Is it worth getting Vagrant Story: yes/no?

[Pete for President]

Well I just downloaded Vagrant Story as well as Threads of Fate and Legend of Mana off PSN to add to my PSP library. I'm sick of waiting around for a neoclassic JRPG to come out so I'll just play some old school RPGs instead.

Awesome : )

[black orb]

>>> I played it for 10 minutes and stopped, the battle system just wasnt my thing.. But I heard the story was pretty good or something, so I guess is worth getting..

[Big D]

It may take an hour or two - possibly an entire play-through - to get totally used to the combat system. It's probably not the kind of battle that can feel normal or intuitive after only ten minutes... wasn't for me at any rate. I remember being quite confused and annoyed by it for a long time before the pieces started falling into place, especially after enduring those long, early boss battles where you end up chaining dozens of attacks only to do 2 or 2 damage per hit.

[Del Murder]

I've just recently started this game and I don't really understand it. The biggest challenge for me is that the Circle button is confirm and X is cancel, when most SE games have been the other way around for years!

I also really suck at chaining attacks.

[Wolf Kanno]

Chaining takes practice and experimentation. Certain attacks have different animations and chain timing so definetly mix and match until you find a combination that works for your pace.

As for the buttons, I believe that was actually normal for the PSX generation because the button layouts are the same as the Japanese setup, I'm pretty sure both FFVII, FFTactics, and Xenogears at least used that same button setup.

[Del Murder]

They did! But then it changed and I got used to the other way. In most of those games you can change the button layout to match the contemporary way, but I don't see that option in Vagrant Story.

[Wolf Kanno]

You're just going to have to play the game raw baby. This is old school, the player has to conform to the game, not the other way around.

[Del Murder]

We'll see if I'm still that kind of gamer. Currently getting capital P pwned by what I believe is the second boss. It's some suit of armor possessed by evil. I'm only doing 1 damage to it while he pounds me for 50 at a time. I understand the concept of building weapons to go against each type of enemy, but I don't think there have been any other 'Evil' type enemies left. So how do I build up power to beat this thing?

[Wolf Kanno]

You may either need to play around customizing your weapons in the workshop or play around with where you are targetting the boss cause some parts of their bodies are weak points while others won't take damage unless you have high affinity.

[Del Murder]

I'm not even at a workshop yet!

[Wolf Kanno]

You may have passed one then, cause there should be a workshop in the catacombs I thought.

[Del Murder]

I'm still in the Wine Cellar. I'm literally on the second boss in the game.

I just read online that there is a treasure in the boss room that has a spear in it and that's useful against him. Also, I forgot I have a cure spell. Those two things should be enough.

[Del Murder]

Yeah, that did it. Having a cure spell helps!

[Wolf Kanno]

How do you forget the cornerstone of RPG dungeon crawling that is the Cure spell?

[Del Murder]

I thought you didn't unlock spells until later because I didn't see them in the menu. I didn't realize that you had to use the spell as an item first for it to appear.