Vandal Hearts is one of the most interesting turn-based strategy games I have ever played. You might not expect it, considering that it has sub-par graphics (for a PlayStation game), is as linear as you can get, and never lets you choose who is in your party. All this aside, let me tell you why I play through this game at least once a year.

Battle engine
Think chess, but with pieces that get stronger as you play and are more varied in type. Think WarCraft, but turn-based, and without resource-gathering. Think Final Fantasy Tactics, but much less complicated. Battles in Vandal Hearts have elements of all of these games. They take place on flat-square-grid, multi-level maps. The camera starts at a 45-degree angle (which is adjustable), can be rotated at 90-degree increments, and can be zoomed in and out. Everything happens in rounds; all of your characters have a turn, and then all of the enemy characters have a turn. On your round, your characters get to act in the order you desire -- simply press square to rotate among those that haven't gone yet. When you've decided on who you want to use, you can move up to a certain number (including 0) of spaces (depending on the type of terrain they will be crossing, and on their stats). After selecting a spot to move to, you can cancel and re-move as many times as you like before actually carrying out an action. In this way, you can see who is within your range before committing to your move. After moving comes an action. Actions consist of attacking, casting a spell, and using items. If you choose to attack an enemy, they will counterattack if they are able to -- that is, if they are not incapacitated, and are within range to attack you. Casting spells on an enemy produces no manner of retort.

After all of your characters have had a turn, the enemy will go. Like you, the computer can choose to have them act in any order they wish. Their turns are identical to yours -- move, and perform an action. If they attack, it works the same as on your turn -- the attacked character will counterattack if able. After all of the enemies have gone, it is your turn again, and so on until the battle is over.

Besides this basic formula, there are other things to make it more interesting. One of these is support. When any character (yours or theirs) is attacking, they will receive support if 1 or more of their allies is adjacent to the character being attacked. The more characters supporting the attacker, the higher the chance of landing a hit. Something that runs hand-in-hand with support is the direction the defender is facing. If the attacker hits them on their side, they will do more damage than if they attacked them head-on. And if they hit them in the back, it will do even more damage.

Another thing is that experience is handed out during the battles, not at the end. Whenever you attack someone, cast a spell, or use an item, you will gain experience, and even level up on the spot. The amount of experience given depends on your level, and the level(s) of those being acted upon. The higher the level of the person you are affecting compared to that of your character, the more experience you will receive. This especially comes into play with magic users, who will typically hurt/help more than one character at a time.

Also, there is the issue of which way your characters face. After performing an action, their turn is over -- and you can't change their direction. This may sound dumb, but it adds another element of strategy, because it makes you plan out where everyone will be and which way they will face after your round is over... and you certainly don't want the enemy to be able to hit them in the back if you can avoid it.

One more thing is being able to save during battles. This can be nice, as it allows you to be able to try out a risky plan without having to start the battle all over if it doesn't work. At the same time, this undermines some of the strategy of the game, because you need not take any risks if you're willing to sit through lots of saving and loading. Personally, I use it sparingly -- and when I do, it's at the beginning of my round, before I've moved any characters, so that I have the most options available should I wish to reload.

In addition, there is the matter of your characters' well-being. When a character dies (or "retreats") in battle, they disappear, but only from that battle. As long as you win the battle, you will start the next one with all of your characters, and they will all be at full strength (HP and MP).

One of the neatest things about this game is the different character classes / enemy types. For many of your characters, you get to decide what class they will become, although this is limited to 2 choices per character. This is really important in battles. It's sort of a paper-rock-scissors relationship, in terms of who does really well against who: hand-to-hand ground attackers kill archers and magic users; archers kill flying units; flying units kill hand-to-handers; and magic users kill large hand-to-handers (the bigger they are, the weaker they are to magic). Of course anything can hurt anything else, but it's important to keep these strengths and weaknesses in mind to try to get the most out of your characters, especially concerning things like counterattacks.

The game outside of battles
I won't mislead you; this game is 95% (or more) battles, so you'd better like strategy a lot if you are thinking about playing it. The rest of the time, you move between cities and other map locations, upgrade your characters' equipment, and listen to storyline material.

Some of the storyline is presented during battles, but not to the point that you think, "Get on with it, I just want to play!" Most of it is given through dialogue in cities, on the road between map locations, or in the shrinking-and-growing-sprite-style cut scenes. The plot itself is pretty interesting, but nothing spectacular. Like I said, battles are the main part of the game, and are where the most enjoyment is derived.

You receive gold from winning battles, which you use to buy new equipment for your characters, or to purchase items. If you win a battle with all of your characters still alive, you will get twice as much gold. This is important early in the game, even to the point that you might want to redo battles, but you get more than you will use as time goes on.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the game is its linearity. After you fight a battle, you can't go back to it again. And once you've passed out of a chapter, you can't go back to any of the maps from previous chapters. Sometimes you have to go to previous cities on the same map to talk to people or deliver things, but even then, there's a set order in which you have to do things, that won't change if you play the game over again.

Graphics
This is where many people would be immediately turned off. The battle-graphics seem as though they could easily be reproduced on a Super Nintendo. The pixels are large enough to notice, giving everything a blocky appearance. But this doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game at all. While not offering much eye candy, the graphics and animations are smooth. They get the job done, in that you can always tell what everything is supposed to be. They're not too light or dark, too colorful or drab, and I have yet to notice any polygon mess-ups. But for the sake of this review being useful to others, in terms of what most people would think of the graphics, I give this game a 3 out of 5.

Sound
The sound effects are pretty standard. They're not painful to listen to, but they're not fantastic either. The music is where this game makes up for it. Whether in town, a battle, or a dramatic event, the music fits very well, and most of the tunes are quite catchy. Even when I haven't touched this game for months, I'll sometimes find one of the battle tunes floating in my head. As nerdy as that may sound, they're that memorable.

Play Control
I found this to be rather intuitive. Shoulder buttons rotate the camera, the control pad moves around the map, etc. etc. The only thing is that there is no in-game tutorial, so all of the advanced controls, like pressing square to select unused characters (see Battle engine above), have to be learned via the manual or the internet. Once you've done a few battles, you won't even think about controlling your characters.

Just try it
If you like strategy games at all, I would recommend checking out Vandal Hearts. For some reason, there was a flood of them to the market, and it can still be found new in most stores for $20. And if you enjoy other strategy games, but find that this one is not to your liking, you can always sell it to a friend for $10.



Recommended: Yes