I was wondering if Grandia, or Alundra is better than Vagrant Story. I bought VS today for a good price, and I played a bit of it; it looks pretty cool. I don’t like using the circle button to execute commands, but I guess I’ll get used to it. I was thinking of returning it for Alundra or Grandia, if one of these is better. I like the way VS looks, but it has many downfalls. 3 memory blocks to save? WTF?
I liked Vagrant Story simply because it reminded me alot of the world of Final Fantasy Tactics. Other than that, “meh”. I liked Grandia the best of those three, but thats also cause it was one of the first PSX rpgs I played. Good times.
Get to first few bosses. We’ll get ready to answer your “HOW THE HELL DO I BEAT…” questions. Believe, you’ll have plenty of them.
Isn’t Alundra that game with the girl with that pig?
No, that’s Illusion of Gaia.
I haven’t played Grandia. VS and Alundra are both good games in completely different ways. VS has unbelievable cutscenes, but its gameplay tends towards the excessively complicated. Took me two tries to get it right. Alundra is fun, but has amazingly difficult puzzles (both in terms of what to do and how to do it).
Which game is longer? Alundra, or VS? VS is one disc, but I don’t know how many discs Alundra is.
Alundra is also one disk, but considering the obscene ammount of customizing and item hunting VS needs, I’d go for Vagrant. Plus, VS has +New Game content that equals to at least 1/4 of the common game.
And Grandia? How many discs?
I need to know, 'cause I need something to keep me occupied for at least a week or two.
Two, and it kicks ass.
Grandia is mediocre. Alundra is a horrible game; its an interesting Zelda clone but it will make you throw your controller at the TV in disgust a few dozen times before you get to the end or give up. VS is an excellent game, but I don’t see you enjoying it.
Actually new game + is more like 1/6 (map % wise) but attempting to be a total twink at VS takes fucking forever. Many high level weapons and armor require dozens of lesser pieces to be combined in order to make them. Even then you almost always need to carry a minimum of 3 weapons at all times (one slashing, one blunt, one piercing) and perhaps more to avoid being stuck stubornly bashing away for chain bonuses on otherwise zero damage attacks. It is a game where persistance and discipline in the use of your weapons is almost absolutely vital for survival. Nothing sucks worse than to get in a fight and find that the only good weapon you have for the type of monster you are facing has the wrong elemental attribute and thus does nothing to it.
Sin, why do you think I’d not enjoy it? I bought it, and I’m kind of already enjoying it.
You have the attention span of a 5 year old so thought-and-story games aren’t what I’d throw in your direction and you’re already annoyed at the gameplay :P. You judge it by the number of memory blocks it takes :P. That’s just self explanatory.
I wouldn’t say annoyed; but it’s a bit difficult to get accustomed to. In all RPG’s I’ve played, not once have I needed to use the circle button to execute commands, I always think of it as cancel. So I waste items by trying to cancel them. 
you have to be a stat crunching uber twink to get much more than halfway through without abusing a couple of slightly overpowered chain abilities. The game eventually breaks down to fighing enemies to get 3 or 4 7 in 255 drops that you need to make the next better version of what ever weapon or armor you are using and then mashing away at dozens of enemies to get your affinities up to passable levels so as to actually be capable of inflicting damage.
DS: the alternative is doing what I did: take 2 hours to kill the final boss doing 1-10 damage hits and then by the time you get back to him again, he’s actually killable conventionally. The game really shines in new game plus, you can finish it really quickly and go through the story really nicely. The bitch is the first run that takes a long freakin’ time and can be frustratingly difficult when you face bosses that aren’t taking any damage. You can always grind the gear to boost your affinities though, it helps.
Actually Sin, the second and third level Sword Break Arts do about 40 damage per strike with a 0 Evil affinity on the first playthrough, and you can deliver three our four between each turn. I was using a Hagane Wakisashi and cast Magic Ward to resist it’s goddamn spells, only having to use a few healing items to recover from Bloody Sin and recharging my MP once.
yup, you either get stuck with mashing raging ache/phantom pain chains (phantom pain is so awesomely abusable, just grab a few crossbows you never bothered messing with, instill them up to full, and dump them all on a boss. 8 shots of 100ish damage will take down most anything) or you’re stuck hoping you have a weapon with the right affinities (aided late game by gems) to actually inflict damage.
The worst part is what happens if you don’t have a good weapon for dealing with certain chainproof bosses.
As for the final, I just hate how most of the time one failed defense ability and you are more or less guaranteed dead by either apocalypse, judgement, or bloody sin.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game… on my 3rd time through file where I can actually kill things without having to worry about whether I can actually cause damage to my target or not.
Ogres and Armor-types were the biggest pain in the ass. My sword did a pretty good job against Beast-types but since I could only deliver one blow at a time it took forever. Not to mention the first ogres where I only had about 30 Beast Affinity and Physical Elemental.
EDIT: And the Crab! They just HAD to make it weak againt Piercing, didn’t they!?
I thought the crabs were weak to bludgeoning, with a slight weakness to piercing in the mouth.