Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is the long awaited (for some people, apparently) prequel to the Vandal Hearts series for the Playstation. Like the first two Vandal Hearts games, this is a tactical RPG. In layman’s terms that means it’s essentially a board game (like a more complex version of chess). It’s slightly less boring than it sounds. I never played the original two games, but from what I’ve read, they were fairly enjoyable. In comparison, Flames of Judgment can probably best be described as disappointing.
Before I start, I want to mention that the song you first hear at the main menu is rather painful. It’s a high-pitched, God awful nightmare that I couldn’t wait to wake up from. This has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself; I simply wanted to give fair warning to anyone who does decide to play it.
Immediately, I was frustrated with the game. Mostly because the first twenty minutes is spent learning how to play the game through character interaction. You know, when the in-game characters tell you how to do things under the guise of “training” and then make you do them yourself? I hate it when games do this because it’s hard to make the process interesting and I always find myself just wanting to play the damn game. This game manages to drag it out as much as possible by requiring an excessive demonstration of your ability to follow instructions. On top of that, there’s an asshole named Menicks interjecting cruel comments at your expense the entire time (gee, I wonder if he turns out to be a bad guy?).
Menicks even has the douche goatee.
This brings me to my next critique – the story and characters aren’t very interesting. Flames of Judgment manages to cram the story full of fantasy clichés, which would be impressive if it were done ironically (think Starship Troopers). And the characters are nothing more than caricatures of their archetype. I don’t expect an Xbox Live Arcade game to blow me away or anything. But if you’re going to make me read as much as this game does, make more than the minimum effort. The game touts one of it’s perks as having multiple endings. From what I can tell, the only difference is 10 seconds at the very end that explains what happens to your character. I got married to some chick and had a baby, hooray! It would take a pretty dedicated person to play through the game 3 times just for those 10 savory seconds.
Also, the cut-scenes are terrible. Other people on the ol’ interweb have unanimously agreed the cut-scene art sucks. The stiff figures either don’t move at all, or they look like statues being dragged across the landscape. Except for the blinking. Oh, the creepy blinking. It’s like being in a museum and seeing a painting blink. Seriously.
Having said all that, I’ll admit that I don’t completely hate the game. Despite it’s flaws, the actual game is pretty solid. It’s straightforward, easy to learn, and true to it’s genre. If you obsess over other tactical RPG’s, there’s a chance (albeit a small one) you might really like this game. There were no discernible bugs, glitches, or glaring oversights in the gameplay.
The battle system is simple. You use menus to choose your attacks in a turn-based fashion. Instead of leveling up, you get stronger by using your abilities. The more you use a particular ability the stronger it gets. This allows for complete character customization as you can choose a character’s strengths and weaknesses based on how you play them. Characters naturally lean in certain directions, but if you’re willing to put in the time you can change that. You teach your characters spells by equipping them with the proper books. After they use the spell a few times they can cast it without the book.
Unfortunately, it sounds way more exciting than it actually is. I didn’t find it at all necessary to have a well balanced team or use any actual tactics to beat the game easily. The same exact strategy worked against every enemy on every map. I never once felt the need to look at my characters stats or supplement them with additional spells. The only time I might have run into trouble is when battles load with your team separated, but I’d done a couple of the optional battles so even then it was “no big thang” as the kids say, or said, or something like that. Except for a couple times where the game throws a curve-ball, it wasn’t challenging at all, which often made fighting seem more like a chore.
The equipment the characters wear is hardly even worth mentioning. There are several different weapon types but I just gave everyone a bow except for the tank, who got a hammer (it hits all adjacent squares) and never had a problem. Armor comes with MP or HP bonuses. The HP has higher defense, but I wasn’t able to tell that lower defense made the character weaker. You’ll get more than enough gold from the mandatory battles to keep up with the latest and greatest equipment available. If you discover the optional battlefields you can find special equipment. There are items, but I never need to use them since you start each battle with full health/mana bars. Characters can even die and respawn for the next battle with no penalty unless they have to live for the given map’s objective.
The sound effects can be cheesy at times, but for the most part they fit in well. The music is nice, I guess. It’s pretty standard, but in this game, what isn’t?
I wasn't interested enough in the story to even bother reading the journal entries. Maybe you will be.
It took me about 10 hours to beat this game playing mostly straight through. Add about 15-20 minutes for each additional battle you fight, since you can replay areas for more XP. The average gamer would probably find it the 10 hour play through tedious (as I did at times), and even fans of the genre may become bored as it lacks real creativity.
All in all, Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is pretty generic. Technically speaking, the gameplay is well done, but nothing special. Basically, the parts of the game that are supposed to make it fun – like character customization and good strategy – are negligible. You would have to go out of your way to incorporate them into the game and spend way too much time to make it worth it. It’s too bad that the game doesn’t force you to play wisely or actually plan your characters out. I would say the game was made for a younger audience if not for the mature content. It certainly plays like they had the kiddies in mind.
If you enjoy customization enough to spend countless hours building your characters up, then awesome. Play this game. But for the rest of us who like a well rounded game, the other aspects simply aren’t rewarding enough to take the time getting the most out of the game. At 1200 Microsoft Points ($15 on PSN), I wouldn’t recommend this game unless you lovelovelove the genre and have already played through every other similar game, or are a die-hard fan of the series. I can’t imagine anyone else will find it worth the purchase.
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