Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment Review

Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is the return of a classic RPG made for the Playstation. This game however serves as a prequel with new characters, plot and graphical improvements in an RTS that up until now had been forgotten. For an Xbox live arcade/Playstation network game the delivery holds up with solid gameplay and character development.

From the start you are presented with a cinematic cutscene, but looks more like a motion comic drawn with miniatures. War had taken place in this world and have angered the gods, the price to pay were their lives. Years later in a recovering state players will take place in a small village as a character named Tobias and what starts off as simple training, quickly becomes alot more then any of them had bargain for. It’s the classic “kid is destined to be a Hero” story and doesn’t really expand to much from there.

Character development is pretty solid, each character you encounter that becomes apart of your squad will have unique weapons and abilities. Two weapons can be equipped at a time which is definitely useful for a mix between short and long range attacks. Also it does not waste a turn to change weapons so combinations of checking the distant between enemies with different weapons is great advantage to have. Books can be equip for different spells or for those who don’t support a type of magic. Customization is tailored very well and give you just enough freedom to make unique differences between characters.

This Real Time Strategy has all the essentials you need. Enemy AI will be challenging and make you try different fight patterns. Nothing gets overly complex or in-depth like Final Fantasy Tactics but does provide enough to keep the motion of gameplay going. The overall map is easy to navigate, letting you simply move from each location, some places will allow you to purchase items from the store. The menu for the store is not organized by weapon, magic or items so it will take a minute to properly know what maybe a best fit for each character.

Overall the experience is good, while it maybe hard to recommend this for those unfamiliar to Real Time Strategy as they will feel right at home. On the other hand the game gets the job done and will provide a decent amount of hours getting through the main story while completing side quests if chosen. The combat if nothing else will definitely get you through the game.

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Overall = 7.4

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