You’d never suspect that, once upon a time, strategy RPGs were a rare and beautiful beast. Twelve years ago, you wouldn’t open a magazine and think, “Ah, yes, I see. This month there are thirteen different Game Boy games coming out from Namco, Square, Inis, Nippon Icchi, and Atlus that will allow me to train tiny warriors to walk across a colorful grid to slaughter evil beasts. Oh, look, there’s six more on Sony’s Playstation and nine more on Sega’s Saturn. Can’t wait to see next month’s haul. I’ll be moving across those grids and having fun until the sun goes out, by gum!” It just didn’t work like that. There were only a few of them. There was Tactic’s Ogre, which was made by Yasumi Matsuno. Then there was Final Fantasy Tactics which was, um, made by Yasumi Matsuno. But then there was Vandal Hearts, a dead ringer for Matsuno’s SRPGs that was, in fact, not made by Matsuno. It was one of Konami’s early Playstation/Saturn RPGs that, like its cousin Suikoden, could have easily been mistaken for a Super Nintendo game. It had its fans, but after one sequel it disappeared into videogame history. That’s why Konami’s announcement of a Xbox Live Arcade/Playstation Network prequel, Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment, is such a surprise. They showed off some of the game at their Gamer’s Night 2009 event and Vandal Hearts is looking pretty different ten years after its last installment. First, the game’s entirely polygonal now, with a much darker color palette than it had back in the day. Its character art also looks less like this:
And more like this:
Bleh.
Word is Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is out on XBLA in August and PSN shortly thereafter. More snide commentary on the art style as we see it.
(Link: Siliconera)
Related links:
The 61FPS Review: Suikoden Tierkreis
PSOne on PSN: Somehow, it’s Suikoden
Beating the Dead Horse Who Has It Coming: Playstation Releases on PSN
