Introduction

Alternate cover:

What the hell is Vandal Hearts II?

Vandal Hearts II is the sequel to Vandal Hearts, an underrated tactical RPG released before Final Fantasy Tactics and one I honestly prefer to that game just because of the unnecessary gore and dark storyline. Vandal Hearts II, coming out a year or so after FFT, suffers from trying to mimic that game even more.

The reason why the title of this LP thread is about mediocrity, instead of blood, is because this game was dumbed down in myriad ways. There is no blood anymore, just a bunch of T-rated destruction. The storyline isn't even half as dark, albeit a bit more complex. The gameplay has been radically changed, and the artwork isn't even much better. Why am I playing this, then? Because SOME crazy people believe this game is better than the first (they're wrong), and because I should finish what I started. ~~Flames of Judgment does not exist.~~

Do you have to have played Vandal Hearts to understand this game, or have read my previous LP of it? No. Aside from a character or two and a few references, this game is entirely stand-alone.

How does Vandal Hearts II play?

Vandal Hearts II uses an obnoxious, ridiculous gameplay system called the Dual Turn system. What this does is that it attempts to blend the Active Time Battle of mainstream Final Fantasy games with a tactical setting. Instead of stuff like clockticks that FFT popularized, in VH2 enemy units will move simultaneously with your own. This causes a lot of frustration because you are very, very prone to miss attacks entirely because your character swipes at fucking thin air.

There is a bit of a way to predict how enemy units move, though: They tend to, like most tactical games, attack you from the side or behind when possible. You can then intercept a foe as he's moving to blindside you by instead blindsiding him. This doesn't always work, since an enemy could go behind a character while you go to their side, and you'll still miss.

Let me be frustrated, take it out on LP updates, and let you watch as I hate this game to death.

Here's some fanart to make you cringe:

There's something special I'll be doing with this LP that you can read on the post directly below this one. It may be more entertaining than the LP itself. As far as how I'll play this game, that's entirely up to you. The game has multiple endings, many of which rest solely upon three key decisions two of your main characters make. YOU will be deciding what decisions we make, because they change the ending.

In Vandal Hearts II you have unlimited freedom to swap classes out on basically every character. The way jobs are handled in this game is by what equipment you wear. You can swap between Warriors and Healers on the fly -- your weapons and armor determine your HP, MP, move rate, defense, strength, and skills. Weapons and equipment have different skills you have to learn through using them and acquiring SP, similar to the AP system in FFIX and FFTA. Since there's basically unlimited customization, and no defined classes, I'll be doing this on my own.

Vandal Hearts II

by Azure_Horizon

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Introduction

Table of Contents

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