The Story:
In Flames of Judgment the story is told as a prequel to the original Vandal Hearts games released in the late 90's, with events taking place years after the war between the nations of Urdu and Balastrade. You are Tobias, one of the many orphans affected by the war, and you start off at the Church of Restoration training academy with a nice little introduction of the battle system tutorial. After the tutorial you find the church being attacked by unknown enemies. Just like any other story out there, Tobias' world is about to get rocked as a horde of enemies is attacking the town. You and your friends take off to the nearby town for re-enforcement. That’s where the story begins and as you can probably tell, the writers didn’t lose any sleep on creating the story. They did do a reasonable job on the characterization and voiced dialogue. Having characters like Calvin, who is a timid magic user, reminds me of Vivi from Final Fantasy IX.
The game mechanic is generic in every possible way. Just like any other tactics game out there you will have an over view map with locations in place for you. You have the arrow to point the locations, the towns where you can buy armor, weapon, potions and all that fun stuff. The battlefield is really larger and more diverse than most of the tactics games that is out there. There are no classed for your characters as they improve their skills in replacement of leveling up with experience points. What this means is if you want take Calvin, for example, and you want to turn him into a warrior type, then all you have to do is just give him a sword and armor and that will be sufficient.
The controls are smooth and seamless. If you haven’t played any tactics game in a while, and I am one of them, than it will take a little bit to get used to the controls. Once used to it I will say that it is one of the better control systems I have played in a tactics game. One of the more interesting parts in the battles is that certain maps will force you to split your group into two. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but that is completely up to the player.
Graphics and Audio:
Graphically it looks like a port from the PlayStation 2, but the amount of enemies that is on the field sure makes up for it. Sure there are other tactics games out there that look and feel better but Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment did a good job bringing back that old school feel. I do love the comic book style dialogue and cut scenes. The music overall is average at best. Nothing too special about the scores in the game, but it certainly makes the battles a bit more memorable. My only complaint is why is there voice acting when you’re in battle, but not in dialogue and cut scenes.
My Take:
For a Japanese style tactics RPG, you get exactly what you pay for. It is nothing ground breaking but it is a solid experience for those who wants to enjoy a fresh entry into the genre, that hasn't been seen that often in the current-gen consoles. For strategy RPG veterans, you will probably sleepwalk your way through the game. It is still a nice pickup, even though can find better tactics games out there for less. The voice acting can get annoying at times, but it is not as bad. Overall it is good to play a tactics game again and was a good re-fresher for me personally.
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is available now on XBL (1,200 points) and PSN ($14.99).
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment was developed by Hijinx Studios and was published by Konami for the XBox Live and PlayStation Network. A copy of the game was given to us for review purposes. Played through most of the game on the PlayStation 3.
