Vandal Hearts

STORY

At the beginning of the story, two characters are contending for the election to become chairman of the Ishtarian Council. Hel Sprites and Renaldo Castille. Renaldo is the Ishtarian Security Defense leader which makes him Ash Lambert (main hero) commander. Being the evil guy that Hel Sprites is, he decided to kill Renaldo and win the election that way. After killing Renaldo, Hel Sprites framed Ash and his friends for the murder of Renaldo. This resulted in Ash and his friends fleeing the country for their protection. And this is how the story quest starts off.
Now in terms of overrall story developement, Vandal Hearts is one of the best. Here you have a very rich and in-depth storyline that will provide you with plot twist all the way. The excellent presentation of the characters also help give the story an added bonus. The strongest part of an rpg is the story and Vandal Hearts story is very strong. You have love, mystery, death, sadness, and joy. What more can you want?

Score: 10/10

CHARACTERS

Great characters help make great stories. Vandal Hearts has an excellent array of characters. What is so great about Vandal Hearts is that each of it's many characters are portrayed beautifully with excellent background developement. You have a strong sense that these characters are your friends or people whom you would love to meet in real life.

Score: 10/10

GRAPHICS

The graphics in this game isn't as good as it should be. You have 3-D background environment with sprites. The colors of this game is kind off dull and shady. Since this is an early 32 bit game, it can have an excuse for not having the best 32 bit graphics available.

Score: 6/10

MUSIC

The music is average in the game. There aren't that many tunes available. There's like only one really good tune to boot as well. A game like this should have better music.

Score: 5/10

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is your basic turn base strategy rpg game. Progress through the story by going to one battle map to the next. The fights take place on a battlefield map where you take turn moving one fighter to attack the enemies. Pretty basic that I don't really need to go into any details about. There's one thing that I should mention. Each of your fighters come in a fighting class. As your fighters level up, he/she can be switch or promoted to a higher fighting class. Overrall even though the gameplay is basic stuff, it's still fun and enjoyable.

Score:8/10

EXTRAS/REPLAY

The game is pretty much a one shot deal. Whether or not you want to replay it again is up to you. There's only one extra that is worth a mention. There are hidden prisms in some of the battle maps. If you can find and collect all the prisms, you can promote the main hero to a hidden fighting class called Vandalier. That's about it.

Score: 2/10

So Vandal Hearts isn't the most stunning or cutting edge rpg game out there. But it has one of the best story and characters around. It's the story that will always make or break an rpg. Here the story definetly help make this rpg.

Final Score: 8/10

~Chi