Vagrant Story is a 2000 action role-playing game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation. Vagrant Story was primarily developed by the team responsible for Final Fantasy Tactics, with Yasumi Matsuno serving as director, producer, designer, and writer.

The Story Behind Vagrant Story

Murata, the main programmer, expressed his concerns in working towards a large-scale three-dimensional game for the first time. Vagrant Story was released with two discs; the first disc is the game itself, while the second disc is a demo disc released by Square to give the player a preview of seven titles. The seven titles include three interactive demos and four non-interactive demos; the former being Chocobo Racing, Front Mission 3 and Threads of Fate, and the latter Chrono Cross, SaGa Frontier 2, Chocobo's Dungeon 2 and Legend of Mana.

The storyline conceived for the game follows Ashley Riot's origins as a dedicated government agent prior to being the titular "vagrant" who is "involved in many incidents" after the events in Leá Monde. Both discs were included in the North American release on May 16, 2000. Memory issues was considered the most challenging aspect of the game development, with the team forced to adjust the game's interface, texture mapping and polygon mesh in maps, as well as removing gaming elements such as AI-controlled supporting non-player characters that would have joined Ashley in the middle of the game.

How Vagrant Story Plays

Vagrant Storys crafting system allows the player to create and customize weapons and armor in designated "workshop" areas, inputting various ranges, strengths, and statistics. This stage is optional and can be turned off from the menu. Like several Square titles, the New Game Plus option is made available to the player upon first completing the game.

Risk is an essential element in the battle system. A Risk bar is placed below the HP and MP bar, representing the Risk Points the player has accumulated. The advantage, however, is the higher chances for the player to score critical hits and restore higher HP.

Why Players Still Load It Up

Vagrant Story is also part of Ultimate Hits, Square Enix's main budget range. Kawazu mentioned that it is "the next natural candidate for such an update", although there would be difficulty in porting the game, because it was a title that already pushed the original PlayStation to its technical limits. Extensive detail was given to the background settings and character expressions.

Games released as Greatest Hits were sold at a lower price, often increasing units sold. Eric Bratcher for Next Generation gave the game four stars out of five, praising the game's story, graphics and combat system. IGN pointed out that enemy encounters can be more difficult than boss battles.

Vagrant Story — Frequently Asked Questions