Vanguard Bandits

Forever Zefiro

So I came across this game.
- Translation done by Working Designs
- Strategy RPG
- Medieval-ish setting, but with giant robot armors

It seems like a combination for awesome. Seems to have an Aura Battler Dunbine feel to it. Has anyone played this? Is it pretty good? In "Great PS1 Games" threads I always see mention of Ogre Battle & Tactics Ogre, Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc. as far as SRPGs go, but never this, and I'm curious why.

I saw it at a game store, so I haven't played it yet, I wasn't sure if it was worth the money, hence this thread.

b0bd0d

come on! RPG! Robots! With Swords! I don't understand the problem over here.

Zombies Tossed My Salad!

It's pretty good. I loved it back in the day.

Forever Zefiro

ZeroZero wrote:

It's pretty good. I loved it back in the day.

Well, I'm sold I guess.

By the way, the designs are pretty interesting. Escaflowne-ish.



EDIT - Seriously though, I'd love to hear more about this game before buying it. I think it's still pretty expensive.

Archonex

I loved it. It was a great game, but I never got to beat it due to my copy breaking around one of the endings you can get. At the time it was released it was a sleeper hit so i'm not surprised not many folks know about it.

Reynolds

I remember hearing about it because of the anime connection and Working Designs. Never played it or knew anyone that did, though.

Stolls

Solid tactical game with a by-the-numbers plot, albeit with a couple branching paths that lead to fairly different endings. Some missions and scenes are just okay, while the rest ranges from good to awesome. Think a less memorable Lunar in a SRPG shell with mechs, some of which are inexplicably piloted by complete idiots, children and the odd clumsy lecherous ninja maid or two. Also, almost all the females want to jump the male lead's bones at some point.

It is enjoyable :^:

Variable

I almost bought this game a bunch of times. I wonder if that store still has a used copy... I was always so surprised to see it in an EB.

Slagmire

There were a surprising amount of solid titles near the end of the PS1's lifetime (this and Saiyuki on the tactical RPG front).

Bew! Bew! Bew!

man, there was one level that just pissed me off.

"remember that uber robot that was a boss last level? yah, you have to fight non-stop waves of them now. don't screw up or you'll get the bad ending. ta-ta!"

KiTA

I own it somewhere...

cj iwakura

Insanely difficult, but good. I still haven't beaten it(and don't know how I ever will[five mechs surrouding separated pairs of characters = death]), but I think it has upwards of five alternate paths or something.

Forever Zefiro

cj iwakura wrote:

Insanely difficult, but good. I still haven't beaten it(and don't know how I ever will[five mechs surrouding separated pairs of characters = death]), but I think it has upwards of five alternate paths or something.

I was looking around, apparently there are 3 quite different paths you can take.

Is the story pretty good? Interesting characters?

cj iwakura

Forever Zero wrote:

cj iwakura wrote:

Insanely difficult, but good. I still haven't beaten it(and don't know how I ever will[five mechs surrouding separated pairs of characters = death]), but I think it has upwards of five alternate paths or something.

I was looking around, apparently there are 3 quite different paths you can take.

Is the story pretty good? Interesting characters?

Yes and yes. FFT-esque political drama.

Some of the mechs are awesome, too. Toreador is part Centaur.

Not much help later on though, when things get crazy...

core tactic

Giant knight mechs AND it's a SRPG?


Fucking sold.

cj iwakura

(from a quick GIS, hopefully none are broken)

The battles are Fire Emblem-esque. It shows the mechs attacking one another after the action starts, but the battle system relies a LOT on countering and defending. If you pull off a counter, there's no chance of taking damage, but if it misses, it's like twice as much damage as usual.

RedMageDarion

This game is awesome. If you like SRPGs, Giant Robots, and Working Designs, this game will be worth every penny.

The story is pretty compelling, regardless of which path you take. The characters are all interesting, and the end of the game on the "Good" path has (in my opinion) one of the coolest Hero/Villain interactions I've ever seen.

Just buy it now, you won't regret it.

Forever Zefiro

Alright, yeah I'm definitely picking it up tomorrow then.

I guess it's just overshadowed by all the other SRPGs on the PS1? It just seems weird that I had never heard of it before.

Docshifty

This game got nowhere near the hype it deserved, as far as I'm concerened. It was an awesome game, albeit difficult. The bad endings were some of the best in a game simply because it didn't pull punches.


I don't how how well its aged, but I'd say its still worth buying, even now.

Forever Zefiro

Ok, so I finally bought the game today. I did some looking around and found this:

The following section will explain how to save your game so that you don't end up overwriting your previous data and lose your Mission and ATAC data. Therefore....

- After completing a mission and saving your game, choose the Quit command on the Before Mission screen.

- Now, head to the Options screen on the Title Screen and choose Load Stats. Load your stats from whatever memory card slot you are using. After loading the stats, go back and load your game and continue.

- Repeat EVERY time you complete a mission.

Allow me to explain this; the game keeps track of the missions you have completed and the ATACs you have seen in battle (with animation on, of course), but only if there is a slot containing that data. Therefore, if you save over a previous game (say a Kingdom ending game) with Empire data, it will save over the Kingdom data unless you load your stats on the Option screen prior to this. I don't know why you have to do it after every mission, but it's a small price to pay. After all, who would want to lose hours of hard work?

What the hell? After each mission, you're supposed to quit and reload? Has anyone else heard of this? Is it a bug? It doesn't make sense to me.

RedMageDarion

So, I'm curious as to how you are enjoying yon game.

I only ask because I decided to play through the entire thing - all three branches - again, thanks to this thread. Still as awesome as I remembered.

Regarding the saving stats thing (if it still matters): I always just went into the option menu and chose "Load Stats" every time I turned the game on, before I started playing. Seemed to work fine. I also used a separate save slot for each branch of the story... My file has 32/32 ATACs seen 55/56 Missions Complete.

I will protect peace and candy!

cj iwakura

This is the first I've heard of that stuff. I've just been playing straight through, aside from keeping a backup save here and there when I want to try different conversations.

It's beating the darn game that's the trick. The last level I got to posed a challenge so insane, I thought I was expected to lose.

I was wrong.

Shadowfire

I have the guide for this game... never could find the actual game, though.

Der Waffle Mous

Oh snap, Pope gundam!

JJ

I was thinking of buying this but poor EGm scored dissuaded me.

I don't let EGM mess with my gut instincts anymore.