Vandal Hearts delivers a solid and worthwhile experience that begs to be enjoyed.
Much like Konami's other RPG Suikoden, the plot of Vandal Hearts is a political affair of corruption. Anarchy is on the horizon and an unlikely hero, Ash Lambert, son of a traitor, steps up and revolts against the Crimson army. His reputation mocked by democrats, Ash shrugs off the ridicule in his commanding role of the Ishtarian Security Forces, and with his friends Clint and Diego he slowly uncovers the government's sordid plot. They gather a band of warriors and rebel against the coup d'etat.
Like most RPGs, the narrative of Vandal Hearts is in chapters and quite linear. You'll watch a cutscene, fight a battle and watch the next cutscene. There's some interesting characters joining you on the journey, providing amusing to thought provoking conversations.
Basic rules comprise of the battle system. Initially characters start off in specific classes, but gain the opportunity to change later on. When they reach a certain leve, an option to progress in class occurs depending on the type of character. For instance, mage and healing characters have the options to become monks, priests and wizards; archers can become bowmen or wingsmen; swordsmen can become gladiators or guardsman. Each class has different strengths and weakness, and some classes will come in handy for certain battles in the story.
Warriors have advantages over archers. Archers have advantages over wingsmen. Wingsmen have advantages over warriors. This paper/rock/scissors trait requires logic in battle as to attacking enemies. Another interesting twist is the environment items you can manipulate, such as pushing boulders to block enemy routes. Again, the structure of gameplay to Vandal Hearts is considerably out of depth compared to its peers, but it's decidedly fun nonetheless. Meeting level requirements such as completing levels in a certain amount of turns is demanding but outright exciting. Thanks to the story, the levels are mostly dramatic, including having to rescue a comrade from a Death Machine in a matter of turns, advancing towards a squad of enemies on a bridge that crumbles at your end after each turn, crossing a dam before a flood wipes the characters out and making an escape bid from a heavily guarded prison. Sure, levels are strictly chess strategy, but they're never dull.
I'm not saying Vandal Hearts is revolutionary in the gameplay, but I am saying it's all the more great because of that. Strategy games often lampoon gamers with macabre gameplay and lack edge in the story to make the hardships worthwhile; Vandal Hearts features standard but highly satisfying gameplay mechanics.
Comprising of simple sprites and (blocky) polygons, many criticise Vandal Hearts' graphics for not testing the PS1's RAM. The battle maps in general are quite lacking in the polygon detail and aren't smooth; the texture of environments can sometimes be rough. Also, character portraits all bear similarity. On the upside, though, there's stylistic 2D compressed FMV and some wonderfully animated spell casting.
The music is an endless playlist of dramatic melodies that set the battles alight. Balancing orchestra and wind music for the more morose moments, technically, the game's soundtrack is fine but just doesn't fit the tone of the game, therefore becoming quite repetitive after awhile. The sound affects aren't a major key role outside of battles, where sword clashes and bow strings and the other sound affects of the weapons sound realistic at best. There's also some voice acting in the FMV scenes.
That Vandal Hearts is ultimately a love or hate game that will only appeal to a certain taste. The linear progression of the story may contribute to this and the lack of difficulty may also disappoint considering previous titles of Tactics Ogre and Shining Force. However, with dynamic levels and a tour-de-force plot, Vandal Hearts delivers a solid and worthwhile experience that begs to be enjoyed.