xp team you comfortable with and there is always a strict limit on how much you can roll out to the battlefield at once.And a lot of secrets, like half of the game is just hidden and replaying it would made sense if it wouldn't force you to trudge through all the combat again and again.Shame to admit that an absolutely gay indie "Into the Breach" managed to deal with the problem better than some of the refined classics of the genre.And the story usually sucks. It's not outright bad or tasteless, just lacks depth. Occasionally some sensitive topics are mentioned but it never develops. Maybe because cartridges are too tiny, can't shove a lot of story inside. Maybe direction of complex narratives within the classical TRPG's is a craft in itself taking into account how little artistic freedom they had inside the constricts of their game engines.
>>11676273It may be interesting for a replay, but I always go for the original first because that's the intended experience and there's no telling if the port is even good, most aren't, and from what I heard the Saturn port isn't very good.
The problem is Japs don't know shit about "tactical" or "strategy". Every single game is about rock paper scissor + stat applied over isolated scenarios and never about strategy.
>>11676290way better than ugly soulles western shit that's about as fun to play as reading a math book
>>11676294That's just modern woke slop. West already had magnum opuses in every genre. Starcraft, Jagged Alliance 2, XCOM, etcJaps encourages consumerism. A white man plays a game, and will not be satisfied with anything that is not an objective improvement over it. This is the reason, Pokemon cucks always buys the latest slop, meanwhile XCOM players are still playing the classic version even though clones are released everyday.
>>11676280Saturn has issues with rendering pixels properly, it looks like a fucking vinaigrette.Also the mesh alone can go fuck itself, I don't care how many extra maps they added, seeing beautiful transparency on the PSX is better.
>>11676305Looks good to me? Maybe it's worse in motion though
>>11676258I love Vandal Hearts, it's bold and straightforward, it goes hard on sprites and animations.The sequel on the other hand felt slow and toned down. That's always a problem when games want to be more "grown up" or whatever, they ditched the crazy blood fountains and over the top attack animations in favor of... well, I don't know. VH2 has more "content" certainly, it leans into the item hunting more which is pretty cool. But the fights are more sluggish.
>>11676284Yeah, the genre unironically wasn't figured out until Kaga started making Doujin games in the '10s (monthly Vestaria Saga shill).
I am very fond of this game. Very fond.
>>11676621kino
>>11676258but can you customize classes/characters? I only like tacticool rpgs where I build my personal army of wicked combos and themes
yeah
The saturn version is better>elaborate on thatNo.
>>11676258>tacticool RPGstopped reading there, go back to r*ddit
>>11676258KINO
>>11677529dumb retard
>>11676782Not really. Most characters have a choice between 2 classes at their 1st promotion, and the class determines their stats and skillset. 2nd promotion is fixed.Equipment also doesn't have fancy effects : it's just stat-sticks that you buy when you reach a shop that sells the new stuff..
>>11676916>The saturn version is betterno
>>11677672yessum
>>11677673nuh-uh
c'est la vie, mon ami
>>11676258Meant to pick this up, forgot the name, got Vanguard Bandits instead.
>>11677723That game is okay too
>>11678046I liked it. Very Anime.
>>11677723>Vanguard Banditsanother great game
I played through this game as a kid alot, as I loaned it off my brothers friend.Last year I found a copy and replayed it and it was as fun as I remembered.Kira was a hottie.
>>11678472the greatest sprite of all time
>>11676280From my incredibly brief look into literally the first in game scene in the game, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the resolution differences (originally PS1 is 320x240 and Saturn is 320x224 but this doesn't affect aspect ratio, and the translation just gives the 16 overscan pixels back and adds horizontal view port).Rather just the way the camera is positioned in the scene is slightly different and either because of or in addition to that sprites get scaled differently. PS1 is on the right and as far as I can tell Magnus and the two armored soldiers are at 100% raw pixel size, while the dude in the back is getting crunched by downscaling, while in Saturn the guy in the back looks like he's full sized while everyone else is getting funky doubled pixels from being scaled up. It's not obvious in the youtube video because everything is getting rescaled and blurred anyways.The reason or intention for that difference I could not tell you at all. Also fuck the unskippable intro FMV by the way.
Yeah.
>>11678804Interesting. They probably changed the way the sprite scaling works precisely to avoid the crunching you see for the characters in the back on PSX. After all in this kind of games a lot of sprites are going to be in the distance.
>>11678804>yeah bro, just stretch it to widescreen, looks good
Hello anon's I got a question for anyone here who has played the Playstation version & English patch made by Stardust Crusaders for the Saturn port. I have never played Vandal Hearts before before, I read that the Saturn port has extra content in it & I was hoping to start with that. I was wondering if the English patch for the Saturn version changed anything in the main plot compared to the Playstation version. I don't want to waste my time on a version that just ads some faggots fan fiction or censors shit.
>>11676258The hidden Vandalier class is so much fun. It's like playing with Gameshark codes turned on that let you do anything.
>>11676258why does every character look like a mexican or a cave man?
>>11676305did... did you mean vignette?
>>11683138They replaced it with the most boring fucking art that ever existed in the sequel and I hate it
>>11676303>A white man plays a game, and will not be satisfied with anything that is not an objective improvement over it.100% this, you've put into words what I've always thought subconsciously. It's the reason I'm still playing StarCraft and Ocarina of Time instead of some faggy late 2000s reddit RTS like Supreme Commander or BotW. A great game is timeless, and I'll happily play the same game forever if newer alternatives just don't live up to my standard of quality. Frankly, people who treat games like movies and just beat them so they can consoom next product disgust me, and to an extent I don't think they're even really engaging in the same hobby.
>>11676258The artstyle and the portraits are fucking retarded. Dropped the game due to that.
>>11676258i remember the prison levels being 2hard and i needed walkthrough. never got about beating it. i love the blood sprays. hate that the "flying" class had shit HP.
>>11683146>Supreme Commanderwrite a review on Total Anihilation. i bought it on GOG but i couldn't get into it. too much context menus, and i forgot how to mine metal or something. it felt too complex and hard to pick up and play like the old Red Alert and CnC1.
>>11683664kys dumb faggot
>>11683773Why should I kys? I have taste and I can't stand atrocious style.
