Vagrant Story: Looking Back at a Classic

Sometime in the dark annals of 1998, a small team gathered to spearhead one of the greatest role-playing games on the original PlayStation. Directed by Yasumi Matsuno (already celebrated for Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics) and programmed by Taku Murata, this dream team of creators included artist Akihiko Yoshida and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto — brilliant minds who had also worked with Matsuno on FF Tactics and would create Final Fantasy XII some years later.

A risk worth breaking

Vagrant Story was created due to Matsuno’s request that a fresh title at SquareSoft be a collaborative effort by interior staff. A mix of role-playing, exploration, and action, Vagrant Story also included unique three-dimensional puzzles, and a complex, robust weapon creation system. The battle system operated on an axis and allowed the player to attack specific body parts to inflict maximum damage and cripple opponents.

The setting — inspired by the Bordeaux region of France — is a mixture of dark fantasy and medieval religions, the language dramatically Shakespearian and instantly familiar to those who have experienced other translations by Alexander O. Smith. To propel Vagrant Story beyond other PlayStation titles, the team decided to use high-polygonal models that were intricately designed and used throughout the game for both cutscenes and gameplay.

“It encompasses all of these genres, and at the same time, it doesn't fit into any of them. In a bad way, it takes bits and pieces from various types of games. In a good way, it is a new breed of game that does not take any form of pre-existing style,” Matsuno said in an interview published in a preview of the Vagrant Story Comic book, made available exclusively at E3 2000.

"It changed greatly. Due to capacity and development time, over half the senario had to be cut. With this, it was also necessary to cut out gaming elements as well. There were AI controlled NPCs that supported Ashley in the middle of the story, but they had to be cut as well due to memory restrictions. There were also more polygons per map that gave elaborate representations, but in order to increase processing speed, it was necessary to reduce the number of Polygons. But in the end, we are proud that we were able to implement the best features on the PS hardware."

Yasumi Matsuno, interview from the VS comic book

The design team made painstaking efforts to ensure that every character, including those only seen in brief expository scenes, was treated with the same rich polygonal detail. Hair moves in the breeze, hand gestures look real, and characters walk and run naturally. The only other game on the original PlayStation as gorgeous and cinematic as Vagrant Story is Metal Gear Solid and Hideo Kojima’s approach to cinematic game design is similar to Matsuno’s. Matsuno reflects on this in the Vagrant Story Ultimania.

“While making Vagrant Story, we experienced what I like to call the ‘Metal Gear Shock’… it was stunning, the high level of sensibility of that game, and the quality of the gameplay. That was the summer of ‘98. Our Vagrant Story wouldn’t be released for another year after that, but it made us all buckle down and realize the challenge we faced. We then added a variety of new things to the game, one of which was the characters’ facial expressions — we didn’t want their emotions to be conveyed only with movements and speech. Those facial expressions were a lot of work, but it was something we felt was absolutely necessary, and we were refining it up to the very end of the development.”

The hand of justice

Vagrant Story is rich with the ideas and concepts for which Matsuno is celebrated. Class consciousness, religious corruption, political subterfuge, and civil warfare are center-stage in a narrative that retains an emotional core. The story begins in a dimly lit backroom of the VKP (Valendia Knights of Peace) Headquarters, where shadowed figures pontificate by candlelight. The discussion is about one Sydney Losstarot, leader of the religious terrorist group Müllenkamp, who has taken hostages inside Duke Bardorba’s manor. While the heads of the VKP discuss dealing with Losstarot, Ashley Riot, Riskbreaker, laments the nation’s religious freedoms that have allowed villains such as Sydney Losstarot to rise to power.

The VKP must invade the manor under pretext and kill Losstarot to put an end to his cult. They work to rout Müllenkamp entirely, knowing from internal investigations that the religious organization is responsible for the attempted assassination of other governmental leaders. The VKP is tired of cultists and gods in their modern age, so they dispatch Ashley Riot to deal with this menace alone — as a Riskbreaker does. When Ashley asks why this is not a duty for the Templars, the truth comes to light: the coin that funds Müllenkamp comes from the Duke himself.

All of this becomes more complicated as multiple ambitious parties converge on Leá Monde in search of a "key" that will allow them to control the Dark. What this key is, and what it means to the various religious and political institutions that seek it, spell carnage and violence for all those involved.

The plot of Vagrant Story is tight, engaging, and well-paced, designed by Matsuno to feel like a spy film layered with medieval RPG conventions. As Ashley Riot enters the city, we are introduced to a story of religious intrigue and class war, framed by a world filled with dragons, demons, and ghosts. Matsuno expertly weaves together a tale that feels historical and fantastical.

A city of death and madmen

Exploration of Leá Monde is daunting. While the plot of Vagrant Story is lean, the city of Leá Monde is a sprawling labyrinth of dank cellars, underground caverns, vegetation-choked districts, foggy forests, and decrepit tombs. Leá Monde feels like a world itself, a beautiful but terrifying network of snaking alleys and dense treasure rooms. Exploration is rewarding, and there is something of a Metroidvania style in its backtracking. Although rich with detail, the foundations of Leá Monde are constrained, urging replayability.

The combat in Vagrant Story is a fascinating mixture of satisfying action and strategy. When an enemy is approached, pressing the action button pauses combat and creates a sphere that blooms outward from Ashley. Body parts are selectable for striking, and as the selection is initiated, Ashley can chain together skills mapped to the buttons—these timed strikes can debilitate and cause damage in exchange for building Risk. The higher the Risk, the more damage is inflicted, but it also comes with drawbacks, such as a loss of accuracy.

Vagrant Story is interwoven by complexity, its systems obtuse and staggering for new players. Weapons can be built from parts and fully customized, from blade types (Edged, Blunt, and Piercing) to elemental buffs and monster species. Utilizing a weapon against a monster type, such as Human or Dragon, will improve its bonuses against that type while degrading its bonuses against another. This means Ashley must truly be a one-man army equipped with a suite of weapons suitable for bringing down various foes.

This micro-management and attention to detail is initially daunting; the first time I played Vagrant Story, I found it unfriendly and difficult. In my second play, I began to grasp the ruthless, complex, and dense systems buried in various menus across the game. While the menu-heavy gameplay can feel clunky, especially in a JRPG that's more action-oriented, the integrated systems do begin to feel natural. Abilities and items are mapped to shortcuts, and the combat, even with its layers of strategy, becomes fast and furious.

Vagrant Story wants you to win, but at a cost — the gulf between learning the game's various systems and completely breaking them is massive. It favors multiple playthroughs and has a unique take on New Game Plus: your second pilgrimage through Leá Monde includes access to locked doors and new areas. This marriage of exploration and replayability alongside Vagrant Story's short and sweet narrative means the game is primed for multiple play-throughs and is an excellent PlayStation gem for yearly or bi-yearly revisits.

Perusing the grim grimoire

While initially overwhelming, the characters and dialogue in Vagrant Story follow the same design philosophies as the world and plot. Characters like Sydney Losstarot or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tease out Ashley’s buried Riskbreaker memories, the part of him sacrificed for mercenary assassination—whether or not those memories are real carries the mystery until the end. Ashley’s investigation into Leá Monde winds from one snappy conversation to the next, with characters lamenting the state of the government or waxing poetic about religious and cultist influence over the vulnerable non-ruling class. Like many of Matsuno's projects, Vagrant Story is influenced by real-world historical events, other games, and even cinema—Vagrant Story's direction isn't solely about the gameplay or the world design but about the presentation and cinematic shape.

One thing becomes abundantly clear after playing the game: Vagrant Story’s ambition may have been too hungry for a life on the original PlayStation. Late-life PlayStation titles such as Final Fantasy IX and Metal Gear Solid pushed the console to its limits, and Vagrant Story is no exception. Hardware limitations meant cuts to the story, lengthy load times, polygonal tweaks to finesse the FPS, and a stop-and-go tier of menu-heavy combat. As with Final Fantasy Tactics and the later Final Fantasy XII, Matsuno is the sort of director to not rest on his laurels—in design, mechanics, gameplay, and presentation, Vagrant Story swings for the fences.

Yasumi Matsuno reflected on the struggle to make Vagrant Story during a one-on-one with Hideo Kojima in 1999, detailing the auteur's perspective and how an artist can embellish a creation with their signature designs. "Everyone has their style, I think, and I’m the type of director who wants to oversee and be involved in every little detail. If I’m going to do something, after all, I want to do it right, top to bottom. It’s still kind of rare, whether you’re talking about a work of “art” or a commercial product, to see the signature of the creator in the work."

The two creators have long been obsessed with the medium's capabilities for decades, their styles both trained on the possibilities of technology and human creativity. Matsuno speaks of influences and how Vagrant Story's design was a collaborative effort.

"I think the people involved in creative industries today probably share a lot of those same “genes”, whether it’s loving movies, loving manga, or whatever. Even in cinema there are so many genres and directions you can go in, and I think it’s the same for games. With Vagrant Story, I had almost zero involvement in the visual presentation. I left most of it up to Akiyama, but in talking with him, I discovered he loved a lot of the same movies as me. What happens when you work with another human being who has some of those same genes with you? Unconsciously, it brings a feeling of unity to your creation. In that sense—and this isn’t only limited to directing, but also for programming, art design, and music—when building a team, I try to select people who share a lot of things in common. A completed work that has been coordinated in this way has a “special something” that audiences can sense and appreciate. It makes it more interesting."

Yasumi Matsuno, 1999 Developer Interview

Warping the minds of men

This game is, and I cannot stress it enough, a must-play classic. It fulfills a rare niche, a title that is somehow both incredibly cinematic and incredibly dense, a game that expects much from the player, an exploration into the caverns of human evil, all within a gorgeous city populated by grotesque monsters. Vagrant Story has all the trappings of a Final Fantasy but takes things to a darker, more visceral place. While short, the gameplay and story are rewarding, urging players to take the journey more than once.

Sadly, Vagrant Story’s plot (entitled The Phantom Pain) was only the first part of a larger story that was never realized. As with many Matsuno stories, such as Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story places us in a world that somehow feels both fully realized and frustratingly incomplete. Attempts to port Vagrant Story to the PlayStation Portable failed, and aside from its addition to digital stores, this title has been left to wilt away while more popular Square titles gained popularity. Vagrant Story also came on the eve of SquareSoft’s infamous transformation into Square-Enix. 

Vagrant Story was created during a more ambitious period for Square, smaller teams, grander aspirations, and technological limitations led to spectacular titles that still influence and astound to this day. I would like to believe that someday, Vagrant Story will gain its second chance, as its cult popularity has only grown in the two decades since its release. If you have access to a PlayStation 3, PSP, or a good emulator (such as the Steam Deck), please check out this classic. And if, like me, you’re lucky enough to own the original PlayStation disc, hold onto that as dearly as a book of spells.